Message for America: Nucor & its Ole Skool Ways

Good interview with Dan Dimicco. He speaks forthrightly and plainly about America, which is refreshing.

Lance Thomas' Attitude

Perseverance and hard work are often touted as the roads to success. But I remember once as a kid I hit a rough patch. It was a confusing time, and I reached out to someone who told me, "You're doing a lot of the right things, except perhaps the most important one; The way you look at things. Attitude is altitude, and altitude is consciousness."

Basketball Insiders

5 Years After NCAA Title,

Thomas Embraces Long Road to NBA

ByJessica Camerato

February 26, 2015

Ten minutes. In reality, it was a matter of seconds but for Lance Thomas, Gordon Hayward’s halfcourt attempt lingered in the air for an eternity before the ball painstakingly made its way to the basket, clanged off the rim and fell to the court.

The buzzer blared, signaling Duke University’s two-point victory in the 2010 NCAA championship game over Butler University. Jon Scheyer jumped on Thomas’ back in celebration, sending his co-captain to the ground in a burst of chaos and excitement. Thomas hit his head on the court.

“I opened my eyes and confetti was falling all over me,” Thomas said. “It was amazing.”

Five years later, Thomas remembers the vivid details of the moment from his space in the New York Knicks’ visitors locker room at TD Garden. He has played in just two more games in the NBA than he did during his four-year career at Duke – a slower paced journey than he expected, but one he has embraced.

Thomas knew when he lifted the trophy the night of April 5, 2010, it did not guarantee him a spot in the pros. He returned to campus (with a hero’s welcome) to complete the semester and graduate. As June neared and NBA hopefuls prepped for the draft, Thomas did not expect to hear his name called. He had averaged 4.8 points and 4.8 rebounds as a senior, a ways away from strong consideration.

Thomas still believed he could play in the NBA, though. Instead of the draft, he viewed the D-League as his best route.

“I wasn’t really a guy who was on the radar like that,” Thomas told Basketball Insiders. “I was a proven winner, but I wasn’t really putting up NBA numbers to put myself in position to be drafted in the first round or anything like that. My main thing was, I just wanted the opportunity to show that I could be an NBA player. When I had the opportunity to play in the Development League, I was like, this is a no-brainer. I want to do that and try to prove it.”

Thomas was selected by the Austin Toros in the second round of the 2010 D-League draft. He was far from Cameron Indoor Stadium, but he described the Toros fanbase as “very great.” He wasn’t there for the hoopla anyways. Thomas credits the coaching staff for working extensively with him on the skills he needed to take the next step and making him feel like he had a chance to accomplish his goal.

“It’s competitive,” Thomas said of the D-League. “It’s like a bunch of crabs in a barrel. Everybody wants to get to the NBA.”

The following summer, he was named to the U.S. team for the 2011 Pan American Games, a squad made up of D-League players during the lockout. From there, he received a training camp invite from the then-New Orleans Hornets. Thomas bounced around between the Toros and the Hornets before earning an NBA deal for the remainder of the season after a pair of 10-day contracts.

“A lot of days are tough,” he said. “ There are days when you just never know what’s going to happen – the trade deadline is coming up, the last two days of your 10-day contract, things of that nature. I’ve never been a guy to look over my shoulder. I just go for it. I never wonder what if.”

Thomas appeared in 106 games for the now-Pelicans over three seasons, averaging 3.0 points and 2.3 rebounds in 12.4 minutes. When the team released him in November of 2013, he decided to pursue basketball in China for the Foshan Dralions.

“Of course you always miss (the NBA),” he said.

He was determined to make it back. Last September, the Oklahoma City Thunder signed Thomas. He averaged 5.1 points and 3.4 rebounds in 20.5 minutes over 22 games, including 13 starts, before being traded to the New York Knicks in January as part of the Dion Waiters-Iman Shumpert-J.R. Smith deal.

The changes weren’t done yet. The Knicks waived him two days later, only to re-sign him on a pair of 10-day contracts. The New Jersey native is now posting a career-high 9.3 points and 3.4 boards in 24.6 minutes in his latest stop close to home.

Teammate Quincy Acy, who competed against Thomas in the Elite 8, has seen growth since their college years.

“He brings his hard hat to work every day,” Acy said. “He mostly played the four in college and now he can guard the one through five. That’s a testament to his hard work. (His journey) says a lot about him, his perseverance and his will to get where he wants to go. Nobody can tell him what he can’t do.”

Thomas understands success in the NBA is a process. He has never been one to rush his progress and is willing to be patient, putting in the work necessary to stick in the league. Knicks guard Shane Larkin noted the extra time he spends at practice and describes his work ethic as “100 percent pedal to the metal.”

“I never expected anything; I’ve never been like that,” Thomas said. “I’ve always wanted to take the next guy’s head off if I’m competing against him. I think that’s what’s fueled me to continue to play this game. My competitive nature and drive has gotten me where I’m at.”

The memories of winning a national championship at Duke will always be special to Thomas. The sound of the final buzzer and downpour of confetti are still clear in his mind after journeys through the D-League, NBA and overseas. He wants to be remembered as a person who “worked his butt off, and on top of that he’s a winner.” If that means paying his dues over the past five years, he’s all in.

“I really have no regrets with how my career has turned out,” Thomas said. “It’s been unique, to say the least. Everything I’ve had or accomplished in life has never been laid out on the red carpet for me. I think all the things that have been thrown my way in regard to this game makes my story that much better.”

The Bureaucrooks, Terror, and Trash

If you're going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy; God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't.

--Hyman Rickover

Today, the poster child for "terror" is ISIS. But here's a fact: Assad killed and terrorized in excess of ISIS. So did Pol Pot, one of the most vile pieces of crap in history, but we didn't care to give the latter any attention at all, and Assad is alive and well, with nary a mention these days in the msm.

Next year marks a watershed: the richest 1% will own 50% of the wealth. (1) In my mind, it doesn't take much to see what's going on, but Graeme Wood, in a multi-thousand word screed in The Atlantic, has upped the ante: the real terror lies out there, and its face is brown, strapped and alien. To misunderstand ISIS as fundamentally Muslim is to miss the mark.

While talking with an old college buddy about the Wood article, we came to a conclusion, irrespective of Wood's take: while we'd want to kill ISIS if they moved into our hood, it isn't privileged kids beheading and pillaging. By and large, these kids of ISIS -- and Boko Haram, Al Shabob, Al Qaeda... -- are poor. The brothers, cousins or cronies of Bin Laden -- let's not forget, he was a billionaire -- don't pick up AKs or strap on C4 and blow themselves up. But then, neither do the sons of Congress.

And it's not a simple matter -- as a recent cartoon illustrated -- of providing jobs. Social order is a complex thing. This is why "revolution" is far more than just chopping off -- beheading -- Mussolini's dome and dragging it around. Take a look at one element of modern society, trash, the non-human kind, in a de-stabilized environment, whether seized or undergoing the ousting of a despot:

1. Who's going to pick up your trash, and who's going to manage that?

2. Where's the money come from?

3. How's that money raised?

4. Who's responsible for doling it out?

5. Who does the accounting?

6. Where's the infrastructure; trucks, fuel, repairs, truck parts, supplies, let alone human resources like drivers, mechanics....

7. And, the rub perhaps lies in, how are you going to feel when the trash has piled up after a couple of weeks? A couple of months? What if it starts to smell like a barn, 24/7?

Multiply this by many times to account for the myriad things cities have, and of course, this social organization opens the door for death by bureaucracy. It's a tough slog, but the reality.

To put this in perspective, the Dodd-Frank Bill is 2,300 pages. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission's report is 500 pages with 80 pages of notes. We're talking paper, TONS of it. The reality is that you and I know no one in their right mind is going to read either of those. And yet, both are related to the most monumental event of our time.

One more thing the bureaucrooks are great at: hoovering up your money. So much so that Cali now has more bureaucrooks than those in manufacturing.

This is where we are. This is what they do.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/maryland-millionaires-per-capita-answer-might-make-angry

Why Does Maryland Have The Most Millionaires Per Capita? The Answer Might Make You Angry

 By Michael Snyder, on February 24th, 2015

The fat cats in Washington D.C. are living the high life, and they are doing it at your expense.  Over the past decade, there has been one area of the country which has experienced a massive economic boom.  Thanks to wildly out of control government spending, the Washington D.C. region is absolutely swimming in cash.  In fact, at this point the state of Maryland has the most millionaires per capita in the entire nation and it isn’t even close.  If you have never lived there, it is hard to describe what the D.C. area is like.  Every weekday morning, hordes of lawyers, lobbyists and government bureaucrats descend upon D.C. from the surrounding suburbs.  And at the end of the day, the process goes in reverse.  Everyone is just trying to get their piece of the pie, and it is a pie that just keeps on growing as government salaries, government contracts and government giveaways just get larger and larger.  Of course our founders never intended for this to happen.  They wanted a very small and simple federal government.  Sadly, today we have the most bloated central government in the history of the planet and it gets worse with each passing year.

If you were to ask most Americans, they would tell you that the wealthiest Americans probably live in cities such as New York or San Francisco.  But thanks to the Obama administration (and before that the Bush and Clinton administrations), the state of Maryland is packed with millionaires.  In particular, the Maryland suburbs immediately surrounding D.C. are absolutely overflowing with government fat cats that make a living at our expense.  Every weekday morning, huge numbers of them leave their mini-mansions in places such as Potomac and Rockville and drive their luxury vehicles to work in the city.  As the Washington Post has detailed, at this point approximately 8 percent of all households in the entire state of Maryland contain millionaires, and the rest of the area is not doing too shabby either…

In Maryland, nearly 8 out of every 100 households in 2014 had assets topping $1 million, giving the state more millionaires per capita than any other in the country, according to a new report from Phoenix Marketing International.

The rest of the Beltway isn’t lacking in millionaires either: The District and Virginia ranked in the top 10 among those with the highest number of millionaire households per capita in 2014. In Virginia, which was No. 6 on the list, 6.76 percent of the state’s 3.17 million households are millionaires. And in the District, which rounds out the top 10, 6.25 percent of its more than 292,000 households are millionaires.

And while not too many of them are millionaires, your average federal workers that toil in D.C. are doing quite well too.

Once upon a time, it was considered to be a “sacrifice” to go into “government service”.

Not anymore.

If you can believe it, approximately 17,000 federal employees made more than $200,000 last year.

Overall, compensation for federal employees comes to a grand total of close to half a trillion dollars every 12 months.

In fact, there are tens of thousands of federal employees that make more than the governors of their own states do.

Does that seem right to you?

If you want to live “the American Dream” these days, the Washington area is the place to go.  Just check out the following description of the region from the Washington Post…

Washingtonians now enjoy the highest median household income of any metropolitan area in the country, and five of the top 10 jurisdictions in America — Loudoun, Howard and Fairfax counties, and Falls Church and Fairfax City — are here, census data shows.

The signs of that wealth are on display all over, from the string of luxury boutiques such as Gucci and Tory Burch opening at Tysons Galleria to the $15 cocktails served over artisanal ice at the W Hotel in the District to the ever-larger houses rising off River Road in Potomac.

And of course let us not forget the fat cats in Congress.

According to CNN, our Congress critters are now wealthier than every before…

The typical American family is still struggling to recover from the Great Recession, but Congress is getting wealthier every year.

The median net worth of lawmakers was just over $1 million in 2013, or 18 times the wealth of the typical American household, according to new research released Monday by the Center for Responsive Politics.

And while Americans’ median wealth is down 43% since 2007, Congress members’ net worth has jumped 28%.

Not only that, there are nearly 200 members of Congress that are actually multimillionaires…

Nearly 200 are multimillionaires. One hundred are worth more than $5 million; the top-10 deal in nine digits. The annual congressional salary alone—$174,000 a year—qualifies every member as the top 6 percent of earners. None of them are close to experiencing the poverty-reduction programs—affordable housing, food assistance, Medicaid—that they help control. Though some came from poverty, a recent analysis by Nicholas Carnes, in his book White Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policymaking, found that only 13 out of 783 members of Congress from 1999 to 2008 came from a “blue-collar” upbringing.

Incredible.

But even though almost all of them are quite wealthy, they don’t hesitate to spend massive amounts of taxpayer money on their own personal needs.

For example, according to the Weekly Standard, more than five million dollars was spent on the hair care needs of U.S. Senators alone over one recent 15 year period…

Senate Hair Care Services has cost taxpayers about $5.25 million over 15 years. They foot the bill of more than $40,000 for the shoeshine attendant last fiscal year. Six barbers took in more than $40,000 each, including nearly $80,000 for the head barber.

And in one recent year, an average of $4,005,900 was spent on “personal” and “office” expenses per U.S. Senator.

So the grand total would have been over 400 million dollars for a single year.

That seems excessive, doesn’t it?

And even when they end up leaving Washington, our Congress critters have ensured that they will continue to collect money from U.S. taxpayers for the rest of their lives…

In 2011, 280 former lawmakers who retired under a former government pension system received average annual pensions of $70,620, according to a Congressional Research Service report. They averaged around 20 years of service. At the same time, another 215 retirees (elected in 1984 or later with an average of 15 years of service) received average annual checks of roughly $40,000 a year.

If you can believe it, there are quite a few former lawmakers that are collecting federal pensions for life worth at least $100,000 annually.  The list includes Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Trent Lott, Dick Gephardt and Dick Cheney.

Of course the biggest windfalls of all are for our ex-presidents.  Most Americans would be shocked to learn that the U.S. government is spending approximately 3.6 million dollars a year to support the lavish lifestyles of former presidents such as George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

============================

1. Richest 1 Percent To Own More Than Half Of The World's Wealth By 2016, Oxfam Finds www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/19/world-wealth-oxfam_n_6499798.html

Ronda Rousey: Judo Fundamentals

Here's a pretty good breakdown of Ronda's core judo skills. As usual, fundamentals form the basis in any art, and she's no exception.

Vague yet Good but there's Ackman

Hank told me that an analyst by the name of Richard Vague was on Book TV talking about EM08, specifically, on re-structuring the debt so that the economy could get back to spending instead of tightening its belt. I don't know how long C-Span leaves this up, but Here's the link.

While what Vague proposes is much more sensible than the insanity of the Bush2/Obama admins and Bernanke/Yellen Feds, the essential problem is this: it's socialist and utterly, completely unfair. Particularly with what we now know about the massive fraud and non-disclosure (in particular, ninja loans, robo-signing and not disclosing the real state of toxicity on behalf of Merril when then BoA Chair/Pres.CEO Ken Lewis and Merril CEO John Thain held their dog and pony press con announcing the takeover of Merril by BoA which subsequently and justifiably -- led to shareholder litigation).

(I do think his theory of meltdowns being the result of non-governmental debt -- a better way, methinks, of describing it, rather than constantly differentiating and synthesizing between "private and business" -- is interesting and makes sense. I'm going to sit with it a while.)

A much saner and fairer strategy is converting debt to equity. In other words, the bondholders have to take a loss (at least temporarily) or, in the popular parlance, take a haircut. I remembered hearing this the first time from Pershing Square's Bill Ackman on the Charlie Rose Show from April 24, 2009.

Bonds, like equities, are bets. And sometimes, you lose a bet. Plain and simple. But listen to these segments and you'll hear them all concur that the bondholders would rather take money from us to cover their losses. Duh. That frickin' Bill Gross plus Mohammed El-Arian probably got on the horn to Bush 2 and Bernanke as well.

Yet, it is kind of amazing to hear this level of frankness on the Charlie Rose Show. I think that worthless Sorkin is the one who calls out Gross. So maybe he's a little less worthless.

The other notable thing is the ersatz nattering by Sorkin and Kate Kelly, the former the NYT's econ wunderkind -- don't ask me why -- and the hopelessly lost (irrelevant? afterthought?) Kate Kelly of the WSJ. Watch her as the director cuts to her as Ackman schools the audience on why debt to equity makes sense. She looks like a freshman witnessing Wittgenstein.

THIS -- Ackman's lesson -- was THE way to have handled EM08. Not socialism, which both parties have their hands in. By the way, I'm attributing this strategy to Ackman but am aware this is just a bankruptcy re-structuring. Makes sense to me.

Note: I couldn't find the entire segment, but these two parts have Ackman kicking ass. The difference in gravitas between him and the others -- and that includes Nobel Laureate Stiglitz -- is remarkable. Now notice: Sorkin and Kelly? Journalists. Stiglitz? Academician. Ackman? Entrepreneur.

Nothing wrong with the other professions, but after listening to these clips, who do you think has a grip?

He can be controversial, as his recent bouts with Herbalife attest to, but in mere months after the fall of 2008, Ackman had the way out.

Talk about a missed opportunity. 

The Finished Product: Auntie Frances

Frances Sumiko Yoshida-Wiley

Since the Wileys lived 2,000 miles away, we rarely saw one another, but the news of Auntie's passing of course still hurts us all out here in Cali. So, I told my cousin Kim that while I wanted to memorialize her mom, it then hit me; with such limited interaction, what would I say? I'd pretty much committed my Wiley recollections when writing about her son, cousin Joey.

Given that my approach would have to be wide-angled, where's the hook? More, is such an approach worthy? In the end, ascribing thoughts and feelings to someone you've affection for and have very limited interaction with is tough.

But this is Ma's sister.

The ego pushes on, but honestly, because I feel so strongly about the Yoshidas, and in this moment, my mother's sister, that generation and their time.

So here's to some reaching, some talking about Auntie via indirect lenses. After quite a bit of pondering, I think the heart of it is this American story whose great chapter is coming to a close. Like Ma's passing, the Yoshidas – the Nisei -- mark a unique time in American history, where rising from the depths through a get it done attitude into cool, fresh air was done en masse. I, and all of my cousins, are the fruits, the living embodiment of an America that was. Not earth shattering, but it's our story.

The saying is, you can't choose your family, but the Yoshidas are lucky; we come from solid stock. The family huddles don't happen anymore, so, yes, here's to nostalgia. Really, it isn't so much about nostalgia, but reverence. I can see how that sounds corny, but I'm long past the point where what the Yoshidas slogged through impressed me. Romantic, yes, and not wide-eyed, but a bit misty-eyed.

There's all of that and the practicality of speaking from the heart about a woman I barely knew but am bound to through blood and affection. My mother's sister.

=====================================================================

Auntie said something the last time I saw her in Chi: I'd kill for my kids, and it's something that's always stuck. While the context is lost, the intensity isn't; she meant it with every fiber. I'm agnostic when it comes to astrology, but it does seem that the nature of us Cancers is to feel intensely; you see, here's something Auntie and I share besides blood: we have the same birthday.

Having read Auntie's bio forwarded by Kim made me smile: intellectual prowess, artistic bent and a touch of precociousness – chutzpah, maybe...? – stood her out among 7 brothers and sisters.

Auntie on the left bent over leaning on May, Ma on the ground. The BEST.

Her siblings shared that penchant for cracking up duly noted when writing about Ma. Seems whenever the Yoshida sisters got together something would set them off, and Auntie Frances, Auntie May and Ma seemed to always be removing their glasses at some point, crying tears of laughter. Since I was an only kid, the Wileys or any family that rolled through LA, would

May, Frances, Ross, Ma, Kathy. Auntie's already got the bug!

invariably stay with us, so ringside seats seeing these scenes play out are enduring memories. Luck's given us Yoshida cousins a great family – and stories -- separated by geography but united by such a great spirit.

When the Wiley brood rolled through LA back in the day the cousins stayed with us, and I went from an only child to swimming in cousins. There's a couple of good stories in there. Here's one; Ma and Auntie had us boys in the bathroom prepping us for a bath. So, I stripped down to the tighty whiteys and then stood up straight. Auntie, a shock of hair across her face, was bent over, going through the task that for her was by now routine, busily pulling up Larry's or Jimi's – or both! -- t-shirt over his head. I think Joey was already butt naked.

Auntie: C'mon Geoffrey!

Me: Uh....

Auntie: (not missing a beat) Oh! You haven't got anything I haven't seen, and if you do, show me!

Amidst her intellect and artistic leanings, I think that straightforward pragmatism is something her generation had, but in many ways, is lost today. Yeah, life's uncomfortable at times and can be tough. Shut up and play yer guitar!

America recently crossed a milestone: More of us now live in cities than rural areas. Coming up in Lindsay, the Yoshidas were country as all get out, and so it was with Auntie developing her dislike of chicken from plucking them. There's much more, of course, even in the face of my romanticizing the Brokaw dubbed 'Greatest Generation.” Bottom line, I'd bet that not one of the 25 Yoshida cousins has ever plucked a chicken (at least willingly), much less experienced a day of hunger.

Despite the betrayal of her country to her family, Auntie Frances got on with it. She couldn't have been happy about the prison camps (let's call them what they were), but her drive to excel was evident; her masters from Chicago and especially her 8 kids, the ones she'd kill for. And a gaggle of grandkids.

It's funny how getting older brings the essentials into focus, nearer, and yet still beyond reach. Why are we here? Auntie Frances and her generation didn't beseech the heavens from rooftops, nor did they indulge in selfies much less in “finding themselves,” but just got on with business. “No monku-ing” was their motto. They are the last of an America that needs some of that old school grit now.

We watched Michael Jordan perform jaw-dropping feats, but hidden away are the endless days and nights of practice. The Malcolm Gladwell codified "10,000 hours" minimum practice it takes to become good at something.

I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.

--Muhammad Ali

So, there's the finished product that was Auntie Frances, a drive to excel and the bevy of good people she produced and helped. It's not the spotlight or in the championship ring. It's pulling off my cousin's t-shirt as a little kid to get ready for a bath. It's being mad at Joey and trying to whup his butt but giving up and flopping in a chair because he was making her laugh so much. A shock of hair and the Yoshida love of laughter. 

No, it's not the bright lights, it's answering life with getting down to it. Being a country girl from Lindsay, what's hidden is the practice, those plucked chickens.

Jay Adams

We weren't really surfers in the traditional sense you know? We're from VENICE.
--Skip Engblom

[Jay's] the original.
--Shogo Kubo

[Jay's] the real thing, an original seed, the original virus that infected all of us. He was beyond comparison.
--Stacy Peralta


It's fitting that R.I.P. is "rip," because that's what this LA legend did.

Outside Looking In

Your money at work. For them.

It's all about getting information...they call it trading stocks, but it's really trading information. That's what we were doing.

--Turney Duff, former Galleon trader

Just peeped Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street, and I'd bet the average person would say it's about the craziest story ever. I'd get that. But Jordan Belfort's slimey infomercial rat-a-tat buggery is chump change compared to the middle-class soul sucking black hole that's the state of finance now.

Yesterday, Frontline aired To Catch a Trader, whose bullseye was puss sack Stevie Cohen (SAC Capital). Given that I've devoted a good amount of time to looking at finance now, not much these days surprises me. One thing did; "expert networks," camouflage for leakers on the inside who personally profit by leaking info (in advance, of course) to traders.

Turney Duff related how he picked up a call intended for Rajaratnam with a tip on Amazon. Raj wasn't around, so Duff took the call and the info. It being his first experience with insider rigging, he hung up and wondered what he should do.

He ended up placing a bet and "making" 500 g's in 30 minutes.

But it's what Duff says after this that's key, and I paraphrase: "I thought, 'Gee, if I could get a call like this every day, I could be a great trader too.' So I determined that I needed my own 'whisper guy' too."

Poker players don't cheat. In fact, gamblers are, at least when it comes to gambling, some of the most ethical and honest people I've ever encountered. But in this EM08 world where up is down, gangster dons like JPMC, Goldman and HSBC get away with historic looting, while nothing is done to police them -- even in the wake of their historic crimes! Meanwhile, walk into a Vegas casino and you'll have a camera up your ass and are surveilled at every turn.

The Greatest Read, Ever: Stanislav Petrov

One of the most important skills is reading, not literacy-wise, but assessing information in order to make decisions, to act. Athletes, coaches, entrepreneurs, politicians, school counselors, shrinks, investors, parents... all of us in one way or another make decisions based upon reads of situations.

Here's back to back world poker champion Johnny Chan making one of the most incredible lay downs ever. For those non-poker players, a lay down is when you fold, or quit your hand, and here Chan is dealt pocket aces, the optimum starting hand in poker's "cadillac of games, Texas Hold 'Em (dubbed by two-time world champ, Doyle Brunson in his seminal book on poker,  "Super System," who's in the cowboy hat). 

Chan's read of the situation is spot on, but what's interesting is his assessment afterwards, that "instinct" just told him and he concluded that his aces were no good. As commentator Ali Nejad aptly says, it's poker at the highest level, true, but what's interesting here is that Chan gives credit to his instinct, his gut.

Now up the ante to human destruction, and that's light years beyond poker. That was the "poker table" Stanislav Petrov was at. And it's interesting that like Johnny Chan, something in his gut told Petrov things weren't right. 

I first heard the story of Stanislav Petrov via Glynn Washington's show, Snap Judgement. I recommend listening; it's the segment "End of Days." Kudos.

Too many stories in history are relegated to obscurity. Here's one that deserves sunlight, devoid of negotiations between the White House and the Kremlin, but nonetheless shows history playing out at its own highest level and the greatest read ever.

A tribute site to Petrov is here.

from The Atlantic

The Man Who Saved the World by Doing Absolutely Nothing

Thirty years ago, Stanislav Petrov proved a cool head in a Cold War.

MEGAN GARBERSEP 26 2013, 4:53 PM ET

Petrov receives a 2011 German media award from Karlheinz Koegel, chief of the German Media Research Group, during a ceremony in 2012. (Reuters)

It was September 26, 1983. Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defence Forces, was on duty at Serpukhov-15, a secret bunker outside Moscow. His job: to monitor Oko, the Soviet Union's early-warning system for nuclear attack. And then to pass along any alerts to his superiors. It was just after midnight when the alarm bells began sounding. One of the system's satellites had detected that the United States had launched five ballistic missiles. And they were heading toward the USSR. Electronic maps flashed; bells screamed; reports streamed in. A back-lit red screen flashed the word 'LAUNCH.'"

That the U.S. would be lobbing missiles toward its Soviet counterpart would not, of course, have been out of the question at that particular point in human history. Three weeks earlier, Russians had shot down a South Korean airliner that had wandered into Soviet air space. NATO had responded with a show of military exercises. The Cold War, even in the early '80s, continued apace; the threat of nuclear engagement still hovered over the stretch of land and sea that fell between Washington and Moscow.

Petrov, however, had a hunch -- "a funny feeling in my gut," he would later recall -- that the alarm ringing through the bunker was a false one. It was an intuition that was based on common sense:  The alarm indicated that only five missiles were headed toward the USSR. Had the U.S. actually been launching a nuclear attack, however, Petrov figured, it would be extensive -- much more, certainly, than five. Soviet ground radar, meanwhile, had failed to pick up corroborative evidence of incoming missiles -- even after several minutes had elapsed. The larger matter, however, was that Petrov didn't fully trust the accuracy of the Soviet technology when it came to bomb-detection. He would later describe the alert system as "raw." 

But what would you do? You're alone in a bunker, and alarms are screaming, and lights are flashing, and you have your training, and you have your intuition, and you have two choices: follow protocol or trust your gut. Either way, the world is counting on you to make the right call.

Petrov trusted himself. He reported the satellite's detection to his superiors -- but, crucially, as a false alarm. And then, as Wired puts it, "he hoped to hell he was right."

He was, of course. The U.S. had not attacked the Soviets. It was a false alarm. One that, had it not been treated as such, may have prompted a retaliatory nuclear attack on the U.S. and its NATO allies. Which would have then prompted … well, you can guess what it would have prompted. 

As Petrov, now retired and living in a town near Moscow, puts it of his decision: "That was my job. But they were lucky it was me on shift that night."

Thirty years later, there are lingering questions about the specific events of September 26, 1983. Was it really up to Petrov, the single man, to make the call? Weren't there other failsafes that would allow for malfunctioning technology? Wouldn't other cool heads, finally, have prevailed? Petrov, for his part, emphasizes the ambiguity of the situation, saying after the incident that he was never convinced the alarm was erroneous. (The odds of his getting it right, he now figures, were pretty much 50-50.) 

One thing that seems clear, however, is that the world carried on into September 27, 1983 in some part because Stanislav Petrov decided to trust himself over malfunctioning machines. And that may have made, in a very broad and cosmic sense, all the difference. Petrov's colleagues were professional soldiers with purely military training; they would, being trained to follow instructions at all costs, likely have reported a missile strike had they been on shift at the time. Petrov, on the other hand, trusted his own intelligence, his own instincts, his own gut. He made the brave decision to do nothing.

And we're here to read about him because of it. 

Hat tip Nicholas Slayton and Chris Heller. 

Bad Boys

I'm a... criminal???

Members of the Pensacola community have pressed the City Council to reconsider a so-called“camping” ordinance passed last summer, particularly the sections of the law that criminalize keeping warm with a blanket, tent or other materials commonly used by the homeless for shelter. At the time of its passage, the ordinance was defended in the Council on the bases that “camping” in public was considered a threat to sanitation, public health, and safety, in addition to being a blight on Pensacola’s “aesthetic” quality.(1)

See, Lloyd, we're more than leaders. We're fine, upstanding
models of American citizenship. Cleave to that, baby boy. L'chaim.

What does "the law of unintended consequences" tell us? Careful what you wish for... For every action... You may get what you pay for, but you pay for everything you get....

Time worn sayings all, leading us down the same road. In the case of EM08, take a look around and notice, not just what's illegal, but what gets indicted, what gets prosecuted. In other words, what has a target on it?

It's easy enough to see that the evil empire dons are above the law, but when we criminalize the homeless, folks, we're nearing the bottom. Even for EM08.

What next, an ordinance against day dreaming?

=================

1.  ​Amid freezing temps, Florida town’s ‘camping’ law bars homeless from using blankets
RT, February 12, 2014
 http://rt.com/usa/florida-ban-blanket-homeless-611/

The Slide

Old media dinos sliding into the "new media
audience doesn't give a shit about you" tar pit.

In what world does a hard print magazine have over 12,000 employees plus all of the costs of producing a magazine, then sell that magazine for what, 3 or 4 bucks a week in the face of new media that's been inexorably crushing hard print for years?

How many mags do you have to sell just to pay your rent???

Lest we forget, Tina Brown, a semi-comatose publisher, only recently took "Newsweek" all digital. Problem is it was about a decade too late. 

But the "other real problem" is the old media itself, apart from its business model. 

In some ways, the old media dinosaurs are akin to the new media brats -- and those that buy into their horseshit -- in that they evidently don't know basic math. Un-parallel to the media brats, they fail to consider how their content is in at least some (major?) part generationally driven. That is, young kids don't read "The Atlantic", "The New Yorker" or "Time" let alone any of the other dino periodicals. Hell, they don't even read the icon of counter-culture when I was a kid, "Rolling Stone"!

The word is "relevance."

Simply, new media audiences don't give a crap about old media content. Isn't that obvious? On the other side, oldies who care about old media content aren't new media savvy. This latter digital divide is closing, but the crucial element is time; can old media fool, for instance, equities, and sucker them long enough in order to survive for a critical mass of oldies to catch up?

Does that sound like a good bet to you?

Meanwhile, a whole new crop of young/new media, from Voice of San Diego shaking off old journalism's business model (a very good thing), Priceonomics' smart, young take on things thought of from an incisive angle, to any number of smart takes on culture, politics and polemics (Jacobin, Edge, Medium...) that are not only pushing out new thought at an alarmingly good rate but greasing that silicon slide the old media dinos are losing their footing on.

History often focuses on the epochs - the Renaissance, the Third Reich, the Depression ... - but the transitional period/s to me are really interesting. And when you think about this time, given all of the stress points that EM08 is producing, this is obviously a key transitional time for old media.

Time Inc. Hit With Huge Layoffs

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/01/time-inc-hit-with-huge-layoffs.html

As feared, mass layoffs are starting at Time Inc., including editorial cuts at top titles like People andTime, where a voluntary buyout period could be followed by the much-sharper ax. CEO Laura Lang said in a memo to staff today that 6 percent of the company's 8,000 employees, or about 500, have to go in the struggle to be a "leaner, more nimble and more innately multi-platform" publisher. The company is already down some 4,000 people in the last five years.

-- 

​I'm a man without a corporation.

-

​Paddy Chayefsky