"The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him." - Henry Stimson

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4Chan: The Rude, Raunchy Underbelly of the Internet - "The most powerful people on the Internet don't work for Microsoft, Google or the government. Rather, they're a bunch of antisocial, foul-mouthed, clever nerds who congregate at a largely unknown Web site called 4chan.org."

The pleasures and sorrows of work | The Economist - "Even the most soulless of offices has its vital part to play. The “start of work means an end to freedom, but also to doubt, intensity and wayward desires... How satisfying it is to be held in check by the assumptions of colleagues, instead of being forced to contemplate, in the loneliness of the early hours, all that one might have been, and now never will be.” This last observation seems so heartfelt, so poignantly rendered, that one can only advise Mr de Botton himself to cease his solitary endeavours and take the plunge into the pleasures of office life."

Human psychology and the economy | An economic bestiary | The Economist - "Messrs Akerlof and Shiller list eight questions which, they say, cannot be well explained without an appeal to animal spirits—but can be tackled with them. These range from why markets for housing and shares swing wildly (a combination of confidence, stories and bad faith) to why, contrary to standard theory, there appears to be a long-run trade-off between inflation and unemployment (mainly, a mix of money illusion and fairness)... How much do animal spirits help? Most of the time, the unrealistic assumption of rationality serves economists fairly well. They should, however, be more prepared to depart from it, especially in times like these—even if that makes behaviour more difficult to describe in elegant equations."

The ballot and the bottom billion | Democracy in difficult places | The Economist - "He shows unambiguously what observers of elections in poor countries have long suspected: that on their own, unless they are held in the context of a functioning democracy, elections can retard rather than advance a country’s progress. “If democracy means little more than elections, it is damaging to the reform process,” he writes... elections begin to pay dividends to society only when they occur in a system of checks and balances, with a functioning rule of law"

Will’s Maid Café Visit - "After a bit of a wait we had another maid (I think she was different) bring us our order. She didn’t just give it to us though, no way. First she knelt down on her knees and held up to us a container for us to pick our favourite colour straw out of. If choose pink as I am the epitome of masculinity while Shigeki opted for green. She then stirred my ice coffee (on her knees in front of me) and put the straw in our drinks. I thought we would get our items now, but no, there is more. She placed the tray in front of her and said “もえ、もえ、胸、きゅう！” (moe, moe, mune kyuu!) in a cute little voice accompanied by some hand actions. And we had to do the same thing if we were to receive our order. My dignity was annulled, but it was fun."

Chimpanzees exchange meat for sex - "Male chimps that are willing to share the proceeds of their hunting expeditions mate twice as often as their more selfish counterparts. This is a long-term exchange, so males continue to share their catch with females when they are not fertile, copulating with them when they are."
What will the feminists say?!

The world according to Kishore Mahbubani - "Ostensibly a book about the rise of Asia – there is quite a bit favourable to India – it is a long litany of complaints against America and a eulogy to China. While America is criticized on various issues from the Iraq war to the torture of prisoners, there is just one reference to Taiwan and none to Tibet; I checked the index... when he talks about the domination of the Western media, he should have asked himself who made it so. The fact is Asians read Western publications such as Time, Newsweek and the Economist and Asian newspapers use Western news agencies like Reuters and Bloomberg because Asian media coverage is either inadequate or not sufficiently informative... Mahbubani sees what he calls “the irresistible shift of global power to the East” as a reversion to the old order of things. Asia was far richer than the West until the early 19th century... But what did Asia do with those riches? Where were the Asian Gutenbergs, Leonardo da Vincis, Shakespeares, Galileos? Why did democracy develop in the West while despotism seemed to be the rule in the East? Maybe those questions are for others to answer. Mahbubani's focus is on power and prosperity."

Corri Fetman Files Sexual Harassment Lawsuit - "Corri Fetman, the Chicago divorce attorney who worked on the principle that it is better to divorce now so you can marry your trophy husband/wife, and who appeared in a nude Playboy spread, has alleged that she was sexually harassed by a former executive at the magazine. She said that Thomas Hagopian of the digital branch of Playboy Enterprises sent her sexually explicit emails and phone calls, touched her and then revoked her column when she refused to play into his advances... Fetman filed her lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court and sought more than $4.5 million in damages for a number of charges, including, “gender violence” and emotional stress"
The fact that she's abusing the term "gender violence" (legally, the term is actually defined much more loosely than how Progressives use it) is telling.

Roseville couple, state settle suit over marriage license wording - "Attorney Steven Wood on Wednesday called it a clear victory for the Coddings and common sense... "The state's previous rejection of the marriage license caused the Coddings considerable anguish, as well as financial harm," said Wood. "That has now been remedied."... The couple claimed the state of California did not have the right to replace the terms "bride" and "groom" with "Party A" and "Party B" on state marriage documents."
Anguish and financial harm?! Then again some people might call the terms "Bride" and "Groom" homophobic."The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him." - Henry Stimson