DB's Pixnet

 
International Herald Tribune, Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Page 9, Views
The gullible center
by Paul Krugman
...The reaction from many commentators was a howl of outrage. The president was being rude; he was being partisan; he was being a meanie. Yet what he said about the Ryan proposal was completely accurate.
Actually, there are many problems with that proposal. But you can get the gist if you understand two numbers: $4.6 trillion and 14 million.
Of these, $4.6 trillion is the revenue cost over the next decade of the tax cuts embodied in the plan, as estimated by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. These cuts--which are, by the way, cuts over and above those involved in making the Bush tax cuts permanent--would disproportionately benefit the wealthy, with the average member of the top 1 percent receiving a tax break of $238,000 a year.
...But the "centrists" who weigh in on policy debates are playing a different game. Their self-image, and to a large extent their professional selling point, depends on posing as high-minded types standing between the partisan extremes bringing together reasonable people from both parties--even if these reasonable people don't actually exist. And this leaves them unable either to admit how moderate Mr. Obama is or to acknowledge the more or less universal extremism of his opponents on the right...
David CK Chang, SSN057-86-4042,
April 11, 2012, Wednesday,
National Central Library,
Taipei City

 
Newsweek, April 9, 2012
Page 36 
Voyage of The Damned
All walks of life teemed aboard the RMS Titanic--from dollar dukes to striving immigrants. Little did they know how they would be betrayed.
By Simon Schama
The broken halves of RMS Titanic had barely settled on the ocean floor, 12,600 feet below the surface of the Atlantic, when the craving to see it at the movies began.
The one-reeler Saved From the Titanic, made by Éclair American Co. at its super-modern, glass-covered Fort Lee studio in New Jersey, was released 29 days after the liner sank and took 1,517 lives with it. In one respect at least, the 10-minute movie will never be bettered for authenticity, since its main attraction, the heavy-lidded, cushion-lipped, 22-year-old Dorothy Gibson-star of Revenge of the Silk Masks and It Pays to Be Kind, and cover girl of countless magazines--was a survivor from Lifeboat 7. Starting work a few days after landing back in New York off the rescue ship RMS Carpathia, Dorothy had only to play herself, which she apparently did with frightening aplomb...And you thought Kate Winslet was interesting? Silly you...
David CK Chang, SSN057-86-4042,
April 10, 2012,
New Taipei City Library,
Panchiao, New Taipei City

 
Time April 2, 2012
Page 38
French Toast?
Polls suggest Nicholas Sarkozy may lose France's presidency. How a globally respected statesman found himself on the verge of defeat at home.
By Bruce Crumley /Paris
...Voters are also put off by Sarkozy's reputation as "the President of the rich," a moniker first inspired by a round of tax cuts in 2007 that mostly benefited the wealthy. Sarkozy's unabashed fondness for money and his friendships with some of France's wealthiest people have solidified his image as the king of bling. So too has his posh life with his third wife, former model and millionaire Carla Bruni, who this month drew titters for defending her husband's taste for luxury, assuring a journalist, "We're modest people."
...In 2007, voters flocked to the uncompromising commitment and supreme confidence of Sarkozy, who promised a modernized French presidency. His stubborn intransigence struck many as refreshing after 12 years of flip-flopping stasis under his predecessor Jacques Chirac. His single-mindedness was also key to Sarkozy's two successful stints as Frances's Interior Minister, during which he vowed to purge troubled housing projects...
...That message echoed Sarkozy's earlier promise to slash immigration to France because "we have too many foreigners."...
David CK Chang, SSN057-86-4042,
April 8, 2012,
New Taipei City Library,
Panchiao, New Taipei City

 
International Herald Tribune, Friday, March 30, 2012
Page 6, Views
When stealing isn't stealing
by Stuart P. Green
The U.S. Justice Department is building its case against Megaupload, the hugely popular file-sharing site that was indicted earlier this year on multiple counts of copyright infringement and related crimes. The company's servers have been shut down, its assets seized and top employees arrested. And, as is usual in such cases, prosecutors and their allies in the music and movie industries have sought to invoke the language of "theft" and "stealing" to frame the prosecutions and, presumably, obtain the moral high ground.
Whatever wrongs Megaupload has committed, though, it's doubtful that theft is among them.
From its earliest days, the crime of theft has been understood to involve the misappropriation of things real and intangible. For Caveman Bob to "steal" from Caveman Joe meant that Bob had taken something of value from Joe--say, his favorite club--and that Joe, crucially, no longer had it...
--Stuart P. Green is a professor at Rutgers Law School in Newark and author of the forthcoming "13 Ways to Steal a Bicycle: Theft Law in the Information Age."
David CK Chang, SSN057-86-4042,
March 31, 2012, Saturday,
National Central Library,
Taipei City

Psychology Today April 2012

 




20120322 Time

  
International Hearld Tribune, Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Page 6, Views
Why bilinguals are smarter,
by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee, a staff writer at Science.

 
Harvard Business Review, March 2012
Page 119
Eight Rules For Direct Investment Programs
1. Let the market provide direction.

 




20120314 Time

 
The Asahi Shimbun 2012.3.10, Saturday