Curt Doolittle

Form: Short Note

  • SAN FRANCISCO HAS RENTED ITS FOG TO SEATTLE FOR THE DAY. Seriously. Zero Visibil

    SAN FRANCISCO HAS RENTED ITS FOG TO SEATTLE FOR THE DAY.

    Seriously. Zero Visibility.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-18 03:43:00 UTC

  • HAPPINESS AND UNHAPPINESS It’s not something with empirical support, just an obs

    HAPPINESS AND UNHAPPINESS

    It’s not something with empirical support, just an observation that’s proven consistent over a lifetime: most unhappiness is the result of wishing someone else would act in a way that you wish they would, our by you acting differently from how someone else wishes you would.

    Very few of us manage to realize the obvious fact that the world is absolutely overflowing with human beings. And you’re better off looking around for those people who you don’t want to act differently, and who don’t want you to act differently than you ever will be trying to change others or, sometimes, changing yourself.

    It’s a demonstration of intelligence to make the choice to seek out others. It’s a demonstration of wisdom to know whether or not to change yourself. But only a fool tries to change others to suit one’s preferences. And thats mostly why the world is full of unhappy fools.

    Unfortunately, family and familiar relations are cheap entertainment and security, many and people prefer to buy consistently unpleasant familial and familiar entertainment at low cost rather than invest in new relations us care far less about changing our familial relations, and far more about tolerating them. This isn’t so much just foolishness, but laziness or the poverty of the malcontented mind.

    But the ability to joyfully tolerate unhappy family members who you wish would act differently, or who wish you would act differently, is a product of the number and quality of relationships who wish neither. So emotional wealth which we call happiness is the result of finding and cultivating those relationships.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-16 16:23:00 UTC

  • WHATS WRONG WITH UKRAINE: TAXATION “The tax laws are amended often and sometimes

    WHATS WRONG WITH UKRAINE: TAXATION

    “The tax laws are amended often and sometimes retrospectively. They are still characterized by lack of precise policy or explanation. A number of government bodies and different levels of the State tax authorities issue their own interpretations of tax legislation which may be contradictory. Many issues still remain open for clarification. All these factors lead to the risk of a different interpretation of tax legislation by the State tax authorities and taxpayers. A

    major recent development was the adoption in December 2010 of a consolidated tax code that aims to simplify and update the taxation system.” – Chadbourne, Kiev

    The justice department has had major reforms in 2010. And they’re intelligent reforms. The tax system had the same reforms. However, corruption is so rampant is difficult to determine how meaningful they are.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-15 13:06:00 UTC

  • WHATS WRONG WITH UKRAINE: SYSTEMIC ENDEMIC CORRUPTION The bureaucrats prey on th

    WHATS WRONG WITH UKRAINE: SYSTEMIC ENDEMIC CORRUPTION

    The bureaucrats prey on the citizens. Who despite this level of corruption are, from my subjective opinion, the finest people currently living on planet earth.

    “Ukraine suffers from widespread corruption throughout its economic and political system. Many businesses are subject to theft, extortion and fraud. The problem has been exacerbated by the existence of poorly paid police forces which have failed to combat the significant levels of organized criminal activity” – Chadbourne, Kyiv

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-15 12:58:00 UTC

  • WRONG WITH UKRAINE : ABSENCE OF THE RULE OF LAW Absence of the rule of law, is t

    http://www.chadbourne.com/files/upload/Ukraine_GeneralLegalConsiderations_BusinessUkraine_2011.pdfWHAT’S WRONG WITH UKRAINE : ABSENCE OF THE RULE OF LAW

    Absence of the rule of law, is the absence of property rights.

    “In short, Ukraine, like other former Soviet countries, suffers not only from a lack of suitable legislation and regulation and from considerable doubt as to how the courts will interpret the existing laws and rules, but from the concomitant absence of a belief in and respect for a “rule of law.” – Chadbourne, Kiev.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-15 12:53:00 UTC

  • OBSERVATIONS: THE SQUIRREL ON YOUR SHOULDER Apparently in Russian the alcoholic

    http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/drunk-squirrel-warning-russians-alcohol-11855CULTURAL OBSERVATIONS: THE SQUIRREL ON YOUR SHOULDER

    Apparently in Russian the alcoholic experience of Delirium Tremens (beloy) translates to something that’s pronounced very much like “squirrel” (belka). So, if you’re out on the town, and behaving oddly while drinking, people will ask you if you see the squirrel on your shoulder. And dozens of variations all of which allude to your state of mind and the presence of squirrels. (In America we usually talk of spiders – which isn’t anywhere near as cute or funny.)

    The attached video is a Russian Public Service Announcement that plays off the popular bit of humor. But. Sigh. Those cute fuzzy little creatures. I will never look at them the same again. 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-14 15:55:00 UTC

  • I WOULD LOVE TO HELP CONSERVATIVES WITH MESSAGING STATEGY If I could find one sm

    I WOULD LOVE TO HELP CONSERVATIVES WITH MESSAGING STATEGY

    If I could find one smart enough to talk to about it. (sigh)

    I realize that we are supposedly the thought leadership for the conservatives.

    Unfortunately we provide all the thought and they provide all the leadership. 🙁

    ( I think I made a rare bit of humor there. Ironic humor. Sad humor. But still humor. )

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-12 17:23:00 UTC

  • SHE CAN COOK TOO. I thought it was a lost art. :/ It looks like the majority of

    SHE CAN COOK TOO.

    I thought it was a lost art. :/

    It looks like the majority of women here in Kiev are pretty good cooks.

    In no small part due to the absence of the kind of false dietary propaganda produced in the USA for the past hundred years.

    The fashion in the states is to use fresh food quickly prepared but to combine tastes from multiple cuisines. Its good. But it’s very expensive.

    Ukrainian food is still old fashioned meat and vegetables with fat supplying the sweetness. Although heavy on potatoes ( which along with corn syrup, wheat, pasta and MSG are terrible for your waistline and chance for diabetes) the locals are fit and trim.

    Eat paleo. Hug women who cook paleo.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-12 17:05:00 UTC

  • A BUDGET FOR SCOTCH? So I don’t have a car here in Kiev. That’s a savings. A big

    A BUDGET FOR SCOTCH?

    So I don’t have a car here in Kiev. That’s a savings. A big savings. Cell phones fees are half of what they are in the states.

    But, we have gone thru four liters of scotch in one week.

    Not ourselves. With guests.

    At this rate, a car is cheaper. 🙂

    Ukrainian alcohol tolerance and all.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-12 13:55:00 UTC

  • COMPLIMENTS. AND AGREEMENT ON ENDS IF NOT MEANS Even though I am from the conser

    COMPLIMENTS. AND AGREEMENT ON ENDS IF NOT MEANS

    Even though I am from the conservative side of the fence, this is a fantastic list, and I enjoy it every day.

    I try to judge people by their desired ends, not so much as by their method of getting to those ends. Desired ends are determined by moral sentiments. The means of achieving them are a function of knowledge or ignorance. Creating a wonderful world to share with each other requires that we also share those desired ends, and that we cooperate on those ends, even if we prefer to use different means.

    While I’m a critic of the GSHM ideology for a host of reasons — its limited understanding of the necessary properties of economic cooperation through competition and prices, the impossibility of the Utopian idea of outcome-equality, the anti-scientific, contra-rational faith in biological equality, the universal error of false consensus bias, the and the confusion between over-population and over-consumption, that doesn’t mean that I have a different desire for the same peaceful equal, egalitarian world. I do. I just realize that consensus hasn’t ever, and can’t helped us get there. Only institutions that help us do it through productive competition can. And government is the problem more often than it is the cure.

    What I love about this page and its members is the positive and aspirational nature of the posts. I can solve the problem of knowledge and ignorance. We can do that together. What we can’t solve is the problem of people who have selfish ends.

    Thanks for your work.

    Curt

    Source date (UTC): 2013-01-11 10:14:00 UTC