politics

What To Read Before Taking $25 Billion In TARP Funds

A few (one?) of the new interns at JP Morgan had the guts to email Jamie Dimon for a recommended reading list. And he actually emailed them back. The following is his list of recommended books “which includes a variety of business and history books.”

Business
The World is Flat
Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors
Security Analysis – Classic 1940 Edition
The Intelligent Investor
Execution – The Discipline of Getting Things Done
Jack: Straight From the Gut
Sam Walton – Made in America
Double your Profits in 6 Months or Less
Built from Scratch
Only the Paranoid Survive
Built to Last

History Bio
Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation
Autobiography of Ben Franklin
Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America
Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West
Eisenhower: Soldier and President
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
Washington: The Indispensable Man
Lincoln
Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant
Jefferson
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

History Other
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos
A History of Knowledge: Past, Present, and Future
The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World Order
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some are so Rich and Some so Poor

Dimon also attached a copy of his Syracuse commencement speech and a copy of a fake Bill Gates speech in the email.

Nuked

If you have read this blog for any amount of time, you know I’m not a stickler for correct spelling and grammar, but I thought you would get a kick out of this. Merriam-Webster has succumbed and updated the pronunciation of nuclear on their website citing:

Though disapproved of by many, pronunciations ending in \\-kyə-lər\\ have been found in widespread use among educated speakers including scientists, lawyers, professors, congressmen, United States cabinet members, and at least two United States presidents and one vice president. While most common in the United States, these pronunciations have also been heard from British and Canadian speakers.

Acceptance Speech Word Visualizations



Above are the word clouds for the acceptance speeches from Obama and McCain (on top for you colorblind readers) that I created using Wordle. The larger the word, the more often it was said by each candidate. I think both the words “promise” and “fight” are too large for any candidate this time around.

The New York Times does a great job of visually distilling the acceptance speeches. I think of particular note is the fact that Rudy Giuliana (of all people) saying, “Of great concern to me, during those same four days in Denver, they rarely mentioned the attacks of September 11, 2001.” The total count of the time the phrase “September 11th” was said by Obama: 2, by McCain: 0.

Devil May Care

Mike’s entry on the Advocacy of the Devil is excellent. He brings up a great point:

Nothing is more infuriating that to be on the verge of an intellectual victory with a worthy opponent and then hear them say, “I was just playing Devil’s Advocate.” The correct usage of the Devil’s Advocate does not involve just the countering an argument. The advocate of the devil is there to sharpen an idea, and therefore is actually on the same side as her “opponent”. Additionally, the use of the Devil’s Advocate needs to be invoked before it is used. To invoke the Devil’s Advocate after it has been applied is to use it to cloak mean-spirited or useless argument.

I had never thought of this before. I have used the “oh, I was just playing devil’s advocate” excuse to back my way out of a losing argument tons of times and never realized how much of an asshole I was for doing so, until I read this.

I apologize to anyone I may have ever pulled this crap on.

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