Bonus Bananas February 14, 2014

1) The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks' Most Devious Scam Yet (Rolling Stone) - When is a bank no longer a bank? Matt Taibbi does it again. His analogy about letting the guys who run a Vegas sports book coach NFL teams on Sunday is right on the money.

2) Stock traders move into the laser age in pursuit of lightning-fast deals (The Verge) - The quest for zero latency has officially gone laser. You know what's cooler than 4 milliseconds latency? 3 milliseconds.

3) Soros Ex Got Violent During Deposition: Lawyer (FIN Alternatives) - Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned who sold her ass to a decrepit billionaire for a sweet pad and then got hosed when he met somebody hotter. Evidently Big George's ex-girlfriend lost her shit during a deposition last week and came across the table. She smacked Soros's lawyer, called Soros an asshole and a piece of shit, and then took her own lawyer apart. Ain't love grand?

4) Cyber attack on bitcoin a big warning to currency's users (Reuters) - This smacks of a state-sponsored attack, which wouldn't surprise me following China's somewhat antagonistic stance on Bitcoin. Bitcoin represents a potential major threat to governments (and not just on the currency front).

5) Maryland bill would cut water, electricity to NSA headquarters (Fox News) - Words cannot express how much I love this.

6) Suicide Bomb Trainer in Iraq Accidentally Blows Up His Class (NY Times) - BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

7) The World’s Largest Solar Plant Started Creating Electricity Today (The Mind Unleashed) - Way too cool. Immediately after the plant came online, Matt Taibbi reported that Goldman Sachs is in negotiations to purchase the sun.

8) Preventing Burnout: A Cautionary Tale (Four Hour Blog) - This is the must-read piece of the week. If you think Tim Ferriss lives a hectic life, imagine being his assistant. Charlie Hoehn describes the lengths he went to in order to keep up, including taking an unnamed drug (my money's on Provigil) to stay awake and alert for four days straight. You'll be glad you read this.

9) Danish zookeepers kill healthy baby giraffe with a bolt gun because he was 'surplus to requirements' - then feed him to the LIONS (Daily Mail) - A lot of you have figured out that I'm a bit of an animal rights guy, so I find the notion of zoos pretty detestable. But this is just beyond the pale.

10) Matthew McConaughey explains how the famous humming from Wolf of Wall Street was because of him (

) - This was a strong contender for Video of the Week. For those of you (like me) who were wondering about McConaughey's space cadet routine at the lunch table in the movie, here's your explanation.

Video of the Week:

If you're not outraged by the following video, you must not be breathing. I wonder how much longer we (as a nation) are going to tolerate things like this. I don't normally post things that are such a downer, but I think it's important that you guys see this. Next time you hear somebody say, "If you're not a criminal, you have nothing to fear from law enforcement" you can straighten them out:

That's it for this week, stallions. Have a fantastic weekend and let me know what you think of this week's Bananas in the comments!

 

The anti gun crowd wonder why people cling to their guns so tightly. Its because of shit like that. A society that has its rights of self defense stripped in the quest for "less crime" are setting them selves up to be living in a criminal state. Where the criminals are the ones tasked with "keeping the peace" which will essentially become busting the skulls of those who make trouble for the ones who have power. The amazing thing about the modern age is that what once took a thousand years to change now takes a couple of generations. All powerful cultures will eventually crumble under their own malaise. Nothing is forever, not even freedoms "guaranteed by the Constitution."

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 
heister:

The anti gun crowd wonder why people cling to their guns so tightly. Its because of shit like that. A society that has its rights of self defense stripped in the quest for "less crime" are setting them selves up to be living in a criminal state. Where the criminals are the ones tasked with "keeping the peace" which will essentially become busting the skulls of those who make trouble for the ones who have power. The amazing thing about the modern age is that what once took a thousand years to change now takes a couple of generations. All powerful cultures will eventually crumble under their own malaise. Nothing is forever, not even freedoms "guaranteed by the Constitution."

That's very reasonable if you believe that:

A) More innocent 80 year olds are being killed by the police than by gun accidents and B) 80 year olds that have guns somewhere in their house are a very significant threat against evil police officers.

I'm not even definitely pro or anti guns, but using that as an argument for this example strikes me as a little too much.

 

Don't want to spark a whole debate here but on some countries with stricter gun control laws the police don't carry firearms. So hypothetically, if the US had gun control the police use of arms could be scaled back as well. Also, look at all the European countries (Australia) with tight gun control laws, I'd hardly define them as places where:

"Where the criminals are the ones tasked with "keeping the peace" which will essentially become busting the skulls of those who make trouble for the ones who have power."

I'd say that is a extremely dramatic exaggeration of the implications of gun control.

 

That's not the case, when you go from a heavily armed and militarized police force to a place where citizens are stripped of ability of defend themselves from threats foreign and domestic you end up with Stalin's USSR and 20 to 30 million people end up killed and dumped into huge holes out in the middle of no where. People think the idea is insane however it is what has happened time and time again over the course of human history. Those in power wont easily give it in the current situation imagine what would happen if there was zero threat of the public being able to push back. SS style rule would be the norm.

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 

Oh man, the irony in #8. Assistant to the author of "4 Hour Work Week" gets burnt out from working 100 hour weeks.

Great read, though, especially for aspiring finance professionals trying to set their ideal work/life ratios.

 

5 is pure awesome. Someone finally with the balls to do something.

8 - truth is that you can die from lack of sleep. There's a word for it in Chinese but I don't remember it. Unsurprising for a rigid top down culture that will literally work people to death. What a lot of younger people, especially bankers, don't realize is that the brain actually cleans itself while you sleep. Not getting enough rest doesn't make you tougher. It causes dementia and makes you weaker the same way doing a heavy workout without stretching or consuming protein can damage your body and deplete it of resources. The military deliberately keeps new recruits on just over 6 hours of sleep a day to make sure they are uncreative, compliant zombies. All part of the training but they have an interest in keeping you alive...your MD doesn't give a shit. The scary part...the effects are semi-permanent. All these young bankers thinking they're going to start a business don't realize that the system is designed to make sure they stay running on that hampster wheel.

9 I still don't understand. What type of fuckery doesn't allow a willing zoo to take a protected species? If the team doing the culling is the same group responsible for the PR, I'm not at all confident of their judgement to kill. I actually have no problem with animal husbandry or butchering and can remember, after hunting as a kid, putting a five gallon bucket under the deer carcass hung from the rafters to catch the blood as it was cut up. Mmmm, venison. HOW the animal was killed and butched doesn't bother me. The people all butthurt over the public butchering are the same folks posting gruesome pictures of industrial meat production facebook in order to discourage eating meat, so I find that particular facet of the outrage to be somewhat hypocritical. The kids that saw this now have no illusions of what the process of producing their next steak is. In fact, feeding it to the lion was probably the best use of the meat. Imagine how outraged people would be if giraffe steaks were sold....and you know that a few guys here would want to try it. (I would) What I don't get is why they killed it in the first place. This isn't simple husbandry, they destroyed a rare and expensive animal because of their beaurocratic bylaws? It's wrong and wasteful. I'm not sure how the guy running the zoo still has a job...since when are zoos in the business of killing rare species???

Get busy living
 
Best Response

Video of the week -- the police in this country is becoming such a militarized force compared to what it once was. i'm sure they rolled up to that trailer with one enormous armored truck carrying swat/dea decked out in full assault gear ready to cut down anything that moved.

i came across this stat sometime over the last year -- In 2011 - the entire police force of Germany fired 85 bullets.

how many times have you seen a story where it took something like 30 rounds to take down a suspected drug dealer or 100 rounds to take a suspect who was pulling a firearm when in fact, he was reaching for a wallet or simply raising his hands?? the shoot to kill mentality has completely overwhelmed police and people wonder why nobody trusts the police.

one more thing about that german police stat - 49 of the 85 shots fired were warnings shots and 36 were aimed at criminal suspects. 15 people were injured, and 6 were killed.

a goal without a plan is a wish
 

LOL 85 shots fired for 6 killed. Those stats are way better than the cops over here. Its like 100 shots fired a 2 shots hit with the suspect still alive.

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 

@heister ; Perhaps, but I personally don't think that could ever happen. I don't think oppression stems from the physical sense of the word, but the political and psychological one. Merely supplying our law enforcement body with arms, perhaps unnecessary for peace keeping in the day-to-day sense, does not mean that they are being indoctrinated to suppress society. Police officers themselves, constitute members of US society and the liberties it affords us. Checks and balances do not consist of physical revolt anymore or for a country such as ours; we can vote and that will not change.

I just don't understand the motive either; perhaps if you (or someone) could delineate the purpose of the government suppressing our rights, I could better understand. Honestly, I believe our government is too sloth and inept to devise such a scheme anyways.

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for freedom of thought which they seldom use.
 

Totally anecdotal on gun control: someone was just shot to death 50 feet from me.

It hasn't even really popped up on the French news yet, but you'll see it in the next few hours. The wife and I went down the street for a Valentine's happy hour drink. About midway through our first beer, we see cops running down the street with their guns pulled - something you never see in Paris. We freak the fuck out and watch as no less than 20 cops subdue some guy in the bar next to the one we're having a drink in. The guy is fighting, and may have even stabbed a cop (I see one doubled over so I can't tell). In no time another 10 cops arrive, so now we're around 30 cops on the scene (which would only happen in New Orleans if a Krispy Kreme was on fire). The cops had to use force to subdue the guy they've grabbed, and the sheer number of cops leads me to believe that a gun crime has just taken place. I never heard a gunshot.

I've lived in Paris almost six years and have never seen anything like it. It was a gun murder (not even sure where you get a gun in a country with such tight gun control), and the guy walked in and shot his ex-wife who owned the bar on Valentine's Day. I found out over the course of the next couple hours that she had five kids, the youngest being five years old.

This is extremely surreal for someone (me) who has enjoyed the benefits of gun control over the past six years after moving here from a town where 400 people a year are shot to death on average. It's like we don't even know how to react, because it never happens here. I can send my wife out anywhere in the city at 1 AM and never have to worry about anything. Confrontational crime simply does not exist here.

I'm not saying I'm in favor of gun control (especially with police forces so obviously out of control), but it has definitely been nice not having to worry about it, and the shock I'm feeling right now really hammers it home.

Here's the only thing on it thus far:

http://english.cri.cn/6966/2014/02/15/2561s813038.htm

 

If you want to know why I believe that cops would happily join in the suppression of citizens it is simply best viewed in state capitol cities. You have city police, state police, state troopers, capitol police, and a host of other police forces all vying to one up each other in the douche bag level. A friend of mine was taking pictures of the state capitol and went over a fence to get a better view. Someone called the cops on him and when they showed up he talked to them and was packing up his stuff to move and they were fine about it and were going to let him go. Then another pair of cops showed up from a different force and the whole show had to be stated again. The new group took longer to persuade but they too were going to let him off. The a pair of new cops showed up from yet another force, this time there were too many cops standing around holding their cock and someone had to do something for fear of them all looking like a bunch pussies. The problem isn't that an individual would fail to see fault in what they are doing. The problem is that when you start pitting agencies against each other for funding and calling it "efficiency" you have cases of incredibly obnoxious arrests being made for a simple mistake and misunderstandings. If these are the kinds of issues and problems we have now imagine what would happen if there was no one to keep things in check. Have some illegal songs on your computer? Better not answer the door when someone knocks on it at midnight.

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 

Its a huge check, why do you think the first thing dictators try and do is disarm the citizenry. Sure the armed forces have tanks, air craft, ships and what not. However all of those things take a massive system to keep them going. What happens when the private infrastructure that keeps them moving stops? Think about it. Relatively small groups have brought down governments in very recent history, even governments backed by the US government.

Follow the shit your fellow monkeys say @shitWSOsays Life is hard, it's even harder when you're stupid - John Wayne
 

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