History's Greatest Lies: The Startling Truths Behind World Events our History Books Got Wrong
![]() |
Review:Fun if a little boring, but probably because I am not equally interested in all the areas it covers. |
![]() |
Review:Fun if a little boring, but probably because I am not equally interested in all the areas it covers. |
Let me share with you a piece from Money Central, but I am not picking on them, you can find the same crap on every newspaper or TV channel's financial section:
The push to dump stocks came in response to news that artillery fire was exchanged overnight between North Korea and South Korea. Though tension between the two nations has been persistent, the latest episode marks a dramatic escalation of the tone between them.
That development added to the distress of market participants, who have long held concern for the fragile state of finances among countries in the European Union periphery. Even Ireland remains a point of worry as it has yet to completely structure a bailout package and implement austerity measures.
Distress and uncertainty moved many into the relative safety of the dollar, which was up 1.3% against competing currencies at the close of trade. The advance marked its biggest one-day bounce in a month and put the currency at its best level in almost two months.
But my title is a lie, these guys are not looking at a magic 8-ball. What they are looking at is the rest of the newspaper. Let me share the recipe:
See if the market is up or down.
Up? Then look at the news and check for good news.
What? No important god news? Awesome! Then figure out how something that looks bad is actually good. That's a golden chance to be declared insightful.
Good news? Bingo, that's why the market is up.
Down? Look at the news and check for bad news.
Bad news? Ok, that's why.
No big bad news? Great! Then something that's good needs to be described as "causing uncertainty"
In the real world, the business analysts have only the foggiest notion of why the markets move as they do. In fact, if they had a notion, the market wouldbe predictable. If it were predictable, then savvy investors would beat the market.
And that doesn't happen.
![]() |
Review:Imagine a book written completely from the point of view of a misanthrope. Now imagine said misanthrope is prone to sophomoric mental ramblings. Add some endearing features such as believing he is smarter than anyone else. Add a lot of other varied misanthropes as characters. Now make them completely unidimensional, so you can define each of them in one line ("Onni is nice and makes music"). Put those characters in a brief, not very interesting journey where not much happens except that they are all destructive morons. |
![]() |
Review:It's pulp. It's very old. It's aimed at kids. It's part of the "Tom Corbett: Space Cadet!" series. So, it is kinda fun, if you can look the other way whenever it gets really sexist, or silly, but I can't quite recommend it to anyone. |
This title came to mind when I saw in the news references to an article in The Lancet about how in 2030 7 out of 10 deaths would be due to cardiovascular, diabetes, cancer, and chronic obstructive respiratory diseases.
The lesson most newspapers get out of this is "whoa, we are a bunch of lazy, salt and fat eating morons and we are all gonna die".
Sure, we are all gonna die, and yes, more people will die of those chronic illnesses in 2030. But that's mostly because we are not going to die of many other things that used to kill us earlier.
So, eat more veggies, stop smoking and don't worry too much.
Oh, and about cigarettes and lightning? I must confess I don't have the numbers to prove it, but I would be very surprised if that was not the case. After all, smoking 40 cigarettes a day should reduce your life expectation, and the less you live, the less likely are you to be hit by lightning. It's even a direct causal connection!