Author Archives: Niall Murphy

Ruth – a baby Hoffman’s Two-Toed Sloth born six weeks ago at Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, NY. Nursed back to health after being born underweight, she’s now reportedly ‘as active as a Two-Toed Sloth ought to be’.

Which is to say, fairly chilled out.

zooborns

Actually, it’s a duckrabbit. In 1899, the American psycholgist Joseph Jastrow drew the above cartoon to illustrate the point that we see with the mind as well as the eye.

Now, 111 years on, someone’s recreated it in 3D, using taxidermy. Obviously, it’s an abomination unto the Lord, but it does highlight Jastrow’s point rather elegantly.

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The Cowen/Lenihan government – which has been wrong about everything on the economy – is putting its faith in blind optimism….This is blind and pathetic optimism, because it is based on the same three-card trick, the same bluff and gamble that got us here in the first place. In short, they have learnt nothing at all.’

(David McWilliams, yesterday’s Sunday Business Post)

Yes. Not bad, David. But this is how you tear Brian Lenihan a new one:

‘…on Prime Time , Lenihan announced that the entire banking system would be restored to “the greatness it once had”. Oh dear God – he really means “greatness”.

And the greatness our banking system as a whole once had? The cronyism of overlapping boards? The grotesque salaries and bonuses for people who proved so wildly incompetent? The revolving doors through which regulators became bankers and vice versa? The cooking of the books?

The terrifying thing about all of this is the mentality it reveals. It helps explain why Brian Lenihan has made so many disastrous decisions and why he still can’t face up to the reality that the banks played him like a violin’.

(Fintan O’Toole, last Tuesday’s Irish Times)

A fan weighs-in.

Rare book blogger Steerforth recently came into possesion of a photo album from the north of England dating back to the 1860s that had been narrowly rescued from a skip. His original post includes an amazing set of 30 images, but this one leaps out.

It’s all in the eyes.

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