Quentin Tarantino on THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Comic: The Circle of Life

Diamondback the Cannible

He moved from town to town, place to place
Killing and eating and serving the chase
Doing the only thing he knew how to do
Taking the life of another

Diamondback they called him and he took it with pride
He had always felt like a rattler deep down inside
He killed just as they did, to eat and survive
Feeding on the passive cattle

A man in one town, a woman in the next
A child, playing, who he happen to vex
Refusal to acknowledge wouldn't spare his meal
All fell to his vicious hunger

Once while taking the meat from his kill
He saw a rattler bite a cat then go still
He blinked and the rattler was gone which revealed
Just the cat... with a rat... in his mouth...

Then, while dining in a hole he had found
A man busted in and pinned Diamond down
He stuck his shotgun in Diamondback's mouth
And screamed as he pulled the trigger

Now the cops made a big deal and the man sat and cried
Diamondback's corpse still lay twisted inside
But anybody whose anybody knows how to deal
With a big ol' rattler whose chose you for a meal
You blow its goddammn head off

In 1863, San Francisco newspapers reported endlessly on the cooked books and financial trickery of mining outfits, and the San Francisco news outlet Territorial Enterprise advised investors to instead put their capital consisting of plague-ridden blankets and Buffalo nickels into San Francisco utility companies. Not out of financial responsibility, or anything; the utility companies were paying several papers bribes for reporting the tips. Still, most people didn't realize what was going on, they just read story after story to the tune of "Oh my God, investing in utilities is so good, you guys."

Except one story.

One story told of a man named Philip Hopkins who invested his life savings in Spring Valley Water Company of San Francisco on the advice of local papers but unfortunately lost it all. And as what many of us have done after the news of financial hardship, Hopkins slaughtered his family, slit his throat from ear to ear and rode off onto the sunset carrying his wife's bloody scalp. Hopkins allegedly died from his injuries at the door of a saloon, and an old fashioned posse investigated the Hopkins household, finding only two daughters alive. The papers published this horrifying tale and the public put a little less faith in the "Put All Of Your Money In Utilities" financial strategy that they'd heard so much about.

The gruesomeness of that story is matched only by its total bullshittitude. Never missing an opportunity to embarrass other people while twirling his awesome mustache, Mark Twain made the entire thing up, deliberately writing a story that was so ridiculous and sensational that any paper would have to publish it. Shortly after the news brouhaha that followed, Twain confessed to his publisher, who was actually pleased by the increased paper circulation and didn't fire Twain. That just goes to show you: If you completely fabricate a gruesome story for the sake of destroying someone else, nothing bad can possibly happen to you.

-from Cracked.com

Richard Feynman on Social Science

One of the most brilliant men of our time.

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The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the Agri-intellectuals

Farming has always been messy and painful, and bloody and dirty. It still is. This is something the critics of industrial farming never seem to understand.

I’m dozing, as I often do on airplanes, but the guy behind me has been broadcasting nonstop for nearly three hours. I finally admit defeat and start some serious eavesdropping. He’s talking about food, damning farming, particularly livestock farming, compensating for his lack of knowledge with volume.

I’m so tired of people who wouldn’t visit a doctor who used a stethoscope instead of an MRI demanding that farmers like me use 1930s technology to raise food. Farming has always been messy and painful, and bloody and dirty. It still is.

But now we have to listen to self-appointed experts on airplanes frightening their seatmates about the profession I have practiced for more than 30 years. I’d had enough. I turned around and politely told the lecturer that he ought not believe everything he reads. He quieted and asked me what kind of farming I do. I told him, and when he asked if I used organic farming, I said no, and left it at that. I didn’t answer with the first thought that came to mind, which is simply this: I deal in the real world, not superstitions, and unless the consumer absolutely forces my hand, I am about as likely to adopt organic methods as the Wall Street Journal is to publish their next edition by setting the type by hand.

Young turkeys aren't smart enough to come in out of the rain, and will stand outside in a downpour, with beaks open and eyes skyward, until they drown.

He was a businessman, and I’m sure spends his days with spreadsheets, projections, and marketing studies. He hasn’t used a slide rule in his career and wouldn’t make projections with tea leaves or soothsayers. He does not blame witchcraft for a bad quarter, or expect the factory that makes his product to use steam power instead of electricity, or horses and wagons to deliver his products instead of trucks and trains. But he expects me to farm like my grandfather, and not incidentally, I suppose, to live like him as well. He thinks farmers are too stupid to farm sustainably, too cruel to treat their animals well, and too careless to worry about their communities, their health, and their families. I would not presume to criticize his car, or the size of his house, or the way he runs his business. But he is an expert about me, on the strength of one book, and is sharing that expertise with captive audiences every time he gets the chance. Enough, enough, enough.

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