Quotes of the day

... though Red was established with the express purpose of generating charitable funds to “help eliminate AIDS in Africa,” the entity behind the campaign is not itself a charity.--William Easterly and Laura Freschi

Esquire's editors apparently can't tell the difference between bending the cost curve, spending less money, and reducing the deficit. These are not the same thing.--Peter Suderman

My brother and Woods both had affairs because they were looking for a validation that only sex with strangers gave them. That Woods's preference in road beef is, at best, medium-rare, just goes to show: In his mind, every time he made a new conquest, it was like the president of the chess club rocking the big-tittied cheerleader under the bleachers. Every hookup was another chance for him to prove to himself that he wasn't what he remembered he once was.--Chris Jones

It is important that research and development spending is devoted to developing new, alternative technologies instead of simply propping up today's inefficient technology. We can find a case of the latter in Germany, which pays a huge amount to cut tiny amounts of carbon through supporting solar power. This support costs €0.43 per kWh, which is equivalent to spending €716 to cut every ton of CO2. Yet the expected climate damage of each ton is about €4.--Bjorn Lomborg

In the interest of self-preservation, my [corporate spy] colleagues and I try to stay within the law—no stealing, no trespassing, no wiretaps (that's where Steven Seagal's pal Anthony Pellicano made his mistake)—but that leaves a lot of gray areas. You don't want to do anything that might land you in the newspaper, in a courtroom, or in front of a congressional committee. And yet, every once in a while, you pay someone to sleep with the homely sister of a CEO's nemesis and pump her for information. A Hollywood agent once text-messaged me while she was on a date to ask, "Does this guy own or lease his Mercedes?"--anonymous

And some quotes from Why do aphorisms and cynicism go together (via Tyler Cowen):

We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore.

We promise according to our hopes; we fulfill according to our fears.

What often prevents us from abandoning ourselves to one vice is that we have several.

We confess to little faults only to persuade ourselves we have no great ones.

There are few people who are more often wrong than those who cannot suffer being wrong.

Nothing prevents us being natural so much as the desire to appear so.