I was always honest; I know I can never be otherwise. I was never able to persuade myself to use money which I had acquired in questionable ways.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens 

(Nov 30, 1835 – Apr 21, 1910), 

better known by his pen name 

Mark Twain, was an American 

author and humorist. 

Said : Mark Twain, America's most famous literary icon, in The Autobiography of Mark Twain citing an incident from his real life when he had absolutely no money and was struggling to find work. 

Mark Twain began to gain fame when his story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches," priced $1.25" was published - on a ten percent royalty - with the help of his friend Charles H. Webb whom he had known in San Francisco as a reporter on The Bulletin and afterwards editor of The Californian.

In the meantime, American Publishing Company of Hartford offered Mark Twain five percent royalty (or ten thousand dollars lump sum cash) on a book which would tell the adventures of his sailing in the Quaker City excursion. Twain closed the deal with the option of royalty and went to Washington. "I was out of money and I went down to Washington to see if I could earn enough there to keep me in bread and butter while I wrote the book," writes Twain in the Autobiography.



Twain then gives details of how he met William Swinton, whom he describes "one of the dearest and loveliest human beings I have ever known," and together they 'invented a scheme' which is a very common feature called the 'syndicate' in today's newspaper world. Hence, their's was the first original newspaper syndicate in the world. Describing their 'small scale untried new enterprise', Mark Twain writes : "We had twelve journals on our list; they were all weeklies, unknown and poor and scattered far away in the settlements. It was a proud thing for those little newspapers to have a Washington correspondent and a fortunate thing for us that they felt in that way about it. Each of the twelve took two letters a week from us, at a dollar per letter; each of us wrote one letter per week and sent off twelve copies of it to the journals, thus getting twenty­four dollars a week to live on, which was all we needed in our cheap and humble quarters.

He then describes how he spent a day when all of a sudden they wanted just three dollars but had none. 

"We had to have three dollars and we had to have it before the close of the day. I don’t know now how we happened to want all that money at one time; I only know we had to have it. Swinton told me to go out and find it and he said he would also go out and see what he could do. He didn’t seem to have any doubt that we would succeed but I knew that that was his religion working in him; I hadn’t the same confidence; I hadn’t any idea where to turn to raise all that money, and I said so. I think he was ashamed of me, privately, because of my weak faith. He told me to give myself no uneasiness, no concern; and said in a simple, confident and unquestioning way, “The Lord will provide.” I saw that he fully believed the Lord would provide but it seemed to me that if he had had my experience—but never mind that; before he was done with me his strong faith had had its influence and I went forth from the place almost convinced that the Lord really would provide.

I wandered around the streets for an hour, trying to think up some way to get that money, but nothing suggested itself. At last I walked into the Ebbitt Hotel, and sat down. Presently a dog came over to me. He paused, glanced up at me and said with his eyes, “Are you friendly?” I answered with my eyes that I was. He waved his tail happily and came forward and rested his head on my knee and lifted his brown eyes to my face in a loving way. He was a charming creature, as beautiful as a girl, and he was all made of silk and velvet. I stroked his smooth brown head and we were a pair of lovers right away. Pretty soon Brig. Gen. Miles, the hero of the land, came walking by in his blue and gold uniform, with everybody’s admiring gaze upon him. He saw the dog and stopped, and there was a light in his eye which showed that he had a warm place in his heart for dogs like this gracious creature; then he came forward and patted the dog and said: 

“He is very fine—he is a wonder; would you sell him?”

I was greatly moved; it seemed a marvelous thing to me, the way Swinton’s faith had worked out.

I said, “Yes.”

The General said, “What do you ask for him?”

“Three dollars.”

The General was obviously surprised. He said, “Three dollars? Only three dollars? Why that dog is a most uncommon dog; he can’t possibly be worth less than fifty. If he were mine, I wouldn’t take a hundred for him. I am afraid you are not aware of his value. Reconsider your price if you like. I don’t wish to wrong you. 

“But if he had known me he would have known that I was no more capable of wronging him than he was of wronging me. I replied: “No, three dollars. That is his price.”

“Very well, since you insist upon it,” said the General, and he gave me three dollars and led the dog away and disappeared upstairs.

In about ten minutes a gentle ­faced, middle ­aged gentleman came along and began to look around here and there and under tables and everywhere and I said to him, “Is it a dog you are looking for?”

His face had been sad before and troubled; but it lit up gladly now and he answered, “Yes—have you seen him?”

“Yes,” I said, “he was here a minute ago and I saw him follow a gentleman away. I think I could find him for you if you would like me to try.” I have seldom seen a person look so grateful. He said that he would like me to try. I said I would do it with great pleasure but that as it might take a little time I hoped he would not mind paying me something for my trouble. He said he would do it most gladly—repeating that phrase “most gladly”—and asked me how much.

I said, “Three dollars.”

He looked surprised, and said, “Dear me, it is nothing! I will pay you ten, quite willingly.”

But I said, “ No, three is the price,” and I started for the stairs without waiting for any further argument, for Swinton had said that that was the amount the Lord would provide and it seemed to me that it would be wrong to take a penny more than was promised.

I got the number of the General’s room from the office clerk and when I reached the room I found the General there petting his dog and quite happy. I said, “I am sorry, but I have to take the dog again.”

He seemed very much surprised and said, “Take him again? Why, he is my dog; you sold him to me and at your own price.”

“Yes,” I said, “it is true—but I have to have him, because the man wants him again.”

“What man?”

“The man that owns him; he wasn’t my dog.”

The General looked even more surprised than before, and for a moment he couldn’t seem to find his voice; then he said, “Do you mean to tell me that you were selling another man’s dog—and knew it?”

“Yes, I knew it wasn’t my dog.”

“Then why did you sell him?”

I said, “Well, that is a curious question to ask. I sold him because you wanted him. You offered to buy the dog; you can’t deny that. I was not anxious to sell him—I had not even thought of selling him, but it seemed to me that—”

He broke me off in the middle and said, “It is the most extraordinary thing I have ever heard of—the idea of your selling a dog that didn’t belong to you—”

I broke him off there and said, “You said yourself that the dog was probably worth a hundred dollars. I only asked you three; was there anything unfair about that? You offered to pay more, you know you did. I only asked you three; you can’t deny it.”

“Oh, what in the world has that to do with it! The truth of the matter is that you didn’t own the dog—can’t you see that? You seem to think that there is nothing wrong in selling property that isn’t yours provided you sell it cheap. Now then—”

I said, “Please don’t argue any more about it. You can’t get around the fact that the price was perfectly fair, perfectly reasonable—considering that I didn’t own the dog—and so arguing about it is only a waste of words. I have to have him back again because the man wants him; don’t you see that I haven’t any choice in the matter? Put yourself in my place. Suppose you had sold a dog that didn’t belong to you; suppose you—”

“Oh,” he said, “don’t mix me up any more with your crazy reasonings! Take him along and give me a rest.”

So I paid back the three dollars and led the dog downstairs and passed him over to his owner and collected three for my trouble. I went away then with a good conscience, because I had acted honorably; I never could have used the three that I sold the dog for, because it was not rightly my own, but the three I got for returning him to his rightful owner was rightly and properly mine, because I had earned it. That man might never have gotten that dog back at all, if it hadn’t
been for me. My principles have remained to this day what they were then. I was always honest; I know I can never be otherwise. It is as I said in the beginning—I was never able to persuade myself to use money which I had acquired in questionable ways.

Now then, that is the tale. Some of it is true."

The Autobiography of Mark Twain (From the Preface)

In this Autobiography, I shall keep in mind the fact that I am speaking from the grave…. I shall be dead when the book issues from the press…. It seemed to me that I could be as frank and free as in a love letter if I knew that what I was writing would be exposed to no eye until I was dead, and unaware, and indifferent.

- Mark Twain

Never take out a loan to pay off another. Young adults often have a tendency to overestimate their revenue while publicity gives them the impression that everything is affordable

Said : Karim Bortolussi, a social worker from the Bern-Jura Protestant Social Center (CSP) at the Centre for Professional Training in Moutier, canton Bern. He was speaking to a class of second-year apprentices at the Centre that provides training to Swiss youngsters with regard budgeting and various expenses in order to avoid the debt trap. 

According to a Swiss daily, youngsters - seduced by adverts and special offers - are increasingly getting caught in debt traps. The Center for Professional Training offers various courses to young adults consisting of future mechanics and restaurant managers aged between 17-25 who don't realize how easy it is to get into debt. 

The average monthly salary of an employee who has undergone an apprenticeship is less than CHF3,989 ($4,300) before tax, which is defined as the low salary threshold. According to Bortolussi, one in five young people are confronted by financial difficulties and rack up their first debt by the age of 25. The course is financed by canton Bern which is Switzerland’s second most populous canton with roughly 985,000 inhabitants.

Credit Suisse, Zurich. Wally Gobetz photo

The debt prevention course focuses on giving practical advice: setting a budget, looking at how health insurance, taxes and different contracts work (mobile phones, gym, leasing schemes), the cost of loans and the pitfalls of credit cards and client loyalty schemes. It also covers how easy it is to fall into the spiral of debt and how hard it is to escape. According to Bortolussi, once in debt, youngsters first try to get out of trouble themselves, by taking out another loan or contacting private loan companies which have very high interest rates. When they contact us after several years, their situation is often very bad. The Swiss Debt Advice, an umbrella organisation for 40 cantonal and community debt relief service centres, is active in promoting prevention measures in schools. Such services are found to be very essential but are still insufficient. 


In a country that gives lots of space to banks and credit businesses to flourish, its hard to believe that excessive debt is a problem people face in Switzerland.

I have yet to see a death case among the dozen coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial... People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Said : Ruth Bader Ginsburg, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, way back in 2001 (Aug. 10), delivering a lecture on the importance of public service law at the University of the District of Columbia as reported in a news item by The Associated Press. Ginsburg had admitted that she found the death penalty "the hardest part of the job." "If given her druthers, she would "go back to the day to when the Supreme Court said the death penalty can't be applied with an even hand," Ginsburg had mentioned.

Justice Ginsburg voiced her support for a moratorium on the death penalty and criticized the inadequate funding available for those who represent poor people. "People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty," said Ginsburg. "I have yet to see a death case among the dozens coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial." 

"Our system of justice works best when opposing positions are well represented and fully aired," she reportedly said.

The discussion on the award of capital punishment is age-old. Amnesty International, in a statement, says "it opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception regardless of the nature of the crime, the characteristics of the offender, or the method used by the state to kill the prisoner. The organization campaigns for total abolition of capital punishment. Proponents put forward a number of arguments for retaining the death penalty, including that it is necessary for an effective criminal justice system. However, these arguments do not stand up to scrutiny. One often cited argument is that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to serious crimes. In reality, there is no evidence that the death penalty is a stronger deterrent against crime than custodial sentences."

According to the 2012 report of Amnesty International, at least 582 executions were known to have been carried in 21 countries. However, these figures do not include the thousands of people who were believed to have been executed in China. Since its 2009 report, Amnesty International stopped publishing its estimates on the use of the death penalty in China, where such data are considered a state secret. The report says : "Amnesty International renews its challenge to the Chinese authorities to publish figures for the number of people sentenced to death and executed each year, to confirm their claims that there has been a significant reduction in the use of the death penalty in the country since 2007". The total number of people sentenced to death was at least 1,722 in 58 countries in 2012.

11th World Day Against the Death Penalty was observed on October 10, 2013.

The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, formed in 2003, is an alliance of more than 140 NGOs, bar associations, local authorities and unions with the ultimate aim of the universal abolition of the death penalty. The organisation helps activists worldwide to unite and participate in the struggle for universal abolition of the death penalty. The coalition believes that "No state should have the power to take a citizen’s life."

Capital punishment or the death penalty violates the principle of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that "everyone has the right to life and that no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." It is also against the spirit of three resolutions passed by the UN General Assembly - in December 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2012 - seeking a moratorium on the use of the death penalty.

I don’t know of anybody in the business community who takes the side of the Taliban minority

Dirk Van Dongen
(Pic : Richard A. Bloom)

said Dirk Van Dongen, longtime chief lobbyist for the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors (NAW) who has known Boehner since the lawmaker’s first election, according to the Washington Post's story of today titled "Business groups stand by Boehner, plot against tea party." Dirk Van Dongen is President of NAW, which represents the $4.9 trillion dollar American wholesale distribution industry. He is regarded as a powerful fundraiser and a political advicer, too. His comment quite clearly compares the pressure tactics adopted by the  tea party members, during the entire shutdown episode, with the Taliban - a well-known terrorist organization.

The story, by Jia Lynn Yang and Tom Hamburger, says that John A. Boehner still has the support of the business community despite the fact that he yielded to the pressure of a bunch of tea party lawmakers and activist groups such as Heritage Action and the Club for Growth and in the process "nearly drove the country to a debt default." The shutdown and debt-ceiling fight have exposed a rift in the Republican Party and  Boehner and his circle of powerful business allies and influential organizations - such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce - are now getting ready to take on tea party candidates in a few Republican primary races in at least three states - Michigan, Alabama, and possibly Idaho.

Commenting on the above story, a Washington Post reader with user name 'outsider6', wrote : "It's funny to read bloggers bash Boehner. It seems to me the guy has a brutal job managing a group that includes about 30% who are utterly devoid of common sense. I refer, of course, to the Tea Party RINOs. People clamor for a 3rd party in this country -- well, we have one. The TP-RINOs have wormed their way into the GOP. Th GOP is essentially a european-style governing coalition more than a party. Boehner had the unenviable task of unmasking the TP-RINOs as destructive and dangerous to his caucus and to the more moderate factions in the country who supported them. By letting this play out, he provided cover to his moderate faction while exposing the TP-RINO wing. If an actual budget emerges from the conference committee in January and passes both houses, I say Boehner is Man of the Year." 

The comment sounds to be quite logical, perhaps.

Hitler's formidable abilities as an actor are often overlooked. There are only very rare situations where we can say he was being genuine. This is what makes it so difficult to answer the question of what he was like as a person. Hitler had a very normal love life with Eva Braun. He was also supposedly missing one testicle, which made him reluctant to undress in front of women

Hitler had a very normal
love life with Eva Braun (Picture : AP)

Said Volker Ullrich, a German historian, journalist and author, in an interview with Jan Fleischhauer of Spiegel.

Volker Ullrich has provided many details about Adolf Hitler in the interview published today. The questions were based on his book (to be released this week) : New German Biography: Hitler's Underestimated Charisma. When asked what he thought of Hitler in view of the general feeling that Hitler was a psychopath, especially because someone capable of committing such crimes could not have been normal, Ulrich replied : "Hitler was without a doubt exceptional in his criminal deeds. Yet in many respects, he was not at all out of the ordinary. We will never be able to understand the terrible things that happened between 1933 and 1945 if we deny from the outset that Hitler also had human characteristics, and if we fail to take into account not only his criminal energies, but also the appealing qualities he had. 

So long as we view him only as a horrifying monster, the allure he undoubtedly exerted will remain a riddle." "He was not as crazy as some scholars of psycho history would have us believe, at least, with their far too simplistic lines of argumentation. He may even have been more normal than we might wish," he added.

Ullrich said : "I bring the man back to the forefront. This creates not a completely new picture of Hitler, but still a more complex and contradictory one than we're familiar with," when asked why he had to write Hitler's biography when already two authors have done that - one by Joachim Fest (1973) and another by Ian Kershaw (in two volumes, 1998). 

Regarding "Hitler the Person" - a key chapter in his book, Ullrich said : "The remarkable thing about Hitler was his talent for dissimulation. He could be very pleasant, even to people he detested. Yet he was also incredibly cold even to people very close to him. He not only could chat very pleasantly among his close acquaintances, but absolutely knew how to listen as well." Hitler lived in the men's dormitory for three years in Vienna where he maintained decidedly friendly contact with Jews. The dealers who bought his paintings at a decent price were also Jews. Hitler was never more than average as an artist. His great talent was for the games of politics. It's easy to underestimate the exceptional qualities and abilities he brought to bear in order to succeed in this field. In the space of just three years, he rose from an unknown veteran to the king of Munich, filling the city's largest halls week after week. He was also a skilled tactician, outmaneuvering his competition step by step. He surrounded himself with followers who looked up to him devoutly. And he secured the support of influential patrons.

Volker Ullrich(Picture by Jörg Müller/ Agentur Focus/ DER SPIEGEL)

Hitler constructed his speeches very deliberately. He began very calmly, tentatively, almost as if he were feeling his way forward and trying to sense to what degree he had a hold of the audience so far. Not until he was certain of their approval did he escalate his word choice and gestures, becoming more aggressive. He continued this for two or three hours until he reached the climax, an intoxicating peak that left many listeners with tears running down their faces. There were people who held a very negative view of Hitler at first, yet still got swept up and carried away when they experienced him. 

When asked what would have been the scenario if Hitler had not existed, Ullrich said : "One possibility would have been an authoritarian government largely directed by the military. Anti-Jewish laws presumably would have been implemented without Hitler as well. But the Holocaust - this last, radical extreme of the political Utopian vision of a racially homogeneous society - never would have happened. It is unimaginable without Hitler.

Brain Preservation & Mind Uploading to Overcome Death : A high quality brain chemical preservation procedure can save thousands, perhaps millions of lives. If we or one of our loved ones are faced with imminent death in the near future, we want the real opportunity to choose such a brain preservation procedure to keep them in suspended animation

Ken Hayworth

Says the Brain Preservation Foundation in an open letter aimed at raising awareness regarding the science, ethics and legality surrounding the emerging scientific process of chemical, whole-brain preservation. This document is intended for members of the government, medical and scientific communities as well as the general public. Those who agree with  the Foundation's observations and reasoning can sign an ipetition in favour of their proposal.

According to Ken Hayworth, President and Co-Founder of the Brain Preservation Foundation, with proposed imaging technology scientists can theoretically gather all of the circuits of a human brain - the connectome - to collect the data necessary to recreate a person. Hayworth is currently a Senior Scientist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Farm Research Campus (JFRC) in Ashburn, Virginia. Prior to moving to JFRC, Hayworth was a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University.

The open letter has called upon the medical and scientific community "to seriously evaluate the possibility of chemically preserving an entire human brain at the ultrastructure level, to develop the surgical techniques necessary to do so, and when a verified protocol is developed, to work with appropriate members of the medical and governmental community to integrate an elective chemical brain preservation procedure into mainstream medical practice in hospitals in every country of the world." The letter further says "We profess this right because we realize that sooner or later we will contract an illness for which current medical practice is insufficient to prevent our death. At which time, instead of simply allowing the natural decay process to proceed, we should have the option to have the exact structure of our brain’s neuronal circuits immediately preserved by the best means possible, which by today’s laboratory standards is rapid glutaraldehyde fixation (via vascular perfusion) followed by further chemical fixation and embedding in plastic for long‐term storage."

We live in very exciting times. Soon, people all over
the world may have at least two reliable and proven
ways to preserve their brains, including their
individual memories and identities, after they die.

There are many who would desire the option to perfectly and inexpensively preserve their brains at the nanometer scale today, for the possibility that future science might be able to read their memories or restore their full identities, as desired. millions of people have at least briefly considered the possibility of having themselves or their loved ones cryonically preserved (very low-temperature preservation and storage) in the hope that future medical technology might revive and cure them. Giving sceintific details of the process, the letter says "We choose brain preservation over natural decay because we accept the current scientific consensus that
our unique conscious self is generated by processes within our physical brain. Further, we accept that all the memories, skills, and personality traits that make us unique are hardwired into the physical and molecular connections among our brain’s hundred billion neurons. Such a structural basis of memory and personality is demonstrated by the fact that surgical patients are often put into a state of Profound Hypothermia and Circulatory Arrest (PHCA) in which all patterned brain activity is halted for up to a full hour, yet these patients revive with memory and personality completely intact. The structural basis of memory and personality – the synaptic connectivity between neurons – can be preserved essentially perfectly by today’s chemical fixation and plastic embedding techniques. Extrapolating from current technologies for the nano‐imaging of plastic embedded brain tissue, we believe that one day science will have advanced sufficiently to allow complete retrieval of memories from such a preserved brain. Thus, to us, brain preservation is a way to prevent the permanent loss of our uniqueness and a way to pass this uniqueness on to future generations."

The letter has sought that the brain preservation procedure must be considered an emergency surgical procedure demanding as rapid a response as CPR, defibrillation and PHCA. Under today’s laws, if a patient’s respiration and blood flow has ceased, if there is no brain activity, and if current medical techniques are unable to restore these processes within a relatively short period of time then the patient is declared legally dead. In current law there is no consideration given to the possibility of preserving the patient in a static state for long periods of time (decades) so that they can reach future medical technology capable of bringing them back to life. These laws must be modified to reflect the advances in science and technology that have made such a scenario likely.  

Hayworth, in his recent paper in the International Journal of Machine Consciousness, has discussed in detail the roadmap to achieve the goal of Brain Preservation & Mind Uploading, what he calls, "landing a man in cyberspace and returning him safely to consciousness."

The Brain Preservation Foundation has announced a cash prize for the first individual or team to rigorously demonstrate a surgical technique capable of inexpensively and completely preserving an entire human brain for long-term (>100 years) storage. The Foundation feels that the development and deployment of a standardized, high quality Whole‐Brain Plastic Embedding (WBPE) procedure is going to be an important achievement to advance the research to achieve the final goal.

Interested? Sign the ipetition.

As professional hostage-takers, we never take hostages unless we have a well-thought-out plan, realistic demands, and a clear exit strategy. Any comparison between what we do and these inane Tea Party antics are derogatory and unacceptable

Said a group representing America’s hostage-takers, according to today's Borowitz Report published in The New Yorker. According to the Borowitz Report, the group has "blasted President Obama for his repeated comparisons between them and the Tea Party Republicans, calling his remarks “degrading and hurtful.”

The National Alliance of Hostage-Takers and Blackmailers (NAHTB), in a press statement sent to Borowitz, said : “For years, our members have been subjected to offensive Hollywood stereotypes of hostage-takers as crazed madmen, cackling evildoers, and worse. The President’s degrading and hurtful remarks only reinforce those negative images.”

9/19 Luckovich cartoon: Hostage taking

The Borowitz Report, however, has reported that, in order to calm down the NAHTB members, White House press spokesman offered an apology : “As you can imagine, in the heat of a crisis we often say things we don’t mean. The President regrets any hurt his remarks may have caused.” The spokesman also assured NAHTB that the President has decided to resist his temptation to call the Tea Party Republicans terrorists, lunatics, or babies in order to avoid offending other similar groups who may or may not be associated with the NAHTB.

The Borowitz Report, which keeps us informed about such important and sensitive developments taking place behind the scene, deserves to be liked and shared by more and more netizens. Political cartoons from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution\'s Pulitzer Prize winner Mike Luckovich are also eye openers.

(Courtsey : Andy Borowitz - The New Yorker's satirical Borowitz Report and Mike Luckovich)