LeavittDC

Winning lawsuits while losing the bigger fight

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Fri, 23 May 2025 19:23:00 +0000

A court has struck down the Trump administration's ban on Harvard University enrolling foreign students. Yet Trump's judicial defeat does not weaken Trump — instead it reinforces to Americans that he is fighting for a popular policy while universities and courts (and Democrats) stand in the way.

Polls show that only 36% of Americans have a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in higher education (Gallup) and just 14% say college provides a clear financial return (College Investor). These numbers make it clear that America lacks confidence in institutes of higher learning.

On immigration, 55% of Americans say they want immigration levels reduced (Gallup). 62% say people trying to immigrate to the United States have "worse character" (Axios). 66% say they they support deporting immigrants (Ipsos). Clearly, the public mood is strongly anti-immigrant.

As a result, politicians who challenge universities and take the maximalist position against immigrants are taking popular actions favored by a majority of people.

This week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem defined habeas corpus as a constitutional right for the president to remove people from the country. University-educated critics mocked Noem for not citing the literal meaning of the Latin term. Yet Americans aren't persuaded by technicalities. Instead, they see who is fighting for what they want and who is standing in their way.

To win this debate, Democrats need to champion universities and immigrants as essential to America's strength — they're part of what makes America great! — rather than seek to score points on semantics.

Burrito debt

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 17:07:00 +0000

$34 to DoorDash a burrito and soda to your house? Now that DoorDash has partnered with Klarna, you can choose a Pay Later option to defer food delivery purchases into four monthly payments. Nothing says financial stability like financing a single burrito.

Some people can't afford to buy a meal, and when the choice is between going hungry or eating it's not really a choice at all. But if you can't afford a burrito without breaking it into a four-month payment plan, then you can't afford a burrito. All DoorDash is doing is roping more people into debt for something as basic as dinner.

It's not just DoorDash. Even socially respected companies play this game. Apple's partnership with Klarna lures people into buying $1,200 phones with payment plans that make premium devices seem deceptively affordable.

American consumer debt is over $17 trillion. Mortgages, student loans, auto loans, credit card debt, and now burrito debt.

It’s a natural business decision for DoorDash in a world in which it's normalized to be in debt for literally everything.

Incumbents didn't stand a chance

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 17:04:00 +0000

Kamala Harris had an advantage in fundraising and campaign mobilization. Yet she got trounced. The lesson is that advertising and organizing doesn't matter in politics, right?

Wrong.

In the battleground states where she leveraged those resource advantages, Harris underperformed Joe Biden's 2020 results by 1.6 points. In the non-battleground states where she did not meaningfully compete, she underperformed 2020 by 3.9 points. This means that in the places where the Harris campaign spent money and organized and knocked on doors, she did better.*

Duh, it wasn't enough. Yet consider the political environment in 2024 for incumbent parties: across the world this year, each governing party facing election has lost vote share. Every single one. (This is the first time that had ever happened.)

No one would suggest that Democrats pat themselves on the back when the result of their efforts is a Donald Trump victory. But look at this chart:**

The red dot is the 2024 Democrats, the other dots represent the other incumbent parties around the globe. To be super clear, America’s Democrats out-performed absolutely every other governing party in the entire world this year.

In the end, money and organizing absolutely matter. But the political landscape and headwinds matter more.

* Overall, Harris lost ground vs. 2020 results in all states except for Washington and Utah. Data comes from Jon Favreau on Pod Save America.

** This chart is from John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial Times. The data goes back to 1905. Going back further than that gets complicated, yet it is safe to say that 2024 was the worst year in world history for incumbent parties in a democracy.

Paperweights have become paperweights

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 16:42:00 +0000

When something goes unused or becomes obsolete, it's said to become a paperweight.

Is your cellphone slow and out of date? It's become a paperweight. Is your laptop too slow to use? It's become a paperweight. Do you never use your Apple Vision Pro? It's become a paperweight.

Weirdly, paper itself has become a paperweight. People do their work on laptops, tablets, and phones. Most homes don't have printers. Not only do we not need paperweights, we barely need paper!

As Nasty As They Wanna Be

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 16:00:00 +0000

Brother Marquis of 2 Live Crew died earlier this month.

When I was in 8th grade, my school banned 2 Live Crew's 1989 album "As Nasty As They Wanna Be." These were the days of cassette tapes, and it was forbidden to bring this particular tape onto school property, so naturally the legend grew and eventually my entire 8th grade class had found a way to listen to it.

Our scramble to hear "As Nasty As They Wanna Be" was 14 years before the Streisand Effect would get its name, and, fine, I just searched around and learned that it is a psychological term called reactance.

Anyway, I need to point out that "As Nasty As They Wanna Be" is a dumb name. It's written in the 3rd person! Who is talking to us if not the band? Is it the album's label?

Just imagine:

"They Are The World" by USA for Africa
"They Are The Champions" by Queen
"They Are The Clash" by The Clash
"They Weren't Born To Follow" by Bon Jovi
"They Are the Streets" by Nas

Obviously artists wouldn't name their albums like that since it makes the titles sound like they were written by the musicians about someone else.

Anyway.

RIP, Brother Marquis.

Why do the thing when you can simply not do the thing?

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 20:44:00 +0000

Did you hear? Notre Dame QB Sam Hartman is quitting the team ahead of its bowl game! So is USC QB Caleb Williams! So is North Carolina QB Drake May!

Actually it's no big deal. After all, most college football stars skip the bowl game. Sixteen esteemed Ohio State Buckeyes are not playing in the team's upcoming Cotton Bowl appearance. There is a handy website that keeps track of all the opt-outs across the sport. It's good enough that they have qualified for the bowl games. That is the achievement.

In the Republican presidential primaries, Donald Trump has a huge lead, so he doesn't show up for the debates. And that has helped to solidify his place as the presumptive favorite to win. Joe Biden isn't going to debate his Democratic opponent Dean Phillips. Given Trump's and Biden's success with this strategy, I wonder if we'll ever see anyone leading in the polls in future elections show up to a debate. It's good enough that they have commanding leads in the polls. That is the achievement.

This trend is even happening in college applications. Scott Galloway says there is a growing number of students who get into Ivy League schools and instead get their degree from an online educator. They brag that they were "Harvard-accepted" on their resume. It's good enough that they have been accepted into an Ivy League school. That is the achievement.

The natural evolution will be that we don't even bother to play the game or hold the elections or ask people to actually attend school. Society doles out the accolades either way, so everything will just be based on vibes.

Annoyed about returning to the office? (That's what the money is for.)

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 15:06:00 +0000

Jim Davis/Boston Globe (used without permission sorryyyy)

To some people, a pleasant ambiance alone can make the dining experience better. In order to literally cater to this desire, nice restaurants usually have nice dining rooms.

Yet when restaurants responded to Covid by moving tables outside, it served as a great equalizer. After all, the experience that diners have sitting on an uncomfortable chair next to traffic cones in an area that had been a parking lane is the same at a nice restaurant as it is at an average one. When sitting outside next to traffic, all restaurants have a similar ambiance.

The same thing happened to the office experience for remote workers — just like restaurants, there are good places to work, bad places to work, and everything in between. Yet working from home for a profitable industry leader looks and feels remarkably similar to working from home for a struggling nonprofit that can't afford any frills. When sitting at home chatting with colleagues on Zoom, all remote office workers have a similar ambiance.

To some degree, this explains the corporate push to get workers to return to the office. Companies that believe that their advantage versus other employers is in-office collaboration and "culture" need workers to be present in person in order to realize that advantage.

Most employers are not above average (by definition!), yet what matters is that most employers think they're above average.

Unfortunately, this means that many office workers find themselves in a below-average setting while working for someone who thinks their in-office experience is above average.

Naturally, this leads to annoyed employees. Then again, that's what the money is for.

Saying the quiet part out loud

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 19:30:00 +0000

Tim Alberta's book "American Carnage" quotes Lee Atwater:

"You start out in 1954 by saying '[n-word], [n-word], [n-word], [n-word].' By 1968, you can't say '[n-word]' because it hurts you and backfires. So you say stuff like 'forced busing,' 'states rights,' all that stuff and you're getting abstract. 'Cutting taxes,' totally economic things and a byproduct of it is that blacks get hurt worse than whites. Then you have a generation of people like Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney who thought that everyone was really in it for the tax cuts. They thought that the economic libertarianism was sincere instead of a code for a broader set of grievances."

So, yeah, that pretty sums up Republican politics for my entire lifetime.

Trump without the baggage

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 23:25:00 +0000

Have you heard, Ron DeSantis is Donald Trump without the baggage! Also, Nicki Haley is Trump without the baggage! And wait so is Chris Christie! Asa Hutchinson too!

The implication is that baggage is bad and that Republicans should seek a candidate who is basically like Trump but with 25 percent less sedition.

This couldn't be further from the truth. Despite the news media's fixation with a baggage-free Republican candidate, there is no desire among Republicans for Trump without the baggage.

First of all, consider Trump's biggest supporters, who for years have kept his approval at 35 percent literally no matter what. The die hards. To them, the baggage is the whole point. Saying that Hispanic judges can't be impartial. Mocking disabled people. Putting immigrant kids in cages. Bragging about grabbing women by the pussy. It might mystify you why Trump supporters stick with him, unless you remember that the thing they like most about him is the baggage.
Now consider a baggage-free candidate with Trump's exact same policy views.* Those candidates have existed this whole time! Pat Buchanan. Mike Huckabee. Rick Santorum. Gary Bauer. Scott Walker. These baggage-less candidates routinely get nowhere among Republicans in their presidential runs precisely because they don't have baggage.

The baggage is a feature, not a bug.

*This assumes that we could articulate Trump's policy positions, which, of course, we cannot. But let's say for the sake of this argument that Trump's top issues are fighting immigration, giving tax cuts to rich people, and using the rest of his energy to oppose anything that could, plausibly or implausibly, be described as woke.

Serendipity at the grocery store

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 14:03:00 +0000

Law school student David MacMillan and a friend was grocery shopping when a pharmacist flagged him down to urgently ask him if they wanted the Covid-19 vaccine from Moderna. It needed to be administered within the next 10 minutes because they were going to expire and be thrown away otherwise, reported Darcy Spencer.

That same week, NPR journalist Stephen Fowler was grocery shopping when, he says, he received an audio file of President Trump asking the Georgia secretary of state to overturn Georgia's election. This was a big news story, and of course it was a week ago so who can even remember it anymore.

In conclusion, good things happen when you go grocery shopping. Plus you get to come home with delicious food!

I ❤ NY

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 15:25:00 +0000

In his obituary of graphic designer Milton Glaser last week, the New York Times declared that he "changed the vocabulary of American visual culture," most notably, the newspaper wrote, "with his I ♥ NY logo.

Wait a minute. A couple years ago, here's what the New York Times wrote in its obituary of the advertising executive Jane Maas: "She is perhaps best known for heading the iconic campaign to promote tourism in the state of New York: I ❤ NY."

Hmmmm.

In her book "Mad Women," the advertising executive Jane Maas wrote: "I see lots of resumes from advertising people and it surprises me how many of them say flat out, 'creator of I ❤ NY.' But I can look you straight in the eye and tell you I am its only mother. I was the one who hugged it, fed it and changed its diapers."

This is confusing only if you skim the articles and don't read them carefully, which is what I initially did, but it seems that Maas wrote the heading I ❤ NY and Glaser designed the heart-shaped logo. Mystery solved!

The Donald Trump of Hungary

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Tue, 12 Feb 2019 17:44:00 +0000

Let's check in with Hungary, where Prime Minister Viktor Orbán yesterday delivered his "state of the nation" speech.

Some highlights pulled from the official government transcript:

"Migration boosts crime – in particular, crimes against women – and spreads the disease of terrorism among us."
"An ethnic group of 10 percent will first increase to between 15 and 20 percent. Then everything will speed up, and the rest requires no imagination, just simple mathematics."
"The European Left has become the advocate of speculators, world citizenship, world government and, most recently, of global migration, taking on the role of the gravedigger of nations, the family and the Christian way of life."
"Immigration means surrender. If we resign ourselves to the fact that we are unable to sustain ourselves even biologically, by doing so we admit that we are not important even for ourselves. So why would we be important for the world? The fate of such peoples is slow but certain obliteration, until they become a mere cloud of dust on the highway of nations."

Well, he sounds like a very nice fellow. He ended the address by saying "Hungary before everything, God above us all." Perhaps we can convince him to change his mind by sending him messages via @TheTweetOfGod.

The house always wins, even when it doesn't

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Tue, 12 Feb 2019 11:50:00 +0000

In the first year of New Jersey's legal betting of the Super Bowl, the house didn't do so well.

New Jersey casinos lost $4.6 million on Super Bowl bets. (By comparison, Nevada gamblers lost $10.8 million to the casinos.) That's great news for New Jersey, right? A great example of regular people sticking it to the big casinos, right?

Well, no.

It turns out that in New Jersey the risk is split between casino operators and the state taxing authority. As a result, New Jersey's state government will take a hit financially as a result of its smarter-than-Vegas betting public, reports David K. Li of NBC News.

Art diplomacy

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Tue, 12 Feb 2019 11:42:00 +0000

France withdrew its ambassador to Italy last week, as tensions between the two countries escalated to the worst level since before World War II. It seems that Italy has been helping the gilets jaunes protest movement against Macron while accusing France of continuing African colonialism by "stealing wealth."

If that doesn't sound bad, then how about this for a real-world implication: Italy is blocking the loan of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci to the Louvre for an exhibition celebrating the 500 years since the artist’s death. Perhaps the halt of traveling art will be enough to get the two sides talking again.

Rapping at my chamber door

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Wed, 30 Jan 2019 12:29:00 +0000

The new Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives is considering banning members from sleeping in their offices. The Congressional Progressive Caucus has joined the Congressional Black Caucus in supporting a ban.

From the reporting by Paul McLeod of BuzzFeed:

All House offices have a distinct chamber for members that is separated from the staff area by a door. Some have raised concerns that staffers or cleaning staff could unwittingly walk in on a member in a state of undress. “In this era of Me Too, I just think we have to take this really, really seriously,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).

Cleaning staff could walk into the private chamber, the argument goes. But wait a minute. Do the private chamber doors not have locks? If so, I think we can solve this problem pretty easily. Also, if members sleep in a hotel or apartment instead, wouldn't it be equally possible for cleaning staff to "unwittingly walk in"? If the cleaning staff is the problem here, it seems like a lock or doorbell or scheduling system could handle this pretty easily.

What am I missing?

More journalists, more bias

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Sun, 07 Oct 2018 11:28:00 +0000

The New York Times isn't the only publication dealing with accusations of bias.

An anchor for the CBS affiliate in Palm Springs, Calif., resigned after the outcry to his Facebook post defending Brett Kavanaugh. And a reporter for the NBC affiliate in Rochester, Minn., was fired for wearing a Make America Great Again hat at a Donald Trump rally.

The optics for all these stories are terrible. But since humans are going to have opinions, we should judge them by their work, not their opinions.

Whyyyyy? pic.twitter.com/KLgnFFULFC
— Mark Vancleave 📹+📷 (@MDVancleave) October 4, 2018

Do bylines matter?

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Tue, 02 Oct 2018 10:27:00 +0000

The New York Times published an article yesterday that Brett Kavanagh was involved in a bar fight in 1985. It's a straightforward story that quotes the police report as well as a witness named Chris Dudley.

We can decide for ourselves the relevance of a 33-year-old bar fight. But the article is based only on official documents and direct quotes from the principles involved. It would be impossible to refute any of the facts in the story itself.

Still, the article was written by Emily Bazelon, who just a few days ago wrote a separate NYT opinion piece slamming Kavanaugh and urging an FBI investigation into the assault allegations against him (this was back before the FBI actually did opened an investigation).

I happen to be a huge fan of Emily Bazelon, but was she the right person to be assigned to the story about the bar fight? Wasn't there another reporter who hasn't been publicly against Kavanaugh's quest for the Supreme Court?

Then again, given that the article stuck only to the facts, does it matter?

I understand why the NYT would publish this story given some of Kavanaugh’s statements, but Emily should have never been assigned to it or have her byline on it. Not a good look. pic.twitter.com/Nvayh5ajFH
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 2, 2018

Working for peanuts

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Fri, 31 Aug 2018 14:28:00 +0000

Teachers, nurses, childcare professionals. There's a long list of people who are underpaid. And on the other side of this list, we have people in sports and entertainment. Let's check in with people in those well-compensated industries and see if they're making a good case for their high salaries:

Lee Corso, football TV studio host: “Let me tell you something: On Thursday morning I get up, I get on a first-class plane and fly to a place and stay in a nice hotel and get a lot of great meals. First class! Then I go and talk football for a couple hours, I see the best game of the year and I get on a plane in first class and I go home. And they pay me! Why the hell would you ever think about retiring? It’s like stealing. It’s like stealing. Why would you ever think about retiring?"

He's amazed that they pay him. Simply by drawing a salary, he feels like he's stealing.

Robert Tonyan, football player: "You can change my number to whatever you want. I just want to be on the team."

He plays for the Green Bay Packers, who have a high-profile player at the same position (Jimmy Graham), and Tonyan is happy simply to be on the roster.

Noel Gallagher, musician: "I enjoy being famous, because I don’t have to do anything. I can just turn up at nice restaurants and people are like, ‘Oh, it’s Noel fucking Gallagher. Brilliant. Sit down.’ Whenever the label asks if I want to go to New York to do promos, I always say yes immediately. And the label is always like, ‘Are you sure? It’s going to require a lot of interviews?’ And I’m like — I don’t give a fuck. You’re gonna fucking fly me first class to New York and put me in this amazing hotel? And my wife can go fucking shopping four hours a day? What is not to like about that?"

Okay, we can safely put him down as someone who would accept less money for the job he does.

But obviously if anyone is making money in sports and entertainment, it should be the players and entertainers, rather than the team owners and record labels, right. So what did we learn by looking at these quotes? Well, nothing. But it was fun to paste in those quotes.

Offline is the new online

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Thu, 15 Mar 2018 10:20:00 +0000

Nothing is hotter than analog.

Shane Snow of Fast Company is really into loose-leaf paper planners and to-do lists. Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times laments the "broken digital news environment" and wants us to get our news only from print newspapers. But what's really hot is quitting social media.

New research finds that people born from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s are leaving social media "en masse." It makes them feel anxious, sad and depressed. It tears apart their self esteem. And no one is better at social media than them.

So there you go. Use paper, read paper, stay offline.

The blanket beat down

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Mon, 12 Mar 2018 12:39:00 +0000

Part I of an ongoing series in which I watch a GIF hundreds of times and share my thoughts:

Brilliance. First of all, this is a cinematic masterpiece. A short bit of cinema to be sure but a great piece of storytelling in our time.
Curiosity gap. Central to our enjoyment is the confusion of what is happening. No one doubts that it’s a great story being told here, but what is the story? Two people were on the couch wrapped in blankets* when suddenly they ran out of the house. WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN THE HOUSE THAT CAUSED THEM TO FLEE? Even as we see the ultimate conclusion, as the girl in the blue blanket meets her demise, the central mystery goes untold. Furthermore, what if these two people were never in the house to begin with? Do they have occasion to wear blankets outdoors?
Location. We’re in the suburbs of Alabama somewhere. Do trees lose their leaves in Alabama? I didn’t know that. I feel like I’m getting a geography lesson here too. This GIF has it all!
The camera. This looks like an organic moment, except that the camera is planted, ready and waiting. Unless, wait, is this from a front-door security camera?
The action. The two people are running in a straight line. But are they in a race? If you look only at the girl in the blue blanket and pretend she’s alone, she’s not running in any particular hurry. What scenario would have made her run outside of the house in such a nonchalant way?
The footwork. This looks smooth, but have you ever tried to sprint while wearing a blanket? I’ll bet it’s hard as hell to run and then time your feet exactly right so as to stomp down on the trailing blanket in front of you. The list of people who can do this is pretty short: Le’Veon Bell and the girl in the tan blanket.
The villain. Now it’s time to discuss the part where the girl in the tan blanket deliberately trips the girl in the blue blanket. In the first dozen or so viewings, we think that’s the moment this video is about: Two sisters race through the lawn, then hilarity ensues as one trips the other. Indeed it’s a pretty nasty move for an older sister, and as a younger sibling myself, I can commiserate with the plight of the girl in the blue blanket. But the most sinister part of the story isn’t the deliberate tripping itself — it’s what happens next. Upon taking down her victim, does the girl in the tan blanket stand over her and flex her muscles? Does she pose for the camera? Does she take advantage of her victim being on the ground to get an advanced position on wherever they were racing to? No, the most insidious part of the video is the last few frames: the villain just walks away. She doesn’t even glance over at the fallen body. The girl in the tan blanket is bored now. Her work is done. Brutal.

* The two people in this video are colleagues and insist that they are blankets and not Snuggies. It took hundreds of views, but I believe them.

Fake Macchiato

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Tue, 31 Oct 2017 16:10:00 +0000

Macchiato is an Italian word for stained, as in coffee that has a small stain — it is espresso with a dollop of foam. That’s it. That’s the whole drink right there.

But these are the things that are put into your cup if you order a "macchiato" at Starbucks:

Coffee
Milk
Sugar
Corn Syrup
Butter
Heavy Cream

According to Starbucks, their "macchiato" is a caramel drink that has 7 grams of fat and 33 grams of sugar.

And that's fine. Some people like sweet coffee drinks. Many people. Most people. But no matter how delicious the Starbucks drink is, it's not a macchiato. It would be like if a restauranteur listed an eel and cucumber sushi dish on the menu as a California Roll.

If that happened, someone would be like "Uh, the California Roll already exists and it doesn't have those ingredients. Pick another name for your roll."

I'm soaking dishes while I type this

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 19:00:00 +0000

Critics belittle Twitter as a place where people talk about what they had for lunch. This spoof is from 2009, but it still makes me laugh.

The truth is more important than ever. That's the message from the New York Times, which launched its Truth Campaign in an expensive TV ad during the Academy Awards earlier this year.

And are we truthful about ourselves on social media? Well, no.

This spring, in a piece titled "Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable, the New York Times noted that Americans spend six times as much of their time cleaning dishes as they do golfing, yet half as many social media posts are about doing the dishes as playing golf.

Well, good! If people's topics of conversations were proportional to the the most mundane part of their everyday lives, conversations real and online would be pretty dull.

Along the same lines, I don't need a literal representation of life out of TV shows. If the most important quality of dramas and comedies was being realistic, then programing would mostly center around exhausted people staring at their phones or washing dishes.

And yet realism seems to be what people want in their scripted programming. Criticism of Netflix's dark drama "13 Reasons Why" included the notion that life at the fictional Liberty High School was not reflective of real schools. The Washington Post criticized the program for "delivering no wisdom or insight about depression, bullying and suicide." But supposing critic Hank Stuever is correct on that point — which he isn't, by the way — it's unfair to burden a fictional drama with being accurate to real life, nor the need to provide insight. That is, shows can just be shows.

Similarly, a piece on the New York Post's Decider platform attacks the Netflix show "Love" for its portrayal of Echo Park in Los Angeles. In the essay, Neal Pollack complains that the neighborhood "is portrayed as a gauzy and romanticized hipster playground."

Grrr. It should be acceptable — and perhaps preferable — for TV shows to romanticize life.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go wash some dishes.

Hours in a day

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 18:43:00 +0000

We're all so damn busy. No one has time for anything. In fact, it's amazing that you have time to read this, given how busy you are.

But wait a minute, there's good news. The day is now about 30 percent longer than it used to be!

It turns out that if you analyze every minute in the average U.S. employed adult’s day, it's equivalent to 31 hours and 28 minutes.

Huh?

It turns out we can't make a day contain more than 24 hours, but we can cram in an additional 7.5 hours worth of stuff because multitasking. Have you ever talked on the phone while walking down the street? Or read the news while in a cab?

We used to do things one at a time, but now we do them simultaneously.

Amazing. We're awesome. Well done, everyone. Except now the question is whether 31 hours and 28 minutes worth of activities conducted simultaneously is a better quality day than 24 hours of activities done one at a time.

First, tell the truth

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Tue, 28 Feb 2017 18:33:00 +0000

George Lakoff has great advice for journalists covering Donald Trump.

Lakoff, a professor of cognitive science and linguistics at the University of California-Berkeley and the director for the Center for the Neural Mind & Society, says that when it comes fact checking liars, it's important to present the facts in the correct way.

According to Lakoff, if you repeat a lie and then say it's false what you're actually doing is strengthening the lie because in your brain, the neural circuits have to activate what you're negating in order to negate it. And that strengthens the very thing you're trying to knock down.

Here's what Lakoff recommends instead. First mention the truth. Only after you've done that, mention the lie.

Instead of saying, "Trump said 'Obamacare covers very few people.' It actually covers over 20 million," you should say "Obamacare covers over 20 million people. But Trump said it covers very few people."

Puppy offensive

noreply@blogger.com (dl004d) — Wed, 22 Feb 2017 15:48:00 +0000

How do you impress senators? Talk about puppies.

The Republicans posted a video showing Neil Gorsuch petting a dog with the headline "He Loves Dogs."

DAMMIT, WHY DIDN'T OBAMA THINK OF THAT????