Some things can't be quantified in a highly scientific way. The satisfaction one has from a job well done, no matter how small or simple. The joy of seeing a product your company or team produced bring joy to someone's life. Yet those are important to ongoing good morale and production...
If they think utilitarian underwear excites, I wonder what they advise if you order any of their Victoria's Secret fragrances. Probably don't carry the lingerie because they aren't looking for lawsuits from, um, overstimulated customers.
Sort of gives a whole new meaning to "Get the lead out of your shorts."
With Pete Hegseth's penchant for unknowingly sharing war plans and attack plans with reporters, I wonder how long before someone accidentally gets invited to take a gander at these other than the actual (cough, ahem) target they were intended to be sent to. Not implying anything. Just askin' the question.
Their app is exceedingly enthusiastic. Their penchant for wanting you to take a user satisfaction survey after Every. Single. Transaction. is a bit needy for a mega-corp, though.
Statistics and so on. In a few real world technical product arenas...they actually matter a ton.
Hazard, Harm, Probably. And then mitigation by design (desired) but sometimes just not. Warnings.
Ask a physician you know how well they read the IFU labeling insert on drugs they prescribe. Do they know the probability of side effects? And the weight of the consequences downside?
Hi. It can't be lunchtime yet because there's still a bunch of stuff I have to do first. It's been raining quite a bit here, I see what they call "ponding" in the street, and we're supposed to get some more rain, rising temperatures, and wind a little later, though at my latitude it should be over by 3. Meanwhile I'll watch for a tornado watch.
RE: "Hardly anything inspires greater confidence, hardly anything does more for the human ego, than having the secret knowledge to take control of the economy and manage it to improve the production of GDPs."
Well, my fellow consumers, today is "Liberation Day" as proclaimed by the Ego in Chief, who only last fall noted...
“The most beautiful word in the entire dictionary of words is the word ‘tariff'. I love tariff. I think they're beautiful. It’s gonna make us rich. You have other words that are damn nice, like ‘love'. But I tell you: I think it’s more beautiful than ‘love.’”
It's a truly beautiful thing, watching the Ego in Chief exercise his secret knowledge to take control of the economy and manage it to improve the production of GDPs. And I say it's about damn time, too!
Somebody should have done something to bring the production of GDPs back to America years ago, those greedy global capitalists having unpatriotically offshored it, all in the pursuit of the cheapest labor buck and less stringent environmental regulations.
Why, with all these beautiful tariffs kicking in today to free us from dependence on foreign made GDPs, I expect to see ground for beautiful new GDP factories being broken across the nation any moment now, with domestic production ramping up at pace unseen since Operation Warp Speed once they're built and ready to go online, all leading to that beautiful day when we'll be so rich there's going to be a GDP in every pot, and a beautiful new Tesla in every garage.
Wow. What can I say? It's all almost too beautiful for words!!
I, for one, will be grateful to have been freed up from the onerous task of making investment decisions and/or making unnecessary purchases on things like food.
In Monday’s Dispatch podcast, John Bolton said there was no amount of explaining, cajoling, begging, drawing pictograms, or use of kindergarten stuffed animals that could induce Trump to understand that tariffs weren’t of particular use or benefit to any nation, especially not the nation imposing them, much less that they do more harm than good.
I'm not much of a John Bolton fan, but no one has to draw me a picture for me to understand that Bolton assuredly knows whereof he speaks on this particular subject.
Dang the mountain out my back window is especially beautiful today. A fresh layer of snow against a blue sky with a few slow moving perfectly white clouds floating slowly behind. A good day.
Last year my daughter, her husband and I climbed it and my wife was able to see us from the back porch when we reached the top (13k ft) through our telescope. Stick figures.
"The Mount Sopris Trail ascends to East Sopris via its east ridge. It starts near Dinkle Lake, on the northeast side of the mountain, and passes between the two Thomas Lakes just before reaching timberline. The ascent involves about 4,300 ft (1,300 m) of vertical gain (plus 600 ft/180 m for a round-trip to West Sopris, if desired) and 12 mi (20 km) of hiking (plus 1 mi/1.6 km for West Sopris); it is a strenuous trail hike, with some scree." That is some serious elevation, R.
The final approach is very rocky. I'd call it class 2. No serious exposure, but terribly loose rocks - like walking on broken dinner plates. It's harder than some 14k peaks I've done. Also it's more like 13.5 miles. But pretty cool to be able to have it right in my back yard!
I did some of that today too. There's a Salvation Army heap in the basement, and it needed to be better organized. (That's my go-to for donating stuff. It's been a while, though.) Boxes. Bags. Zip ties. Categories. Labels. Not finished, but I feel better. Tired, but better, because I said I was going to tackle that stuff when I semi-retired.
So fortunate I feel literally guilty. Our daughter is expecting our first grandchild. She lives in Pittsburgh, so we are planning on getting an apartment there. I think there will really be something nice about living in a "normal" city part time.
I had a fun email this morning. One of my duties is to run a weekly ethics luncheon discussion for our business major students. We give them one page cases to read and discuss at their tables, we have business professionals sit with them to lead the discussion.
Yesterday's case was about Tractor Supply Corp. They conducted surveys which said Gen-Z viewed them as an unhip employer, so they embraced many LGBTQ causes to better align with Gen-Z. But it didn't work, Gen-Z still doesn't want to work there, and now activitists are pressuring them to abandon their support; their customers ask why they are being forgotten. Should they reduce their support for LGBTQ causes or should they stay the course?
A snowflake whined to her professor about it, complaining about using the term "hip" to describe "life affirming medical treatment" (which isn't a benefit TSC was offering), and whining about why we had to discuss Catholic Social Teaching in a case. Ummm, we are a Catholic University, our president reaffirms our commitment to portions of DEI because it is part of our Catholic values and identity. She couldn't understand what this has to do with her strategy course (where we discuss the issues of societal polarization, and how identifying with a cause can lead to backlash among others who do not.
A take-away from the case we discussed was how to thread the needle of adding new customers while not pushing away existing ones. I warned having employees disparage existing customers was a bad idea, referencing Bud-light and Snow White as recent examples.
I shared with the professor (a friend of mine) some details about the case, and she thought the student might have over-reacted. Several other students in the class liked the case, thanking me when the lunch was over.
I feel sorry for the student, getting so worked up over it; life will not be easy for her in the workplace.
Life will never go easy for whiners who still believe they are the center of the universe. It will only get worse as they age. As a college art student, I had a fellow student to whined to the college president that our professor was demanding that we study the great classical artists rather than Jon Gnagy's made-for-TV method. I spent years listening to various employees whine about having to do work they didn't like for clients they resented during hours they'd prefer to have off. Sheesh!
Your student is apparently overexposed to mistaken ideas about what makes the world go 'round. She imagines the world wants to conform to her expectations of it.
I was sort of kidding. Our local Rural King is a massive draw to our county from several even lower-pop counties all around. It is the one anchor store in the local shopping mall that keeps the mall viable and open. It’s doubtful that the JCPenny and Belk would stay if the mall didn’t get spillover traffic from RK.
The Economist recently published an article in which they looked at the changing nature of the British "Basket of Goods" since its inception in 1947. As they noted:
-----
"To read the contents list of the basket of goods, updated this week by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), is an intriguing experience. For economists it offers a sober measure of consumer-price inflation. For everyone else it is a births-and-deaths column for British consumerism, announcing the arrival of some objects and acting, for others, as their epitaph.
Thus this week the list noted the arrival of “men’s sliders” and the demise of newspaper advertisements. It has previously recorded the demise of linoleum (in 1980), of corsets (1970) and of oil lamps (1947). Its very name is a relic: that word “basket” sounding like something that might have hung from the arm of a British housewife as she went to the shops in her mackintosh (1947-52) to buy Brussels sprouts (1947-2006). Sometimes, it is an enigma: in the 2000s a “small caged mammal” appeared, unexpectedly, in the ONS’s calculations."
-----
They then note the difficulty in trying to compare these various baskets of goods over time. "Apples" and "Oranges" have both appeared in the list every year since 1947, so it's possible to compare the prices of those products over time, but as the authors point out: " It is all but impossible to equate the value of a “rubber-roller table mangle” (1947-52) with a tumble drier (1993-); or of a telegram (1956-80) with a mobile phone (2005-)".
I can only guess at an answer, but it's possible that "corset" as a category also included girdles. According to Wikipedia (one of the hits that came up when I searched for "when did corsets go out of fashion?") girdles were still common in the 60's, although they were rapidly falling out of favor as women sought "liberation" from all kinds of things.
A stirring thought to take forward as we continue to celebrate Liberation Day.
Don't they call homeowners and ask them, "how much do you think you would be able to charge per month in rent for your house?" I have no flippin' idea!
That one’s notorious. Another sketchy one used to be “purchasing price parity” for guesstimating currency valuations. In the ‘90s, the Economist got clever about it, and for a while ran their own version called the Big Mac Index, where they compared the final price to consumers of the commodity, figuring the price covered just about all the inputs in an internationally standardized form, since McD’s used the same basic formula worldwide.
87% of all individuals are not sufficiently knowledgeable about statistics so that they are easily fooled. The remaining 13% could not be reached for comment because they accidentally locked themselves in the bathroom.
I always enjoy articles that attempt to derive some sort of significance from public opinion surveys. "86% of American support higher taxes on beets!" sounds impressive, until one notices that the survey question that was asked was, "Would you rather see the government raise taxes on beets or proceed with the slaughter of adorable puppies?"
Statistical findings can be quite fascinating, sometimes revealing areas worthy of further research and debate, but skepticism warns against treating them as the final word on anything much.
37% of American citizens find 73% of daily news to be quite fascinating, while only 25% of those that find it interesting do further research and debate.
Good morning. 42 degrees now, predicted to rise to the 70s today with thunderstorms late tonight.
The mothership is reporting on the latest developments in Trump’s deportations, featuring immigrants deported solely because they sported tattoos thought to indicate Venezuelan gang membership. The FP is headlining “What I Saw at the MAGA Revolution”.
That's funny. Too bad Hegseth, despite his tattoos (more importantly, despite his gross negligence in violation of the Espionage Act) has nothing to worry about.
Some of those botched deportations and incarcerations are beyond embarrassing, they’re literally life-threatening, as in the case of the Russian dissident lady rounded up for possible deportation to Russia. Then you’ve got tourists from Canada or Europe mistakenly detained for weeks without access to their own passports or other outside contact—such as to their own embassies.
It’s already damaging international tourism, which technically contributes positively to the balance of trade, to the extent it has any significance as a statistic in its own right.
From the article - the show Adolescence. I had not heard of that. From the trailer, the show looks terrifying and mesmerizing. I'm really not sure if I could watch it myself, and even more unsure whether to show it to young boys. The Dispatch had an article on Pro-Natalism yesterday and the comments waded into "what's wrong with boys". Boys have it a little rough these days.
To add to my own comment, the UK and especially Ireland seem an unrecognizable mess these days. Or maybe I've been snookered by some over the top Free Press coverage.
Son F has been rousted out of bed and is predictably grumpy about it. He's presently standing with the refrigerator open, trying to get me to say, "Shut the refrigerator already," so he can feel persecuted because he was Just Going To!!!!
Gah.
High School Envirothon today features F's team, the Beautiful Butterflies, four redneck-adjacent boys and a blonde girl with a fantastic repertoire of eye-rolls. Three of the boys were on the second place in State team (with Vlad) last year, so we anticipate success. We also have two other teams, one of which is likely to be successful, and the other is short one participant (he gave up because it was work, although he didn't put it that way) and will likely end up as alternates, though they could surprise us.
I was called into the elementary school once because of my daughter's eye rolls. I felt like saying "stop saying stupid stuff and it won't happen." To this day she has a horrible poker face.
Some things can't be quantified in a highly scientific way. The satisfaction one has from a job well done, no matter how small or simple. The joy of seeing a product your company or team produced bring joy to someone's life. Yet those are important to ongoing good morale and production...
"Time to get excited. Your order is in the works!"
Says Walmart, regarding an order of some utilitarian underwear.
If they think utilitarian underwear excites, I wonder what they advise if you order any of their Victoria's Secret fragrances. Probably don't carry the lingerie because they aren't looking for lawsuits from, um, overstimulated customers.
You would expect them to excite the male market by marketing “tactical underwear “.
They considered that strategy but decided there's already too much competition...
https://www.undertechundercover.com/products/mens-concealed-carry-boxer-briefs-shorts
Sort of gives a whole new meaning to "Get the lead out of your shorts."
With Pete Hegseth's penchant for unknowingly sharing war plans and attack plans with reporters, I wonder how long before someone accidentally gets invited to take a gander at these other than the actual (cough, ahem) target they were intended to be sent to. Not implying anything. Just askin' the question.
https://www.tacticaldistributors.com/collections/battle-briefs
There's a relevant and witty rejoinder involving "panties in a wad" but I can't find it.
Their app is exceedingly enthusiastic. Their penchant for wanting you to take a user satisfaction survey after Every. Single. Transaction. is a bit needy for a mega-corp, though.
Statistics and so on. In a few real world technical product arenas...they actually matter a ton.
Hazard, Harm, Probably. And then mitigation by design (desired) but sometimes just not. Warnings.
Ask a physician you know how well they read the IFU labeling insert on drugs they prescribe. Do they know the probability of side effects? And the weight of the consequences downside?
Have to be vigilant ourselves.
I love those IFU things... always printed in myopic mouse font.
On onion-skin paper where the ink bleeds through.
And the glued down part is the only part printed in English or the helpful stock clerk stamped over the warning label...
Hi. It can't be lunchtime yet because there's still a bunch of stuff I have to do first. It's been raining quite a bit here, I see what they call "ponding" in the street, and we're supposed to get some more rain, rising temperatures, and wind a little later, though at my latitude it should be over by 3. Meanwhile I'll watch for a tornado watch.
RE: "Hardly anything inspires greater confidence, hardly anything does more for the human ego, than having the secret knowledge to take control of the economy and manage it to improve the production of GDPs."
Well, my fellow consumers, today is "Liberation Day" as proclaimed by the Ego in Chief, who only last fall noted...
“The most beautiful word in the entire dictionary of words is the word ‘tariff'. I love tariff. I think they're beautiful. It’s gonna make us rich. You have other words that are damn nice, like ‘love'. But I tell you: I think it’s more beautiful than ‘love.’”
(https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-most-beautiful-word-in-the-dictionary-is-tariff-donald-trump-loved-talking-about-tariffs-on-the-campaign-trail/ar-AA1x42Bn)
I'm just so excited... I can hardly sit still!
It's a truly beautiful thing, watching the Ego in Chief exercise his secret knowledge to take control of the economy and manage it to improve the production of GDPs. And I say it's about damn time, too!
Somebody should have done something to bring the production of GDPs back to America years ago, those greedy global capitalists having unpatriotically offshored it, all in the pursuit of the cheapest labor buck and less stringent environmental regulations.
Why, with all these beautiful tariffs kicking in today to free us from dependence on foreign made GDPs, I expect to see ground for beautiful new GDP factories being broken across the nation any moment now, with domestic production ramping up at pace unseen since Operation Warp Speed once they're built and ready to go online, all leading to that beautiful day when we'll be so rich there's going to be a GDP in every pot, and a beautiful new Tesla in every garage.
Wow. What can I say? It's all almost too beautiful for words!!
Happy Liberation Day! May we all rejoice in being liberated from a portion of our net worth and financial security!
May we all rejoice indeed! The less money we have, the less of it we have to worry about, don't you know?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weFJHtcxJt0
Inspirational!
I, for one, will be grateful to have been freed up from the onerous task of making investment decisions and/or making unnecessary purchases on things like food.
In your case, we’ll call it “libation day”.
In Monday’s Dispatch podcast, John Bolton said there was no amount of explaining, cajoling, begging, drawing pictograms, or use of kindergarten stuffed animals that could induce Trump to understand that tariffs weren’t of particular use or benefit to any nation, especially not the nation imposing them, much less that they do more harm than good.
Thanks. I don't usually listen to that podcast, but this episode sounds like it's for me.
I'm not much of a John Bolton fan, but no one has to draw me a picture for me to understand that Bolton assuredly knows whereof he speaks on this particular subject.
Dang the mountain out my back window is especially beautiful today. A fresh layer of snow against a blue sky with a few slow moving perfectly white clouds floating slowly behind. A good day.
Last year my daughter, her husband and I climbed it and my wife was able to see us from the back porch when we reached the top (13k ft) through our telescope. Stick figures.
As we were driving home yesterday, we saw budding vineyards beneath snow-dusted mesas. So beautiful!
What mountain? 13k ft. is a pretty big hill.
"The Mount Sopris Trail ascends to East Sopris via its east ridge. It starts near Dinkle Lake, on the northeast side of the mountain, and passes between the two Thomas Lakes just before reaching timberline. The ascent involves about 4,300 ft (1,300 m) of vertical gain (plus 600 ft/180 m for a round-trip to West Sopris, if desired) and 12 mi (20 km) of hiking (plus 1 mi/1.6 km for West Sopris); it is a strenuous trail hike, with some scree." That is some serious elevation, R.
The final approach is very rocky. I'd call it class 2. No serious exposure, but terribly loose rocks - like walking on broken dinner plates. It's harder than some 14k peaks I've done. Also it's more like 13.5 miles. But pretty cool to be able to have it right in my back yard!
I wish I had a mountain right in my back yard. Would sure cut down on the mowing time.
Fact check: Mountain goats don’t need an actual mountain to eat the lawn.
I already have a couple of hooved critters to bedevil me, don't need any cloven-hoofed ones, thank you.
Amazing! 🤩
Imagine the descent was the *real* hard part.
Very serious. 94% of the Substack agree with me.
Mt Sopris.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Sopris
In an interview, John Denver implied he was looking at Mt Sopris from nearby Capital Creek area when he wrote Rocky Mountain High.
Btw, are all of us on the CSLF feeling extra liberated today?
I've been cleaning out and getting rid of stuff, so, yeah.
I did some of that today too. There's a Salvation Army heap in the basement, and it needed to be better organized. (That's my go-to for donating stuff. It's been a while, though.) Boxes. Bags. Zip ties. Categories. Labels. Not finished, but I feel better. Tired, but better, because I said I was going to tackle that stuff when I semi-retired.
Well done!
I don't know about anyone else here, but I am. (See comment above.)
Or maybe it's the extra big dollop of Irish cream I put in my coffee this morning that I'm feeling.
Not really. I have to take Vlad to the corner clinic: he has an infection on his toe.
Update: Vlad was prescribed some antibiotics for his toe.
I always say if you're going to have any medical issue, the twenty-first century is a good time to have it.
Vlad had croup a couple of times as a baby. The corner clinic was great.
Wow. That's beautiful. You're very fortunate to live in such a beautiful place.
So fortunate I feel literally guilty. Our daughter is expecting our first grandchild. She lives in Pittsburgh, so we are planning on getting an apartment there. I think there will really be something nice about living in a "normal" city part time.
I had a fun email this morning. One of my duties is to run a weekly ethics luncheon discussion for our business major students. We give them one page cases to read and discuss at their tables, we have business professionals sit with them to lead the discussion.
Yesterday's case was about Tractor Supply Corp. They conducted surveys which said Gen-Z viewed them as an unhip employer, so they embraced many LGBTQ causes to better align with Gen-Z. But it didn't work, Gen-Z still doesn't want to work there, and now activitists are pressuring them to abandon their support; their customers ask why they are being forgotten. Should they reduce their support for LGBTQ causes or should they stay the course?
A snowflake whined to her professor about it, complaining about using the term "hip" to describe "life affirming medical treatment" (which isn't a benefit TSC was offering), and whining about why we had to discuss Catholic Social Teaching in a case. Ummm, we are a Catholic University, our president reaffirms our commitment to portions of DEI because it is part of our Catholic values and identity. She couldn't understand what this has to do with her strategy course (where we discuss the issues of societal polarization, and how identifying with a cause can lead to backlash among others who do not.
A take-away from the case we discussed was how to thread the needle of adding new customers while not pushing away existing ones. I warned having employees disparage existing customers was a bad idea, referencing Bud-light and Snow White as recent examples.
I shared with the professor (a friend of mine) some details about the case, and she thought the student might have over-reacted. Several other students in the class liked the case, thanking me when the lunch was over.
I feel sorry for the student, getting so worked up over it; life will not be easy for her in the workplace.
Life will never go easy for whiners who still believe they are the center of the universe. It will only get worse as they age. As a college art student, I had a fellow student to whined to the college president that our professor was demanding that we study the great classical artists rather than Jon Gnagy's made-for-TV method. I spent years listening to various employees whine about having to do work they didn't like for clients they resented during hours they'd prefer to have off. Sheesh!
I get grain at Tractor Supply. Very friendly. No sign of anything. Just a regular store I visit
I feel sorry for the student, getting so worked up over it; life will not be easy for her in the workplace.
It won't be a breeze for her employer or co-workers, either.
** complaining about using the term "hip" to describe "life affirming medical treatment" **
Tell me it's your religious belief without telling me it's your religious belief.
Your student is apparently overexposed to mistaken ideas about what makes the world go 'round. She imagines the world wants to conform to her expectations of it.
I prefer Farm & Fleet over TSC. I think it's the ambiance.
Rural King is the, um, king among our rednecks and hillbillies and all their hybrids.
I like rural king but tax is 3 miles away, rural king is 14 miles.
I was sort of kidding. Our local Rural King is a massive draw to our county from several even lower-pop counties all around. It is the one anchor store in the local shopping mall that keeps the mall viable and open. It’s doubtful that the JCPenny and Belk would stay if the mall didn’t get spillover traffic from RK.
I agree.
I'm not much of an arguer, so when I'm argument adjacent I like to make up ridiculous statistics, and then challenge people to prove me wrong.
This is the Evil Kurt we love.
🤯🤓🧐
65% of people who think they are argument-adjacent instead of just plain argumentative are also smart-asses.
That's the spirit!
The CPI calculation is “sketchy” when they don’t consider actual home prices/rents but rather “owner’s equivalent rent.”
The Economist recently published an article in which they looked at the changing nature of the British "Basket of Goods" since its inception in 1947. As they noted:
-----
"To read the contents list of the basket of goods, updated this week by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), is an intriguing experience. For economists it offers a sober measure of consumer-price inflation. For everyone else it is a births-and-deaths column for British consumerism, announcing the arrival of some objects and acting, for others, as their epitaph.
Thus this week the list noted the arrival of “men’s sliders” and the demise of newspaper advertisements. It has previously recorded the demise of linoleum (in 1980), of corsets (1970) and of oil lamps (1947). Its very name is a relic: that word “basket” sounding like something that might have hung from the arm of a British housewife as she went to the shops in her mackintosh (1947-52) to buy Brussels sprouts (1947-2006). Sometimes, it is an enigma: in the 2000s a “small caged mammal” appeared, unexpectedly, in the ONS’s calculations."
-----
They then note the difficulty in trying to compare these various baskets of goods over time. "Apples" and "Oranges" have both appeared in the list every year since 1947, so it's possible to compare the prices of those products over time, but as the authors point out: " It is all but impossible to equate the value of a “rubber-roller table mangle” (1947-52) with a tumble drier (1993-); or of a telegram (1956-80) with a mobile phone (2005-)".
Corsets lasted until 1970?!
I can only guess at an answer, but it's possible that "corset" as a category also included girdles. According to Wikipedia (one of the hits that came up when I searched for "when did corsets go out of fashion?") girdles were still common in the 60's, although they were rapidly falling out of favor as women sought "liberation" from all kinds of things.
A stirring thought to take forward as we continue to celebrate Liberation Day.
There was a constant need for belt-tightening in pre-Thatcher Britain.
Thatcher lay the foundation for undergarments for a generation!
I never did understand that one. It seems to rely on the owner not living anywhere and therefore not having any living expense.
Don't they call homeowners and ask them, "how much do you think you would be able to charge per month in rent for your house?" I have no flippin' idea!
That one’s notorious. Another sketchy one used to be “purchasing price parity” for guesstimating currency valuations. In the ‘90s, the Economist got clever about it, and for a while ran their own version called the Big Mac Index, where they compared the final price to consumers of the commodity, figuring the price covered just about all the inputs in an internationally standardized form, since McD’s used the same basic formula worldwide.
I do like the Carrie Bradshaw Index. I'm proud to announce I've never watched a single second of the show, but the Index is actually pretty useful.
One should be sufficiently knowledgeable about statistics to get how easy it is to be fooled by them.
87% of all individuals are not sufficiently knowledgeable about statistics so that they are easily fooled. The remaining 13% could not be reached for comment because they accidentally locked themselves in the bathroom.
I always enjoy articles that attempt to derive some sort of significance from public opinion surveys. "86% of American support higher taxes on beets!" sounds impressive, until one notices that the survey question that was asked was, "Would you rather see the government raise taxes on beets or proceed with the slaughter of adorable puppies?"
Kristi Noem's office said she was on set filming in El Salvador and couldn't be reached for comment on that.
😂
Statistical findings can be quite fascinating, sometimes revealing areas worthy of further research and debate, but skepticism warns against treating them as the final word on anything much.
37% of American citizens find 73% of daily news to be quite fascinating, while only 25% of those that find it interesting do further research and debate.
Good morning. 42 degrees now, predicted to rise to the 70s today with thunderstorms late tonight.
The mothership is reporting on the latest developments in Trump’s deportations, featuring immigrants deported solely because they sported tattoos thought to indicate Venezuelan gang membership. The FP is headlining “What I Saw at the MAGA Revolution”.
RE: tattoos as a basis for deportation
Pete Hegseth may want to watch his back if he screws up on another Signal chat.
That's funny. Too bad Hegseth, despite his tattoos (more importantly, despite his gross negligence in violation of the Espionage Act) has nothing to worry about.
Sadly, that's all too true.
Morning.
Some of those botched deportations and incarcerations are beyond embarrassing, they’re literally life-threatening, as in the case of the Russian dissident lady rounded up for possible deportation to Russia. Then you’ve got tourists from Canada or Europe mistakenly detained for weeks without access to their own passports or other outside contact—such as to their own embassies.
It’s already damaging international tourism, which technically contributes positively to the balance of trade, to the extent it has any significance as a statistic in its own right.
https://www.edwest.co.uk/p/fiction-is-truer-than-fact
Ed West at the Wrong Side of History newsletter has a very interesting essay today.
From the article - the show Adolescence. I had not heard of that. From the trailer, the show looks terrifying and mesmerizing. I'm really not sure if I could watch it myself, and even more unsure whether to show it to young boys. The Dispatch had an article on Pro-Natalism yesterday and the comments waded into "what's wrong with boys". Boys have it a little rough these days.
To add to my own comment, the UK and especially Ireland seem an unrecognizable mess these days. Or maybe I've been snookered by some over the top Free Press coverage.
64% of Free Press readers have been snookered about the UK and especially Ireland.
At least I have company.
Whenever I hear these words (taken from the article) I cringe, “We all need to be having these conversations more.”
72% of readers feel the same way.
I CHALLENGE THAT STATISTIC!
Hey...do your own homework.
"the profession I first saw myself trying out, after a careers fair in school, was as an actuary."
I can not even imagine the circumstances leading to the possibility of such an utterance in a US school. Those Brits.
57% of readers agree with you.
Interesting insights.
Son F has been rousted out of bed and is predictably grumpy about it. He's presently standing with the refrigerator open, trying to get me to say, "Shut the refrigerator already," so he can feel persecuted because he was Just Going To!!!!
Gah.
High School Envirothon today features F's team, the Beautiful Butterflies, four redneck-adjacent boys and a blonde girl with a fantastic repertoire of eye-rolls. Three of the boys were on the second place in State team (with Vlad) last year, so we anticipate success. We also have two other teams, one of which is likely to be successful, and the other is short one participant (he gave up because it was work, although he didn't put it that way) and will likely end up as alternates, though they could surprise us.
"...four redneck-adjacent boys and a blonde girl with a fantastic repertoire of eye-rolls."
That's a great description. Concise and instantly recognizable.
I was called into the elementary school once because of my daughter's eye rolls. I felt like saying "stop saying stupid stuff and it won't happen." To this day she has a horrible poker face.
Made me laugh, thanks :-)
Is this one statewide today? Or still regional?
Still regional. State is May 2-3.