Category: obvious

Great Sayings – Blaise Pascal On What We Choose To Believe

“We are generally the better persuaded by the reasons we discover ourselves than by those given to us by others.”

 

Besides having a programming language named after him and a famous theorem, he points out the obvious.

You can’t tell most people anything.  They have to learn it themselves and usually the hard way.  Today’s toxic political environment is a perfect example, no matter which side you take.

It’s just how many times do you have to bang your head against the wall until you realize that it hurts?

Great Sayings – C.P. Snow on Obedience (Covid-19 meaning here)

“When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.”

 

We have some power grabbing governors vs. some who are trying to re-start their states.  Who knows which model will be correct.  Forcing people to close businesses and not being able to feed their families seems overbearing though.  It happened only a few miles from me to an honest fellow and it seemed unfair.

Who we trust in positions of authority right now and their limits of authority are certainly of interest.  Being a student of history doesn’t give me a real sense of hope or belief that many of them have our best interests in mind ahead of their sense of power.  My .02.

Great Sayings – Samuel Butler on Love

“It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.” – Samuel Butler

 

OK, this is a play on words, but sometimes this is right.  Everyone breaks up with the someone they thought was Mr/Mrs wonderful at first.  Sometimes it is nasty and there are hard feelings.  That is when this saying is true.

This is humor folks, try and remember that before you get offended.

Great Sayings – Dale Carnegie (Covid-19)

“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”
– Dale Carnegie

 

And that time is upon us.  We are about to emerge from the Wuhan virus cocoon that we were forced into.  We need to kick start life in the butt.

Great Sayings – Henry David Thoreau

“In the long run men hit only what they aim at.”
— Henry David Thoreau

 

You also miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.  Some wander aimlessly through life and wind up lost.  Some are too focused on their goal and miss out life.  Find the balance, but have a target.

Great Sayings – Robert Frost

Robert Frost – “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”

 

People with stress or anxiety about what will happen to them tomorrow should ponder this.  No matter how bad it is, most of the time there is a light at the end of the tunnel unless you close it yourself.

Great Sayings – Peter Drucker on Management

Peter Drucker – “So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.”

 

I’ve posted on meetings being a waste of time  and management ego’s.  Great managers lead and let the employees work and succeed.  Mostly, the best managers help their employees grow and advance in their careers.  I know I’ve had both types.  When I was a manager, I did everything I could to those working for me the opportunity to show what they can do and help them when they fell down.

Unfortunately, most can’t seem to get out of their own way and realize that the best managers surround themselves with a good team and give them the power to do their jobs to the best of their ability.

Great Sayings – Ferdinand Porsche

“If one does not fail at times, then one has not challenged himself.” -Ferdinand Porsche

 

People need to overcome challenges and problems in life.  They are handed to us everyday whether or not we want them.  That is just life and maintaining the balance that humans require.

To get ahead, you must step out, take a risk, use your talents and sometimes you won’t succeed.  When you do, you get a sense of satisfaction from overcoming or in the case of Dr. Porsche, you start an iconic car company.

 

Great Sayings – Political Correctness

“Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a piece of shit by the clean end.”

 

Here’s where someone is going to get offended.  I’m going to go ahead with it anyway even if there are a few people who always try to spoil the party for the rest of us.  Most people really don’t care.  Call things by whatever you want if it makes you happy.  Heck, I’ll be happy for you especially if the PC police would shut up.  I just can’t remember all the names you want me to call things I grew up calling something else.

There are so many important things than this in my life that come before being PC like cleaning my nails, sweeping out dust bunnies, contemplating my naval and much more because well, I have a life.

I already have posted that the media is biased from the point of view of the audience they want to reach, all of them.  They have their lapdogs the celebtards who gladly will tell us what we should think because of their self-inflated opinion of themselves.

The funny thing to me is that some of this PC crap is made up like in the circle game.  Reddit made up a story about the OK sign being offensive or white power or something to see if they could get the offended to bite.  Just like Pavlov’s dogs, they salivated when the bell rung.

Great Sayings – Jack Bauer, 24

Senator Blaine Mayer: You’re reprehensible, Bauer. Jack Bauer: And you, sir, are weak! Unwilling and unable to look evil in the eye and deal with it.

This was on Day 7 from 6-7 PM.  Sure it was just a TV program, but it shows that some need to stand up and fight the fight that others won’t in times of crisis.  Evil is a dark force that must be confronted.  This will challenge your inner convictions and take you to the fork in the road in life of right vs. wrong.  You will have to face your fears and conquer them first before you can vanquish the enemy.

Jack Bauer was the ultimate bad ass who wasn’t a comic book superhero

Great Sayings In Times of Peril (like Covid-19) – Lucretius

“So it is more useful to watch a man in times of peril, and in adversity to discern what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off, reality remains.” — Lucretius

 

Anybody can be good when times are good.  You see what someone is made of in the bad times.  How do they act?  How do they deal with the trouble, pain, hurt and adversity.  When the going gets tough, the tough get going as they say.  People are most honest when they are at their end and all the layers of the onion are pealed away.

Great Sayings – Solving Problems by M. Scott Peck

“It is in the whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has meaning. Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom. It is only because of problems that we grow mentally and spiritually. It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn.” — M. Scott Peck

 

We all have problems.  Ignoring them won’t make them go away.  One must face them and solve them.  Every problem solved increases your arsenal of weapons to take on the next problem. Those who won’t face the issues or deal with them not only don’t grow, they go backwards in life.  Oh, and you will have problems to solve until the day you die, deal with it.

 

Great Sayings – Enduring and Character Building by Joseph B. Wirthilin

“Learning to endure times of disappointment, suffering, and sorrow is part of our on-the-job training. These experiences, while often difficult to bear at the time, are precisely the kinds of experiences that stretch our understanding, build our character, and increase our compassion for others.” — Joseph B. Wirthlin

 

I know that I learn more from mistakes than from success.  It hurts more and I never want to repeat it.  While we as humans are doomed to go through it, we learn from the suffering, just some more than others.

Journalist Jokes, Because well….They Are Journalists

I worked with the press for decades.  The ones I worked with were nice people, but they had to write something that people will read, until now.  Journalists are supposed to (try to) and learn about the subject they are covering. Now they write ridiculous stories and then write the opposite.  They don’t even bother to fact check anymore.  No one reads corrections so they don’t care, and it shows.  I can’t even say this current lot are nice.  If you see below, they aren’t well liked either.

Lately, they have been circling the wagons to cover one side of the political scene or the other together.  They are exposing themselves to the public as to how little they know or how little they want to hide their bias.  A bunch of them just want to jam on the president out of spite, but they are either self-owning or he is swatting them like flies, especially Jim Acosta.

Twitter/Twitchy caught on and now instead of lawyer jokes, it is journalist jokes.  For the most part, this lot deserves what they are getting.  They are now as useless to regular people as celebtards and sports stars trying to give their opinion on something other than their sport.

The hashtag is #JournalistJokes, go see for yourselves.  Here is a list of some as a starter.  Others are more creative than me.

“Three journalists walk into a building. You’d think one of them would’ve seen it.”
“What’s 5 miles long and has an IQ of 30?” “A JOURNALIST PARADE!”
“Three journalists walk into bar and say ‘ouch’ – then write stories about how the bar is racist and phobic.”
“How does a journalist change a light bulb? He holds while the whole world revolves around him.”
And Twitchy’s pick for the winner: “What are the best four years of a journalist’s life? Third grade.”
“Why are there only 2 pallbearers at a ‘journalist’s funeral?” “Garbage cans only have two handles.”
“How do you make a journalist’s eyes light up?” “Shine a flashlight in his ear.”
“What do you call 25 skydiving journalists?” “Skeet.”
“How do you get a one-armed journalist out of a tree?” “Wave to them.”
“What’s the difference between a smart journalist and Bigfoot?” “Bigfoot has been spotted.”
“Why can’t a ‘journalist’ dial 911?” “She can’t find the eleven.”
“What do you do if a journalist throws a grenade at you?” “Pick it up, pull the pin out, and throw it back.”
“What’s the different between God and a journalist?” “God doesn’t think he’s a journalist.”

 

Hat tip WND

Another Covid-19 Related Saying That is Relevant – Life

“Learning to endure times of disappointment, suffering, and sorrow is part of our on-the-job training. These experiences, while often difficult to bear at the time, are precisely the kinds of experiences that stretch our understanding, build our character, and increase our compassion for others.” — Joseph B. Wirthlin

Great Sayings – Simon Sinek

“Panic causes tunnel vision. Calm acceptance of danger allows us to more easily assess the situation and see the options.” — Simon Sinek

 

It’s a practiced skill, although true leaders seem to be born with it the ability to put aside feelings and deal with it.  It’s why Army Rangers and Navy Seals can enter a hostile situation and execute.  Many drives by sports teams to the winning score are by level headed leaders who see the goal and understand the situation. Adding perceived danger only clouds the situation and adds complexity.

 

Covid-19, Making Celebtards Irrelevant

From the Irish

Finally we have proof that proves no one cares what people think who pretend to be others for our entertainment or those who play games for gazillions.  They are our distraction and don’t live paycheck to paycheck like the 60% of Americans who do.

Covid-19, It’s Another Pearl Harbor – We’ve Been Through This Before And We Do It Best

Update:  On April 5th, the Surgeon General compared the Corona Virus to Pearl Harbor.

There are events in history that cause a divided nation to come together.

Some have been pandemics and others have been wars, but there are times defined by history that people put their selfishness aside and gather to do what is best.

As an example, I could pick the Spanish Flu, SARS, MERS, H1N1, Y2K, the Swine Flu, the Space Race to the Moon or any number of events, but I’m going to use Pearl Harbor.

I wasn’t there, but our nation was divided as to whether we should enter another World War or isolate ourselves and hope the problem would go away or others would solve it.  This all changed on December 7, 1941 when our country was forced into the events of the world.

We could have cowered to the attack and ask them not to do it again.  Neville Chamberlin tried to appease Hitler this way and it didn’t work out so well.

THE MIGHT OF THE USA

Admiral Yamamoto, the architect of Pearl Harbor knew that a surprise attack to take out our Navy was the only real chance for Japan to stop the USA so they they could expand their reach in the Pacific Rim.  After all, he had studied and lived in the USA and knew that our forces were depleted after WWI.  He also knew that he couldn’t attack us on our own soil.

What also turned out to be true was that if the attack didn’t work, that he would awaken the might of the greatest industrialized nation in the world and unite our country to defeat evil.

On December 8th 1941, men young and old were lined up to enlist to fight for our survival.  They knew that they would be leaving loved ones behind and there was a distinct possibility that they wouldn’t return alive.  They put their fears aside and were willing to fight for our survival and the future that we enjoy today.

Not long after, women went to work in the factories.  We had to ration rubber and metal for war supplies, but everyone did their part.

Companies changed their direction.  Auto makers went from making cars to building bombers.  Scientists invented new weapons to win, not to just survive and suffer.  Our nation came together as one because we had a cause to fight for.

After the war, the greatest achievements in technology, medicine and space exploration happened at a speed heretofore never accomplished.

WE’VE BEEN COMPLACENT AND DIVIDED

All of that progress created wealth, comfort and abundance and we lost our focus.  It’s no secret that we’ve been a divided country.  I’m not here to point fingers because there is enough of that going on through the tradional news and social media.  All of it has a bias one way or the other and it has been pulling us apart.

We haven’t had a common enemy to rally against since the downfall of the Soviet Union.  Instead, we’ve been feeding on ourselves instead of pulling together.  There is a strain of hatred for what we have been that defies the achievements that built our country.  I have read celebtards and sports figures that say we have never been great.  This just proves that they have no appreciation for the sacrifice and achievements that gave them the fame and fortune to preach from their soapboxes.  It also denies our ability to do it again.

We as humans need a cause to believe in and to fight for, whether we are handed or invent it ourselves.  Conversely, politicians have been poisoning us with their desire for power and control.  They have been playing a game of capture the flag on their own islands and haven’t put the good of the country and the people first.  They have been building their power base by taking away our freedom through regulation.

Our government was set up with a system of checks and balances to ensure that no one had the power like the monarchy who we defeated to become what we are.  We now potentially suffer from what the history of the world has suffered from since the beginning of time.  That is the selfishness, greed and desire for power that has aflicted man since the expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

There also has been a faction for globalization that has tried to deplete our greatness by moving manufacturing offshore to the point that we could be held hostage for medical supplies.  Our spirit of nationalization has been tested by the border fight and ideology fueled by hate of the President.  It has ratcheted up these last few years in a power struggle because there was no enemy other than from within.

We have been eating ourselves instead of fighting together.

THE CORONA/COVID-19/CHINA/WUHAN/WHATEVER VIRUS

We now have a new Pearl Harbor.  We have been attacked by a new enemy who ambushed us again.  It is time for us to realize that we have a fight on our hands  Opportunity for success or failure knocks at the door of the fate of our country.

To do that, we need to go back to the spirit of 1941.  It was the people who came together in both the public and private sector, not the control of the Government that helped us save ourselves.

We can go back to being the humans that have struggle to fight against, rally together and overcome (both the virus and the overbearance of the governement regulations).

THE SILVER LINING

There is a great opportunity if we do the same as our forefathers.  Manufacturing in America again can help us right ourselves to help reunite our country and help other countries as we’ve done before.

We are beginning to see the automakers making ventilators, factories starting to make facemasks and other birth pains of our possible re-emergance to self-sustainment.  It can be done.

Before you manufacture in the USA instead of cheap labor offshore, there needs to be a construction boom to prepare production facilities.  After that, the job creation of made in in America is limitless, profitable and will help us help ourselves and others if they want it.

We already have become energy independent by producing enough oil so as to not be dependent on countries who hate us.

Our pharmacuticals are all made offshore by countries that have threatened to cut us off.  We need to do the same in the drug industry to continue our trend of independence and strength.  Through this can we help the rest of the world and save our nation from being held hostage for needed medical supplies and energy.

Most of all, we need fix our goverment and make them serve us instead of us serving them.  Companies and individuals need to be let loose to invent, design and create to defeat this latest Pearl Harbor instead of being told when and what we can or can’t do.  It’s time to limit their power and continue the greatness that history proves is inside of us.

Great Sayings – Vince Lombardi

I’ve heard him being quoted with different versions of this one, so I’ll put in the ones that I’ve heard.

 

“Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.” — Vince Lombardi

If winning isn’t important, why do they keep score?

Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.

It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s whether you win.

In Honor of My 600th Post, Here Is My To Do List

WordPress says this is my 600th post, but I know I lost the year 2007 when I switched from Blogger to WordPress because I avoid Google whenever possible.  I likely passed it a while back, but they are gone forever now.

I post a lot about IQ, intelligence, Introverts, tech and a lot of subjects that would provide a platform to post something meaningful, deep in meaning , intelligent, well thought out and well written.  As they say, the road to hell….

In that spirit, I give you a to do list that is sarcastic, funny to me and given the mood I’m in as I write this and very appropriate especially since my last name is Simonds (see number 8).

Humor On Getting Old

#1  I very quietly confided to my best friend that I was having an affair.
He turned to me and asked, “Are you having it catered?”
And that, my friend, is the sad definition of “OLD”.#2
Just before the funeral services, the undertaker came up to the very elderly widow and asked,
“How old was your husband?”
“98,” she replied: “Two years older than me”
“So you’re 96,” the undertaker commented.
She responded, “Hardly worth going home, is it?”

#3
Reporters interviewing a 104-year-old woman:
“And what do you think is the best thing about being 104?” the reporter asked.
She simply replied, “No peer pressure.”

#4
I’ve sure gotten old!
I have outlived my feet and my teeth,
I’ve had two bypass surgeries, a hip replacement,
New knees, fought prostate cancer and diabetes I’m half blind,
Can’t hear anything quieter than a jet engine,
Take 40 different medications that make me dizzy, winded, and subject to blackouts.
Have bouts with dementia.  Have poor circulation;
Hardly feel my hands and feet anymore.
Can’t remember if I’m 85 or 92.
Have lost all my friends. But, thank God,
I still have my driver’s license.

#5
I feel like my body has gotten totally out of shape,
So I got my doctor’s permission to join a fitness club and start exercising.
I decided to take an aerobics class for seniors.
I bent, twisted, gyrated, jumped up and down, and perspired for an hour. But, By the time I got my leotards on,The class was over.

#6
An elderly woman decided to prepare her will and told her preacher she had two final requests.
First, she wanted to be cremated, and second,
She wanted her ashes scattered over Wal-Mart.
“Wal-Mart?” the preacher exclaimed.
“Why Wal-Mart?”
“Then I’ll be sure my daughters visit me twice a week.”

#7
My memory’s not as sharp as it used to be..
Also, my memory’s not as sharp as it used to be.

#8
Know how to prevent sagging?
Just eat till the wrinkles fill out.

#9
It’s scary when you start making the same noises
As your coffee maker.

#10
These days about half the stuff
In my shopping cart says,
‘For fast relief.’

#11
THE SENILITY PRAYER:
Grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway,
The good fortune to run into the ones I do, and
The eyesight to tell the difference.

How Racism and White Supremacy Are The New Godwin’s Law

Authors Note: I have a tendency to notice patterns in both a macro and micro universes. I’ve been watching this one brew for a while now.

FIRST, WHAT IS GODWIN’S LAW?

Reformulated in the Net.Legends FAQs “Usenet Rule #4”:

“Any off-topic mention of Hitler or Nazis will cause the thread it is mentioned in to come to an irrelevant and off-topic end very soon; every thread on Usenet has a constantly-increasing probability to contain such a mention.”

It is generally accepted that whoever is the first to play the “Hitler card” has lost the argument as well as any trace of respect, as having to resort to comparing your adversary to the most infamous mass-murdering dictator in history generally means you’ve run out of better arguments. Thus, once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress. This principle is itself frequently referred to as Godwin’s law.

Disclaimer: This blog post does not take a position on racism, it’s prevalence, who is or isn’t or might be racist and my position on this subject. Aristotle noted that the mark of an educated mind is to entertain a thought without accepting it.  Therefore I am observing a speech and behavioral pattern of the public.  In other words it’s on them, not me.

It is also noted that a trait of people with a higher IQ is that you can argue from multiple perspectives (unfortunately so can lawyers and politicians who may or may not be of higher intelligence – especially politicians and especially millennial politicians).

The original Godwin’s Law has lost its’ sting since everyone is now Hitler, so the new talking point is racism or white supremacy. Rather than argue on the merits of the position of the person (political candidates mostly since they dominate the news) the go to is now calling the other person one of these two pejorative names.  This constant overuse has devalued the meaning of the words and rendered them ineffective at worst and boring at best.

Here is a quick search that shows views from multiple points doing just this:

https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=IXpRXZrPHOqH_Qa9hbr4AQ&q=examples+of+politicians+being+called+racist&oq=examples+of+politicians+being+called+racist&gs_l=psy-ab.3…2240.2240..3652…0.0..0.186.324.0j2……0….2j1..gws-wiz.aEnMfNpKcHc&ved=0ahUKEwja48Tux_3jAhXqQ98KHb2CDh8Q4dUDCAc&uact=5

This is in direct conflict with Martin Luther King’s evocative phrase: “I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”  Now, it is common to hear you are a racist or white supremacist because you don’t agree with me.  It greatly devalues MLK’s position.

A General Definition of racism

1: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race, racial prejudice or discrimination.

While I could list any or all of the comments that have been made in public themselves could be racist in tone, one could make the case for or against whether the accused are really racist. Calling someone a racist is easy but proving most of these ad hominem attacks is harder.

One would need to know what is inside the person making the statements to know if it were really true or just talking points. I won’t and am not even sure if I can make that value judgement. These attacks are easy enough to find (see the media below).

This is not the point of this post. I am not here to call someone a racist or White supremacist (or Hitler), rather to point out a trend.

In the department of redundancy department, this discussion is that the replacement for Godwin’s Law is that you are not Hitler, instead you are racist for whatever reason or whatever you say.

Why is this the case? The overuse of Godwin’s Law has made it impotent in political circles, the media and on social media platforms. Hitler stands with few others in history, perhaps Mao, Stalin or Pol Pot as true villains. Nobody really believes that the other person is like Hitler, they are just trying to make the worst case as they flush their argument down the toilet due to lack of substance.

HOW TO WIN YOUR POLITICAL RACE OR PUT YOUR OPPONENT ON THE DEFENSIVE WITHOUT TAKING A POSITION

What most of the accusers are doing is described in Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals numbers 7-13 as follows:

  • “Keep the pressure on.”
  • “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”
  • “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.”
  • “If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside.”
  • “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”

Rather than argue on a platform, beliefs and issues, it is far easier to make your opponent defend themselves, and put them off their talking points.

Example: Candidate 1) If elected, I’ll lower taxes if elected (insert any issue here because it’s about to be destroyed).

Candidate 2) my opponent is Hitler and molests collies.

Press coverage: Candidate 1 is a well known collie molester. How long has this person been molesting Collies? The first question in the next debate; Candidate 1, are you still molesting Collies?

Now insert the word racist or white supremacist for molesting collies and you get the point of why this is effective.

  • “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

HOW THE PRESS BECOMES AN ENABLER

A common adage is that sex sells, as do murders, rapes, political embarrassments and anything not good news. Guess what they will print (hint: collie molester)?

A not so recent trend is that there is a common thread where a preponderance of reporters has similar talking points concurrently. There is a groupthink that causes the media to focus on a particular phrase, word or subject. Like piranha on carcass, they hammer it home. https://www.google.com/search?q=why+do+news+anchors+say+the+same+thing&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwim9dyQxv3jAhWFB80KHeyQAE0Q1QIoAHoECAsQAQ&biw=1440&bih=825

Since the new go to in Godwin’s Law is you are a racist and/or white supremacist, it makes for headlines that sell advertising. I can also be taken as ideological.  This is the de-facto statement now to the point that it has lost effectiveness.

Having spent decades working with (and against) all forms of media, they have a tendency to take the position of them being right, even if proven wrong. A correction is meaningless as once a statement is printed, it is still in the minds of the reader. Almost no one reads the corrections.

Most are journalists who write about a topic because it is assigned to them.  In the case of social media everyone thinks they have the moral high ground.

SOCIAL MEDIA

I’m not going to spend much time here, because most people have gotten into an Internet argument. Nobody wins unless the motive of one of the combatants is to piss off the other. It won’t matter how factual your argument is because it is just Internet road rage.

If you go to the above link, you see the outcome and great advice on how to handle this.

So the net result of overusing this theme is the same thing that happens with all overuse. Godwin’s Law is becoming meaningless. The definition of what racism really is and when the word should be used to protect the oppressed has been damaged. Even Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals suffers from overuse and tediousness.

The political landscape is a train wreck of who can sling the most mud. Watch the ratings nosedive for upcoming debates.

Stay out of it on Social Media except to observe who isn’t smart enough to stay out of this pool. With each use of the attack, the meaning becomes less valid and meaningful.

I thought about calling someone a racist instead of Hitler the Simonds Law, since I haven’t found this discussion fully hashed out, but I’d rather be associated with something more positive.

Everyone is a loser who engages in this behavior. My advice is grow up or be better educated to discuss your position better than: you are Hitler/racist/white supremacist and whatever the next insult is.

It used to be that to call someone Hitler was the ultimate insult, albeit the indication that the argument is lost.  Has calling them a racist and/or a white supremacist suffered the same fate?

How To Talk To Generation Z Using Their Dictionary

Have you ever wondered what the f&*% the kids are talking about lately?  Do you parents want to decode your kids texts?

Below is the Generation Z dictionary distributed by a Mr. Callahan so I point to him if any Gen Z’ers have a problem with it.

 

When thinking about this, I’m sure every generation trashes the previous by describing them as not as learned and their improper use of grammar.  I’m also pretty confident that Shakespeare is rolling in his grave as he probably has done for each generation after him.

I’ve put some screenshots below and full link to the dictionary in PDF form to download.

What I fear is these people will be making decisions about my generation in a few years.

To fully honor this generation, I purposely didn’t put it in alphabetical order just to mess with them.

Generation Z Dictionary Link

Common Core Education, Failing our Kids

 

THE SETUP FOR THE DISCUSSION

I suppose every generation considers the learning of the next generation as inferior to theirs.  If we didn’t, why do millennials eat tide pods?  Why do parents talk about how better their education was and how soft they are on kids today?   There are many reasons for this including prejudice, standards, government intrusion into the learning system and deviation from what made our education system the one that led to more progress, inventions and breakthroughs than any in the history of man.

We’ve now potentially gone backwards and have therefore failed the following generations.

In working with public school kids, I observe that there are many reasons.  People are not equal and some are smarter and learn better than others.  Those with two parent families or with a single parent who is highly integrated in the student’s learning consistently outperform those who don’t.  The system has gone backwards due to interference from do-gooders, government (over)regulation and unions.  Note: that is my observation only.  I see kids rise above the system to achieve, but they have to swim upstream.  Most can coast their way through.

Conversely, children who learn under Classical Education have an advantage in learning as it is taught to a standard the kids must keep up with as opposed to teaching to the lowest common denominator so no one is left behind, penalizing those who could achieve more.

Further, Classical Christian education is an approach to learning which emphasizes biblical teachings and incorporates a teaching model known as the Trivium, which consists of the three stages of grammar, logic, and rhetoric.

Classical education complements a child’s natural development stages. Young children can memorize information easily. So, in the early years, learning is enhanced by songs, body movement, recitation, and exploration. This sets them up for success in their next stage of learning, critical thinking.

The critical thinkers are what companies want to hire.  They look at problems differently and come to the table with better skills for success.

They also have a distinct advantage over the public school system and the below discussion of how we are destroying learning.

WHERE EDUCATION HAS FAILED OUR KIDS

The biggest failure I’ve observed is the Common Core learning system.  It threw away the standards of learning that has proved to produce educated kids by introducing a system that borders on the ridiculous.

It was implemented by those we thought were helping us, yet it may have set us back for years.

Behind a lot of this is none other than Bill Gates, a man I’ve met and have mixed thoughts about.  Microsoft is far more successful than his support of Common Core.

From the American Thinker, I read this snippet:

But Bill Gates should have felt some uneasiness.  Common Core was untested, unproven, and micromanaged by David Coleman, a man with limited credentials but reliably far to the left.  Nobody in the business world launches a big new product without years of research and refinement.  Instead, Common Core was wrapped in $1 billion’s worth of propaganda and dumped on the country as a fait accompli.

The late, great Siegfried Engelmann, a real educator, was asked what he thought of this approach: “A perfect example of technical nonsense.  A sensible organization would rely heavily on data about procedures used to achieve outstanding results; and they would certainly field test the results to assure that the standards resulted in fair, achievable goals.  How many of these things did they do?  None.”

Did Gates realize that Common Core, supposedly a new and higher instruction, incorporates all the dubious ideas from decades prior?  New Math and Reform Math were the basis for Common Core Math.  Similarly, Whole Language and Balanced Literacy were rolled into Common Core’s English Language Arts (jargon for reading).  Constructivism, which prevented teacher from teaching, has been undermining American schools for decades.  Nothing new and higher about these clunkers.

An earlier generation of Gates’s business partners had created so much illiteracy that Rudolf Flesch had to write a book to answer every American’s favorite question: “why can’t Johnny read?”

I don’t hold Gates responsible except for his funding and use of his status to push this, but I hold those who pushed this system on the generation suffering from this learning standard.

The Thinker sums it up like this:

We have to wonder if Bill Gates performed due diligence, that being the care that a reasonable person exercises to avoid harm to other persons or property.  In other words, before putting your business funds to work on anything, you should make yourself an expert.  That’s what we need in this country: everybody becomes an expert.  For sure, nobody should trust the official experts.  If Bill Gates had observed that simple rule, he would still have a billion or two he doesn’t have now.  And the country would have tens of millions of better educated students it doesn’t have now. 

We need to stop this disservice to our kids and have them learn properly, and to learn to think critically.

Here is a video that shows just how far we’ve deviated from the learning system that invented computers, vaccines, technology that has helped mankind and sent men to the moon.  Go to 1:24 under Decompose to see how far we’ve digressed.

CONCLUSION

It would seem the dumping common core and putting real learning would be best for the kids.  The world is getting tougher and we need to give them every advantage possible.

 

 

What It’s Like To Have An Extremely High IQ?

Editors note:  Since I published this, the comments have been coming in and are now far better than the blog post.  I encourage you to read about the lives and struggles of those who have high IQ.  Their stories are quite revealing.-> It’s in the comments, hint, hint, hint.

Authors disclosure: I won’t disclose where I am on the IQ chart, but I do have some in my family with very high IQ.  My father had a gigantic IQ.   Here are the stories of those with high IQ and their travails. See if you identify with any of them.

The blog post actually starts here.  It is a compilation of individuals with their names mostly redacted who have written about the travails of a high IQ:

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – “The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.”

Update: 10/3/16 from Alison Craig

It sounds like you are in the beginning stages of an existentialist crisis. http://plato.stanford.edu/entrie…  I know the word “crisis” looks alarming, but it shouldn’t. In this case it just means you are examining the point of your own existence. Will I always be alone? Why am I here? Eventually you may even question all existence and come to the seemingly frightening conclusion that we’re all born alone and die alone and nothing in life has purpose.

“Well, that’s horrible! You’re depressing, why would you say such things?”

Again, I repeat- it is nothing to be alarmed about. Those things are true – to a degree. We are born alone and die alone, but we work to make connections with people who can support us, and that we can support in return. Intelligent or not, there will always be like minded people in the world somewhere and they are never easy to find for anyone. To me, making those connections is why I am here and is a large part of my purpose.

No matter how intelligent, wealthy or attractive a person is – it can always be difficult to find true connections so that all of the sharing and giving is not a one way street. Intelligent people may have stricter standards for making friends (in fashion or other), but so might a wealthy person, or a very attractive one. All people fear being used and some are just more cautious than others. An intelligent person can read books on understanding human nature ( Ten Keys to Handling Unreasonable & Difficult People), body language Psychology Today and other psychology tools to assist them in making life long connections with other people.

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From Shah Rukh Qasim on hiding your intelligence:

If you could generalize, the most common would be:

  1. You keep talking to a person, telling him something you think he doesn’t know. He keeps listening. Then he shares his insight which makes you think he has already known everything you told him. Smart people at often silent and active listeners.

Other signs will include:

  1. Good problem solvers. Not just mathematics problem. But even daily life problems. They’ll quickly find what’s wrong and take the best course of action to solve the problem.
  2. They’ll be different in views. And their views will always come with reason. A quote goes around: Small minds discuss people. Average mind discuss events. Great minds discuss ideas.
  3. “A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.” – William Shakespeare
  4. They often look for reasons. It goes in four levels (worst to best):
    1. What?
    2. How?

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It sucked when I was younger, but these days it’s just awesome.

There is a very common pattern among highly gifted people, namely:

  • When you’re young it’s very isolating, and it feels like everyone else is just stupid
  • As you grow older, you realize your gift. You also realize that raw intelligence isn’t everything, and that things like social skills matter a lot. Plus, you meet others like you.
  • Your social life improves as you get older and learn to connect on things other than intelligence or go to elite institutions where you can meet other highly gifted people.

Honestly, at this point in my life I feel like there are literally no downsides to having a high IQ. It’s like being born good looking or with great physical health: it’s not a silver bullet to a happy life, but it makes a lot of things much easier.

I only found out I had a high IQ (161) because my professional life was such a mess I had to see a psychologist.

If I had to sum it up in a few sentences, I would say that the most aggravating thing about being very intelligent is that you quickly see and understand things at a level of depth that most people don’t (or can’t), and it is very frustrating.  You want to move on, you want to be pushed, you don’t want to spend time explaining the details of things you have already grasped, but no one else is caught up yet, so you have to pause.  It is particularly painful when dealing with complex topics where the mental models involve feedback loops and non-linearities.

But that said, I’ve learned there is much more to life than intelligence, and being successful is more about hard work and good communication skills than anything else.

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“One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person.”

Working successfully in society and business is limited by some really important social choke points.  One of them is that other people, even if they are intellectually slower, must be treated with respect.  Another is that even if you are correct you will have difficulty getting people to act on your insights until they understand why you are correct.  A third thing is that most important activities are done as a team and so taking action requires breaking down your insights into something that your slower peers and employees can understand.  If you try to blow past these choke points you will destroy relationships and even if you are right, your career will languish.  I try to remind myself that being successful is not well correlated to being right.

My career is going pretty well now that I’ve understood these constraints.  It is possible to turn intelligence to practical life-advantage but our educational system doesn’t really give a blueprint for this.  I left school thinking that it mattered that I understood things 5 minutes or 5 years before my classmates did.  It doesn’t.  Most people’s functioning adult lives are not spent solving tough problems.  They are spent going through well established rituals and patterns of relating to each other punctuated by an occasional tough problem.  In most cases, people can even skip the tough problems and still do okay in life.  So how do you convert a parlor trick (like knowing the ending of a movie after 5 minutes) into something that will make you happier?  Mostly, you don’t.  Use it when it’s valuable and relax a little when it’s not.

There’s a great Dilbert where someone invites him to join the company’s Mensa chapter and Dilbert asks why people who are so smart continue to work at the company.  The president of the Mensa chapter answers, “Intelligence has much less practical application than you’d think.”

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In a word, I find it alienating.

Extremely so, in fact.

And I think this is not only because of what makes me “smart”, but also because of what my brain has to sacrifice to be “smart” in that way.  (More on that in a sec.)

For the record, my IQ was measured (years ago) at 178. [ETA: Just looked up the percentile, and that’s about 1 in 2 million, for some perspective.]  I have 3 advanced degrees and a solid career.  But I’m still single and spend very little time around other people.

It took me some time as a young kid to figure out that the people around me weren’t interested in the same things I was.  And that, often, to talk about the things I found interesting turned people away.

So I hid that.

When they announced that I was valedictorian of my high school, I was in 1st period art class, and one of my classmates refused to believe that they’d said my name.

But I never felt like I belonged anywhere, and I still don’t.

I don’t have kids, TV doesn’t interest me, I don’t follow celebrities or watch sports.  My time is spent with my work, and researching the things that are important to me — astrophysics, particle physics, consciousness research, and although this might seem strange to some people, Biblical scholarship (tho I’m not a believer).

As a result, chit-chat is impossible for me, or else it’s so boring that it becomes impossible.

But like I said, the problem isn’t only that my brain is interested in things that most other brains aren’t.  It’s also what my brain can’t do.

There’s only a certain amount of space in the brain, and if one area is eating up the real estate with more neural power, some other part of the brain is likely losing out.

For me, it’s some of the automatic social functioning which tells you, for example, what emotion another person is feeling based on their facial expression, or whether someone’s being sarcastic or not.  (Sarcasm is a minefield for me, and meeting another person in a hallway is a nightmare — I cannot interpret when to look, or not, what to say, or not, etc.)

That said, I have an enormously rich life, and I’ve adjusted to it.  When I stopped trying to fit in, things got better.

=============================================

HOWEVER…..STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES

The smart can do stupid things such as:

  • Ignoring the importance of design and style – When the iPod originally came out, technical people complained about its lack of features and perceived high price (“ooh, who cares about another MP3 player, I can go buy one at Best Buy for $50” http://forums.macrumors.com/show…).  In the meantime, it was so cool and easy to use that normal people went out in droves to buy it.
  • Using terrible tools, and taking pride in their awfulness – Especially common with programmers, who take pride in using programming languages and text editors that have been designed by programmers, not updated since the 1970s, and never touched by anyone with a modicum of design sense. They believe that mastering arcane, overcomplicated commands and processes are a mark of pride, rather than a waste of time.  I will refrain from singling out specific programming languages and tools here, because smart people also like to get caught up in pointless flame wars about this sort of thing.
  • Following the pack – Many smart people often seem to be followers, probably because they grow up spending so much time pleasing others via academic and extracurricular achievement that they never figure out what they really like to work on or try anything unique.  Smart people from top schools tend to flock into the same few elite fields, as they try to keep on achieving what other people think they should achieve, rather than figuring out whatever it is they intrinsically want to do.
  • Failing to develop social skills – Some smart people focus exclusively on their narrow area of interest and never realize that everything important in life is accomplished through other people.  They never try to improve their social skills, learn to network, or self promote, and often denigrate people who excel in these areas. If you are already a good engineer you are going to get 10x the return on time spent improving how you relate to other people compared to learning the next cool tool.
  • Focusing on being right above all else – Many smart people act as if being right trumps all else, and go around bluntly letting people know when they are wrong, as if this will somehow endear others to them.  They also believe that they can change other people’s minds through argument and facts, ignoring how emotional and irrational people actually are when it comes to making decisions or adopting beliefs.
  • Letting success in one area lead to overconfidence in others – Smart people sometimes think that just because they are expert in their field, they are automatically qualified in areas about which they know nothing.  For instance, doctors have a reputation as being bad investors: http://medicaleconomics.modernme….
  • Underrating effort and practice – For smart people, many things come easily without much effort.  They’re constantly praised for “being smart” whenever they do anything well.  The danger is that they become so reliant on feeling smart and having people praise them, that they avoid doing anything that they’re not immediately great at.  They start to believe that if you’re not good at something from the beginning, you’re destined to always be terrible at it, and the thing isn’t worth doing.  These smart people fail to further develop their natural talents and eventually fall behind others who, while less initially talented, weren’t as invested in “being smart” and instead spent more time practicing.  http://nymag.com/news/features/2…
  • Engaging in zero sum competitions with other smart people – Many smart people tend to flock to fields which are already saturated with other smart people.  Only a limited number of people can become a top investment banker, law partner, Fortune 500 CEO, humanities professor, or Jeopardy champion.  Yet smart people let themselves be funneled into these fields and relentlessly compete with each other for limited slots.  They all but ignore other areas where they could be successful, and that are less overrun by super-smart people.   Instead of thinking outside the box, smart people often think well within a box, a very competitive box that has been set up by other people and institutions to further someone else’s interests at the expense of the smart person.
  • Excessively focusing on comparing their achievements with others – Smart people who have been raised in a typical achievement-focused family or school can get anxious about achievement to the point of ridiculousness.  This leads to people earnestly asking questions like: Success: If I haven’t succeeded in my mid 20s, could I be successful in the rest of my life? and Are you a failure if you are not a billionaire by age 30? What about 40?
  • Ignoring diminishing returns on information – Smart people are often voracious readers and can absorb huge quantities of information on any subject.  They get caught up in reading every last bit of information on subjects that interest them, like investing, lifehacking, or tech specs of products they’re planning on buying.   While some information is useful in making a decision, poring through the vast amount of information available online can be a waste of time.  They end up spending a lot of time gathering information without taking action.
  • Elitism – Smart people often use smartness as measure of the entire worth of a person.  They fail to see the value in or even relate with people who are different.  This is illustrated by the Yale professor who doesn’t have the slightest idea what to say to his plumber: http://www.theamericanscholar.or….  And questions like Am I an elitist to think that most people are stupid?

 

What Are The Top 10 Things You Should Be Informed Of In Life

Again, these are not my answers, but are an interesting read on people.  It will offend some, but God is number one for me.  The rest of the lists below should offend someone or many.

1. Human psychology. It’s a young field, and no one has all the answers yet. But you can get a better understanding of why other people do what they do — and how to thread your way through life’s complexities — by studying at least a little of this field.

2. The basics of accounting. This will greatly reduce your chances of being swindled in life. It also will make it much easier for you to do some systematic planning, while keeping track of how you’re doing vis a vis your plans.

3. Music. It will calm you. It will inspire you. It will build bridges to a more interesting set of friends.

4. Your own family’s story. Where did your parents grow up, and how did that shape who they are? What are the formal or informal communities that help define your identity? (“We are athletes … we are Irish … we are restless spirits who move from city to city.”) Having an enduring sense of identity that goes beyond the ups and downs of your own life will be a source of comfort and motivation all your life.

5. The way your government really works. Find out why some laws are tightly enforced and others aren’t. Learn the best ways of influencing your government — whether it’s on matters of national significance or something as personal as winning a zoning variance for the cafe you run. Finally, gain some non-bitter insights about why society doesn’t always work the way you’d like.

6. Good nutrition and how to incorporate it into your life. Mike Leary is right.  In a poor society, this is the difference between life and death. In a rich society, it’s — surprise! — the difference between a long, robust future and chronic illness that can turn deadly far too soon.

7. Different cultural values. If you’re going to be effective outside a small cluster of people like you, you’ll need to understand and appreciate how other tribes work, too.

8. How to communicate your ideas to the wider world. Justin Freeman is right. Learn how to speak clearly and persuasively. Or to write well. Or to create useful and appealing computer code, video, music, etc. Pick the medium that works best for you, and make sure you don’t go through life being mute.

9. Effective parenting. Just because your parents didn’t quite get it right (no one ever does!) doesn’t mean that you can’t do better. Find your own style, stick with what works … but keep refining your approach as you learn from others. You owe it to the species.

10. Quora. It’s one-stop shopping for biased crap! Be aware of what’s on Quora, and you’ll know what not to believe.

Here’s another:

  1. Realize that nobody cares, and if they do, you shouldn’t care that they care. Got a new car? Nobody cares. You’ll get some gawkers for a couple of weeks—they don’t care. They’re curious. Three weeks in it’ll be just another shiny blob among all the thousands of others crawling down the freeway and sitting in garages and driveways up and down your street. People will care about your car just as much as you care about all of those. Got a new gewgaw? New wardrobe? Went to a swanky restaurant? Exotic vacation? Nobody cares. Don’t base your happiness on people caring, because they won’t. And if they do, they either want your stuff or hate you for it.
  2. Some rule breakers will break rule number one. Occasionally, people in your life will defy the odds and actually care about you. Still not your stuff, sorry. But if they value you, they’ll value that you value it, and they’ll listen. When you talk about all of those things that nobody else cares about, they will look into your eyes and consume your words, and in that moment you will know that every part of them is there with you.
  3. Spend your life with rule breakers. Marry them. Befriend them. Work with them. Spend weekends with them. No matter how much power you become possessed of, you’ll never be able to make someone care—so gather close the caring.
  4. Money is cheap. I mean, there’s a lot of it—about forty thousand billion dollars floating around the world, largely made up of cash whose value is made up and ascribed to it, anyway. Don’t engineer your life around getting a slightly less tiny portion of this pile, and make your spirit of generosity reflect this principle. I knew a man who became driven by the desire to amass six figures in savings, so he worked and scrimped and sacrificed to get there. And he did… right before he died of cancer. I’m sure his wife’s new husband appreciated his diligence.
  5. Money is expensive. I mean, it’s difficult to get your hands on sometimes—and you never know when someone’s going to pull the floorboards out from under you—so don’t be stupid with it. Avoid debt on depreciating assets, and never incur debt in order to assuage your vanity (see rule number one). Debt has become normative, but don’t blithely accept it as a rite of passage into adulthood—debt represents imbalance and, in some sense, often a resignation of control. Student loan debt isn’t always unavoidable, but it isn’t a given—my wife and I completed a combined ten years of college with zero debt between us. If you can’t avoid it, though, make sure that your degree is an investment rather than a liability—I mourn a bit for all of the people going tens of thousands of dollars in debt in pursuit of vague liberal arts degrees with no idea of what they want out of life. If you’re just dropping tuition dollars for lack of a better idea at the moment, just withdraw and go wander around Europe for a few weeks—I guarantee you’ll spend less and learn more in the process.
  6. Learn the ancient art of rhetoric. The elements of rhetoric, in all of their forms, are what make the world go around—because they are what prompt the decisions people make. If you develop an understanding of how they work, while everyone else is frightened by flames and booming voices, you will be able to see behind veils of communication and see what levers little men are pulling. Not only will you develop immunity from all manner of commercials, marketing, hucksters and salesmen, to the beautiful speeches of liars and thieves, you’ll also find yourself able to craft your speech in ways that influence people. When you know how to speak in order to change someone’s mind, to instill confidence in someone, to quiet the fears of a child, then you will know this power firsthand. However, bear in mind as you use it that your opponent in any debate is not the other person, but ignorance.
  7. You are responsible to everyone, but you’re responsible for yourself. I believe we’re responsible to everyone for something, even if it’s something as basic as an affirmation of their humanity. However, it should most often go far beyond that and manifest itself in service to others, to being a voice for the voiceless. If you’re reading this, there are those around you who toil under burdens larger than yours, who stand in need of touch and respect and chances. Conversely, though, you’re responsible for yourself. Nobody else is going to find success for you, and nobody else is going to instill happiness into you from the outside. That’s on you.
  8. Learn to see reality in terms of systems. When you understand the world around you as a massive web of interconnected, largely interdependent systems, things get much less mystifying—and the less we either ascribe to magic or allow to exist behind a fog, the less susceptible we’ll be to all manner of being taken advantage of. However:
  9. Account for the threat of black swan events. Sometimes chaos consumes the most meticulous of plans, and if you live life with no margins in a financial, emotional, or any other sense, you will be subject to its whims. Take risks, but backstop them with something—I strongly suspect these people who say having a Plan B is a sign of weak commitment aren’t living hand to mouth. Do what you need to in order to keep your footing.
  10. You both need and don’t need other people. You need others in a sense that you need to be part of a community—there’s a reason we reflexively pity hermits. Regardless of your theory of anthropogenesis, it’s hard to deny that we are built for community, and that ‘we’ is always more than ‘me.’ However, you don’t need another person in order for your life to have meaning—this idea that Disney has shoved through our eyeballs, that there’s someone out there for all of us if we’ll just believe hard enough and never stop searching, is hokum… because of arithmetic, if nothing else. Establish your own life—then, if there’s a particular person that you can’t help but integrate, believe me, you’ll know.
  11. Always give more than is required of you.

Go to the link above, there is more.

Add more in comments if you have a better suggestion than these.

Internet Road Rage, You Are Probably a Coward Hiding Behind The Screen

internet road rageWhat is Internet Road Rage?  My definition is that you are willing to engage in hateful, spiteful language aimed at someone whom you either don’t agree with ideologically/religiously/politically/any excuse to vent, or a counter attack to someone who got on you or your ideas.

Here is the caveat.  You most likely wouldn’t act or speak that way in person or to someone’s face with that tone or language.  Most of you have either more self-decency in person or a survival instinct that would prevent you from getting your ass kicked.

Worse, you could or are likely a Porch Dog, one who barks severely, but is no real threat.  In other words, you yap by tapping the keyboard but pose no intellectual threat.

ACTUAL ROAD RAGE

Most people have road rage inside them.   Here is how it works:

Polite drivers may think that dialogue like that is the territory of deranged, out-of-control, or terrible drivers, and maybe they’re right. But according to a new survey from AAA, most drivers in the United States display signs of road rage. So too bad, you supposedly polite drivers.

The survey, published today, polled 2,705 drivers 16 years old and older about their road rage habits. Seventy-eight percent of drivers—more than three-quarters—reported engaging in some kind of aggressive driving maneuver, including tailgating, yelling, honking, gesturing angrily, purposely blocking another vehicle, cutting someone off, confronting someone, and intentionally ramming another car.

The breakdown of each category was fairly unsurprising. Fifty-one percent of drivers reported tailgating at least once; 47 percent reported yelling at least once; 45 percent reported honking at least once. The more bats**t responses—confronting another driver and ramming another vehicle—polled much lower on the list.

INTERNET ROAD RAGE

There is every flavor in the book, more than I can write about.  It started with email flaming.  As soon as forums or ideological websites like Quora, Instagram, Facebook, The Huffpo, Fox News, etc., etc.  The net of it was that people were able to transfer their hate to others online.  The comments are mendacious, eviscerating and frequently ad hominem attacks that most wouldn’t do face to face.

I call B.S. as  most of those people are cowards and wouldn’t stand up to others in real life.  There are of course some that do speak their minds, but they generally have more of a life than pissing on each other online.

What would the other person do?  Back in the schoolyard days, you say something like what is written almost everywhere now and you’d have to fight.  Most people don’t like to fight and there are a few who know very well how to protect themselves.  I’d even bet that a lot of folks who are right wingers fully explore their second amendment rights.  Who wants to walk into that?  There are some who would be very able to kick your ass and would.

WHY DO YOU DO IT?

I use the word you in its’ plural and direct form.  I’m pointing at everyone who reads this because most of you have crossed the line when someone pissed you off.

The reason is that you envision some curtain of invisibility or invincibility because you are typing to a screen.  You wouldn’t say it in person, or wouldn’t say it that way.  Therefore, you are either a coward or a bully.  Most people lose considerable IQ points when you think this way.

So stop it.  Grow up and act like an adult.  Be big enough to pass over some typed letters of venting.  More than likely, there isn’t enough reason for responses that are so harsh.  Before you type it, imagine saying it face to face and see if you would do it, or risk either your reputation or an ass whooping.

can of whoop ass

Social Media, Ruining Your Life Part 2

I recently posted how Social Media is probably making your life worse, especially those who have to look anything up to know everything.  Even more, those whose lives and feelings are governed by their online image and how many likes they got vs. others are losing out on life to a device.

The other issue is having your face buried in your phone while walking.  You are clueless to the world around you.  See the video above.

UPDATE: Getting Cosmetic Surgery for Snapchat Dysmorphia

This is by far the most narcissistic thing I’ve read.  People (tide pod eaters) are getting surgery to look like the filters they use on their Snapchat because they don’t look good enough in life because it is wreaking havoc on their self-esteem.  The report in the journal JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery claims that these filters can sometimes trigger body dysmorphic disorder, a mental illness that can lead to compulsive tendencies and unnecessary beauty procedures, among other negative outcomes.

A study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that people who were regular users of social media were twice as likely to feel lonely than those that were light users.

Another study released found that social media, especially Instagram, deepened feelings of anxiety and inadequacy for 15 to 24 year olds.

Go play outside and leave your phone in your pocket.  Also, don’t live your life on social media and you won’t be so self-obsessed.

UPDATE: A study came out stating that good social media don’t out weigh the bad:

(Reuters Health) – For young adults, the adverse effect of negative social media experiences on mental health outweigh any potential benefits of positive experiences, a study of university students suggests.

Each 10 percent increase in a student’s negative experiences on social media was associated with a 20 percent increase in the odds of depressive symptoms, researchers found.

But positive experiences on social media were only weakly linked to lower depressive symptoms. Each 10 percent increase in positive social media interaction was associated with only a four percent drop in depressive symptoms – a difference so small that it might have been due to chance.

“This is not inconsistent with the way we see things in the offline world . . . The negative things we encounter in the world count more than positive ones,” said study leader Brian A. Primack, director of the Center for Research on Media, Technology and Health at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania.

“If you have four different classes in college, the fourth class that you did poorly in probably took up all your mental energy,” he told Reuters Health by phone.

Primack said he believes social media lends itself to negativity bias because it is saturated with positive experiences that leave people jaded.

YOU ARE BEING WATCHED

I talked with friends at the gym who are or were in law enforcement  In cop terms they are always made by others because they are constantly looking around.  They are aware of their environment, potential danger, potentially dangerous people and escape routes.  As you can see in the video of fails, these people are vulnerable to all of the above.

Guess how else you are vulnerable with your head buried in a screen?  It doesn’t take a genius to know that Facebook, Google, Amazon and every other site is not only tracking your clicks, but are tracking where you go and what you do.

We used to have instructions, a map and intuition to get where we were going and for the most part, we got there.  millennial’s can’t get to the 7-11 without Google Maps now.  It’s also funny how they can know everything, but have knowledge of very little.  Take away their phone and not only would they not run into things, they’d have to actually learn about how things really work and how to navigate (I’m not discriminating here, I know directionally challenged relatives my age who fall into this category).  Looking up something on your phone doesn’t make you smart.

YOU ARE GIVING THE PERV’S A FREE TICKET

I’m not in law enforcement, but I put my phone away and watch others, especially those watching girls.  It’s almost a sport.   It used to be if a guy was looking in the wrong part of a girl, they got busted immediately.  It was like watching a tennis match seeing the heads turn when a cute girl walked by.  They had to use mirrored sunglasses and just glance when they could and not let their wives/girlfriends catch them.   Now, instead of having to glance behind sunglasses, the perv’s just look down or up (or up and down) anyone they want and modesty just goes out the window.  It’s truly tasteless, but if you had your head out of the phone, you wouldn’t be getting eyeballed so lasciviously.

GET A LIFE

It’s amazing to watch people now escape to their phone in what used to be a social situation.  So stop running into things and get a life.

FACEBOOK IS DESIGNED TO EXPLOIT HUMAN VULNERABILITIES

Recently, former Facebook president Sean Parker pointed out how Facebook is hurting people.

When Facebook was getting going, I had these people who would come up to me and they would say, ‘I’m not on social media.’ And I would say, ‘OK. You know, you will be. And then they would say, ‘No, no, no. I value my real-life interactions. I value the moment. I value presence. I value intimacy.’ And I would say, … ‘We’ll get you eventually.’

Parker discussed the possible psychological effects of social media and Facebook in particular, especially for children who are now growing up in a digitally connected age:

I don’t know if I really understood the consequences of what I was saying, because [of] the unintended consequences of a network when it grows to a billion or 2 billion people and … it literally changes your relationship with society, with each other … It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways. God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.

The former Facebook President discussed the company’s initial aim, which was mainly centered around drawing in and building their audience:

The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them, … was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’ And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever. And that’s going to get you to contribute more content, and that’s going to get you … more likes and comments.

Parker described Facebook’s appeal as a “social-validation feedback loop” which exploits human psychology to keep users coming back to the app:

It’s a social-validation feedback loop … exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. The inventors, creators — it’s me, it’s Mark [Zuckerberg], it’s Kevin Systrom on Instagram, it’s all of these people — understood this consciously. And we did it anyway.

Parker also briefly discussed how his vast wealth is likely to allow him to live longer than the average person due to advances in medical science

Reflections On Growing Older

I’ll bet if you ask most people of a certain age, they are going to realize that this is true.  I remember asking my father for life advice on his 75th birthday.  He answered, “where did it all go so fast?”  You’ll find that one below also.

Read and learn if you are young, commiserate if you agree.

    #1  –  I talk to myself because there are times I need expert advice.

    #2  –  I consider “In Style” to be the clothes that still fit.

    #3  –  I don’t need anger management.  I need people to stop pissing me off.

    #4  –  My people skills are just fine. It’s my tolerance for idiots that needs work.

    #5  –  The biggest lie I tell myself is, “I don’t need to write that down.  I’ll remember it.”

    #6  –  I have days when my life is just a tent away from a circus.

    #7  –  These days, “on time” is when I get there.

    #8  –  Even duct tape can’t fix stupid – but it sure does muffle the sound.

    #9  –  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could put ourselves in the dryer for ten minutes, then come out wrinkle-free and three sizes smaller?

    #10  –  Lately, I’ve noticed people my age are so much older than me.

    #11  –  “Getting lucky” means walking into a room and remembering why I’m there.

    #12  –  When I was a child, I thought nap time was punishment.  Now it feels like a mini-vacation.

    #13  –  Some days I have no idea what I’m doing out of bed.

    #14  –  I thought growing old would take longer.

    #15  –  Aging sure has slowed me down, but it hasn’t shut me up.

    #16  –  I still haven’t learned to act my age and doubt I’ll live that long.


Unfortunately, these are all sadly true!

California Humor

Here is a little Friday humor, inspired by all the recent going’s on in the news about housing prices, immigration, pot, high taxes, overburdensome government regulation and the usual stuff you read about.

1. Your coworker has 8 body piercings and none are visible.
2. You make over $300,000 and still can’t afford a house.
3. You take a bus and are shocked at two people carrying on a conversation in English.
4. Your child’s 3rd-grade teacher has purple hair, a nose ring, and is named Flower.
5. You can’t remember . . . is pot illegal?
6. You’ve been to a baby shower that has two mothers and a sperm donor.
7. You have a very strong opinion about where your coffee beans are grown, and you can taste the difference between Sumatran and Ethiopian.
8. You can’t remember . . . . is pot illegal?
9. A really great parking space can totally move you to tears.
10. Gas costs $1.00 per gallon more than anywhere else in the U.S.
11. Unlike back home, the guy at 8:30 am at Starbucks wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses who looks like George Clooney really IS George Clooney.
12. Your car insurance costs as much as your house payment.
13. You can’t remember . . . .is pot illegal?
14. It’s barely sprinkling rain and there’s a report on every news station: “STORM WATCH.”
15. You pass an elementary school playground and the children are all busy with their cell phones.
16. Or it’s barely sprinkling rain outside, so you leave for work an hour early to avoid all the weather-related accidents.
17. HEY!!!! Is pot illegal????
18. Both you AND your dog have therapists, psychics, personal trainers and cosmetic surgeons.
19 The Terminator was your governor.
20. If you drive illegally, they take your driver’s license. If you’re here illegally, they want to give you one.

Hat tip to American Digest for this one.

Being Rude To Others At Work; Who is Worse, Men or Women?

I love controversial subjects, especially among the sexes.  Nothing gets the hackles up quicker than something that offends what you hold close to your heart.  I’ve worked with the media for decades and sensationalism is what sells.  It’s sex, death, murder, immorality, bankruptcy, divorce and other vices that can be cherry picked to place on the headline.  This is not real life, like…..

Ye old workplace.

It is a petri dish of human interaction that has been infected by #MeToo, harassment, incivility, sexism, partiality, affairs and occasionally competent work and results.  I’ve already discussed if Men and Women can work together here, and Women now swear more than men, so I found this article and it looked either like a headline maker or a trend.  I decided to find out.

Having sat through weeks of diversity training that is beyond boring and is a CYA for the legal department, I’ve been told that you can’t say certain things, act in a ways that could be demeaning or sexually suggestive or anything outside of plain vanilla.  I choose to keep to myself and observe.  That is why this study caught my eye.  The behavior is far outside of my diversity training, yet it goes on unabated.

WHO ARE THE BIGGEST OFFENDERS?

A recent study shows that women are reporting that it is other women who are the most rude and uncivil towards women.  It goes like this:

In terms of how it is acted out:

“Across the three studies, we found consistent evidence that women reported higher levels of incivility from other women than their male counterparts,” Gabriel says. “In other words, women are ruder to each other than they are to men, or than men are to women.

“This isn’t to say men were off the hook or they weren’t engaging in these behaviors,” she notes. “But when we compared the average levels of incivility reported, female-instigated incivility was reported more often than male-instigated incivility by women in our three studies.”

THE QUEEN BEE SYNDROME

The article at the link above states:

The phenomenon of women discriminating against other women in the workplace—particularly as they rise in seniority—has long been documented as the “queen bee syndrome.” As women have increased their ranks in the workplace, most will admit to experiencing rude behavior and incivility.

Who is at fault for dishing out these mildly deviant behaviors? Has the syndrome grown more pervasive?

“Studies show women report more incivility experiences overall than men, but we wanted to find out who was targeting women with rude remarks,” says Allison Gabriel, assistant professor of management and organizations in the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management.

 

I worked with a female named Sandy.  No one was harder to understand or trust as a senior manager than she.  My friends would dread working for her and it was a success not to get fired before your term was complete.  Everyone tried to get out as fast as they could, or would not seek a promotion just to not work for or with her.

I WANTED TO KNOW SO I ASKED THEM IF IT WAS TRUE, WHAT THEY SAID, PERHAPS NSFW

I like to look at things from the point of view of how would an intellectual view this.  Normally, this would entail a scientific study without bias, with control groups and so forth.  My observation is that people’s behavior is not scientific when it comes to emotions and I’ve been told by  those of the female persuasion that they are more likely to be emotional.  I couldn’t argue the point, nor did I care to.

Therefore, I figured that asking some females if this was correct and what they’ve seen at work would be my best estimate as to whether this is true.  Please note that some of the comments while stated verbatim are not always complimentary and some are off-color.  Commenters:  Note, if you get pissed off, these are answers by women to a question I asked about working with females and is the study accurate.  If you just want to hate, please go elsewhere as if it’s directed at me, it’s a fart in the wind and that’s how I’ll treat it.

Here are some responses:

Females can be bitchy, catty. other names.

She slept her way to her position.

She got there because of her looks (or tits), not her ability.

She dresses like a whore.

There is one bitch who leans over in front of guys to get her way.

Women are the biggest backstabbers.

Sure there is an occasional guy who bugs me or tries to hit on me, but girls are far worse as a group.

Sure she was nice when she was one of us, but as soon as they gave her a little power, she turned on us like we’d done something to her.

She’s great to work for if you are female.  She only promotes women and you can get your way over any guys.

Women here can only manage 2 inches in front of their face.  They don’t get the big picture or work towards the company’s goals.

Once you make it clear you aren’t going to sleep with them, the men are much easier to work with or for.  The mission and strategy are clear and they can focus on that.

Guys will either just not say anything or will tell you how it is.  The girls say something to your face and f__k you over behind your back if you aren’t in their group.

Guys handle success and failure better than the girls I work with.  One of them always takes it personally and spends weeks trying to get back at you instead of trying to get work done.

I can never trust what a woman says to me.  Guys don’t lie as much or as well as girls do unless they want in your pants.

Women talk too much and I can’t get my work done.

When aunt Flo comes calling honey you better hide from that bitch.

Just get more than one female together in a group and watch the fireworks.

Guys are used to joking, I think they learned it in a locker room or something.  They can cuss each other out in a meeting  and it’s like a punch in the arm and then go have a beer.  A woman will hold something you say to her against you for the rest of your life.

Enough!  Most of these I got multiple times, which is why they made the list.  I stopped asking because this attitude was overwhelming me.

CONCLUSION

I can only surmise that it is tough for women to work with women.  I didn’t give it much thought until I read this study, but it does appear that women are more difficult towards other women at the workplace

 

 

Fun Facts Like Betty White IS older than Sliced Bread, A Break from The News, Fake News and Shitholes

With all the crap that is in the news today, I’m taking a break of levity with some interesting facts.  Since I got this from someone else, some of it could be disputed, like peas on pizza, but it’s a hell of a lot closer to the truth than you’ll read in the news.
1. A strawberry isn’t a berry but a banana is.
2. Avocados and watermelon are berries, too.
3. Cashews grow on trees like this:
4. And Brussels sprouts grow in long stalks like this:
Flickr / Creative Commons / Katy Stoddard / Via Flickr: 68067047@N00
5. Chocolate milk was invented in Ireland.
6. Ketchup used to be sold as medicine.
7. Carrots were originally purple.
8. McDonald’s sells 75 hamburgers every second of every day.
9. Yams and sweet potatoes are not the same thing
10. Ripe cranberries will bounce like rubber balls.
11. An average ear of corn has an even number of rows, usually 16.
12. Betty White is actually older than sliced bread.
Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images for TV Land
13. Humans share 50% of their DNA with bananas.
14. Honey never spoils. You can eat 32,000-year-old honey.
15. Peanuts are not nuts. They grow in the ground like this, so they are legumes.
16. Vending machines are twice as likely to kill you than a shark is.
17. Coconuts kill more people than sharks every year. So do cows.
18. Pound cake got its name from its original recipe, which called for a pound each of butter, eggs, sugar, and flour.
19. The probability of you drinking a glass of water that contains a molecule of water that also passed through a dinosaur is almost 100%.
20. Honey is made from nectar and bee vomit.
21. Pineapples grow like this:
22. Quinoa is the seeds of this plant:
23. Kiwis grow on vines:
Bignai / Getty Images
24. Ginger is the root of a plant:
25. And cinnamon is just the inner part of this tree:
Flickr / Creative Commons / Abby Flat-coat / / Via Flickr: 22912005@N06
26. And artichokes are flowers that are eaten as buds. This is what they look like when flowered:
Flickr / Creative Commons / Wayne Marshall
27. “Spam” is short for spiced ham.
28. Popsicles were invented by an 11-year-old in 1905.
29. Apples, like pears and plums, belong to the rose family.
30. The official state vegetable of Oklahoma is the watermelon. 
31. Peas are one the most popular pizza toppings in Brazil:
32. There are over 7,500 varieties of apples throughout the world, and it would take you 20 years to try them all if you had one each day.
33. The twists in pretzels are made to look like arms crossed in prayer.
34. Canola oil was originally called rapeseed oil, but renamed by the Canadian oil industry in 1978 to avoid negative connotations. “Canola” is short for “Canadian oil.”
35. And no matter what color Froot Loop you eat, they all taste the same.

Actual Maps of Where The #Shitholes Are – An A-Polititical Post On Where They Exist

First, I am not going to weigh in on what a world leader has said.  Every time I have ever tried it, nothing is gained as everyone has their own opinion and trying to sway it is not what I care about.  Enjoy your center, left, right or whatever political position you wish.

I was looking for whether this actually exists.  Here is what I’ve found.

UPDATE: Portland is the newest shit hole. Click on the link: Portland: American epicenter of degeneracy, depression, and ANTIFA.

Here is a link and a screenshot of a map from the Rice Institute based showing countries with the most open defecation.

Forbes published a list of the world’s dirtiest cities.  Without passing judgement, they seem to line up with the shitholes in the map so the facts seem to be in order.

Next, is it possible that the United States has places where there is open defecation?  I found that map also.

Below is the link and screenshot also, but in case you don’t recognize it, this is San Francisco.

Now, after reading this, one can add it to their travel plans to go and help, or avoid for sanitary purposes, you choose.  If you go to San Francisco, zoom in and you can see where to not step in a pile of poop.  As I type that, I realize that it is sad for what is supposed to be one of the leading cities of the US, and one so close to silicon valley.

It also gives everyone equal political fodder to take shots at whomever.  In these days of political partisanship, nothing or nobody is safe by the 3rd or 4th comment, so I expect the same.

I just got curious and I wondered if what was said was true or not. Apparently it is.

Here is the link to the recent study of sanitation including feces, used syringes and other disease carrying trash in the heart of San Francisco.  It’s a shame since it is in the heart of the restaurant and hotel area.  You’d think that the tourism officials would do something about this, but looking at the graph indicates the problem escalating.

UPDATE: San Francisco is getting over 80 calls a day to report human feces for clean up.  In the same report were almost as many instances of needles despite the fact that there are safe injection spaces for shooting up an illegal drug that destroys lives.

 

UPDATE: It turns out that Denver is now officially classified as a shithole also.  They passed an act that you can drop trou and pinch a loaf right on the street.  Here is the story and the reason why they passed the law.

UPDATE: It looks like Hawaii isn’t as pristine as one thinks of it.  The cesspools and the water around the islands are contaminated enough to make it a shithole also.  There is a link within this link that goes to the WSJ.

Video Update: A large portion of Orange county is now a 3rd world shithole also.

After all is said and done, I thought that having to have a map to not step in a pile of human feces makes a city the biggest shithole.  It turns out that I was wrong.

According to the Government services including the EPA, ACS and the Census bureau comes this little gem:

The City that Never Sleeps ranked the highest in three out of five categories, placing it as shittest-city-in-the-nation of 427.9 on Busy Bee’s “dirtiness index.” The next closest competitor for all the wrong reasons is Los Angeles, which has a dirtiness index of 317.8. To complete the top five list, the remaining dirtiest cities are Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco.

So not only do you have to pay way more more to live in these places, they have worse air, bigger rats and more cockroaches, they turn out to be the shitholes that we all thought they were.  Why anyone would choose to live there knowing there?

Nobody Cares About Celebrities Opinions, Or For Celebrities For That Matter

This post was inspired by Candace who states:


Actors are people who are famous for being able to imitate and to pretend.  This does not qualify them for NASA, Weather Condition determination or basically anything else.  They are something to look at, listen to on-screen and forget.  Rinse and repeat.

They used to be respected more when they cared for their country, their fans and people in general.  Social media, fame and fortune have convinced them that someone actually cares what they think.  There have been some who actually contributed to the betterment of the world, but most of them were in the WWII class.

These days, they seem to have a delusion that their opinion on politics, climate change, gender identity, what to eat and anything else would actually matter to someone outside of Hollywood.  They are a part of the do as I say, not as I do crowd.  In fact they are the president of the club.

TRAIN WRECK

The basic nature of people is that they care about people who think like they do or conversely, are looking for a train wreck.  Celebrities and now many sports figures fit into these categories.

Last night, the Emmy’s were a train wreck, at least in ratings by reaching an all time low in viewership.

People are tired of them pontificating about anything or their pet cause, even if it is noble.  Shut up and act and don’t tell us what to do.  Most of us who live real lives are smarter and have more common sense.

SPORTS ALSO

The overpaid sports stars are now getting into the act by trying to inform us on how we are to act with respect to our personal patriotism.  Again, shut up and play the game.  They are entertainment for us to distract us from daily life at best.  We don’t care about your personal vendetta’s that you thrust upon us because somehow your millions don’t make up for your perceived injustice.

How do I know this?  The NFL is now worried about dwindling numbers both at the stadiums and the TV numbers.  Go to the link and find one team who can’t even sell out a 27,000 seat stadium.

Some of the athletes think that we care what they think because they can play a kids game.

I read this at Diogenes Middle Finger and found it enlightening on the subject as he called out the assholiness of LeBron James.  BTW, you should follow DMF, a blog I read daily and recommend it.

It’s not as if we’re talking about some of the real heroes in sports of my youth, here. The Lebron James’ of the world did not have to struggle, and in the process, advance the character and quality of American Life by their example, like some of my childhood heroes did. Lebron James is no Hank Aaron, suffering death threats for being good enough to threaten a cherished record, or being a — maybe THE — visible symbol of the pernicious, past influence of racism.

James wouldn’t be judged worthy to hold Muhammad Ali’s jockstrap, on his best day. He certainly couldn’t make you think about a common humanity, couldn’t be a universal symbol of hope, like Ali did and was.

Jim Brown would run Lebron James over and trample him into the dirt, demanding respect. Just respect. James will never have the grace, the quiet dignity, or garner the universal love, of a Gayle Sayers.

In fact, James is most likely the visible symbol of the moral decay and decadence of the Modern Athlete, and symptomatic of the greater trend in society wherein people who obviously couldn’t find their own asses with both hands and a road map consistently have microphones shoved in their faces with an expectation that they will — as if by magic — make some profound statement that will occupy the intellect and nourish the soul.

VOTING WITH OUR WALLETS

The net of it is that movie sales are declining, there are fewer attendees in sports and the only people who care about actors are other actors, and I’ll bet they don’t like each other that much either.

WHEN CELEBTARDS ARE BETTER NOT TALKING BECAUSE THEY DON’T THINK

Barbra Streisand should just stick to singing, or retiring.

Update:  The 2018 Oscars were last night.  They went on about #MeToo, yet it was their ilk that were the worst offenders of moral debauchery.  Instead, they chose to reduce their likeability and their relevance by again making it political.  I wonder how they justify in their minds that the rest of the country actually cares what they think about anything (except millineals who believe anything and eat Tide pods). Jennifer Lawrence, with her 8th grade education is going to save democracy while she is taking a year off from acting.

 

 

 

The most relevant tweet of the event was this one:

The Real Nature Of Freedom, Economic and Political and the Interrelationship Between The Two

In these days of divisiveness, there are some facts based on economics that are hard to refute, even if you don’t want to admit it.  I enjoy discussion by people of high IQ and of great wisdom, something the world of Political Correctness is sadly overlooking.

What Is the Hierarchy of Identity Politics?

The 2008 and 2012 election showed that a coalition of minorities was the winning formula.  As for 2016, not so much.

With all the minority identity groups out there vying for political power, social media control, fund raising and media presence; how do they stack up when they compete for hierarchy?  At some point, when the power and money is being doled out, the queue is determined by some order.  Who are these groups and how do they vie for power?

Author disclaimer: I have no dog in this hunt.  I am a pattern watcher and try to learn from them.  Human nature is hard to understand and explain due to it’s ever changing allies and favored group status depending on circumstances.  I was watching the groups at the last election and wondered how you coalesce a group of disparate people with conflicting causes as a voter block.

Who are they?

While this isn’t a comprehensive list and I am not discriminating as I just Googled it, the last election revealed the groups of Black Lives Matter (BLM), LGBTQ (apologies if I omitted a letter), Islam (including ISIS), socialists, Antifa, environmentalists and feminists.  They each compete for their cause and have usually selected an enemy with whom they are opposed to, but are now conflicting with each other in the power grab.  They for the most part have an ideological position (some more than others) and garner the lion’s share of media attention.

What happens when the identity groups who desire to command the headlines conflict for attention and finances?

 

Before the haters come out, I write this post because of my position that one of the characteristics of a higher IQ is the ability to argue from multiple positions on a subject. I will proceed with this post from that premise.

I also am merely an observer of trends. The consolidating power of the above listed groups is becoming a relevant discussion regardless of where you source your information. I’ve excluded the typical mainstream media as sources of information on both sides as their coverage is either too conservative or liberal.  Their inherent bias excludes them from this conversation.  I also excluded Hollywood and celebrities since they have a limited integration with the real world and often spout declarations for others which they do not adhere to.  When you get to the heart of their talent, they pretend to be others and to take their opinions seriously is difficult at best.

Here are non-comprehensive, yet representative examples of identity group disagreements.

BLM vs. LGBTQ

I first noticed this when BLM shut down a gay pride parade.

These are two significant voter populations when added together.

What surprised me that it was during the last election cycle and both groups made up a voting block for the same candidate.  From said article:

BLM held Toronto Pride hostage, unless their demands, which included excluding police from the parade, were immediately met.

(Pride parades typically have contingents of LGBT cops and firefighters, and booths set up by the local LGBT officers’ group at the accompanying street festival.)

Judging by their success in forcing Toronto Pride to capitulate, I suspect we’ll see Black Lives Matter groups protesting more Pride parades in the future. And as a longtime national and international LGBT rights activist, I have a problem with that.

In my internet search for protests, it seems that BLM also protested and shut down Bernie Sanders and Hillary whom they supported.  It goes without saying that they all protested Trump, but that is not the point of my curiosity as I assumed this was a given.  This alone is surprising since both are a part of the coalition of voters candidates need to be elected per the aforementioned 2008/2012/2016 campaigns.

ISLAM vs. Feminists and LGBTQ

I later observed the Muslim and ISIS positions that women are treated poorly and that homosexuals were declared wrong and being executed. On a side point, they also considered most pets as unclean and black dogs should be killed (animal cruelty), which brings in the animal rights group, but they don’t be as significant as the other groups currently.  Apparently, women don’t have the same rights as men and must be subservient.

Then there is the recent Linda Sansour dust up revealing this dichotomy:

  • What the West needs to know is that in the Muslim world, jihad is considered more important than women, family happiness and life itself. If we are told, as Linda Sarsour said, that Islam stands for peace and justice, what we are not told is that “peace” in Islam will come only after the whole world has converted to Islam, and that “justice” means law under Sharia: whatever is inside Sharia is “justice;” whatever is not in Sharia is not “justice.”
  • Rebelling against Sharia is, sadly, for the Muslim woman, unthinkable. How can a healthy and normal feminist movement develop under an Islamic legal system that can flog, stone and behead women? That is why Sarsour’s jihadist kind of feminism is no heroic kind of feminism but the only feminism a Muslim woman can practice that will give her a degree of respect, acceptance, and even preferential treatment over other women. In Islam, that is the only kind of feminism allowed to develop.

It further goes on to say:

Sarsour apparently identifies as a feminist. Sarsour’s kind of feminism, however, embraces the most oppressive legal system, especially for women: Islamic religious law, Sharia. Sarsour’s feminism is supposedly for empowering women, but it twists logic in a way similar to how Muslim preachers do when they claim that beating one’s wife is a husband’s way of honoring her.

Here is the dichotomy:

Pro-Sharia feminism is a perverted kind of feminism that could not care less about the well-being of oppressed Muslim women. Sarsour’s logic concerning women does not differ much from that of Suad Saleh, an Egyptian female Islamic cleric, who recently justified on Egyptian TV the doctrine of intentional humiliation and rape of captured women in Islam. Saleh said, “One of the purposes of raping captured enemy women and young girls was to humiliate and disgrace them and that is permissible under Islamic law.” There was not even a peep in Egypt’s civil society about such a statement.

On 7/25/17 a direct conflict happened when this occurred: An Oakland Muslim plotted to attack a gay club in San Francisco and talked about killing thousands of innocents on behalf of ISIS.

Finally, there is this non-sequitur that I can’t fathom:

“Feminist” Muslim women calling beatings by their husbands a “blessing from Allah”!

Who wants a beating?

ISLAM (ISIS) vs. Antifa

I don’t fully understand this one.  It has the trappings of a sibling quarrel at best.  ISIS is claiming that Antifa has culturally appropriated their uniforms, that being their black flag and terrorist tactics. 

Here are some details:

Based on this proof, we hereby request that the UNHRC’s CESCR begin an immediate investigation into this matter, and, if you concur that ANTIFA is culturally appropriating ISIS, that you use all means at your disposal to put a stop to it. You could start by visiting this ANTIFA website, which contains links to many of its affiliates throughout the world.

Sincerely,

ISIS High Command

PS: You might mention to the ANTIFA punks that in quite a few aspects, we are at war with the very same people, organizations and ideas, and, in fact, Western civilization itself. So, if you could arrange a sit-down over tea with us, and them, it might serve all of our interests, and provide a holistic, inclusive resolution to our complaint.

Islam appears to have support from the media and the left side of the political sphere as does the other listed minorities claiming status.  One can see the obvious conflicts.

Socialists

It appeared that quite a bit of traction was gained by the Bernie Sanders crowd.  It seemed to have enough momentum to be a winning group within its’ primary. Somehow, it was defeated by a political machine by what is being revealed as suspicious activities.

Nevertheless, a discussion of the socialism movement by Ross Wolf summarizes some of my points:

Ross Wolfe argues in The Charnel House, the identity politics that arose in the 1960s, ‘70s and ’80s developed in reaction to the identity politics of actually-existing socialism itself:

The various forms of identity politics associated with the “new social movements” coming out of the New Left during the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s (feminism, black nationalism, gay pride) were themselves a reaction, perhaps understandable, to the miserable failure of working-class identity politics associated with Stalinism coming out of the Old Left during the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s (socialist and mainstream labor movements). Working-class identity politics — admittedly avant la lettre — was based on a crude, reductionist understanding of politics that urged socialists and union organizers to stay vigilant and keep on the lookout for “alien class elements.” Any and every form of ideological deviation was thought to be traceable to a bourgeois or petit-bourgeois upbringing. One’s political position was thought to flow automatically and mechanically from one’s social position, i.e. from one’s background as a member of a given class within capitalist society.

Questions I Have

If you are courting one group, how do you avoid alienating another group if there is acrimony?  At some point you step on the wrong toes.

If there is limited money, how does the donor decide who gets it without upsetting other groups?

How do you herd this group of cats to vote together when trying to win an election?  It worked twice, but failed recently and there is finger pointing as to why.

What is Racist?

In Seattle, they can’t clean the sidewalks with pressure washers because it could be racist.

Council member Larry Gossett said he didn’t like the idea of power-washing the sidewalks because it brought back images of the use of hoses against civil-rights activists.

It seems that non-black people using gifs are being racist also.  I don’t understand this one though.

Finally, who wins this victim’s game?

I found this, which is someone else’s answer and not necessarily my view, but it seems to apply here:

The criteria used to judge that is two-fold: the perceived grievance and victimhood status of the group (more = better), and the amount of room within it for ideological and political pluralism (more = worse).

So I guess you have out victim everyone else.  By doing so, it disrupts the coalition of identities required by one of the political parties to win elections.  I suppose it is a popularity contest to win the money and the status.

My final observation is that human nature is the constant here.  People are selfish enough to grab power and money when possible.  Most do not have the ability to argue from multiple positions on the same subject and are ideologues for their cause.

This alone is going to make a coalition such as the one that voted in the president in 2008 difficult.  Being a female wasn’t enough of a victim status in the 2016 election.

These are things I ponder as we wind our way down the path of being a country.

 

What You Had To Know In 1910 To Pass The 8th Grade Test

For my fellow High IQ readers, see how you would do on this test.  It’s not are you as smart as a 5th grader.  No, it’s much tougher.  No wonder that our public school system is turning out under educated students.  It appears that not only did our ancestors have to walk to school in the snow, they had to actually learn more than google on a smart phone.

Perhaps if they could pass this test, they wouldn’t have as much time to spend on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.

Press on.

How Meetings Are a Waste Of Time and How To Avoid or Get Out of Them

facepalm  I read a WSJ article on ineffective meetings.  It is about the manifesto to end boring meetings.

This brought back thousands of hours of meetings I wished I could have back or would certainly decline to attend had I realized what I know now.  Most of this post is tongue in cheek unlike the WSJ, but I’ll bet everyone wishes they weren’t in so many meetings.

First, let me start out with some quotes I found from The Quote Garden, starting with the one that reminded me most of the meetings I’ve attended:

A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.  ~Barnett Cocks, attributed

worfgif

A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours.  ~Milton Berle

To kill time, a committee meeting is the perfect weapon.  ~Author Unknown

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be “meetings.”  ~Dave Barry, “Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn”

Our age will be known as the age of committees.  ~Ernest Benn

If Columbus had an advisory committee he would probably still be at the dock.  ~Arthur Goldberg

A committee is an animal with four back legs.  ~John le Carré, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.  ~H.L. Mencken

A “Normal” person is the sort of person that might be designed by a committee.  You know, “Each person puts in a pretty color and it comes out gray.”  ~Alan Sherman

A committee is a thing which takes a week to do what one good man can do in an hour.  ~Elbert Hubbard

A camel looks like a horse that was planned by a committee.  ~Author Unknown

A committee is a group of the unwilling chosen form the unfit, to do the unnecessary.  ~Author Unknown

If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee.  ~Author Unknown

Could Hamlet have been written by a committee, or the Mona Lisa painted by a club?… Creative ideas do not spring from groups.  They spring from individuals.  The divine spark leaps from the finger of God to the finger of Adam.  ~Alfred Whitney Griswold

We always carry out by committee anything in which any one of us alone would be too reasonable to persist.  ~Frank Moore Colby

I don’t believe a committee can write a book.  It can, oh, govern a country, perhaps, but I don’t believe it can write a book.  ~Arnold Toynbee

There is no monument dedicated to the memory of a committee.  ~Lester J. Pourciau

Any committee that is the slightest use is composed of people who are too busy to want to sit on it for a second longer than they have to.  ~Katharine Whitehorn

Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.  ~John Kenneth Galbraith

People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.  ~Thomas Sowell

AND OF COURSE, THERE IS BRADLEY’S BROMIDE: “If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee — that will do them in.”

I WORKED FOR “THE” MEETING COMPANY
I worked a large part of my career either for or with IBM, which many have joked that it stands for I’ve Been in a Meeting. I could have been years more productive and retired earlier if it hadn’t been for all of the meetings I’ve spent time in.  Projects would have been completed weeks in advance were it not for meetings.

Usually, the meetings were a way to get other people to do your work for you, or to assign work to others they wouldn’t do or volunteer for were it not for the fact that they were at a meeting.  The only time this didn’t work was when I actually needed to get a speaker for a press briefing for an interview with Time Magazine when print media was important.  His manager, John Callies then VP of Netfinity or X series at IBM(x86 servers), wouldn’t let the speaker leave the staff meeting stating, “it’s only your job” as the reason.  See how manage executive ego’s for more on this. I’d have never imagined having to cancel an interview with what was then an important publication due to an executives’ ego. I’ve seen bad manager moves in my time, but this was top 10 worst of the worst for me.  He still ranks as the number one suit I’ve ever worked with.  The below meme was how it felt to be in a meeting with him.

Execs have also had meetings in places that they wanted to visit (click on the link to see who it is), and most people knew that.  That was a waste of travel time and money for a wasted meeting. There were other reasons they had meetings, but read the quotes at the beginning to find out why said were held.

Avoid training meetings, unless it was a way to be busy during a meeting you want to avoid.  This is especially true of diversity training.  It is a waste of time (same exact meeting every time every year for the required legal reason) but is more important than almost any other meeting, so it serves 2 purposes.  No one will go against diversity training for fear of being politically or legally incorrect.  It does allow you to miss another meeting and no one pays attention anyway.  It’s an opportunity to get work done while the training is going on in the background.  Your attendance is recorded so you are twice as effective as you complete your work, earn your mark for training and ignore the same speech you went through last year all at the same time.

MEETING RULES TO SURVIVE

The best way to deal with a meeting is to avoid it.  If you can already have a meeting at a time that the scheduler proposes it or be busy and/or somehow away or out of the office.  Teleconferencing kills that strategery  unless you can be found traveling, but sometimes it’s unavoidable (see how to get out of a meeting below if you have to go).  The people calling the meeting are really only people who want the meeting anyway.

For things to do to avoid meetings or how to goof around during a meeting, go to the link How to goof around at work.

HERE IS MY RULE WHEN TO DECIDE TO ATTEND IF I HAD A CHOICE: if there were more than 4 people, don’t go.  Nothing will get done other than resulting in another meeting to have to attend.  This is especially true if there are more than 1 executives, as each brings a team of competing players who guarantee the death of productivity.

The WSJ agrees with me, but goes on to say that if it has 17 people, there is no chance anything will get accomplished.
Don’t speak at a meeting if possible. It usually wastes time and extends the meeting length.  There are only a couple of people who really have something to contribute, the rest want to hear themselves talk, show off their PowerPoint skills to bore you, or think they are more important if they speak.  These show offs can be  insufferable, but they offer time to check your email at best while pretending to listen.

This is in the department of redundancy department, but it is so important to note is to be careful when attending because the meeting leader’s purpose is to assign their work to others or get people to do work they wouldn’t do because they can’t decline in public (this is a corporate tradition).  This further kills your ability to be productive at your real job.  There are some who want to look important by accepting work magnanimously to show off, thinking they were climbing the ladder.  Gladly accept their offer as most people have 10 hours of work for an 8 hour day anyway. Only accept it if it produces revenue or if you are the only one qualified to do it, but generally don’t, especially if you perceive it as a make work project.

Especially avoid planning meetings.  A meeting to plan another meeting is one to be skipped unless you are the project manager and called the meeting, then you have to do it.  Avoid these at all costs.  Once nobody shows up, the meeting gets cancelled for email updates, which is a far better use of your time.  As my grandfather said, they are as common as pig tracks and as useless as teats on a boar hog.

Avoid staff meetings.  These are like planning meetings, but they occur regularly and when you miss one, nobody really cares (especially if there are more than 4 people). Only attend them occasionally as you work with these people everyday anyway, it’s not like you don’t know what is going on.  Email your boss on a regular basis with your activity and you can plan something more productive during that time.

HOW TO GET OUT OF A MEETING

The tongue in cheek part really goes here.  I’ll bet there are folks out there far more creative about this than me.

My favorite methods are to have a customer who needs you.  They are your business and that overrides almost everything.  Even your boss can’t deny this.

Pre-plan an emergency.  I occasionally had another employee phone or knock on the door to call me out (email or text isn’t as good as that is not public enough) to get you out of a meeting.  The trick is to never return. You’ll get the notes anyway, I promise. Since I worked with the press and analysts, I sometimes had a co-worker say that a reporter needed me right now.  They were my customer and no one could say no.  Many times there was no real emergency even if the press did call, it was the best and most efficient use of my time to leave the meeting so as to be actually working instead of being at a meeting.  I usually dealt with the press immediately unless I had to do some digging to get back to them.

Attend meetings by phone if possible.  You can always put the phone on mute and get your real work done, or surf the web or watch TV, which is usually just as productive.  It’s easier to go to the bathroom, which brings me to…

Go to the bathroom.  Offer to get a water to others when you go, then take as much time reading the sports page in the stall as you can.  You are just as productive as listening to someone prattle on about their project.

Send your meeting information in by proxy.  See above where someone is willing to talk.  Give them your results or input so you don’t have to be there.

 THE KIND OF MEETING TO HAVE

I realize that some meetings are necessary, so I understand that it’s the only way to get some things done.  For the other majority of the time, see above.

The best meeting is a hall meeting.  You run into the person you need help from and in 5 minutes, you’ve explained your need, what they can do and your time frame for doing it.  Problem solved.

I also recommend having meetings with introverts and/or men.  They don’t like to talk much (most of them) and want to get it over as quickly as you do.  Attire requirements are less of a priority as is small talk.

Here is the net net, don’t go to a meeting if you don’t have to, get out early if at all possible and above all, don’t speak unless you have no option.  Consider it a victory if you don’t attend, or a minor victory if you have to attend but don’t come out with anyone else’s work. You are a complete failure if you open your mouth and double your workload on something that is not tangential to your job or career.  Enjoy your job more by having the time to actually be productive.

How The Income Inequality Jihad Will Likely Hurt the Poor

The brilliant John Hawkins presents the facts about this subject.  It is to be the 2014 top priority from our executive branch.  Readers should evaluate the facts and judge for yourself if this is good for the country or not.  Park your ideology at the door (regardless of its source) and think through the argument.  Your beliefs are yours, just make sure to check with history to see what information it supports

The truth is that income inequality is of minimal importance in a nation like America, where so many people already move between classes, where the poor are doing so much better than they used to, and where our poor already do so well compared to the rest of the world. “Among children from families in the bottom fifth of the income distribution, 84 percent of those who go on to get a college degree will escape the bottom fifth, and 19 percent will make it all the way to the top fifth.” During the Great Depression, more than 60% of Americans were living below the poverty line. Over the last 50 years, that number has generally ranged between 12%-15% — and even that dramatically overstates the number of poor Americans because it doesn’t take into account government assistance that’s being paid out. On top of all that, liberals get so angry when people point out that more than 80% of poor Americans have cell phones, televisions and refrigerators while “most Americans living below the official poverty line also own a motor vehicle and have more living space than the average European.” Yet, they don’t take into account the fact that almost half of the world’s population still lives on less than $2.50 a day. In other words, if you are poor, you can live better and have more opportunity to advance in America than you will anywhere else. That’s why immigrants all across the world still want to come to this country.

1) The higher the government mandated minimum wage/living wage, the more people it prices out of jobs: When you force businesses to pay people more than they can return in value with their work, companies tend to respond either by hiring better quality people, replacing the jobs with automation, moving the posts overseas or by looking for opportunities to get rid of the positions entirely. The higher the wages and benefits the government insists on, the more stagnant it makes the labor market for the people who need to build their skills the most. If your goal were to deliberately put as many young, unskilled single mothers out of work as possible, the best politically feasible way to do it would be to jack the minimum wage up into the stratosphere.

2) It emphasizes making people more comfortable, not helping them succeed: There is no shame in taking any honest job, but you’re not supposed to make a living pressing the button that drops the fries into the grease at McDonald’s. If you work long enough at an entry-level job to worry about raising the minimum wage, you’re failing your family, your society and yourself. Instead of encouraging minimum skill workers to demand that the government force businesses to give them more money than they’re currently worth, we should be encouraging people to build their skills and move up, move on or start their own business. Want poor people to be eligible for more education or training? Want to give them micro-loans? Want to make it easier for them to create small businesses? Those are policies that make poor Americans more valuable. That’s good for them and the country. On the other hand, trying to redistribute income ultimately brings everyone down, especially the poor Americans who lose their drive after becoming dependent on it.

3) The more government becomes involved, the more it stagnates the economy: As John F. Kennedy said, “A rising tide lifts all boats.” The stronger the economy is, the more jobs it creates and the more everyone — poor, middle-class, or rich — benefits. How do you make the economy stronger? You keep the government small, taxes low, and regulations light. That’s a proven formula that has worked time and time again. On the other hand, if you want to constipate the economy, you make the government bigger, increase taxes and pour on the regulations. How did that latter set of “solutions” work out for Detroit?

4) The more the government focuses on income inequality, the harder it is to get ahead: As Thomas Sowell likes to say, “There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs.” You can see this very clearly with Obamacare, where a few people are getting subsidized care, while tens of millions more are losing their health care and paying considerably more to make up for it. It works the same way with income inequality. Want to make Wal-Mart pay all its employees twice as much? Then that means all the poor Americans who shop at Wal-Mart will have to spend more of their limited incomes to pay for it. Want to give more tax dollars to the poor? Then the rich and middle class will have to pay more in taxes. So, the moment that poor American is making enough money to get into the middle class, he’s hit with a bigger tax bill that makes it harder for him to ever get ahead. In other words, the more resources we put into “helping” the poor, the harder we ultimately make it for those very same people to ever permanently escape poverty and live the American Dream.

5) It ignores the real causes of poverty: The real causes of lasting poverty in America are not greed, the rich, racism, America being “unfair,” or any of the other excuses that you hear so often. Instead, the harsh truth that so many people don’t want to hear is that if you stay poor in America, it’s usually because you made bad life choices. Via Walter Williams, here’s what you have to do in order to avoid poverty in America.

“Complete high school; get a job, any kind of a job; get married before having children; and be a law-abiding citizen. Among both black and white Americans so described, the poverty rate is in the single digits.”

Instead of lying to destitute Americans and telling them that the rich became wealthy by stealing the money that the poor never had in the first place, why not tell people the truth? Yes, it might make some poor Americans feel bad, but do you think welfare, food stamps, and living in a housing project do wonders for people’s moods?

Vocabulary Tricks Dumb People Use to Sound Smart – Also A Good Meeting Bingo List When You Are Bored

I have heard most of these 89 sophisticated clichés that typically form the trick vocabulary of such people, almost always by management, whom I’ve indicated:

Note: these are also meeting (BS) bingo words when you are bored. Please let me know if anyone is ever in a meeting that can cross off all of these words.

One of my favorite sayings is: A meeting is a cul-de-sac where ideas are strangled and usually eliminated.

1. It’s a paradigm shift = I don’t know what’s going on in our business. But we’re not making as much money as we used to.

2. We’re data-driven = We try not to make decisions by the seat of our pants. When possible, we try to base them in facts -SC.

3. We need to wrap our heads around this = Gosh, I never thought of that. We need to discuss that….SC

4. It’s a win-win = Hey, we both get something out of this (even though I’m really trying to get the best from you)

5. ROI [used in any sentence] = Look at me, I’m very financially minded, even if I never took any finance classes in school

6. Let’s blue sky this/let’s ballpark this = Let’s shoot around a bunch of ideas since we have no clue what to do

7. I’m a bit of a visionary = I’m a bit of an egomaniac and narcissist EB

8. I’m a team player/we only hire team players = I hope everyone on the team thinks this is a meritocracy, even though I’m the dictator in charge EB

9. Let’s circle back to that/Let’s put that in the parking lot/let’s touch base on that later/let’s take this off-line = Shut up and let’s go back to what I was talking about

10. We think outside the box here/color outside the lines = We wouldn’t know about how to do something innovative if it came up to us and bit us in the behind

11. I/we/you don’t have the bandwidth = Since we cut 60% of our headcount, we’re all doing the job of 3 people, so we’re all burned out

12. This is where the rubber meets the road = Don’t screw up

13. Net net/the net of it is/when you net it out = I never studied finance or accounting but I sound like someone who  can make money if I keep talking about another word for profit

14. We’ll go back and sharpen our pencils = We’ll go back and offer you the same for 20% less in hopes you’ll buy it before the end of the quarter – RA

15.  It’s like the book “Crossing the Chasm”/”Blue Ocean”/”Good To Great” / “Tipping Point” / “Outliers” = I’ve never read any of these books but I sound literate if I quote  from them. And, besides, you cretins probably never read them either to  call me out on it

16. Let’s right-size it = Let’s whack/fire a bunch of people – RA

17. It’s next-gen/turn-key/plug-and-play = I want it to sound so technical that you’ll just buy it without asking me any questions

18. We need to manage the optics of this = How can we lie about this in a way people will believe?

19. This is creative destruction = I’ve  never read Joseph Schumpeter but our core business is getting killed so  it’s your responsibility to come up with a new product the market will  buy

20. We don’t have enough boots on the ground = I don’t want to be fired for this disastrous product/country launch,  so I’m going to sound tough referring to the military and say I don’t  have enough resources

21. Deal with it = Tough cookies – SC

22. By way of housekeeping = This makes the boring stuff I’m about to say sound more official

23. That’s the $64,000 question [sometimes, due to inflation, people will denominate this cliché in millions or billions of dollars] = I don’t know either

24. Let’s square the circle = I’m someone who can unify two team members’ views and sound important

25. It’s our cash cow/protect/milk the cash cow = If that business goes south, we’re all out of a job

26. It’s about synergies/1 + 1 = 3 = I don’t get the math either, but it sounds like more and more is better, right?

27. Who’s going to step up to the plate? = One of you is going to do this and it’s not going to be me

28. We’re eating our own dog food = It sounds gross but we seem like honest folks if we do this.

29. We need to monetize/strategize/analyze/incentivize = When in doubt, stick “-ize” on the end of a word and say we’ve got to  do this and 9 out of 10 times, it will sound action-oriented.

30. We did a Five Forces/SWOT analysis/Value Chain analysis = We didn’t really do any of that, but none of you probably even remember Michael Porter, so what the heck

31. It was a perfect storm = We really screwed up but we’re going to blame a bunch of factors that are out of our hands (especially weather)

32. At the end of the day…. = OK, enough talking back and forth, we’re going to do what I want to do  – LS

33. Who’s got the ‘R’? [i.e., responsibility to do what we just spent 20 minutes talking about aimlessly] = If I ask the question, it won’t be assigned to me

34. Let’s put lipstick on this pig = plug your nose

35. I’m putting a stake in the ground here… = I’m a leader, simply because I’m using this cliché

36. We’re customer-focused/proactive/results-oriented = That can’t be bad, right?  This is motherhood and apple pie stuff

37. Our visibility into the quarter is a little fuzzy = Sales just fell off a cliff

38. That’s not our core competency/we’re sticking to our knitting = We’re just glad we’re making money in one business, because we’d have no clue how to get into any other business

39. Well, we’re facing some headwinds there = You put your finger on the area we’re panicking over

40. It’s a one-off = Do whatever they want to close the sale

41. Incent it = That’s not a verb but I just made it into one because I’m a man/woman of action

42. I’m an agent of change = This makes it sound like I know how to handle the chaos that our business is constantly going through

43. We’ve got to do a little more due diligence there = Don’t have a clue but does that legal term make me sound detail-oriented?

44. Don’t leave money on the table = Be as greedy with them as possible

45. We take a “ready, fire, aim” approach here = We totally operate on a seat-of-the-pants basis

46. Hope is not a strategy = I don’t have a strategy, but this makes it sound like I’m above people who also don’t have a strategy – BO

47. We have to tear down the silos internally = Our organizational structure is such a mess that I’m going to be under-mined by other departments at every turn

48. I don’t think it will move the needle = This won’t get my boss excited

49. Good to put a face to the name = I’d really rather talk to that person behind you

50. Let’s take the 30,000 foot view… = I like to think I see the big picture

51. It’s the old 80-20 rule = I really have no idea what the rule was, but I just want to focus on the things that will make us successful

52. We need to manage expectations = Get ready to start sucking up to people – AL

53. It’s not actionable enough/what’s the deliverable? = You guys do the work on refining the idea. I’m too tired.

54. My 2 cents is… = This opinion is worth a heck of a lot more than 2 cents

55. I’m going to sound like a broken record here… = I want to clearly point out to you idiots that I’ve made this point several times before

56. We’ve got too many chiefs and not enough Indians = I want to be the Chief

57. Going forward = Don’t screw up like this again – AL

58. My people know I’ve got an open door policy = I’ve told my direct reports to come to me if they have a problem, so  why should I feel bad if they complain I’m too busy to talk to them?

59. It’s gone viral = Someone sent a tweet about this

60. I know you’ve been burning the candle on both ends = Get ready to do some more

61. It’s scalable = We can sell a lot of it in theory

62. It’s best-of-breed = We hired a market research firm to say that – too many – SC

63. We’re all about value-add = Unlike our competitors who seek to add no value

64. What’s our go-to-market? = Has anyone planned this out, because I’ve been too busy? SC

65. I’m drinking from a fire hose right now = I want a little sympathy over here, because I’m tired of carrying this company on my back

66. We’re getting some push back = They’re not buying it JB

67. We need to do a level-set = I’ve never been inside a Home Depot, but this phrase makes me sound handy

68. It’s basic blocking and tackling = How could you screw this up? I also played high school football and those were the best days of my life.

69. Let’s put our game faces on = Get serious, guys

70. We’ve got it covered from soup to nuts = I have no idea what that means, but don’t you dare question my prep work on it

71. We don’t want to get thrown under the bus = So let’s throw someone else first – RGorman

72. But to close the loop on this… = Always the more theoretical Business Development/Strategy guys who say this, so they can sound thorough

73. What are “next steps”? = Did anyone take notes during the last 90 minutes of this meeting?

74. This is low-hanging fruit = Get this done quickly

75. We need a few quick wins = We’ve got to trick people into thinking we know what we’re doing by some successes we can point to and claim as ours DHP

76. It’s a [Insert Company Name] killer = Did I get your attention yet with the Freddy Kreuger imagery associated with the company who’s currently eating our lunch? SC

77. I want to address the elephant in the room = I know you think I’m trying to cover up/gloss over something, so I might as well talk about it

78. This is the next big thing/new thing = Some of our 20-somethings have told me this is really cool

79. This time it’s different because… = Don’t wait for the explanation… simply run for the hills.

80. What are the best practices on this? = How can I cover my behind that we’re just doing stuff the way other good people have supposedly done this?

81. This is our deliverable = I know this sounds like something that comes in a body bag, but it makes our PowerPoint sound tougher than it actually is

82. We’ll loop you in when we need to = You’re not that important to know about all the details on this

83. We want this to move up and to the right = I failed high school algebra but someone said this means we’ll be making a lot of money if this happens

84. We’re going through a re-org = No one knows what the heck is going on at the moment, we’re going to lay off a bunch of people.

85. We’ve got to increase our mind-share with the customer = I think I would have been happier as a doctor doing lobotomies than in marketing as a career path

86. I don’t think you’re comparing apples to apples = Let me tell you how you should really think about this issue = DHP

87. Let’s peel back the onion on this = I want to sound thorough so this is a better way of telling you that than simply clearing my throat

88. You phoned it in = I was too busy checking my email during your presentation that I didn’t listen _ JC

89. I want you to run with this = I just threw you into the deep end of the pool and you’re on your own to figure it out -JC

Quotes On Writing By Famous Authors

W. Somerset Maugham

“There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”

Robert Benchley

“It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.”

Jerome K. Jerome

“It is always the best policy to speak the truth–unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.”

Daphne du Maurier

“Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard.”

Edgar Watson Howe

“Americans detest all lies except lies spoken in public or printed lies.”

Henry David Thoreau

“Men have become the tools of their tools.”

Philip G. Hamerton

“Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted than when we read it in the original author?”

How Much Weight Can You Lose by Taking a Dump? Can You Weigh Farts? Everything You Wanted To Know About Your PooP

 

UPDATE: The 7 Reasons Farting is Good For You

Dropping a deuce, pinching a loaf, laying pipe, reading the sports page, seeing a man about a horse, all are names for the same thing.

But how much does it weigh? Can you lose weight by taking laxatives or giving birth to a legend size turn monster? How much does a fart weigh?  Do women fart as much as men? Let’s look into it.

How much your poop weighs

According to thrill list health:

To find out how much our stool adds to the scale, researchers (serious poop

researchers do exist, folks) collected samples from people living in 12

different countries to get a comprehensive overview.

They discovered that poop weighs between 2.5oz and 1lb, on average.

To find out how much our stool adds to the scale, researchers (serious poop

researchers do exist, folks) collected samples from people living in 12

different countries to get a comprehensive overview.

Have you ever weighed yourself before and then after taking a dump?

Of course you have! Who hasn’t? The best part is seeing the scale budge

in your favor after dropping the kids off at the pool.

So it stands to reason that if you could poop more, you’d lose weight, right?

Same for farting — gas has mass, after all. Could pooping and farting

be legit weight-loss secrets, or is it all just a lot of hot air?

Unsurprisingly, Westernized populations have the lowest poop weights,

thanks to a severe lack of fiber that comes with a fast-food diet. Western

samples only averaged between 3-4oz, which isn’t nearly enough to

make a difference in your skinny jeans.

 

How much do farts weigh? And how do you even weigh farts?

Very, very carefully. Gastroenterologists in England tried to determine

a fart’s weight by giving study participants 200g of baked beans in

addition to their normal diet. Even scientists know beans are a magical

fruit. To measure the toots these beans are known for, they used rectal

catheters over the course of 24 hours, which raises serious concerns

about the mental stability of the participants.

Despite the method, the data collected may surprise you more.

Scientists learned that the farts weighed between 16-50oz per day.

That’s right: You’re holding as much gas in your system as a small

Sweetums soda. And in case you’re wondering (you’re obviously

wondering), “Women and men expelled equivalent amounts,”

according to science.  That’s right.  Your sweet little cupcake is

cutting the cheese and stinking up the room just as much as you are.

Pooping to lose weight is actually a really bad idea

Of course, there are those out there who see “poop can weigh a pound”

and will try to up their poop game by taking laxatives. Bad idea.

Robert Herbst, an 18-time world-champion powerlifter and one of

the drug-testing supervisors at the Rio Olympics, says laxative-driven

weight loss happens even at the highest levels of sport, and it isn’t pretty.

Herbst confirms that dropping a deuce will in fact budge the number

on the scale, though it won’t alter your body composition or muscle

percentage, saying, “One pound in does not guarantee one [pound] out,”

because food is metabolized differently. Certain foods are absorbed

more efficiently, while others pass right through (looking at you, corn).

So while a pound of lettuce may work its way out to the porcelain

water slide, a pound of pie will most likely stick to your thighs.

Pooping isn’t a total elimination of all the calories you eat, since that

wouldn’t make any sense. Your body needs energy, so it’s not going

to shit it all out.

On top of that, Herbst’s experience monitoring weigh-ins taught

him that no one’s going to see Biggest Loser-type results. He says

you may see a 5lb drop (if that), depending on how much you currently

weigh. If you’re a big dude, you’re going to expel more in weight and

volume because you’re already eating more.

The majority of people will only be able to look forward to a mere

1-2lb difference (at most) if you’re an active person. Those losses

aren’t worth canceling your gym membership, and in extreme

cases, excessive laxative use can lead to all sorts of nasty medical complications.

What About Competitive Eaters?

I watch the July 4th Nathans Hot Dog Eating Contest yearly.  Joey Chestnut

knocked down 70 dogs in 10 minutes.  I’m not sure how much that

weighs, but given the average Joe spits out almost 2 pounds after a

few dogs at most, does that mean that Joey is somewhere between a

Saint Bernard and an elephant the day after the contest?

I found this gem THE 8 TYPES OF POOP YOU SHOULD NEVER

IGNORE because it means you have a problem

What Does Your Poop Say About You?

I found this gem at did you know your facts?

And finally, go to this link to evaluate your poop and pooping habits because you should examine your deuce to see if you are unhealthy or have a problem.

Where Have You Gone Al Gore? #climatechange and #globalwarming Are Calling You On the Day You Predicted The Doom of the Earth

al gore doomsday clockIn the song Mrs. Robinson is a line that states, Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?  I wondered the same about Al Gore.  He went from front page man on global warming to I don’t hear anything about him anymore on #AGW.  I wondered where he went and why?

It’s ironic that the biggest snow storm to ever hit NYC on the weekend of his predicted destruction instead of the Statue of Liberty being under water.

al gore effect

There is a famous statement that goes: Where your treasure is, so will your heart will be also.  I thought his heart was with global warming, but he’s no where to be found, so I looked for what his treasure was. If it wasn’t really global warming, what was it?

He enrolled in Divinity school so it appeared that he was looking for his treasure from God, but he didn’t finish his degree either.  So what has he been chasing his whole life, really?

The rest of this post is merely an observation based on his actions throughout the years.  Some will disagree, others will identify and most won’t care.  No judgement is being passed, merely a commentary on the general state of man with the public record as documentation.

If you disagree or want to get into an ideological debate, please see the comments policy on the right.

Note from Investors Business Daily on the end of the earth:

According to Anthony Watts, one of the most trusted sources on Climate issues, “While preening at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2006 during the premiere of his An Inconvenient Truth fib-umentary, Gore made his grand declaration. The former vice president said, in the words of the AP reporter taking down his story, that unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return.” In Gore’s own words, he claimed we were in “a true planetary emergency.”

Further on December 13, 2009, he predicted that the Arctic would be ice free in 5 years.  

10 years later, there has been no measurable change in the Arctic ice.  As with most of the climate predictions, it was based on prediction models.  Anyone who has watched the weather knows that it is rarely right 5 days from now, let alone 5 years from now, yet he sold this snake oil and it was drunk by many or used as a political tool.

HIS EARLY TREASURE

It is common knowledge that he was funded by coal and tobacco, but people repent and so I supposed this was the case also.  As of the latest search, he still hasn’t sold his fortune in Occidental stock and dividends he receives.  It is nebulous as to whether he has or not, so we’ll give him a pass on it, although he’s  earned $500,000 from zinc royalties (which causes environmental issues to produce) as of the last documented tax return that is public. Perhaps it is a legal reason that prevents him from selling this asset.  Armand Hammer, the head of Occidental was well known for his communist ties to the Soviet Union was close to the Gore family.

There is also the Elk Hills case that allowed oil pipelines to run, ensuring a stream of money to both the Hammer’s and the Gores.

Nevertheless, it appears that before global warming, it was MONEY that was more important than anything else.  In the overall realm of things, climate issues appear to have only been a means to the end, or his treasure and not the end itself.

Most of what is below are documents from Climate Scientists or court records.  I don’t challenge the views on climate on either side as minds are already made up.  My thesis is that he was after money more than protecting the planet.

THE PATH OF HIS POLITICAL CAREER

He of course was a Senator and a Vice President for which he should be commended for serving his country.

It sticks in the craw of the Gore acolytes who generally are Bush 43 haters, that he lost.  No matter how many times the media recounted the votes in Florida, Bush still won every recount.  This signaled the end of his political career, but it wasn’t the treasure he was really seeking.

One thing that dogged him was that he had a low net worth compared with the other politicians who were his compatriots.  I point to the fact that he wasn’t an astute investor given the fore-knowledge congress has of bills that affect corporations.  They are not subject to insider trading laws, so just by being there any idiot should increase their wealth at an exponential rate as almost all have done.

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

statue-of-liberty-is-drowning-c

This film got a lot of play despite blatant errors which were discovered in court, but then Hollywood rarely gets the truth right and a politician making a movie sort of dooms it’s necessity for truth from the beginning.  It did finally start the ball rolling  for his money making from global warming, a cause he had pushed uphill for years.

free nobel peace prize

He also won a Nobel Peace Prize.  They soon after gave one to a President who had accomplished nothing up to that point.

On January 25th, 2006, while at the Sundance film festival screening “An Inconvenient Truth”, Al Gore said this as chronicled in an article by CBS News:

The former vice president came to town for the premiere of “An Inconvenient Truth,” a documentary chronicling what has become his crusade since losing the 2000 presidential election: Educating the masses that global warming is about to toast our ecology and our way of life.

Gore has been saying it for decades, since a college class in the 1960s convinced him that greenhouse gases from oil, coal and other carbon emissions were trapping the sun’s heat in the atmosphere, resulting in a glacial meltdown that could flood much of the planet.

Americans have been hearing it for decades, wavering between belief and skepticism that it all may just be a natural part of Earth’s cyclical warming and cooling phases.

And politicians and corporations have been ignoring the issue for decades, to the point that unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return, Gore said.

He sees the situation as “a true planetary emergency.”

“If you accept the truth of that, then nothing else really matters that much,” Gore said in an interview with The Associated Press. “We have to organize quickly to come up with a coherent and really strong response, and that’s what I’m devoting myself to.”

al-gore-fire-300x222Nothing gets lost now thanks to the internet which he invented.

Unfortunately, here are 9 proven lies of the movie regarding the settled science based on a computer model.  The court ruled:

“Al Gore is the principal prophet of doom in the global warming debate, and the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth is his gospel to true believers. But Gore has misled them.”

Two years ago, British High Court Justice Michael Burton characterized Gore’s film as “alarmism and exaggeration in support of his political thesis.” The court, responding said the film was “one-sided” and could not be shown in British schools unless it contained guidelines to balance Gore’s attempt at “political indoctrination.”  This is the antithesis of the scientific method which requires independent proving of a hypothesis to be true science.

Here is how the 97% of scientists agreeing that global warming was caused by men was derived. 

Since then, he’s reiterated 8 facts of climate doom that never happened, never got close and are now past their sell by date.

Some of these are the decline of Arctic ice (there was a huge re-freeze in 2015), the decline of polar bears and the rising sea level.  I was called a flat-earther for questioning the rising tides by a believer in the global warming religion, Tim O’reilly.  When I asked for any proof, I received the statement that climate science is hard.

What is hard is for the weatherman to get the forecast right next week.  How in the world can you predict 10 years from now?  The answer of course has proven to be quite obvious.  If you go to the link starting with since (above) Tim, you’ll see that this is bunk. I’ve started to look at the climate change worshipers as the real flat-earther’s now.  They seem to be equally as wrong.

HE WAS PROTECTED BY THE MEDIA

The Press Protected His Cause nevertheless as errors weren’t generally reported, and despite trying to kick start the alternative energy sector, most companies didn’t succeed in the free market economy, rather used government subsidies and regulation to survive.  He was wise to benefit from the government backing, increasing his fortune.

money-down-toilet

Al was the nameplate for global warming until that name got tarnished.  It morphed to climate change and whatever name that didn’t lose PR favor, but it was still the same gaia cause and Al was the figurehead.  It didn’t matter what he said as he had the media covering for him on this initiative.

What did the media decide what to cover and what not to cover?

Unfortunately, he predicted the “end of the planet or that we would reach the point of no return” on January 25, 2016.

As it turns out, it is cooler now than on the day he received his Nobel prize.

THE FINAL FRONTIER, HOW HE FOUND HIS HEART’S TREASURE

He started a TV channel, sat on the board of Apple (for which he benefited handsomely) and other money making ventures.  While it did nothing to affect Climate change issues to speak of, this appears to be the treasure he was really seeking.  He sold Current TV to Al-Jazeera, an oil funded carbon spewing country  for hundreds of millions, and that was the antithesis of what he was preaching to the warmers.  Al-Jazeera has closed doors on this project in 2016 having not been able to gain an audience in the US.  Again, the media was mostly silent, he was one of theirs.

Al jazeeraPhoto courtesy of DMF.

In selling the network to the huge oil producing carbon emitters, he Found the treasure he sought, but sold Out his followers in a big way.  It doesn’t matter because what is done, is done.  His record is there for history to judge.  He is a rich man and now he is seeking ways to release his inner chakra, too bad for Tipper.  Name calling for anyone who challenges the “settled science” has been the norm, but it turns out that they are the real flat earthers as they love to call anyone who doesn’t agree with them.

SO WHAT WAS THE REAL TREASURE IN HIS HEART?

Here is where we get to the answer.  He was after the money, that was where his treasure really was, gathering wealth.  The reason we haven’t heard from him is he is rich and got people to buy into what he was selling.  He has big houses with carbon footprints of cities.  He flies on private jets to conferences and stays in huge suites, and harass massage therapists.

You can see images of his massive mansions here.

al-gores-home-in-nashville algoreshome

He got his real treasure which was the dollar, and is riding happily into the sunset a very rich man.

Just like the Mayan calendar in 2012, the earth didn’t end or drown, but we won’t hear anything on Al flying in private jets either.  It seems he is the biggest flat Earther of all.

Update 8/3/17:He recently traveled 3000 miles on a carbon spewing plane for the promotion of his new movie to tell people that they should reduce carbon emissions.  It was at that conference that it was revealed that one of his houses emits 34 times the carbon emissions of a regular house.

Maybe the delusional devotees  who have bought into the weather lie include Tim O’Reilly, who could only tell me that climate science is difficult when he couldn’t explain why the oceans aren’t rising when I asked him.  Perhaps he will look past his devotion to this Gaia worship and see the facts, although I don’t expect him to admit both the error in judgement and the fact that he has completely shelved science for ideology.  Other devotees like Tom Raftery at GreenMonk have gone out of business because they couldn’t make enough money (bilk companies) or get enough government subsidies.  James Governor who helped found Greenmonk told me that he would “save” the planet or make money trying. None of these new Flat-Earthers can explain why it is cooler now than when Al received the Nobel Prize.

They have bought into the lie that Al was peddling and should have invested with him since he was after the money and would do or say whatever he needed to do to achieve it.  James in fact never either saved the world or got rich trying.

This was years before Al Gore’s revelation that he was just after the money, so it seems that the climate changers are really just greedy.  That makes them the real “Flat-Earthers”.

Here is a recent protest by the Climate change supporters:

al gore prostesters

#Barbie Update Since She is Now Middle Aged, Plus: San Francisco Barbie With Homeless Kit

Finally a Barbie to relate to! At long last, here are some new Barbie dolls to coincide with her (and our?) aging gracefully. These are a bit more realistic…

If you are easily offended, stop and go away.  This is a joke that was sent to me and there is sarcasm and political incorrectness for some below. Save the hate comments, you’ve been warned.

For those with a sense of humor, please continue.

barbies50th

  1. Bifocals Barbie. Comes with her own set of blended-lens fashion frames in six wild colors (half-frames too!), neck chain and large-print editions of Vogue and Martha Stewart Living.

 

  1. Hot Flash Barbie. Press Barbie’s bellybutton and watch her face turn beet red while tiny drops of perspiration appear on her forehead. Comes with hand-held fan and tiny tissues.

 

  1. Facial Hair Barbie. As Barbie’s hormone levels shift, see her whiskers grow. Available with teensy tweezers and magnifying mirror.

 

  1. Flabby Arms Barbie. Hide Barbie’s droopy triceps with these new, roomier-sleeved gowns. Good news on the tummy front, too — muumuus with tummy-support panels are included.

 

  1. Bunion Barbie. Years of disco dancing in stiletto heels have definitely taken their toll on Barbie’s dainty arched feet. Soothe her sores with the pumice stone and plasters, and then slip on soft terry mules.

 

  1. No-More-Wrinkles Barbie. Erase those pesky crow’s-feet and lip lines with a tube of Skin Sparkle-Spackle, from Barbie’s own line of exclusive age-blasting cosmetics.

 

  1. Soccer Mom Barbie. All that experience as a cheer-leader is really paying off as Barbie dusts off her old high school megaphone to root for Babs and Ken, Jr. Comes with minivan in robin-egg blue or white, and cooler filled with doughnut holes and fruit punch.

 

  1. Mid-life Crisis Barbie. It’s time to ditch Ken. Barbie needs a change, and Alonzo (her personal trainer) is just what the doctor ordered, along with Prozac. They’re hopping in her new red Miata and heading for the Napa Valley to open a B&B. Includes a real tape of

“Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.”

 

  1. Divorced Barbie. Sells for $199.99. Comes with Ken’s house, Ken’s car, and Ken’s boat.

 

  1. Recovery Barbie. Too many parties have finally caught up with the ultimate party girl. Now she does Twelve Steps instead of dance steps. Clean and sober, she’s going to meetings religiously. Comes with a little copy of The Big Book and a six-pack of Diet Coke.

 

  1. Post-Menopausal Barbie. This Barbie wets her pants when she sneezes, forgets where she puts things, and cries a lot. She is sick and tired of Ken sitting on the couch watching the tube, clicking through the channels. Comes with Depends and Kleenex. As a bonus this year, the book “Getting In Touch with Your Inner Self” is included.

And finally,

Jihadi John

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

One of my favorite blogs to read is Proof Positive.  I’ve even borrowed some content like a version of the comments rules because it is one of the best.  This re-post is just good because toilet humor is very often funny and this is a good example. 

I hope he doesn’t mind.  I also hope that I’ve pushed some traffic to him as I love the satire.

I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t be very concerned about my aim when going if this was real.  There are at least 2 targets to hit.  I could play the drone game while peeing.

Can Men and Women Work Together, Happily Without Sexual Tension?

In a WSJ  article today entitled, “Men and Women at Work: Unhappy, But Productive“, I couldn’t help but recall some observations I’ve made over the years at multiple companies in many situations.  If you are the PC police, save your hostilities as most of this is common sense.

The article states this:

When women and men work together on teams, the results are good for business—but they don’t enjoy it much.

That, at least, is the experience of employees in one company, a large US professional services firm studied by economists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and George Washington University.

Researchers looked at eight years of the firm’s revenue data and employee surveys, measuring satisfaction, cooperation, morale and attitudes toward diversity.  That included data from offices or teams that were entirely male or entirely female, along with data from teams that were more evenly mixed.

On surveys, individual employees reported higher levels of job satisfaction when they were on teams that were mainly staffed with people of their own gender. Those on more diverse teams reported lower levels of happiness, trust and cooperation–consider this Journal essay on what men don’t know about women at work  – although revenue figures showed they were more productive and better performing—by a lot.

“People are more comfortable around people who are like them,” says study co-author Sara Fisher Ellison, of MIT.

It may be that members of homogenous groups “socialize more and work less,” Ellison notes. Mixed groups may lack social capital, but varied perspectives and skills may help a unit perform better. The researchers posit that shifting an all-female or all-male team to a coed one would increase revenues by 41%.

Also, researchers found that workers seemed to appreciate the idea of a diverse workplace more than they liked diversity in practice. According to employee surveys, workers gave gender and racial diversity high marks for boosting morale, trust and employee satisfaction, but those who actually worked on diverse teams tended to report lower levels of those traits.

My take so far…..

This prompted some thoughts that many have made  about the differences between men and women.  It’s likely that women have kept men from wiping each other off the planet in the adult version of kill the man with the ball, or who wants to be king.  Conversely, men have killed each other over a woman (OK, women have killed over men also to a lesser degree) but that isn’t the same as competition in the workplace.

The sexes still are created differently.  Little boys can make a gun out of sticks and play war.  A majority of younger girls have a greater preference to play with dolls.  Not long after, more boys begin in sports, even if on the street level.  This activity encourages them to play your position as a team to win the game.  While an increasing number of girls are playing sports, those that do appear to decline in numbers when social engagements take priority.  It’s been observed that women enjoy shopping far more than men, but there is no winning the game in dolls or shopping.  There certainly are a great number of outstanding female athletes, but the trends and volume of numbers still appear to favor men.  Men on the other hand generally fail at these more social activities which women exceed at.  It manifests itself in social behavior later in life where women can tend to be far more social than men.

This has to do with corporate behavior.  Men get a rush out of hitting the walk off home run, catching or throwing the winning touchdown, scoring the winning goal or getting the biggest hit in the game.  Delivering the crushing hit isn’t as big of a priority to most women.  The workplace is a place of competition, even in a teamwork situation.  You work together to kill the competition for market share.  There traditionally has been a disproportionate number of women in the marketing and communications disciplines which by nature are more social.  While there is an increasing number of female executives, one still notices that the skill of hitting the walk off is a learned practice, not ingrained and salivated for by testosterone driven executives.

Having observed these early differences, the article goes on to state the following:

There is a “mismatch between the kind of workplace people think they would like and the actual workplace that makes them happier,” says Ellison, and that may suggest employers could do more to help workers embrace differing backgrounds and viewpoints.

The researchers only studied one firm, Ellison cautions, so the results don’t necessarily translate to other companies. Other studies have found similar results — a positive relationship between gender diversity and firm performance, and higher satisfaction and trust among groups composed of similar people. What’s unusual about this study is that the researchers found both effects in the same firm.

The paper, Diversity, Social Goods Provision, and Performance in the Firm, recently published in the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy,  is by Ellison and Wallace P. Mullin, an economist at George Washington University.

THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN AROUND EACH OTHER

Men act differently with each other when women aren’t around as I’ve been assured that women also do.  We punch (physically or verbally), snap each other with towels and so forth.  Women tend to act more grown up around each other, except that they can be harder on each other, especially behind other women’s backs.  Men will hand your a$$ to you right to your face.

SEXUAL TENSION

There is another issue I’ve observed, sexual tension.  Both sexes are genetically encoded to reproduce.  This behavior requires some level of courtship ranging from drunken hookups to abstinence until marriage, but it exists.  When you put men and women together, generally something is going to go on.  I have yet to see an office where it hasn’t happened.  When you stick opposite sexes together, or worse on extended business trips, guess what goes down?  This almost always gets in the way in the form of nepotism while it’s going on, to retribution afterwords.  The army saying is don’t s–t in your own foxhole.

PUSHING IT TOO FAR

Why the PC police are forcing the military to make the sexes cooperate in tight spaces like a submarine where you are guaranteed deserted island behavior is beyond me.  The recent incident where men have filmed women in the shower on a sub is no surprise.  That is asking for something to happen.  You can only push the bubble so far before it breaks.  This is quarters that are just too close.  Someone is going to hop into the sack.

I also get diversity and have been through hours of training.  It’s the same boring training year after year on what you can and can’t do and how to act so that the company doesn’t get sued or blame you for the easy way out.  I’m for hiring the most talented and best candidate for a position rather than a quota based system.  It can result in distorted statistics that the racial and feminist overlords use against companies, but the idea is to create the optimal team be the most competitive and win.  Sometimes that creates teams of men and women, sometimes it’s dominated by more of one sex than the other.  When it’s time for battle though, you put your best team on the field, and that is determined by meritocracy.

So do men and women like working together?  For the most part to a person will say they do.  Behind the others backs or in the back of their mind, the differences are there and likely go unspoken or not thought of until the instinct to crush the opponent is instinctual or learned.  You can point the gun, but can you pull the trigger.

CRYING

I saw an article on LinkedIn about women crying more than men.  You can read the article here and draw your own conclusion, but it appears that there are clear differences between the two sexes emotionally.

And…..women tell me the difference between women and men is women have 2000 web pages open at once and work them all.  Men have one page open, but know every inch of it.

So in conclusion, no.

Life’s Laws

  1. The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity
  1. If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.
  1. Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live

with.

  1. Deja moo: The feeling that you’ve heard this bull before.
  1. Psychiatrists say that 1 of 4 people is mentally ill. Check three

friends. If they’re OK, you’re it.

  1. Nothing in the known universe travels faster than a bad check.
  1. A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn.
  1. It has recently been discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
  1. The trouble with doing something right the first time is that

nobody appreciates how difficult it was.

  1. Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by moving from where

you left them to where you can’t find them.

Why The English Language Is So Hard To Learn

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.

19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

 

There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or french fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce, and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One goose,2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?

Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.   If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all.

That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

The Perks of Being Over 50

 

facepalmchimp

  1. Kidnappers are not very interested in you.
  2. In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first.
  3. No one expects you to run into a burning building.
  4. People call at 9 PM and ask, “Did I wake you?”
  5. People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.
  6. There is nothing left to learn the hard way.
  7. Things you buy now won’t wear out.
  8. You can eat dinner at 4 P.M.
  9. You can live without sex but not without glasses.
  10. You enjoy hearing about other peoples operations.
  11. You get into heated arguments about pension plans.
  12. You have a party and the neighbors don’t even realize it.
  13. You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.
  14. You quit trying to hold your stomach in, no matter who walks into the room.
  15. You sing along with elevator music.
  16. Your eyes won’t get much worse.
  17. Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off.
  18. Your joints are more accurate meteorologists than the national weather service.
  19. Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can’t remember them either.
  20. Your supply of brain cells is finally down to manageable size.
  21. You can’t remember who sent you this list.

Disorder In The Court – Stupid Things Said Under Oath In the #Courtroom

These are from a book called Disorder in the Court. These are things

people

actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by

court

reporters – who had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were

actually taking place. Some of these are excellent – don’t miss the last

one.

Q: Are you sexually active?

A: No, I just lie there.

===

Q: What is your date of birth?

A: July fifteenth.

Q: What year?

A: Every year.

===

Q: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?

A: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.

===

Q: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?

A: Yes.

Q: And in what ways does it affect your memory?

A: I forget.

Q: You forget. Can you give us an example of something that you’ve

forgotten?

===

Q: How old is your son, the one living with you?

A: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can’t remember which.

Q: How long has he lived with you?

A: Forty-five years.

===

Q: What was the first thing your husband said to you when he woke up that

morning?

A: He said, “Where am I, Cathy?”

Q: And why did that upset you?

A: My name is Susan.

===

Q: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo or the

occult?

A: We both do.

Q: Voodoo?

A: We do.

Q: You do?

A: Yes, voodoo.

===

Q: Now doctor, isn’t it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he

doesn’t know about it until                     the next morning?

===

Q: The youngest son, the twenty-year old, how old is he?

===

Q: Were you present when your picture was taken?

===

Q: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?

A: Yes.

Q: And what were you doing at that time?

===

Q: She had three children, right?

A: Yes.

Q: How many were boys?

A: None.

Q: Were there any girls?

===

Q: How was your first marriage terminated?

A: By death.

Q: And by whose death was it terminated?

===

Q: Can you describe the individual?

A: He was about medium height and had a beard.

Q: Was this a male, or a female?

===

Q: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice

which I sent to your attorney?

A: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.

===

Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?

A: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.

===

Q: All your responses must be oral, OK? What school did you go to?

A: Oral.

===

Q: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?

A: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.

Q: And Mr.. Dennington was dead at the time?

A: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an Autopsy.

===

Q: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?

===

Q: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?

A: No.

Q: Did you check for blood pressure?

A: No.

Q: Did you check for breathing?

A: No.

Q: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the

autopsy?

A: No.

Q: How can you be so sure, Doctor?

A: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.

Q: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?

A: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law

somewhere.

University of Texas at Austin 2014 Commencement Address – Admiral William H. McRaven

This is not only very inspiring, it is some of the best advice on the Interweb. For those in a good way, it will make you better, for those in a bad way it will show you how to begin to pick yourself up.  If you are young, it is a good lesson in how to live your life.

Navy SEAL Admiral Bill McRaven University Texas Austin Commencement Hook 'Em

AP Photo/The University of Texas at Austin, Marsha Miller

UT alum Adm. William H. McRaven gives students the “hook ’em horns” at the university’s commencement last week.

 

U.S. Navy admiral and University of Texas, Austin, alumnus William H. McRaven returned to his alma mater last week to give seniors 10 lessons from basic SEAL training when he spoke at the school’s commencement. 

McRaven, the commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command who organized the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, stressed the importance of making your bed every morning, taking on obstacles headfirst, and realizing that it’s OK to be a “sugar cookie.”

All of his lessons were supported by personal stories from McRaven’s many years as a Navy SEAL.

“While these lessons were learned during my time in the military, I can assure you that it matters not whether you ever served a day in uniform,” McRaven told students. “It matters not your gender, your ethnic or religious background, your orientation, or your social status.”

 

Stupid Things Smart People Do

Once again, here is a smattering of what the internet says.  I observed some of this behavior at the IT companies I worked for.  Many of them were brilliant on the IQ scale, but couldn’t find their way out of the social (real not web) wet paper bag.
I found most of this on the internet.  If you don’t agree, try arguing with the internet.  BTW, that is one of the stupid things smart people do.
Enjoy.
free nobel peace prize
Stupid Stuff smart people do:
Fail to recognize their own cognitive bias
Fail to recognize the cognitive bias in those whom they care about.
Underestimate theal gore Horses-Ass-Awardir own stupidity.
Overestimate the stupidity of others.
Fail to understand Psychological projection

Getting into an argument on the internet.
Believe in global warming.
Believe what’s written on Quora.
Believe that socialism works.
Get frustrated and give up too easily when something doesn’t come naturally to them.

Related to this perhaps is not learning to lose gracefully.

And care more about being perceived as smart rather than doubling down and becoming smarter through failure.

They value intelligence over kindness.

Assuming other people think the same way about things as themselves. Also, assuming people act according to rational cost/benefit analysis of outcomes instead of according to their “gut”, habits or emotions.Also, conflating education (college degrees) for intelligence. This can lead them to pay too much attention to people with the right Ivy League credentials and not realize that it is often people who are “working in the trenches” who know more about what is going on.

They don’t spend enough time wondering “what are some smart things that stupid people do?”Underestimating people is a dangerous habit.
  1. Not reading the instructions.
  2. Never learning the value of practice.
  3. Underestimating the value of experience.
  4. Not learning how to study — really study — so they are unprepared when study is the only thing that will save them.
  5. Procrastinate

A study of successful con-men will show that they choose smart people to con.This is because smart people think they are smart in all things as against just their area of expertise.Smart people are commonly successful from a young age so do not have to experience the problems of  surviving on a daily basis. They are not forced to work for people they don’t like or do jobs they hate.They do not have to live without hope, or accept insults and attitudes of others who denigrate them.In all, they become divorced from the realities of life. They mix with others of their kind, and this reinforces their belief that they are smarter than those of lower social rank.They indulge in conspicuous consumption to keep up with their peers. They develop a lifestyle that assumes they will always have the means to live that way.They are easily conned because con-men flatter them on how  smart they are.

The smart people who end up in jail are rarely short of money, they do what they do because they think they can outsmart others.

How we love to see pride come before a fall.

They are the fodder of movie makers and writers.

Wow, there are so many.  Here are but a few of my favorite stupid things smart people tend to do:

  • Ignoring the importance of design and style – When the iPod originally came out, technical people complained about its lack of features and perceived high price (“ooh, who cares about another MP3 player, I can go buy one at Best Buy for $50” http://forums.macrumors.com/show…).  In the meantime, it was so cool and easy to use that normal people went out in droves to buy it.
  • Using terrible tools, and taking pride in their awfulness – Especially common with programmers, who take pride in using programming languages and text editors that have been designed by programmers, not updated since the 1970s, and never touched by anyone with a modicum of design sense. They believe that mastering arcane, overcomplicated commands and processes are a mark of pride, rather than a waste of time.  I will refrain from singling out specific programming languages and tools here, because smart people also like to get caught up in pointless flame wars about this sort of thing.
  • Following the pack – Many smart people often seem to be followers, probably because they grow up spending so much time pleasing others via academic and extracurricular achievement that they never figure out what they really like to work on or try anything unique.  Smart people from top schools tend to flock into the same few elite fields, as they try to keep on achieving what other people think they should achieve, rather than figuring out whatever it is they intrinsically want to do.
  • Failing to develop social skills – Some smart people focus exclusively on their narrow area of interest and never realize that everything important in life is accomplished through other people.  They never try to improve their social skills, learn to network, or self promote, and often denigrate people who excel in these areas. If you are already a good engineer you are going to get 10x the return on time spent improving how you relate to other people compared to learning the next cool tool.
  • Focusing on being right above all else – Many smart people act as if being right trumps all else, and go around bluntly letting people know when they are wrong, as if this will somehow endear others to them.  They also believe that they can change other people’s minds through argument and facts, ignoring how emotional and irrational people actually are when it comes to making decisions or adopting beliefs.
  • Letting success in one area lead to overconfidence in others – Smart people sometimes think that just because they are expert in their field, they are automatically qualified in areas about which they know nothing.  For instance, doctors have a reputation as being bad investors: http://medicaleconomics.modernme….
  • Underrating effort and practice – For smart people, many things come easily without much effort.  They’re constantly praised for “being smart” whenever they do anything well.  The danger is that they become so reliant on feeling smart and having people praise them, that they avoid doing anything that they’re not immediately great at.  They start to believe that if you’re not good at something from the beginning, you’re destined to always be terrible at it, and the thing isn’t worth doing.  These smart people fail to further develop their natural talents and eventually fall behind others who, while less initially talented, weren’t as invested in “being smart” and instead spent more time practicing.  http://nymag.com/news/features/2…
  • Engaging in zero sum competitions with other smart people – Many smart people tend to flock to fields which are already saturated with other smart people.  Only a limited number of people can become a top investment banker, law partner, Fortune 500 CEO, humanities professor, or Jeopardy champion.  Yet smart people let themselves be funneled into these fields and relentlessly compete with each other for limited slots.  They all but ignore other areas where they could be successful, and that are less overrun by super-smart people.   Instead of thinking outside the box, smart people often think well within a box, a very competitive box that has been set up by other people and institutions to further someone else’s interests at the expense of the smart person.
  • Excessively focusing on comparing their achievements with others – Smart people who have been raised in a typical achievement-focused family or school can get anxious about achievement to the point of ridiculousness.  This leads to people earnestly asking questions like: Success: If I haven’t succeeded in my mid 20s, could I be successful in the rest of my life? and Are you a failure if you are not a billionaire by age 30? What about 40?
  • Ignoring diminishing returns on information – Smart people are often voracious readers and can absorb huge quantities of information on any subject.  They get caught up in reading every last bit of information on subjects that interest them, like investing, lifehacking, or tech specs of products they’re planning on buying.   While some information is useful in making a decision, poring through the vast amount of information available online can be a waste of time.  They end up spending a lot of time gathering information without taking action.
  • Elitism – Smart people often use smartness as measure of the entire worth of a person.  They fail to see the value in or even relate with people who are different.  This is illustrated by the Yale professor who doesn’t have the slightest idea what to say to his plumber: http://www.theamericanscholar.or….  And questions like Am I an elitist to think that most people are stupid?
  • Try to click on the red links above
They become arrogant. They forget they aren’t really the smartest person in the world and flaunt their intelligence to others to the point where it’s annoying and it loses them friends and can hurt a lot of people.On the flip-side smart people can also sacrifice their smarts to fit in by trying to appear dumber than they really are to please others, talking about low-intellect topics which require no thought.Others over-estimate how clever they really are and use what they think is an almighty amount of smarts to pick on others, leaving themselves open to huge critiquing and losing a lot of potential friends.Some even think they’re smarter than they really are when it comes down doing certain tasks which would be much simpler had they taken the time to develop a proper approach to whatever they are doing.
Focusing on thinking to the detriment of doing.Smart people love to think.  It comes naturally to them, and they’re good at it.  But thinking only takes you so far, especially when you’re trying to make an impact on the world.  At some point, you have to do.Because thinking comes so easily to smart people, doing becomes relatively* harder. Research and planning are great in moderation, but can offer the dangerous illusion of progress. In the end, the only way to make a difference is to do something.  Start now.* Note that I say relatively–doing is generally easier for smart people than stupid people.  But thinking is so much easier that smart people tend to fall back on where they have the greatest comparative advantage.

Here is the opening ofSlavojZizek’s magnum opus, Less than Nothing. He is a self-described idiot, imbecile, and neurotic. Others call him the most important philosopher alive:

There are two opposed types of stupidity. The first is the (occasionally) hyper-intelligent subject who just doesn’t “get it,” who understands a situation logically, but simply misses its hidden contextual rules. For example, when I first visited New York, a waiter at a café asked me: “How was your day?” Mistaking the phrase for a genuine question, I answered him truthfully (“ I am dead tired, jet-lagged, stressed out …”), and he looked at me as if I were a complete idiot … and he was right: this kind of stupidity is precisely that of an idiot. Alan Turing was an exemplary idiot: a man of extraordinary intelligence, but a proto-psychotic unable to process implicit contextual rules. In literature, one cannot avoid recalling Jaroslav Hašek’s good soldier Švejk, who, when he saw soldiers shooting from their trenches at the enemy soldiers, ran into no-man’s land and started to shout: “Stop shooting, there are people on the other side!” The arch-model of this idiocy is, however, the naïve child from Andersen’s tale who publicly exclaims that the emperor is naked— thereby missing the point that, as Alphonse Allais put it, we are all naked beneath our clothes.

When You Are A Lame Duck, You Are A Delusion of Adequacy

I originally named this blog Delusions of Adequacy after a political campaign that described themselves as not having delusions of grandeur.  I have decided (for now) to write about people, places and things that are delusional as a category.  I borrowed the idea from F1Rejects, although my writings will not be about rejects, just those who don’t realize that they fall short in others eyes.

So when do you have only delusions of adequacy?

LAME DUCKS

I read this story in the WSJ about those who were retiring/resigning and were they lame ducks.  Having witnessed it throughout my career in business and socially on a constant basis, I realized that the minute you have announced your intention to move on the perception of reality is that you are a lame duck.  Additionally, when you are not effective in others eyes, again you are a lame duck or just perhaps lame.

The article states:
despicable me photo: Despicable Me despicable-me-header.jpg

Steve Ballmer above.

Steve Ballmer tried hard to show he was no lame duck after announcing last summer that he would step down as Microsoft Corp.’s MSFT -0.59% chief executive within a year.

“If you are a lame duck, your company is not moving forward,” he said in a March 17 interview. “You don’t want to get into an inaction period.”

Amid a spate of executive departures announced many months in advance, top bosses at big companies are figuring out how to stay in charge during their long goodbyes. These lengthy lead times give boards extra time to find replacements, but they also create uncertainty within a company as workers wonder who is actually in charge and would-be successors publicly jockey for attention.

Regardless of what he says, people are sucking up to the new leader and don’t care nearly as much about Steve the minute he said he’s leaving.  Folks I know at Microsoft couldn’t wait for him to go, not to mention a good portion of the tech industry.

NOT EVEN THE PRESIDENT IS EXEMPT

Except for the liberal portion of the Democrat party, people are backing away from Obama. Those running for election, most notably Kay Hagen and Hillary Clinton who can’t get far enough away from him to get elected.

As far as getting any legislation he wants passed, the opposition controls only 1/2 of 1/3rd of the power yet he can’t get anything accomplished since his re-election.  Most presidents are lame ducks only after an election that he doesn’t win or can’t run for, but he was labeled a lame duck almost as soon as the 2012 election was complete.

Leaders around the world, most notably Iran President Rohani and Vladimir Putin aren’t showing any respect with nuclear proliferation and the Crimea respectively.  Even smaller countries like Belgium are making fun of him.  Putin has a 35 point advantage in approval and he is a criminal.

Remember the red line in Syria?  He refused to back it up.  Now leaders and terrorist factions know he is all talk.  That is an example of lame duck actions.  It also could be interpreted as all talk no action, but that is a road I don’t want to go down in this post.  Let the reader decide for themselves.

CONCLUSION

As stated by many, perception is reality.  When there is any doubt that you are a lame duck, you are.  It undermines your ability to lead and be respected.  Sometimes you announce that you are leaving, sometimes it happens because you are ineffective.  Either way, it is real.