DUDE, DID YOU HEAR TRUMP'S SPEECH? It was epic. I initially thought it was bat poop crazy, but then I started listening and realizing it's genius.
DID YOU FORGET TO MAKE PLANS FOR VALENTINE'S DAY? WE'VE GOT YOU COVERED. Gretchen Bartek from Adelska Dates is on today with some cool suggestions for you and your sweetie that are already planned from start to finish. She's on at 1, find out more or book your date by clicking here!
Y'ALL THEY COULD HAVE WALKED THE CAUCUS RESULTS BACK TO BOISE BY NOW As of this morning when I wrote this, we STILL don't know for sure who won the Iowa Caucus. As of 8:42 Mayor Pete was leading by 3 votes. And he was leading Bernie. And if either of these two guys are the candidate Trump sails back into office. Why? Because when people find out how much THEIR taxes will have to go up to fund Bernie's grandiose plans they will balk. And if Mayor Pete is the candidate he will NOT get the black vote because black people are not down with homosexuality. This is not good either way. Democrats have officially begun to panic according to the Washington Post. From the article:
Democrats, after three-plus miserable years under Trump, hoped this would be a turning point, with the president facing impeachment for allegedly abusing his power and Democrats beginning in earnest the campaign to oust him. But neither process is going as planned, reviving Democratic jitters that Trump is somehow not subject to the ordinary laws of politics.
And there is little confidence the coming weeks will provide much clarity. Arguably one of the biggest beneficiaries of the current turmoil is former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, a presidential hopeful who could see an opening in the chaos. On Tuesday he announced he was hiring more staff, spending more on television ads and scheduling more campaign events.
For all the scandals and allegations against him, Trump’s approval rating rose Tuesday to 49 percent, his best Gallup poll performance since 2017. Approval of his handling of the economy has also been strong.
Add to this the news that people are satisfied with their own lives at record high levels, this is all very, very bad news for Democrats. Oh and there's also a twenty year high in confidence in the economy in that poll too. Yikes.
PELOSI PLANNED THE RIP AND RIPGATE IS BORN Nancy Pelosi didn't rip up the State of the Union Tuesday night spontaneously. We now have VIDEO EVIDENCE she PRE-RIPPED the pages to make sure she could make the rude gesture at the end of the speech. This makes the whole thing that much funnier to me tbh.
THINK YOU KNOW EVERYTHING? BUY A BUNCH OF BOOKS TO SET YOU STRAIGHT Dave says this is his problem, that he has too many books. I've moved too many times to be sentimental about books, but I still have stacks and piles of them around the house. This article is about the Japanese concept of "tsundoku" or "antilibrary" which is the word for stacks of books you're meaning to read. Here is the good news for those of you who have a stack of books mocking you: it's okay. Better than okay. Read this:
Maria Popova, whose Brain Pickingssummarizes Taleb's argument beautifully, notes that our tendency is to overestimate the value of what we know, while underestimating the value of what we don't know. Taleb's antilibrary flips this tendency on its head.
The anti-library's value stems from how it challenges our self-estimation by providing a constant, niggling reminder of all we don't know. The titles lining my own home remind me that I know little to nothing about cryptography, the evolution of feathers, Italian folklore, illicit drug use in the Third Reich, and whatever entomophagy is. (Don't spoil it; I want to be surprised.)
"We tend to treat our knowledge as personal property to be protected and defended," Taleb writes. "It is an ornament that allows us to rise in the pecking order. So this tendency to offend Eco's library sensibility by focusing on the known is a human bias that extends to our mental operations."
These selves of unexplored ideas propel us to continue reading, continue learning, and never be comfortable that we know enough. Jessica Stillman calls this realization intellectual humility.
I LOVE this concept. And it makes me feel better about my book that are in the picture accompanying this post.
HE....WAS...SPARTACUS!! Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas passed yesterday at the age of 103. That's a helluva run. May he rest in peace.
GROCERIES FOR ONE? IT CAN COST BIG IF YOU LIVE IN CERTAIN PLACES How much do you spend on groceries? Less than if you lived in Seattle, San Fran or Brooklyn, where groceries cost up to 30% more. There is one line in this story that annoys the crap out of and it's this one:
As much as 97 percent of counties in the United States are home to people who can't afford or don't have access to healthy food, according to a study released last year by Feeding America,
Frozen vegetables are 1 dollar at most stores. Beans are cheap. Get meat on sale. There you go.
WANT TO KNOW HOW THE SOCIAL JUSTICE HUSTLE WORKS? READ THIS This column is startlingly candid about what it's like to work on messaging for social justice rackets. The writer is well...a writer who accidentally became the go-to woman for various social justice groups. She explains the shakedowns and how ridiculous the whole thing is in very stark and graphic terms, some of which are curse words. But read it anyway here.
BILL DEBLASIO IS MAKING NEW YORK CRAP AGAIN This is totally unsurprising as the De Blasio administration has been picking on cops and letting perps go at record speed for some time. But now New Yorkers are taking note and talking the media. And De Blasio won't even answer a direct criticism by the head of the cop union. He's an idiot and New York should be embarrassed he's in office.
SOCIAL MEDIA HELPS CATCH A HANGING LAKE VANDAL AND I'M STOKED People who think they can "improve" on nature by adding spray paint are aholes. And I write aholes because if I spelled out the REAL word I'd get in trouble but THEY ARE THE REAL WORD. And now one tagger is doing jail time because his stupid "blest" mark made the rounds on social media and he got ratted out. Ahole. I wonder how "blest" he's feeling now.
IT'S NOT NICE TO LAUGH AT A BABY ELEPHANT Even though this is really funny
AND NOW, AN ORANGUTAN HELPS A GUY