MEGHANN CONTER KNOWS MARKETING AND BRANDING And she's on today with great info about how to make sure your business is properly branded and using the right channels to market your goods or services. And she's funny and awesome too! Find her by clicking here.
TEENS WHO DON'T DATE ARE HAPPIER AND MORE SOCIALLY ADJUSTED THAN TEENS WHO DO And I found this very interesting because sometimes teens who don't date are seen as the opposite. Boy things have changed from when I was in school and I sort of think that's a good thing. This study shows that teens who don't date during high school have fewer episodes of depression and were more socially adjusted. From the article:
Surprisingly, the study’s authors discovered that non-dating students had either similar, or better, interpersonal skills than their dating classmates. Furthermore, while self-reported positive relationship scores did not differ between either groups, teachers rated the non-dating students significantly higher than their romance-seeking classmates in terms of social and leadership skills.
Regarding depression, teachers also rated non-dating students as less depressed. Additionally, far fewer abstinent students reported feeling depressed or hopeless regularly than students who were known to date.
And yet I know parents who worry if their children don't date. Seems we should be happy they don't!
A THIRD OF PARENTS SAY THEIR FAVORITE CHILD IS...A PET? This seems insane to me, although there are situations I'm aware of personally where the family is so fractured that I could see some people agreeing with this. The survey asked a whole lot of questions about how pets rank in the family structure and it seems that we think our pets are just as important as family. My standard is simple: would you die trying to save your pet? I'd die trying to save my kid. But not my dog. Even though I love her to bits and she's literally sitting on my feet as I type this.
BETA O'ROURKE THINKS GUN OWNERS WILL WILLINGLY TURN IN THEIR GUNS And I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this guy at this point. I'll say it one more time: as a law abiding gun owner I need to have 100% certainty that ALL the guns have ALL been removed from criminals BEFORE we can even talk about giving up mine. Since a vast majority of crimes are committed with guns that are not legally owned, we seem to have a problem doing that. But Beta thinks we're all going to happily hand over our guns because he wants us to.
A LOVELY VIDEO OF A CHOIR IN A GRAIN SILO And I have to thank listener Jessie for sending this. The singing starts at the 1:16 mark. Enjoy!
HEY LOOK, ANOTHER REASON INTERSECTIONALITY WILL ALWAYS FAIL And this one is about TERFs which I'm sure you were just talking about. Or not. See, TERFs are creating a problem because they are radical feminists who believe things like trans women should not be able to compete in athletic endeavors against women who were born women. This article explains it all. But I only share it to explain, once again, that when you construct something like intersectionality as a way to fight injustice there is always going to be infighting as groups try to claim the Supreme Victim spot from other groups. That's exactly what this is.
YOU CAN PRY MY GAS STOVE FROM MY COLD DEAD FINGERS The next battle in climate change is going to be over your gas stove. If I have to give up my gas stove to save the planet, I'm officially out. Not gonna do it. Never. Not ever.
IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS GIFT FOR ME This multi million dollar Bugatti would be nice. You can pick the color!
IT'S OFFICIAL, SOME PROGRESSIVES ARE SCARED OF EVERYTHING NOW I am so over people on Twitter using the word "terrified" or telling me they are "literally shaking" or some other such garbage when they are talking about something they disagree with but this one really takes the cake. A progressive author took to Twitter to tell people to stop wearing red hats OF ANY KIND because MAGA hats are so terrifying it's "not worth making disenfranchised people feel unsafe". She went on to say that anyone wearing a MAGA hat is "making everyone scared". Seriously people. Oh, and it's not just MAGA hats. She wants ALL red hats gone.
LOTS OF EMPTY SEATS AT LOTS OF NFL OPENERS THIS WEEK And that doesn't bode well for the league right now. Check it here.
WE NOW HAVE VAPING DEATHS TO REPORT And I sort of feel like it's only a matter of time before the FDA steps in with some significant action on vaping altogether. So if you're a vaper, you may want to quit before you have to go back to smokes. Why? Because as many as five people are dead from an illness connected to vaping.
OUR INCANDESCENT BULBS ARE SAFE. FOR NOW. And I'm not saying that Trump should run on an "if you like your light bulbs you can keep your light bulbs" platform entirely, but it might be worth a mention. Just yesterday, I had to replace a $7 light bulb that was SUPPOSED to last forever or something that I just installed last year. What did I replace it with? A 75 CENT light bulb. The Trump administration is officially rolling back the Obama phase our of incandescent light bulbs. Thank goodness.
THIS IS HOW I FEEL ABOUT SPIN CLASS
CONTINUING THE HAPPINESS THEME Last week it was Dan Gilbert so this week I've got Robert Waldinger on the longest study on happiness ever.
MONDAYS WITH MILTON And he's talking about the largest monopoly in the country: the government.