Tag Archives: gabriele

Map of the Day: We Have Met the Enemy, and the Enemy is Squirrels

Mother Jones

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The American electrical grid remained under sustained assault in 2015 from squirrel attacks. The Obama administration, feckless as always, failed to understand the threat and protect the American people. If they refuse to even say the words “evolutionarily maladapted squirrels,” what chance do they have of defeating the enemy?

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Map of the Day: We Have Met the Enemy, and the Enemy is Squirrels

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Hip Hip Hooray For They!

Mother Jones

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The Washington Post reports some terrific news:

Singular “they,” the gender-neutral pronoun, has been named the Word of the Year by a crowd of over 200 linguists at the American Dialect Society’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C. on Friday evening.

….The Post’s style guide ratified this usage last month, which caused some grammar pedants to shriek. But as Post copy editor Bill Walsh explained, the singular they is “the only sensible solution to English’s lack of a gender-neutral third-person singular personal pronoun.”

OK, so we can now say:

I talked to Pat, and they said the sofa was on its way.
Pat said their sofa had been promised for tomorrow.
Pat came over, and I talked to them about when the sofa would arrive.

Takes some getting used to, doesn’t it? But I’m all for it. I will celebrate the day when gendered pronouns are gone for good.

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Hip Hip Hooray For They!

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Would You Like Fewer Fries With That?

Mother Jones

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Aaron Carroll writes today that calorie labeling in restaurants doesn’t seem to have any effect. I skimmed through his review of the evidence in order to get to the part of the story where he tells us what does have an effect, but I was disappointed. Not surprised, though. Hardly anything works. Here’s his single paragraph about alternatives:

Previous work in Health Affairs showed that training servers to ask if customers might like to downsize three starchy sides induced up to a third of customers to order and eat 200 fewer calories per meal. More recent work in the journal showed that changing the “prevalence, prominence and default nature of healthy options” on children’s menus led to sustained changes in what people ordered.

I don’t know about children’s menus, but that first suggestion rings a bell. One of my favorite restaurants offers two sides with dinner entrees. I always order the same thing, and all I want is a single side order of fries. This is all but impossible to get. If I tell my server I want just one order of fries and nothing else, I’m told brightly that it’s no trouble to just double up the fries. If I say I don’t want two orders of fries, the cook gives them to me anyway. I think they want to fill up the plate and make sure I don’t feel ripped off.

Suggesting that we downsize calorie-laden sides might be a good idea. But in my experience, the first step is for restaurants to allow sides to be downsized if the customer asks. Baby steps.

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Would You Like Fewer Fries With That?

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Friday Cat Blogging – 3 July 2015

Mother Jones

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Today you get a very special episode of Friday Catblogging. It’s a movie! I made it with my shiny new Surface 3, and although it’s not the greatest catblogging movie ever made, it does prove the old adage: any camera you have is better than any camera you don’t. So sit back and enjoy Hopper using her passive-aggressive defensive skills to keep Hilbert at bay. Our show takes place atop the fireplace mantel, everyone’s favorite new place these days.

Have a great 4th, everyone. See you next week.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 3 July 2015

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