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A Behind-the-Scenes Look at How Producers Manage The Trump Show

by AdelePlatz Posted on May 15, 2017

Mother Jones

Over at Politico, “How Trump Gets His Fake News” is getting a lot of play this morning. And why not? In one sense, it’s an old story: Trump’s staff has to treat him like a volcanic nine-year-old lest he decide on a whim to move the Oval Office onto a barge in the Chesapeake Bay or something. We’ve read dozens of pieces like this in the past few months because Trump, by all accounts, really is a lot like a high-strung nine-year-old. At the same time, this kind of stuff is liberal crack: you can never get enough.

So what’s the best part of this latest installment in the Trump saga? The fake Time cover that got Trump lathered up about climate change? How Katie Walsh almost got fired because of a blog post from a conspiracy theorist? The fact that aides desperately try to ply Trump with good news to keep his temper in check? The endless search for whoever fed him the latest unapproved tidbit of Trumpbait? They’re all good. But maybe this is the best:

More recently, when four economists who advised Trump during the campaign — Steve Forbes, Larry Kudlow, Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore — wrote in a New York Times op-ed that “now is the time to move tax reform forward with urgency,” someone in the White House flagged the piece for the president.

Trump summoned staff to talk about it. His message: Make this the tax plan, according to one White House official present.

Once again, we see that Trump couldn’t care less about policy. Any old health care plan is OK. Any old tax plan is OK. Just announce something and get it passed. Who care about all the stupid details, anyway? Just smug PhD types and annoying tea party crackpots.

Nothing matters. It’s all just a big show.

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A Behind-the-Scenes Look at How Producers Manage The Trump Show

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McDonald’s feeble attempt to encourage walking is short-lived

by DeborahLocklear Posted on August 18, 2016

Hamburglar Comin

McDonald’s feeble attempt to encourage walking is short-lived

By on Aug 18, 2016Share

McDonald’s recent attempt to encourage kids to get exercise beyond lifting fries to their mouths is officially as dead as Grimace, the turd-shaped McD’s villain who met an untimely passing after too many milkshakes.

This week, the company started putting fitness trackers in Happy Meals along with the customary 23 grams of fat. The device, a Step-It, is basically a cheap pedometer. It was included on the premise that kids would love watching their step count increase so much that they would start to take more of them — which is a bleak, burgeoning trend in toys for children.

But it would have taken a lot of steps to work off the food it came with: Gizmodo calculated that it takes about four hours of exercise or 24,000 steps to burn off the 840 calories in the average Happy Meal.

And after reports that Step-Its were causing rashes on the little wrists that wore them, the company announced Wednesday that it is discontinuing the prize.

“We have taken this swift and voluntary step after receiving limited reports of potential skin irritations that may be associated with wearing the band,” said a company spokesperson in a statement.

As for the Type II Diabetes that may be associated with eating loads of McDonald’s food? Well, that’s still something to look forward to.

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McDonald’s feeble attempt to encourage walking is short-lived

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Bill Nye inadvertently played a role in creating Noah’s Ark

by ShavonneHaber Posted on July 11, 2016

Bill Nye inadvertently played a role in creating Noah’s Ark

By on Jul 11, 2016Share

Bill Nye may not believe in Noah’s ark, but that didn’t stop him from visiting it.

Nye was one of the first visitors to Ark Encounter, a creationist theme park that opened in Williamstown, Kentucky last week. The park’s capstone feature is a 510-foot replica of Noah’s Ark — apparently there to prove that two of every living thing on Earth could totally have fit on a boat. Totally.

Funding for the new ark came, in part, thanks to Nye himself: In 2014, funding for the $100 million project was quickly running out, but after Nye debated the park’s creator — fundamentalist Christian Ken Ham — on evolution, donations came pouring in. The park was saved.

Alas, the Science Guy was not dissuaded by his visit. “This could be just a charming piece of Americana” Nye told the Washington Post, but this “guy promotes so very strongly that climate change is not a serious problem, that humans are not causing it, that some deity will see to it that everything is ok.”

Ham, for his part, doesn’t seem too concerned about climate change, but he did urge his Facebook fans to “pray for Bill Nye.”

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Bill Nye inadvertently played a role in creating Noah’s Ark

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Ozone hole not so holey anymore

by LizaMcvayrurjxx Posted on July 1, 2016

Sometimes shrinkage is a good thing

Ozone hole not so holey anymore

By on Jul 1, 2016Share

Here’s something we don’t get to say very often here at Grist dot org: Good news, humans!

Remember the hole in the ozone layer? Well, three decades after countries started banning the chemicals destroying it, the ozone layer is on the mend, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science.

While a full recovery isn’t expected until mid-century, researchers found that the seasonal hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica is shrinking. The hole, which was discovered in 1984, was caused by chemicals known as chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, that at the time were found in household goods like hairspray and air conditioners.

The ozone layer, part of the Earth’s stratosphere between six and 30 miles above the planet’s surface, absorbs ultraviolet rays from the sun, and protects us, its thankless inhabitants, from harmful radiation. In fact, life on Earth wouldn’t be possible without the ozone layer.

“Think of [the ozone layer] like a patient with a disease,” said Susan Solomon, MIT chemist and the study’s lead author. “First, it was getting worse. Then it stopped — it was stable but still in bad shape.”

Now, it looks like it’s actually getting better. Congratulations, Earthlings! You’ll survive another day after all.

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Ozone hole not so holey anymore

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Not paying enough rent? New startup Rentberry could change that

by CelsaCowen129 Posted on May 18, 2016

Not paying enough rent? New startup Rentberry could change that

By on May 18, 2016 3:50 amShare

As if life for renters in big cities weren’t hellish enough, a new Bay Area startup promises to make it even more of a nightmare. Meet Rentberry.

The company, which launched Tuesday, is an auction site for rental properties brought to you by a team of pale people. Assuming this isn’t a scam or an elaborate Yes Men–style prank to draw attention to the soaring cost of housing, here’s how it’s supposed to work: Property owners list their units on the site, and then potential tenants compete to outbid each other for the privilege of having a place to live. Sounds great, right?

No, it sounds awful. The median rent for a one-bedroom in San Francisco is already a mind-blowing $3,560 a month, and Rentberry promises to make it go even higher. As of now, Rentberry only directly charges tenants — they must pay $25 at the time of lease signing — but the company intends to start charging landlords in the next six months or so. The plan, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, is that Rentberry will charge landlords 25 percent of the extra rent they generate beyond their initial asking price each month. So, if your landlord lists an apartment for $5,000 and the final bid is $6,000, Rentberry takes a quarter of the extra $1,000, or $250 a month.

Rentberry says that it is providing a service, and that tenants will save an average of seven to 10 hours of apartment hunting through the bidding process. But while saving all of 10 hours may be worth it for top earners, for everyone else, Rentberry is just the latest threat against the non-rich in San Francisco. Plus, Rentberry could be especially damaging for people of color: The site asks renters to provide profile photos, and, thanks to reports of minorities who’ve been declined service on sites like Airbnb, we know that housing discrimination through technology is very real.

So will renters actually go along with using a service built on the premise of increasing their rent? A quick poll of renters among the Grist staff returned comments from “lol” to “fuck no” to “NEVER.”

Then again, you can see the benefit for landlords. And that’s where the real threat comes in: Even though no renter in their right mind would freely choose to use a service designed to make their rent go up, if lots of landlords start using it, they may not have much choice.

Here’s hoping Rentberry is just a scam after all.

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Not paying enough rent? New startup Rentberry could change that

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Stephen Colbert takes on Trump’s bizarre antics in coal country

by KristanGorman Posted on May 10, 2016

Stephen Colbert takes on Trump’s bizarre antics in coal country

By on May 10, 2016Share

Donald Trump donned a hard hat on a campaign trip to West Virginia last week and mimicked working in the coal mines — a move that would have been humiliating if he possessed the ability to feel shame. It was quite a sight, as we noted yesterday, and unfortunately for Trump, the move didn’t escape the attention of Stephen Colbert. “Wow, he really looks like a miner,” Colbert said on his show Monday. “Right down to that orange soot all over his face from years in the Dorito mines.”

Amen, brother. You can watch the whole segment above.

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Stephen Colbert takes on Trump’s bizarre antics in coal country

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Keurig’s new green move is as mediocre as K-Cups coffee

by EvonneAutry Posted on April 18, 2016

Keurig’s new green move is as mediocre as K-Cups coffee

By on 18 Apr 2016commentsShare

After literally a decade of trying, Keurig has finally found a way to address complaints about its product’s environmental impact: It’s made recyclable coffee pods, as the New York Times reports. Hooray. What heroes.

Keurig is the originator of the K-Cup, those single-serving coffee pods that create enough waste each year to wrap around the planet nearly 11 times. K-Cups have long provoked the ire of environmentalists, even inspiring a horror film in which an enormous K-Cup monster terrorizes city streets.

K-Cup monsters may only be the things of nightmares (and YouTube), but coffee pods truly are bad for the planet. K-Cups are made of impossible-to-recycle plastic and so the 9 billion units sold in 2015 alone languish in landfills. Even John Sylvan, the K-Cup’s inventor, has regrets about creating them. And let’s be real — the coffee’s not great either.

The problem with this development is that that even recyclable coffee pods are still wasteful. You don’t need a $100 device and special containers to make a cup of coffee; all you need is a fire, a cowboy hat, and a tin cup. Alternately, there are French presses, reusable filters, percolators, and your neighborhood espresso bar — all better options than K-Cups, recyclable or not.

If however, you cannot live without your precious coffee pods, they are on track to start rolling out by the end of the year. Just don’t forget to recycle.

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