James Madison and Slavery
Turkey
Rain Comes Down
Gets Dark Early Now
It’s only a little after 4:30 PM and it’s already getting dark outside. 🌆 Daylight Savings Time is well in force, and it’s definitely November. The long nights of summer have come and gone, their is a chill in the air. But once I’m camping, I do look forward to the longer nights, when I’ll have more time to cook and relax before bedtime.🍳
NPR
Not since the beginning of time has anyone ever made greater use of superlatives than Donald Trump. He has constantly been "the most" this, "the least" that and always the "best ever."
Superlatives and exaggerations are a common indulgence to which we all succumb. Journalists are, well, just the worst. Take the first line of this story (see above). Or take Politico's summary Saturday morning: "It's been the most unconventional and contentious election season of our lifetime."
We know what we mean when we say such things. We also know what Trump means when he says things like "you're going to see things you've never thought about seeing" or "they will get hit like no one's ever been hit before." We have long since become inured to him saying he is "the greatest jobs producer God has ever created" or, on the other hand, "the least racist person you will ever interview" or "the least anti-Semitic person that you've ever seen in your entire life."
To some degree, all this rhetorical excess makes it difficult to take what the president says seriously when he says serious things. Moreover, it becomes difficult to be taken seriously when reporting things that really do happen and really are unprecedented or truly record setting.
The Dictatorship of Data
Big data is poised to transform society, from how we diagnose illness to how we educate children, even making it possible for a car to drive itself. Information is emerging as a new economic input, a vital resource. Companies, governments, and even individuals will be measuring and optimizing everything possible.
But there is a dark side. Big data erodes privacy. And when it is used to make predictions about what we are likely to do but haven’t yet done, it threatens freedom as well. Yet big data also exacerbates a very old problem: relying on the numbers when they are far more fallible than we think. Nothing underscores the consequences of data analysis gone awry more than the story of Robert McNamara.