How the money corruption in DC works

Lobbyists are at the heart of the system. Therefore they cannot be cut out.

For anyone who has ever heard the term “Washington insider” and felt outside — we are with you. So this week, we go inside the rooms where the deals get made, to the actual moment that the checks change hands — and we ask the people writing and receiving the checks what, exactly, is the money buying?

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/461/take-the-money-and-run-for-office

Job Alert: How Would You Like to Babysit Robots?

BOOK A NIGHT at LAX’s Residence Inn and you may be fortunate enough to meet an employee named Wally. His gig is relatively pedestrian—bring you room service, navigate around the hotel’s clientele in the lobby and halls—but Wally’s life is far more difficult than it seems. If you put a tray out in front of your door, for instance, he can’t get to you. If a cart is blocking the hall, he can’t push it out of the way. But fortunately for Wally, whenever he gets into a spot of trouble, he can call out for help.

https://www.wired.com/story/job-alert-how-would-you-like-to-babysit-robots/

Via Babysitting Robots http://questioningourreality.blogspot.com/2018/01/babysitting-robots.html

Trump gets A+ for persuasion

Are the Fake News Awards Persuasive?

I’m no historian, but I doubt any prior president has combined theater and politics so ambitiously and so effectively. President Trump is intentionally and deftly “bringing the show” on this topic and lots of others. If you don’t understand persuasion, you might think he is just being crazy or narcissistic or authoritarian or some other misdiagnosis. But if you know that attention and memory are the primary levers of persuasion, and you see how often he commands both, you might recognize that you are seeing something special here in terms of a talent stack. (A talent stack is a combination of skills that are designed to work well together, such as the collective sub-talents for persuasion, theater, and politics.)

http://blog.dilbert.com/2018/01/18/fake-news-awards-persuasive/

Niagara Falls are fake – or at least not 100% natural (real)

The falls are very engineered and far from their natural form.

Niagara Falls might be at its most spectacular in winter. Over the recent holidays, the icy cascade captured the public’s imagination: numerous newspapers ran stories about the frozen wonderland, and social media posts about the falls were widely shared.

Source: How Niagara Falls is a wonder of natural — and artificial — beauty | Toronto Star