Let's Talk About Running

Well, part of it is the way this kind of research is done. A "running injury" is usually defined as "anything that keeps you from running for more than a day, or causes you to reduce your training load". So "80% get injured every year" sounds like a lot, but keep in mind that this includes things like blisters, stubbed toes, and skipping a run because you feel a bit too achey after a speedwork day and take an extra rest day just to be on the safe side. Running, being an endurance sport, is especially prone to this kind of injury: running injuries often develop slowly and progress gradually, and are caused by repetitive stress; in other sports, injuries are more often happen in a split second, and while it may go wrong less often, when it does go wrong, it goes really wrong. The kind of sports injury that sidelines you for weeks or months, I believe, doesn't happen significantly more often in running than the average physical sport; running accidents very rarely kill people or cause severe brain damage.

That said, distance running does have a very high potential for repetitive stress injuries. Two reasons for this; one, it's an endurance sport. This means that you perform the same movement over and over and over, so any imperfection you have in your movement patterns will be amplified by sheer repetition. That little scraping in your gait, that you normally don't even notice, will give you a bad blister after 30,000 steps; the way your hip drops when your left foot lands is not a big deal for everyday activities or chasing a bus once in a while, but 10 miles into a run, it will start punishing your knee. On top of that, a typical running training regimen routinely involves exercising your slow-twitch muscles to the point of deep fatigue (a.k.a. the "long run") for the purpose of pushing that point up. Once you've reached that point, movement patterns will change to compensate for those muscles that are no longer capable of working properly, and this often leads to even worse running form and even more stress on the joints and connective tissue.

The other reason is that running is a high-impact activity; if you dial in the right amount of training, it makes your bones, joints, and connective tissue stronger, and more resilient against impact forces, but if you do too much, it's easy to overload your body. And because the kind of training stress we're dealing with often takes a day or two to fully manifest, it's easy to overdo - you run a bit too much, but it feels great, so you do the same thing again the next day, and it still feels great, but by the end of the week you suddenly feel super groggy and everything hurts.

And then there's the endurance athlete's mindset of "embracing the suck". Many of us are in it because we want to experience self-inflicted suffering, exploring and expanding the limits of our bodies. To a degree, this is healthy and the way to improve, but there's a fine line between suffering that is mostly mental, and little more than physical discomfort, and the kind of suffering that is plain old pain, a warning signal our body sends us, urging us to stop doing whatever it is we're doing. It's not always easy to tell the difference.

And finally, I believe a certain level of consumerism also plays a role. As in any other sport, many people are looking for easy solutions; but running is as simple a sport as it gets, there's basically just your mind, your body, and the road, everything else is mostly irrelevant (yes, this includes running shoes). So the usual approach of solving your problems by buying a product doesn't work, but there's a whole industry built around telling you that it does, and people fall for it big time. The treatment for knee problems is fixing your running form, doing strength training, and adapting your training schedule so that it doesn't hurt you; but this requires brutal honesty, and people are often more comfortable listening to someone who tells them that what they need is a particular kind of running shoe or sock or compression shorts or sports drink or whatever.

SOURCE

Trump's View of Others is Utterly Self-Contingent.

If someone praises him or works with him, they are a winner. If they criticize him or give him even the slightest of ego wounds, then they are failing disgraceful losers.

Everyone has a little bit of this in them. I mean we all think better of people who compliment us, and perhaps if someone criticizes us we start to think of reasons why "that loser has no right to say ____ about me...."

But Trump displays this behavior to a compulsive, uncontrollable degree.

He is unable to accept a criticism, any criticism, however valid or mild, of anyone on his "winner list."

He incontinently accepts and amplifies every criticism, however poorly founded or unsubstantiated, of anyone on his "loser" list.

He seeks revenge, domination and humiliation of those who defy him.

I don't get how some people have not spotted this pattern yet.

It is how we get Trump repeating the idea that Ted Cruz's dad shot JFK. There was no mastermind plan behind this smear. Ted Cruz opposed and defied Trump therefore everything bad anyone has ever alleged about Ted Cruz, even if the claim came from some egg on Twitter, must be true.

it is how he was continually caught retweeting White nationalists. It's way too complimentary to say that "Trump is indifferent to the source of a claim." It would be more accurate to say that "The nature of a claim, in Trump's mind, vindicates or discredits the source." That is how a poll was "respected" one day and "failing and dishonest" the next purely based on its results - the claim vindicates or discredits the source. It's exactly backwards which is why it's so hard for ordinary people, I reckon, to get to grips with the way Trump thinks.

Let's take the opposite case - Trump being given a criticism about someone who is on his "winner list." How does he react? Right now a story that's developing is Bill O'Reilly asked Trump whether he was concerned/critical about the fact that Trump was praised by Putin, a man who has journalists and political opponents murdered. And Trump replied "We've got a lot of killers too." This is actually the second time Trump has made this claim. People are outraged because Trump made a baseless claim that the USA kills journalists.

But interpreting Trump's words as factual claims is simply missing the point.

The right way is:

1) You made a criticism of someone who has praised Trump.

2) Beep boop, Trump's psyche interprets this as an attempt to inflict ego injury.

3) Trump's mouth leaps to his psyche's defense with a blurted, usually incoherent attempt to minimize, dismiss or delegitimize the criticism.

It's like people don't get the idea that showing Trump a photo, a representation of the real world, will do nothing. Because his statements aren't really claims about an external, real and objective world around us. They're more like value-creating statements that impose on reality a super-reality in which he is continually vindicated.

People have noticed that Trump lacks shame. He lies shamelessly, he insults shamelessly, he is shameless in never admitting error, he doubles down. I mean: It would have been the easiest thing in the world, in the inauguration crowd nonsense, to have Sean Spicer come out on Day 2 and say "Yes Obama got a larger crowd because his inauguration was a historic event, and in any case DC is a heavily Democratic city where half the population is Black and naturally wanted to cheer on the first Black President, but Trump's supporters are certainly excited for his Presidency and now the President is focused on his mission of making America great again, etc."

All this would have been so easy. But instead the President sends out his Press Sec to tell a shameless bold face lie that the media almost has no choice but to turn into the day's leading story, to ruinous effects.

It's because even in situations where it would be easy to make a bad situation go away by losing a small amount of face, his psyche will not allow him.

His ghostwriters have turned this into a macho businessman personality where his philosophy is "Never show weakness to the dogs of war" or some bullshit - but the reality is that his uncontrollable horror of losing face is because of deep personal insecurities.

We can tell this is objectively the case because his behavior is compulsive and reckless. It's not geared to advancing his own interests. It's self destructive. Always remember Trump is not some genius like, for instance, Dilbert Man makes him out to be.

Consider Trump's lies. All politicians lie. But most politicians don't tell lies that they will obviously be caught on in 15 minutes, like Trump's lie about receiving a letter from the NFL. Trump tells these lies because he can't help himself. Most politicians lie needfully - that is, they lie when the Truth threatens to bring about embarrassment or accountability. Trump lies compulsively because even the mildest "reality checks" are for him ego-shattering events.

I want to point out that I, nor anyone reading this comment, is qualified to actually diagnose Trump with anything. Diagnosis has to happen in a therapeutic environment with the participation of the patient.You can't diagnose someone with a mental illness via TV.But what you can do is spot a consistent pattern of behaviors.

We already see states and leaders formulating their actions in light of modeling Trump's behavioral patterns. For example Theresa May's visit was a big cuddlefest, not because May actually likes Trump, but because the apolitical apparatus of the British state behind May has made the calculation that deliberate flattery of USA's leader is now a necessity in US-UK relations and may position UK advantageously vs the other European states.

This is disgusting and concerning. And this extends beyond our allies, obviously. Other state actors, like our adversaries Russia and China, are also surely operating with a consciousness of the President's mental weakness and the idea that Trump's psyche is a mechanism or opportunity to "short circuit" the American state acting in its own actual national interest.

Bottom line, this is dangerous for our country and if I may say so, SAD.

SOURCE

Trump and Putin Conspiracy

Trump is being bribed by Putin.

• July 8, 2016 - Trump associate Carter Page visits Moscow and receives an offer of equity from Russia in a massive Russian oil deal if Trump will lift US/EU sanctions. These sanctions have crippled the Russian economy and hamstrung their oligarchy.
• July 18, 2016 - Trump's team makes one tweak to the RNC platform: a pro-Russia softening of our stance on their invasion of Ukraine/Crimea.
• July 22, 2016 - Wikileaks dumps the DNC emails on the eve of the Democratic National Convention, helping hold down Clinton's favorability among an incensed left and boosting Trump's RNC bump while holding Clinton to her lowest polling of the cycle.
• July 27, 2016 - Trump tells the press that he would consider lifting sanctions on Russia and "jokingly"instructs Russia to continue to hack Clinton "if they're listening." It would be his last press conference of the election.

Now, of course, we know that:

• The hacking was directed by Russia to help Trump win the election.
• Wikileaks timed their dumps to hurt Clinton's campaign.

What has the Trump team been up to since then?

• Trump advisor Carter Page is under investigation for his ties to Russia. He's continued to visit Moscow in spite of that investigation.
• The man who most likely offered Page the deal to offer to Trump was found dead from gun shot wounds in the back of his car in Moscow in December. The Russian state press has called his death a heart attack since the initial report (...in the back of his car, in an alley).
• Trump advisor Paul Manafort, who left his official role as campaign chair last summer, is under investigation for his ties to Russia. Manaffort reemerged after the election to advise Trump on cabinet positions...
• Rex Tillerson, former Exxon CEO, emerged as a dark horse candidate for Secretary of State shortly thereafter. Tillerson has extensive business ties to Russian oil and lobbied for a reduction in sanctions while at Exxon. He has deep ties to the company that offered Carter Page the equity deal, along with his own $200M stock in Exxon that would benefit significantly from the lifting of sanctions, and has been awarded the Friend of Russia honor by Putin.
• Former military intelligence officer, and Trump's National Security Advisor, Gen. Michael Flynn is under investigation for his communications with Russia following a December increase in sanctions by Pres. Obama. The Trump team have defended those calls with various conflicting explanations. After getting kicked out of the Obama DIA for his insubordination and islamaphobia, Flynn - the veteran intelligence office, cozied up to Putin.
• Finally there is Trump advisor Roger Stone - a former business partner to Paul Manafort who cut his teeth in politics as one of Nixon's dirty trixsters. Stone outed himself as a back-channel communicator between Wikileaks's Assagne and the Trump campaign back in November. In his spare time before the election, Stone led the charge to cement the election as rigged in case of a Clinton victory. He is also under investigation by US intelligence.

During the campaign many described Trump as a useful idiot of Russia. His actions since then may determine that an underestimation.

• Trump is speaking with Putin soon regarding the lifting of sanctions.
• Leaks, unsubstantiated though given the above hardly far fetched, have identified Trump as a Russian asset cultivated over at least the last five years.
• Allegations have emerged that Russia has both the carrot of the oil money and the stick of kompromat - incriminating evidence used as blackmail - to encourage Trump's pro-Putin action.
• Russia has arrested two high ranking Russian cyber intelligence officials for treason - potentially because of their role as US spies.
• A third Russian hacker is currently in a US-Russian tug of war while in jail in Prague, with a potential connection to the Huma Abedin emails that were discovered in October and which may have tipped the election to Trump.
• Russian officials are celebrating the election of Trump and are joyous over their efforts to elect him.
• John McCain laments that we have no unified response to Russian cyber-intrusion, which he likened to an act of war.

We're getting fucked, royally, by a Trump-Putin alliance that is out for oil money and the destruction of western democracies. That's potentially why John Lewis and other Democratic law makers who left a recent intel briefing on the Russian interference called Trump "illegitimate"and part of a Russian conspiracy.

Why Peter Jackson's The Hobbit Movies Suck

While I don't want to rain on anybody's party, I think Edit-The-Hobbit efforts are doomed to failure.

If you look at what plot threads actually constitute the films, like in this chart I made a few years ago there are two basic flaws with em.

1. There's a ton of material (everything in color in the chart) that was simply invented and shoved in (I am 100% sympathetic about how terrible most of these scenes turned out. PJ gets way too much blame for this, he was making up the story on set practically).
2. The movies substitute an Aragorn story for a Bilbo story. But there is no Aragorn in Hobbit, you say? Yes there is, he's just not called Aragorn... he's called Thorin Oakenshield.

The first flaw is fixable... if you don't like Tauriel or Dul Guldur you can just cut those elements pretty cleanly out of the film.

But the second flaw is not fixable. Bilbo is reduced to a side character in his own trilogy and Thorin is turned into the main character.

Here's something that's kind of a joke, but makes a point too. "The Hobbit" Bechdel Test: when two random characters are talking, who do they talk about? When Smaug and Bilbo are talking, Smaug talks about how Thorin's quest will fail (a line invented by PJ). When Evangeline Lilly and Dwarf Number Whatever are talking by themselves, to each other ... they talk about Thorin. The second movie opens with an added flashback scene that exists only to remind us this is all about Thorin's king-destiny. The third movie makes the entire battle climax in a duel between Thorin and Orc Whoever.

It's Thorin's story.

What's worse is that Bilbo's scenes are robbed of their story importance by the adaptation so you can't even make a "Just Bilbo" film. When you think about adapting Bilbo's story arc - like what scenes would you pick to audition and cast Bilbo? - you probably think of:

• Bilbo being a timid host at his own unexpected party
• Bilbo riddling with Gollum
• Bilbo taunting the spiders and saving the dwarves
• Bilbo sneaking the dwarves to Laketown in barrels
• Bilbo's verbal duel with Smaug
• Bilbo giving up the Arkenstone
• Bilbo's final conversation with Thorin

I think the first two scenes on this list were done appropriately and well. Also Martin Freeman is fun in the role.

But all the rest of these scenes were adapted ABYSMALLY badly. Like "Yeah... you missed the point of the story" badly.

In each beat of the story, Bilbo is growing in knowhow, courage and gumption. He increasingly LEADS the dwarves, who are static characters. Yet in the movies, each one of these scenes has Bilbo being completely upstaged by a cast of charismatic action-movie ninja dwarves, plus fucking Legolas, plus a Girl Legolas. Bilbo just becomes Indistinguishable Backup Dwarf. If the entire cast is action heroes why is Bilbo needed?

PJ was so worried about making the dwarves distinguishable and interesting characters. Remember their goofy haircuts? He should have asked himself - why does Tolkien take us on an adventure with these 14 characters and apart from Gandalf, Bilbo, Thorin and mmmmmmaybe Bombur the reader doesn't get any sense of their personalities at all? Because that's superfluous to the story.

The other problem with these movies is how violent they are. Now don't get me wrong - there's already too much arguing on the Internet about the Hobbit being "a children's book" whatever that means.

What I mean is something different. Look back at that list of key Bilbo scenes. How many problems does Bilbo resolve with violence?

Oh wait... is it NONE? (he does kill a bunch of spiders. Kind of weakens my point. However, the other scenarios/problems are solved nonviolently.)

This is like a key storytelling point of The Hobbit. Bilbo isn't the biggest or strongest character but he's the one who sees the solution before all the dwarves. The guy who was dragged along just to be their "burglar" instead becomes very much their leader and guide in Gandalf's absence.

The truth is that after doing LOTR Peter Jackson was afraid to do a movie that didn't meet those expectations. For instance, a movie where the protagonist solves most of the problems by his wits.

It would be like making an Indiana Jones sequel about Indy's son Mutt except Mutt doesn't shoot any Nazis, or kiss any ladies or even drive a tank. What kind of Indy story is that? Well it's not an Indy story, it's a Mutt story. But if it has Indy branding it has to be an Indy story or else audiences will say it's a ripoff.

I have no doubt that this central paradox is why The Hobbit was plagued with preproduction problems. It's just a central conflict between adapting the movie as itself, or adapting it as "another volume of LOTR" which was the eventual direction.

This is what forced PJ to shove in more Gandalf, more Legolas, more orcs, and even attempted to bring back Viggo before the actor wisely shut him down.

It's also why the BO5A is the central focus of the third movie... a faithful adaptation would probably omit it just like Tolkien did. The storytelling purpose of the battle is that it's an avoidable tragedy that ends Thorin's life, but not before he admits how wise Bilbo has become. Bilbo plays no role in the battle itself, he doesn't even witness the battle, and its main protagonists (except Thorin & Gandalf) and the consequences of the battle (except Thorin's death) are enormously beyond the scope of Bilbo's perspective and the resolution of his story arc.

But the most important reason that BO5A stunk from beginning to end is that it was a faked climax. The Hobbit is a story of escalating episodes. Each of them is disconnected more or less from the others. That is, the spiders, the wargs, Gollum and Smaug aren't in league against Team Bilbo. They're not all controlled by a mastermind orc (ok yes, they are metaphysically on Team Sauron by being Creatures Of Darkness, but it's not like Sauron is giving them orders). The Hobbit is a serial adventure story but because The LOTR had a doomsday threat and a mastermind, The Hobbit has to have one too. Because The LOTR had a climactic battle against all odds, The Hobbit has to have one too. If the Battle Of Five Armies had not been in the book, Peter would have invented it.

---

IMO the craziest thing about the Hobbit movies is that if you think about them critically you start to realize that the same flaws nearly took down the LOTR trilogy. Did you guys know that Peter Jackson originally shot a final showdown battle in Return Of The King between Aragorn and Sauron? I shit you not, it's in the behind the scenes DVD, and the huge CGI troll Aragorn fights was originally intended to be a badass Walking-Around Sauron like in the Fellowship prologue. It's a fucking miracle that they slapped themselves and said "We Better Not." There are a lot of scenes added to LOTR where that We Better Not thinking wasn't strong enough, like the theme park ride pile of skulls in the Paths Of The Dead, or the scene in TTT where Aragorn falls off a cliff to have a convo with Dream Arwen. But IMO, the structure of LOTR as a book FORCED Peter to tell the story the right way, by splitting the Fellowship into two story threads.

I think that Peter shot the Aragorn half of TTT+ROTK in a very Aragorn-centric way just as a desperate backup in case this weird story of

"two homoerotic leprechauns being led through a swamp by a CGI skeleton-man on a quest to throw away magic jewelry"

didn't test well with audiences and he had to fall back on telling a more intelligible Disney-fantasy story of

"a prince and his cool comic-relief sidekicks returning to the prince's kingdom, fighting awesome battles against a demon king and winning a princess's hand."

I mean which of these is the easier movie pitch? It's not really a contest, huh? If the entire Fellowship had gone to Mordor together, I think poor Sam might not have even made it into the script. But Tolkien gave PJ no choice. It was all because Tolkien divided the story threads that Peter even gave the Hobbits a fighting chance. In the new movies everyone's in the same group so Peter naturally gravitates towards the Aragorniest character.

SOURCE

Why Texas Sucks

When Republicans say it's about Christian/conservative/family values and you want to show them "pro-life" hypocrisy, consider:

• Texas cuts $ for disabled kids, while forcing women to bury fetal remains because they "value human dignity" so much.

• Judge blocks Texas from requiring fetal remains be buried

• Texas releases abortion booklet with debunked cancer link, suicide risk claim

My mom is a cafeteria lady at a public elementary school in Texas. Their school just had the budget for free breakfasts cut while Texas knew they'd be forking over millions to fight lawsuits challenging their preposterous fetal remain burial law. Texas cares about fetuses, not children.

The full George Carlin quote is brilliant, especially the part right before what you said: "If you're pre-born, you're fine, if you're pre-schooled, you're fucked. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. Pro-life, these people aren't pro-life, they're killing doctors, what kind of pro-life is that? What, they'll do everything they can do save a fetus, but if it grows up to be a doctor they just might have to kill it?"

Isn't it the conservatives who want less government involvement but are very quick to jump in and involve themselves.

American conservatism is unusual (not sure about unique) in that it's a frothy mixture of liberalism (in the European sense) and fascism.

More:

Texas has highest maternal mortality rate in developed world, study finds

As the Republican-led state legislature has slashed funding to reproductive healthcare clinics, the maternal mortality rate doubled over just a two-year period

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/20/texas-maternal-mortality-rate-health-clinics-funding

Texas state rankings (includes DC):

#1 in hazardous waste generated

#1 in population uninsured

#1 in executions

#2 in births

#2 in uninsured children

#3 in subprime credit

#3 in population living in food insecurity/hunger

#4 in teen pregnancy

#4 in percentage of women living in poverty

#8 in obesity

#47 in voter registration

#50 in percentage of high school graduates

#50 in spending on mental health

#50 in percent of women receiving prenatal care

#51 in voter participation

#51 in welfare benefits

#51 in percent of women with health insurance

(These are from the Texas Legislative Study Group, which used to produce these stats every year: http://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2013-04-15/texas-on-the-brink/)

As I've said before, Texas has good people who are so poorly served by their state government (who have drawn some of the worst gerrymandered drawn district lines in the country to keep Republican control, even over the liberal cities). Texas Republicans focus their time and energy and the state's considerable resources on Southern Strategy racial resentment, anti-sex ed, women's sexuality regulation, anti-LGBT, randomly removing liberal historical figures from textbooks, while spending billions subsidizing corporate welfare for oil companies and other companies that benefit the Republicans in power. 

And rather than the poor or other things Jesus actually talked about, Christian conservatives focus on gays, guns, and things like this (and government benefits for the wealthy and industries, obviously)

EDIT:

For those wondering how Texas got this bad, there's the gerrymandering linked above but also the effect of conservative media like Fox News ("War on Christmas," "Obama's terrorist fist bump," God, guns, gays, race dogwhistling):

Tests of knowledge of Fox viewers

A 2010 Stanford University survey found "more exposure to Fox News was associated with more rejection of many mainstream scientists' claims about global warming, [and] with less trust in scientists".[75]

A 2011 Kaiser Family Foundation survey on U.S. misperceptions about health care reform found that Fox News viewers had a poorer understanding of the new laws and were more likely to believe in falsehoods about the Affordable Care Act such as cuts to Medicare benefits and the death panel myth.[76] A 2010 Ohio State University study of public misperceptions about the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque", officially named Park51, found that viewers who relied on Fox News were 66% more likely to believe incorrect rumors than those with a "low reliance" on Fox News.[77]

In 2011, a study by Fairleigh Dickinson University found that New Jersey Fox News viewers were less well informed than people who did not watch any news at all.

67% of Fox viewers believed that the "U.S. has found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al Qaeda terrorist organization" (compared with 56% for CBS, 49% for NBC, 48% for CNN, 45% for ABC, 16% for NPR/PBS).

The belief that "The U.S. has found Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq" was held by 33% of Fox viewers and only 23% of CBS viewers, 19% for ABC, 20% for NBC, 20% for CNN and 11% for NPR/PBS.

35% of Fox viewers believed that "the majority of people [in the world] favor the U.S. having gone to war" with Iraq (compared with 28% for CBS, 27% for ABC, 24% for CNN, 20% for NBC, 5% for NPR/PBS).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_Channel_controversies#Tests_of_knowledge_of_Fox_viewers

Fox News' co-founder worked on the (infamously racist) Republican "Southern Strategy" to get the South vote for Nixon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy#Evolution_.281970s_and_1980s.29 (There's also so much proof of what he's done to women at Fox News that they even apologized in the settlement)

You start out in 1954 by saying, "N----r, n----r, n----r." By 1968 you can't say "n----r" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "n----r, n----r."

Fox News' owner is an Australian media mogul billionaire named Rupert Murdoch, who also has a media empire there biased to Australia's wealthy/conservative political party, as well as in the UK, with his News Corp tabloids, Sky TV, and other media properties he has there which did all of these fearmongering tactics with Brexit

Examples of the biased charts and graphics Fox News uses on its shows here: http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/10/01/a-history-of-dishonest-fox-charts/190225

Daily memos

Photocopied memos from John Moody instructed the network's on-air anchors and reporters to use positive language when discussing pro-life viewpoints, the Iraq War, and tax cuts, as well as requesting that the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal be put in context with the other violence in the area.[84] Such memos were reproduced for the film Outfoxed, which included Moody quotes such as, "The soldiers [seen on Fox in Iraq] in the foreground should be identified as 'sharpshooters,' not 'snipers,' which carries a negative connotation."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_Channel_controversies#Internal_memos_and_e-mail

Fox News' tactics now on Reddit itself: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/22/palmer-luckey-the-facebook-billionaire-secretly-funding-trump-s-meme-machine.html

Russia's paid troll army also using these tactics and brigading: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html, http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-internet-trolls-and-donald-trump-2016-7
https://np.reddit.com/r/news/comments/5kykml/us_expels_35_russian_diplomats_closes_two/dbrnedf/
https://np.reddit.com/r/news/comments/5hkt4s/cia_reportedly_concludes_russian_interference/db15jyt/

From his interviews with former trolls employed by Russia, Chen gathered that the point of their jobs "was to weave propaganda seamlessly into what appeared to be the nonpolitical musings of an everyday person."

It's a brand of information warfare, known as "dezinformatsiya," that has been used by the Russians since at least the Cold War. The disinformation campaigns are only one "active measure" tool used by Russian intelligence to "sow discord among," and within, allies perceived hostile to Russia.

SOURCE 

Taylor Swift versus Beyonce

I'd like to just give some perspective here, because the pop landscape is one that is commonly misunderstood.

Undeniably - as it stands at this very moment - Taylor Swift is far more of a songwriter and musician than Beyonce. While both of them largely work with the assistance of producers, Swift's 1989 was written predominantly by three key people, Max Martin, Shellback and Swift herself. Two or three tracks have additional input from one or two other people.

Beyonce's Lemonade on the other hand is a product of the Hit Factory's traditional method of writers camps, where they poach the best talent from a huge collection of songwriters, including - but not limited to - beat makers/producers (make the actual musical instrumentation ideas), top liners (whose job is to make the catchiest of melodies - Sia does this), and lyricists (whose sole job is to write lyrics). During the Meek Mill/Drake saga, by which Mill accused Drake of using ghost writers, the concept of this was brought into the mainstream for a brief moment, with Drake using a camp that took largely from his OVO label, including PartyNextDoor, dvsn and others.

Now, an argument without referencing is just disgusting, so I'd like to direct your attention to this:

The accreditation for Beyonce's Lemonade can be seen here.

Now, if you compare that to Swift's 1989 song writing credits...

It's blatantly obvious that Beyonce's role within Lemonade was nowhere near as involved as Swift's role in 1989.

This speaks large volumes. As one would assume Triple J would fawn over the likes of a strong independent female who composes her own songs with very little assistance; Taylor Swift is more Lisa Mitchell or Bertie Blackman than Beyonce.

But, Triple J are not to blame. They are merely playing into the game of contemporary music media, which has become driven largely by an artist's story, as opposed to the music itself.

If you want to say that Beyonce makes you think, that's subjective. Looking at a piece of grass can make a young child think. Beyonce's lyrics may be largely guided by her, but it would be incorrect to say that it wasn't heavily influenced by the aforementioned team of collaborators. If her "story" (I'll get to this later) resonates with you, then that's great, and she's succeeded in her role as an artist. Personally - and I have to stress PERSONALLY, because when typing comments on the internet, people seem to forget that subjectivity is a thing, and take other people's opinions to be direct attacks, for which this is not - I think Beyonce's lyrics can be pretty one-note. Looking at her discography, the same argument could be said of her earlier work: she just sang about love, men, and female empowerment. And that's fine. Those are some of the most relatable topics in songwriting, and they are subjects which will never lose currency.

Swift is a pop sweetheart who unabashedly embraces her identity; this is to say she knows her role. She's moved from country, to pop, which was a risky, yet necessary move for growth. Having said that, she plays it safer than Beyonce when it comes to her lyrics because she's still developing her prominence within pop culture. Beyonce only moved to more "controversial" topics such as female empowerment, black rights etc as she progressed in her career, and was stable enough to make greater artistic claims.

Beyonce went through the same phase of establishing a solid foundation of proving herself when she was in one of the largest pop groups of the late 90's to early 00's within Destiny's Child - who did not get a mention for their smash hit Say My Name in the 1999 Hottest 100 Countdown. Beyond that, Beyonce did not receive a nomination for 2003's Hottest 100 for the mindblowing hit that is Crazy In Love.

If anything, this is more of a testament to Beyonce's remarkable PR efforts. Knowles and her team are remarkably brilliant at playing the media, and forcing Knowles to continuously stand out as an entity that transcends whatever is happening within the sphere of popular culture. One of the most famous instances of this when she received unprecedented backlash due to lip-syncing at Obama's presidential inauguration in 2013. That's a faux pas that Ashley Simpson couldn't recover from. How did Beyonce rebound? By holding a god damn press conference, and without barely uttering a single peep, she sang the national anthem to a crowd of reporters ready to tear her to shreds for such an unpatriotic act, and humbly apologised.

As time has progressed, Beyonce and her team (and I emphasise her team, because to be under the illusion that her actions are in no way calculated and orchestrated by a larger body is to be unquestionably ignorant) have found ways to keep her not only relevant, but ahead of the curve.

So, how did she find her way into Triple J's rotation, and transition to something that indie fans could latch onto?

Having an album with good music on it isn't enough these days; you need a headline. The headline for her fifth album self-titled album was the surprise release. Without any warning, the internet, and the world, were given something they didn't even know they want. And who doesn't love a surprise? In conjunction with the cultural weight that the Beyonce brand holds, the album dominated almost every major digital news publication. It was perceived as a renegade move that carried undertones of undermining the traditional values of the musical industry. And that's a concept that indie fans can latch onto.

It's also important to note here that Beyonce didn't give a large number of interviews following this album, as the sheer novelty of the release was enough in its own right. She also knows that a bit of mystique can go a long way.

Beyonce is now 35. That's kinda old for an industry where youthful competition is always on the rise. The wave of Beyonce, Katy Perry and Lady Gaga has passed, and there's new kids dying for their chance to step into the limelight.

So, where to from here?

Now, this is where I have to reference the conspiracy theory that the Jay-Z tribulations narrative of Lemonade was one that was masterfully constructed as there's a lot of credence to that. Jay-Z isn't an idiot (he is largely responsible for the rise of Rihanna - another pop super star who Triple J doesn't give a lick of attention to), and nor are Beyonce's team (see the previously reference lip-syncing debacle).

This debate is one that is divisive for many people, and for good reason: it forces the audience to question the artist's authenticity. And as an "artist", authenticity is one of the most valuable assets that one can possess. This is to suggest, if the break-up story of Lemonade is manufactured, then not only are you going to not give a fuck about Beyonce and Lemonade, you're also going to lose respect for her as a performing artist.

Regardless of whether the break-up story line is true or not is irrelevant now. Because it worked. It did something truly amazing: it simultaneously victimised Beyonce, forcing you to perceive her as the underdog, while - at the same time - empowered her by throwing it in Jay-Z's face through some uniquely produced pop songs. That's a story that anyone can get behind. Beyond that, she recruited a remarkably diverse range of indie sweethearts to increase her "diversity" as an artist, by employing the talents of James Blake, Jack White and Ezra Koenig (of Vampire Weekend). By drawing from these "indie" artists talents, she's continued to broaden her audience beyond just typical pop fans. And more fans, means more money.

We can't forget that the music industry is a money making machine where the "talent" are the product, and we - the listener - are the consumers.

This narrative worked perfectly for Beyonce, as she's now gotten in the good books of smaller publications such as Stereogum, Pitchfork and Triple J. And that's fascinating for a woman who wouldn't have received a drop of attention from these guys back in the "Crazy In Love" days.

But, I've digressed.

This is all to suggest that I have to disagree with you entirely when you propose that Taylor Swift and Beyonce are different beasts. They are both huge entities that exist within the pop realm, and have huge elements of manufactured decisions behind their success. They are both remarkably calculated individuals, with every part of their lives being considered as an opportunity to progress their careers. The only difference between the two is that Beyonce strategically moved into this realm, where as Taylor Swift doesn't care.

Taylor - and her team, of course - are far more occupied by maintaining her innocent-girl-next-door-that-you-also-want-to-bang persona by playing the media into being concerned with her romantic life (even her love life is orchestrated).

But, hey. Taylor's still young, and a lot of money is on the line if she were to divert from this role of being not only a pop queen, but a cultural icon. If she and her label want to continue this line of success...I'll put it this way: I wouldn't be surprised if Taylor was on the Hottest 100 in a couple of years.

SOURCE

How to Create a Great Resume

Cover Letter

Make sure your cover letter states the following:

• An expression of interest in the job you're applying for, by stating the title of the position and the posting number if applicable. 
• Your qualification for the job in one sentence: "I have 5 years experience working as an air traffic controller at XYZ airport." 
• Your availability for the job, as in "immediately," or "after (date)." 
• IF the job pays significantly LESS than what you're making now, state that you are able to work for that kind of pay.
• START your cover letter by thanking the reader. They may have read countless cover letters by the time they get to yours, make a good first impression - because you never get a second chance to.
• END your cover letter by requesting an interview. Don't just say, "I look forward to the opportunity," say "I request to interview for this position at your convenience." It's a bold move Cotton, and sometimes it pays off.

Resume

Your resume should not include the phrase "objective statement" or any mention of your objectives. The company is hiring a person because they need a position filled, they're not interested in what you have in mind.

Instead include a 3-5 sentence Professional Summary, using the language of the job posting, explain your qualifications. 

Ten years experience as an FAA certified class 2 air traffic controller, with over five years working at a high-volume international airport. Expert user of OBOE, ACOD, EBE and SACOM software and traditional tracking systems.

Include other information pertinent to the position such as "National Director for Air Traffic Controller's Professional Association, Certified Air Traffic Controller Trainer (expiration date)." 

Finish this off with some dazzling bullshit about how you uphold team goals, communication and ethics to create a winning team.