November 12, 2009Today's Web Grab
Is the food you're eating liberal or conservative?In the States, eating and politics have recently seemed to go together like, well, Obama and arugula. The Washington Post worries that:
But most interestingly, a website called Hunch has surveyed the eating habits of conservatives and liberals more generally, and found that political adversaries view each other with suspicion across a gulf in eating habits too... Preferred style of kitchen? Conservatives: country-style Liberals: modern-style
Conservatives: Burgers, Pizza Liberals: Thai, Indian What’s for supper? Conservatives: Fried chicken, meatloaf, steak Liberals: Green curry, Ethiopian dish, Veggie burger
Conservatives: McDonald’s fries Liberals: ‘Bistro-style’ frites Favourite chain restaurant? Conservatives: Subway Liberals: Pret a Manger
Conservatives: 63% say “at least a few times a week” Liberal: 92% say “rarely or never” Favourite cheese? Conservatives: Velveeta or Colby Liberals: Brie
Conservatives: thick/deep pan Liberal: regular crust White bread or multigrain? Conservatives: White bread Liberals: Multigrain
Conservatives: Most have one and use it Liberals: Most “have no clue” what it is Ever spent more than $100 on a bottle of wine Conservatives: 16% say yes, 36% don’t drink wine at all Liberals: 17% say yes, 26% don’t drink wine at all
Conservatives: 26% more likely to prefer “bigger portion, plainly arranged” Liberals: 40% more likely to prefer “small portion, artfully presented and garnished” (Hat tip: The Awl) Goldman Sachs abandons kittens (and then saves them)For a while, months of suspicions appeared to reached their inevitable and perfect climax. Investment bankers abandon helpless baby animals. But of course they do. Earlier today, the Naked Capitalism blog found this report in The Villager, a Lower Manhattan paper:
Alphaville took up the crusade and helpfully pointed out, (tipping its hat at a Times story), that abandoning kittens was almost certainly not 'doing God’s work'. The internet was abuzz with kitten love. “Why does Goldman Sachs hate kittens?” wailed one blogger. But we can all put down our projectiles. “They are now the luckiest kittens in Manhattan” according to a Goldman spokesman. The bank has paid the vet fees and found homes for all the little fluffy balls of love. Bonus (if that's not an overly inflammatory word...) Magazine Rack - Issue 534
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Admitting to immigration "mistakes": a bad move for BrownThe news that Gordon Brown is to admit errors over immigration policy is interesting from a political strategist's point of view. Is this part of a "concede and move on" strategy? And if not, why not? Clearly if the Government is going to reset its relationship with voters, it is going to have to accept it made mistakes and move on from there. They can see that this is true if they are going to move forward on immigration. And if it's true in that field, why not more generally? The phrase "concede and move on" was authored by Labour guru Philip Gould. And was much quoted in the early days of Tory modernisation. It's an obvious first move, but somehow I doubt it will be a successful strategy for Labour now. Here's why. First, Gordon Brown's departure would be necessary to make it work. Trying to protect him is not now consistent with a concede and move on strategy. Second, Mr Brown is willing to concede error only where he is not personally to blame - mistakes were made, but not by me. And third, while conceding is relatively easy, moving on is very hard. It takes years to persuade people you have done this and requires action that people can see, not just words. They haven't got long enough for that. November 11, 2009Today's Web Grab
How clever are you? Ask GoogleAre your Google searches trying to tell you something? An anonymous bit of brilliance doing the rounds on the interweb highlights the different suggestions thrown up by Google searches, depending on your language. For example:
Type in "How 2" and Google asks if you're wondering "How 2 kiss" or "How 2 get pregnant". Typing "How might one" into the box, on the other hand, and Google politely suggests that your interests might lie in a more refined direction. "How might one attempt to measure the effectiveness of a promotion" perhaps, or "how might one account for the rise of Andrew Jackson to victory in the election of 1828." How indeed. It's not just your hobbies that Google makes assumptions about. It judges the extent of your knowledge too:
Type "why" and Google assumes you're being kept up at night scratching your head over "why is the sky blue", "why did I get married" and "why do men have nipples". But begin your search more verbosely with "for what reason" and Google tips its hat and begs to suggest that you might be conducting an enquiry into: "For what reason are biological classification systems needed." One will be playing closer attention to one's syntactic arrangements in future. (Hat tip: Slate)
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