Maggie's Farm

There was a time, many years ago, when Maher was actually pretty good. His show "Politically Incorrect", was ground breaking in many ways, and he kept the panels very balanced. His humor was not geared toward attacking the Right, it attacked both sides. I attended 2 tapings and I have to say they were 2 of the funniest events I'd ever seen. I've been to a number of Letterman tapings, and Maher's were much better.

Sometime just before, or around, 9/11, Maher went insane.

I'm not sure if it was related to his defense of the 'courage' of the hijackers, or something else. But he must have blown out some neurons. He went from being a fairly reliable moderate of good nature to a nasty, scathing, hating individual. His humor turned dark and nasty.

I know that having "Politically Incorrect" shut down bothered him, and his response to losing the show was pretty nasty, in general. He hasn't ever reclaimed the success he once had, and has coasted on his ability to make outlandish remarks that catch the attention of the MSM. He is able to make even the most common sense response seem extreme by twisting the context or words in such a way that it suits his needs.

It's a shame. His original show was great, and we could use more shows that resemble its structure.

My grammar fails from time to time. But my spelling is usually very good. I'm not sure if that's a grammar problem or spelling problem. But at least it's not as bad as 'mute' for 'moot' or 'hear' for 'here'. Those are two of the most common misuses or misspellings I see on a regular basis.

Tom, one of the reasons I think the AGW argument is outlandish is due to the mass extinctions of the past. Every time we lose one species (which is infrequent, at best), I am reminded of the mass extinctions. Then I remember Stalin's old adage "one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic."

7 years ago I'd been hired to help a TV network revive its sales. During the course of fixing their ratecard and upgrading its computer system, I stumbled on an article about luck. Basically, the premise was "lucky people have a positive outlook, while being open to and availing themselves of opportunity.

Some examples were the purchase of Helzberg's diamond store by Warren Buffett - a chance encounter on a New York street. Then there is the example of 2 people who have a car accident. One shows up at work in a bad mood, complaining of the cost, the effort and the damage of the accident. The other arrives at work in a good mood, happy to be healthy despite a disastrous accident.

We can create luck with our attitude. I've always said to my wife "you make your own luck". She never believed me until some neighbors moved into the apartment next to ours. These people were slovenly, they cared little about how they looked, they threw trash bags from the 3rd floor down to the street, next to the cans, rather than carry them down. When we got a dog, we trained it. They went out, purchased a black lab, and within 2 months were giving it away because it had jumped on a 90 year old man, knocked him over, and broke his hip. Both of them would complain about their 'bad luck' to us constantly. Finally, my wife looked at me and said "I guess that's what you mean by making your own luck."

Branch Rickey once famously said "Luck is the residue of good planning." This has been my motto at every job I take. I build it into my introductions, and I have a presentation built around it. I used it as the basis to build my sales pricing model, and I told the salespeople that you had to look at sales as if it was a battle. In battle, luck favors the aggressive and the prepared. You prepare the battlefield you want to fight on, and get the opponent to fight there. Then lucky things can happen.

We achieved 16% growth in a flat market that year. We had 6% growth the next year, in a market up 3%. When we stuck to the fundamentals, prepared well, and were aggressive, we saw great returns. Much of it was 'luck', but that luck was an outgrowth of an aggressive sales policy.

http://www.richardwiseman.com/resources/The_Luck_Factor.pdf

That's a version of the document I'd incorporated into my sales presentation.