If You're Going to Blackmail Somebody, Do it Properly

You... no you!

At my current company we use IBM Lotus Notes for email. If you've ever used it, you'll know that Lotus Notes does not like to be in the background. When you open it, first the startup window, then the log in window, then the home screen and finally the mailbox continue to pop up and jump in front of whatever it is you're working on until Notes is fully launched and happy.

It's like "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!"

Like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, it is not going to be ignored.

Donald Trump is a lot like Lotus Notes. Just when you've forgotten all about him, he jumps out of the woodwork with one ridiculous stunt or the other. LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!

Donald, too, is not going to be ignored.

Now, I don't think Donald Trump is a stupid guy. I just think he does particularly stupid things, and today's pronouncement is no exception.

I don't think Barack Obama or anyone in his organization is going to take this seriously, or even address it. It's likely they'll ignore it, or laugh it off. In any event, in a week's time it will probably be forgotten.

This isn't really blackmail. It's more like coercion. But whatever you call it, if you're going to attempt to coerce somebody, you really have to think it through, from motivation all the way through accountability. And there's a gaping hole in this plan that even the Donald should have been sharp enough to catch.

The fatal flaw in this plan is that he's left the choice of the charities up to Barack Obama.

If Trump was smart, he would have promised the money to a specific charity when he threw down the gauntlet. There's no shortage of worthy causes, organizations that no American would take issue with. So unless Trump is a moron of the highest order, he could easily have picked one or two or five organizations to whom he would donate this $5 million dollars.

For arguments sake, let's say that Trump promised the money to the American Cancer Society. "If Barack Obama releases these records, I will give 5 million dollars to the American Cancer Society." Now, this is a sticky wicket for Barack. If he does nothing, in essence he's witholding 5 million dollars of funding from the ACS, preventing them from using this money to continue researching a cure for cancer. It's almost like he's saying, "Too bad all you people with cancer, anyone who might get cancer, and your families. I don't care enough about you to let you have this 5 million dollars."

This is an uncomfortable position to be in.

But by leaving the choice to Obama, it's not like anyone is really losing the money because Obama will never play the game. Maybe the American Cancer Society is losing it. Maybe it's AMFAR. Maybe the Red Cross. Who knows? Since the money is not promised to any specific organization, no one can get really upset when they don't receive it.

So in actuality, Trump has concocted this elaborate scheme designed to "out" the President, while at the same time handing Obama a huge "out" from the scheme itself.

What a putz.

My 4 Year Old Rhymes Better Than This

Regardless of whether you like this ad or not (meh, in my book), how is it possible to fuck this rhyme up so bad? 

Seamless Web, do you really think the general subway riding public is so stupid that:

a) we won't understand that this is supposed to be like the "Roses are red" nursery rhyme, and

b) we're so doltish that unless we see "have your cake and eat it too" written out exactly like that we won't understand that reference either?

No, it's much better to add a line in the middle that doesn't rhyme with anything and completely fucks up the meter of the original nursery rhyme.  Now you've almost guaranteed that half the people won't get the joke.

Try this on:

Landlines are dead,

the Hudson is blue,

order your cake online

and eat it too.

That wasn't so hard, was it?