57 million Americans have a side hustle.

Have you ever thought about starting your own small business while you still hold down a full time job?

Incredibly, 57 million Americans do this. As of last Saturday there were 327,355,053 Americans. So, roughly, 1 out of 5 Americans has a side job, which can also be called a side hustle.

to hustle = to work very hard
to hustle someone = to cheat a person out of money, to lie to a person to get money unfairly

So 'hustle' in a side hustle is used as a noun even though the word is used primarily as a verb.

Here is an interesting article about this trend in American life. What really seems to be interesting is that Americans are pursuing their side hustles primarily to make extra money, and not out of a sense of enjoyment or enrichment or passion. 

How about you? What kind of side hustle would you like to create and would it just be to make extra money?

The article:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/28/people-start-a-second-business-for-a-lot-of-reasons-but-mostly-its-this-one.html

Vocabulary to help you understand the article:

a side business - to start something on the side means that you already are doing something important, but you want to create something smaller as well. So a side business is a small, extra business.

pursuing a passion - doing something because you love it or desire to do it

the plain and simple truth - the basic truth

the side gig - the side job, the side business, the side hustle; gig means job

a finding - a discovery

finances were the main driver - money was the primary motivation

escaping the rat race - in the 1960s young people in the USA coined (created) the term 'rat race'. Being a part of the rat race meant you were living like a rat in a highly competitive society, just working, working, working, competing, competing, competing and not think much about what you were doing or could be doing instead. You were racing through life like a rat, and not savoring and understanding and appreciating life like a human being. So many young people wanted to 'escape from the rat race' - they wanted to find different types of jobs or activities that would make them feel better and help them learn more or appreciate life more.

it makes sense - it can be easily understood

myriad aspects - many different parts of something

affiliate marketing - getting other people to assist you as affiliates (junior partners) and rewarding them when they make sales for your brand

would-be side hustlers - possible side hustlers

he cites - he refers to, he points to

to monetize and scale - to make money and grow

an undying passion project - a project for which your passion will be undying (your passion will not die)

a viable model - a possible model, a realistic model

one caveat - one warning. caveat comes from the Latin expression: Caveat emptor!!! = Buyer, beware!!! (This means that before you buy something you should be super careful.)

to fall into a trap - to make a common mistake, like walking into a trap that someone has set to catch an animal

a paradigm-shifting idea - an idea which changes everyone's perspective or belief about something. 

proliferation - a fast multiplication of something, when something multiplies quickly

to break new ground - to do something new

to be empowering - to make one feel stronger and more confident

a transition - a change

to be primed for something - to be ready for something

an entrepreneur - a business person

A Lyft driver abandoned a pilot mid-ride due to the low price of a fare

So what would you have done? 

Let's say you are a Lyft driver and you pick a guy up and start driving him to the airport. After a few minutes you realize you are going to travel an hour and only make $6. Well, you picked the guy up and started driving him, so you have to finish your job, correct?

Well, one Lyft driver didn't see things that way. He just stopped his car and forced an airline pilot out in the middle of nowhere. The pilot was late for his flight due to this. 

Thankfully the pilot recorded enough of this exchange to prove what really happened.

So, obviously, if you pick a guy up, you have to finish the job, correct? If the fare is too little for you, do not pick the guy up. 

But, whose fault is this ultimately? 

The article:
http://kfor.com/2018/04/08/pilot-says-lyft-driver-kicked-him-out-after-realizing-airport-was-just-a-6-trip/

Vocabulary:

to kick someone out of some place - to force the person to leave

to drop someone off at a place - to drive a person somewhere

a random spot - not a chosen spot, just any spot, a spot decided on arbitrarily or randomly or not due to a rational or deliberate choice

a tight schedule - he did not have much extra time, a schedule that does not give you much extra time

abruptly - suddenly

to be worth it - super useful: It wasn't worth it for him to....It wasn't worth it for me to... It was worth it to go to the beach today because it was free and I was able to relax.

a ride hailing app - to hail a cab, or to hail a car is to literally wave on the sidewalk to get the driver's attention so that you can use his service. So a ride-hailing app is an app that helps you get a car ride without actually 'hailing' a cab on the street.

initial - first

to feel frustrated - to feel as if there is no solution to a problem or that you are in a bad situation and all the choices suck

his rank - the fact that he was an airline pilot

gunning it - that means he started driving the car super fast to get the ride over with as soon as possible

running stop signs - not stopping for stop signs

whipped out his cell phone - he pulled out his cell phone quickly

things were going downhill - things were getting worse

incredulous - if someone is incredulous he has a hard time believing something is happening

citing - indicating, pointing to

what transpired - what happened

a form letter - a letter that a company sends to everyone or to a certain group of people

Hungary's Two-Tailed Dog Party - Can They Save the World? I think so.

The sticker says: Look into my eyes, you will vote for us!

The Two-Tailed Dog Party of Hungary may be the greatest political party or political movement of all time. Please read the following article about them. If they gain power, they will distribute free beer and try to negotiate free trade agreements with alien civilizations (in other parts of the universe). They will take children to school in helicopters, and not in school buses. 

Yes, they are out-of-the-box thinkers. (They are also being very satirical - to be satirical means to make fun of or to laugh at an "important" or famous person or institution. Their campaign seems satirical in origin - they are laughing at evil political parties and politics in general, I believe.) 

(A political "party" is a political group that usually represents a particular belief system. The two-tailed dogs seem to be very open-minded and liberal.)

The article:

http://www.newsweek.com/hungarys-joke-party-dead-serious-about-election-875196

Vocabulary from the article:

a joke party - a political party that was created as a joke, initially, even though they are now, apparently, seriously running candidates for election. (notice: to run for election)

to be dead serious - to be really serious, to be super serious

to draw penises - a penis is the male sexual organ

ballot papers - the slips of paper used to vote in an election

a referendum - this is a special type of election in which the people of a country decide an important issue

European Union migration quotas - a quota is a number that has to be reached. So the EU wanted to establish a quota for each member country of how many refugees or migrants each country had to accept. Hungary's very conservative leader - Orban - did not want to accept the idea of a quota or many migrants. So he held a referendum hoping the people would support him and say "No" to a quota established by the EU.

to cast a vote - to submit a vote

to be deemed invalid - apparently 6.2 million people drew penises on their ballots and these were not considered to be real votes. If something is invalid, it is not legitimate, not to be accepted as real.

the poll - the referendum

grassroots - coming from the people, coming from the bottom up

to be offensive - this means some people are embarrassed by something or upset or shocked by it.

a euphemism for male genitalia - a 'nice' word for the male penis (so if a person doesn't want to say 'penis' in Hungary, I guess that person says 'tail').

dubious - doubtful, not real

to claim expense refunds - I think this means that if a party gets at least 500 votes for each of its candidates, the government pays them the amount of money they spent (or claimed to spend) running in the election. So the fake parties might be falsely claiming and receiving expenses if 500 people accidentally or stupidly vote for their candidates.

to perpetrate something - to cause something harmful or criminal

deemed - considered

a range - a wide variety of things

gorilla-guerrilla - a gorilla is a large ape, a guerrilla is a secret fighter

eternal life - life without end, no death

campaigning - running for office

perks - extra benefits of a job

a departure from clucking - clucking is a sound that chickens make. "Cluck cluck cluck!" He departed from clucking - he stopped clucking and moved to human speech.

spurring them into action - causing them to become more active; to spur something is to speed something up and make it happen faster

enhancing - making it better; so this party tries to take care of issues and matters the government neglects (doesn't pay attention to)

why did the chicken crossed the road? - should be: why did the chicken cross the road? This is an old joke. Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.

opposition parties - political parties that are trying to take over from the powerful, well-established parties

to rally behind someone or something - to come together for someone or something

a rival - a competitor, someone you are working against

undecided voters - people who cannot make up their minds

The young man suffering from "affluenza" has been released from jail

As I mentioned in a previous post, "affluenza" is supposedly a psychological problem that some rich kids suffer from. Affluence means wealth. If you are affluent, you are wealthy or rich. Influenza is a disease - influenza is actually "the flu". So a lawyer combined affluence and influenza to get "affluenza". 

According to this lawyer's definition of affluenza, some rich kids never learn the difference between right and wrong because their lives are so easy and comfortable. Their parents "spoil" them. To spoil a child means to not provide any discipline or guidelines for the child's behavior so that the child grows up to be completely selfish.

So when a young, rich guy became very drunk and killed 4 people, his lawyer claimed he was suffering from affluenza and should not be held accountable or responsible for his actions.

The article about this is here:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/affluenza-teen-ethan-couch-released-jail-years-article-1.3910034

Vocabulary to help you understand the article:

to serve a sentence - if a person is thrown in jail, he 'serves' his 'sentence'. In this case, the sentence was two years. A sentence is a period of time someone found guilty of a crime has to serve in jail.

a parole violation - in the USA, even though 1% of the population is currently in jail, judges often seem to be very lenient. Lenient is the opposite of strict. Judges tend to show a lot of mercy or sympathy when they sentence criminals. So this young guy was initially sentenced to parole. This means that as long as he stayed out of trouble for a certain amount of time, he would not be thrown in jail. As you will read, he failed to do this and was thrown in jail for two years. So to be on parole means to be conditionally free - under the condition that you do not act badly.

they ushered him - they escorted him, they accompanied him, they went with him

a media scrum - a large crowd of journalists all struggling with each other to get the best photograph or the best position to ask an interview question. A scrum literally happens in the sport of rugby, where many players, in a crowd, struggle to gain control of the ball.

a probation office - if you are on probation, it is basically the same thing as parole - you are expected to live according to high standards or you will be punished

court-ordered ankle monitor - he has to wear an electronic device around the lower part of his leg so that it can be determined whether he is at home or not. This has been ordered by the judge.

a joyride - to ride a car around dangerously for fun

bratty - you are a brat if you act spoiled; if you are very selfish and disrespectful and lacking in maturity, you are a brat or bratty

arrogance - the attitude that you are better than others

a chaplain - a religious person, like a priest, minister, rabbi or imam

furious - very angry; Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is a group that advocates against drunk driving.

to adhere to his rules - to follow his rules

dysfunctional - it does not work the way it should; his family was not a normal family that could raise a mentally healthy kid

manslaughter - accidentally killing someone, but accidentally killing them through stupidity or a lack of caution

settled with relatives - they paid lots of money to these relatives

slain - killed

rehab - a process in which psychological experts help people overcome their addictions to alcohol

too broke - too poor

kicking it to taxpayers - passing it to taxpayers

treatment didn't seem to take - it didn't seem to work

beer pong - some stupid drinking game

blatant - obvious, no doubt about it

to be on the run - trying to escape from justice

extradited - sent from Mexico to the USA; if as person is extradited, he/she is wanted in another country and formally sent there

money laundering - I am not sure exactly what she did, but money laundering is usually when you use a business to hide the fact that you are making money illegally. So you might open a restaurant and claim that money you made illegally was made at the restaurant.

hindering the apprehension of a fugitive - to hinder means to make something more difficult; apprehension means catching someone; a fugitive means someone running from justice

a bid - an attempt

to toss or toss out - to throw away, get rid of

a model inmate - a perfect prisoner, someone very cooperative as a prisoner

a write up - if a jail guard 'writes up' a prisoner, it means the prisoner was accused of breaking a rule

impressive - if someone does something impressive, he has done something he/she should be proud of; to be impressed by someone means one thinks highly of that person or what that person did

a rampage - a wild and forceful action; the drunken driving of the car that led to a crash is referred to here as a rampage

rambunctious - not easily controlled, wild

a smirk - a smile someone makes to show he does not have respect for another person

How to finagle something for nothing from an airline

To finagle something from someone is to use deception or deceit or various tricks to get something from a person that he/she does not really want to give you.

United Airlines has been having a bad year. They have experienced a lot of bad publicity (bad stories about the company). The latest bad publicity was the death of Kokito - the French bulldog - in one of their overhead bins.

In this article we hear that a person was 'bumped' from a United flight because a seat on the plane was broken and one passenger had to be removed. 

United has a policy of asking for volunteers when passengers have to be removed and they reward the volunteers with a voucher for free travel if they help by leaving the plane.

If nobody volunteers, they 'bump' or remove the person who bought the cheapest ticket. Why? I am guessing they feel that the person who paid the least for a ticket will complain the least. This person is also given a voucher.

So they decided to bump someone who is a communications director for a company. This person has over 2,000 Twitter followers and when she was bumped she started bad-mouthing United to her twitter friends, hoping to create a new scandal for the airline (I am guessing). In order to avoid another scandal United gave this person a $10,000 voucher (so that she would shut up). But she did not shut up - she began boasting about how she finagled something valuable from the airline. So United just cannot seem to win these days.

Personally, I think she took advantage of the airline and she should be ashamed of herself. People do not even try to look at situations through anyone else's perspective any more. What else was the airline going to do? She only paid $160 for a ticket and they offered her a $1,000 voucher. Be a good person, take the $1,000 voucher and get on the next plane. No? Why does everyone have to be such a drama queen?

Please show some sympathy for United Airlines...

The article:

https://nypost.com/2018/03/23/passenger-scores-10k-flight-voucher-thanks-to-twitter-rant/

Vocabulary from the article:

a bumped passenger - a passenger who is removed from an airline flight, often because the airline has sold more tickets than seats available

to score a voucher - to win a voucher, to score something is to get something valuable for free or at a discount.  e.g. Hey! I scored free tickets to the Chicago Sympathy Orchestra concert tonight! My roommate can't go and he gave them to me!

k  - 1,000, so 10K = 10,000

a tirade - a long speech where a person expresses anger; when a person expresses anger verbally for a long time. e.g. Our boss was so angry about losing this client that he went on a 30 minute tirade telling us all that we suck!

to finagle something from someone - to get something you do not deserve by using psychological games or by tricking the other person

to be smarting - to be suffering, to be feeling pain.  Even though I fell skiing 3 days ago, my left knee is still smarting.

a string of something - a sequence of something. So if you have had 5 bad boyfriends in a row, you might say, "Wow, I have had a string of 5 bad boyfriends, when is my luck going to change?!"

public relations - every big company has a public relations department. This department tries to make the company look good. If you have a public relations disaster, it means things have happened to make your company look bad.  

smarting from a string of public relations disasters - United is suffering from a bunch of bad news stories in a row

a company rep - a company representative

she got the boot - she got kicked off the plane, she was removed from the plane.  e.g. Wow our company is firing a lot of people these days! I heard three people from our department got the boot today. or: Our boss gave the boot to three people from our department today.

to be enraged - to be very, very angry

to vent about something - to complain about something in order to make yourself feel better. e.g. Sorry for calling you and telling you this, I just had to vent!

if nobody bites - if nobody accepts the offer.  If you go fishing you put something attractive to the fish on your hook and hope a fish bites. If you offer something to a group of people, you hope someone bites.

on the upside - the good news is

I wasn't physically dragged off the plane etc. - this is sarcasm, she is saying thank God United didn't beat me up like Dr. Dao or kill my dog like Kokito.

United upped its offer - it increased its offer

to toss in a perk - to throw in an extra benefit; a perk is an added benefit

Affluence - Affluenza (Catch this disease!!!!)

Affluence means wealth. If you are an affluent person, you are a rich or wealthy person.

Recently a rich young man killed two people with his car. His lawyer said that he should not be punished because he was not responsible for his actions. His wealthy parents, because they were so wealthy, never taught their son the difference between right and wrong. So they never taught him how to be an ethical or moral (good) person.

Should wealthy children be shown mercy when they commit crimes because their parents do not teach them to be ethical? 

I think that affluenza must be a difficult disease to catch, since you need to have about $25 million in your bank account first.

The article:

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/03/20/affluenza-texan-who-killed-four-while-driving-drunk-to-be-freed-from-jail/23391020/

Vocabulary from the article:

affluenza - the disease of not knowing what is right or wrong because your parents were very rich and never taught you to be good

probation supervision - he will have to report to an office every month to be checked on

juvenile court - court for children

testifying on his behalf - speaking for him in court

an affliction - a disease or painful condition

to be spoiled - when your parents let you do anything you want and do not show any kind of discipline toward you or they do not set good standards for your behavior

fled - flee, fled, fled...they ran away

fatalities - deaths

the sentence - this means the punishment in this instance

it spanned the systems - it carried over from the juvenile to the adult system

excessive - too much

to place him behind bars - to put him in jail

hindering the apprehension of someone - making it harder for the police to catch someone

a fugitive - someone running away from justice

money laundering - making money illegally and then hiding it in a real, legal business

The US Supreme Court will make a significant ruling on unions and union fees

So let's say you get a job with the New York state government. You will now be represented by a non-governmental union. A union is an organization that protects the rights of the workers within the union. They negotiate salaries and benefits and attempt to protect their membership as much as they can.

The union automatically will receive a small percentage of your salary. This is automatically taken out of your paycheck by the government and sent to the union. The problem is that many people do not care whether they are represented by a union or not. In fact, many do not want to be in a union and do not want money taken out from their paycheck and sent to a union. The unions and the government have an agreement, however, to remove money from paychecks and send this money to the unions.

So, EVEN IF you do not want to be in one of these unions, the government takes a fee out of your salary anyway and sends it to the union. The unions have argued that even people who are not in unions are protected by unions, so they should have to pay a fee as well.

A guy in Illinois, who works for the Illinois state government, did not want to be in a union and does not want any of his paycheck going to the union. He claims that these unions usually support Democratic political candidates (they do) and he is a Republican - he does not want any of his salary to go to an organization that will contribute money to Democratic candidates. 

The Supreme Court will soon determine whether these unions of government workers have a right to take money out of every government worker's salary. I have a feeling the Supreme Court will rule against the unions in this case, especially since the current US Supreme Court is quite conservative and Republican (not liberal and Democratic).

The article:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/25/politics/scotus-union-nonmember-case/index.html

Vocabulary to help you understand the article:

will wade into a clash - if you are at the beach and you slowly walk into the water, you wade into the water. The Supreme Court will enter into this argument (clash) between unions and non-union members. They will wade into the controversy the way a person wades into water, slowly and forcefully.

organized labor - unions (organized workers - labor often means workers)

conservative groups - if someone is conservative he/she tends to support business and low taxes. Conservatives are generally anti-union (against unions). They believe that businesses should not be monitored or regulated very strictly.

a precedent - something that happened before and that is a guide to all future action. 

deal a potentially crippling blow to - to deal a blow means to hit someone or something. A crippling blow is when you hit a person so hard he can no longer walk. So to deal a crippling blow to something is to ruin or destroy it.

contentious - if an issue is contentious, people are arguing about it

pivotal - a moment of great change (the USA is becoming much more conservative, but this seems to be a cyclical situation. In 1976 there was a liberal president, Carter. In 1980 he was replaced by Reagan, a conservative, and Reagan and Bush, another conservative, were president until 1992. Clinton, a liberal, took over until 2000. G.W. Bush (son of G.H. Bush), conservative, took over until 2008. Obama was a liberal and now Trump is a conservative.)

protesters - people who do not like something and gather to express their disapproval

to flood the court - to enter the court in large numbers

the debate - the argument

public sector unions - unions of government workers

pertaining to - in regard to

employee grievances - employee complaints. So the existing law says that non union members can be charged by unions because the unions will help them with complaints etc.

a compromise - both sides gave in a little bit, neither side completely won

to be overturned - to be completely changed to the opposite

a challenge - a challenge to the law allows fees to be collected from non-union members. So the new Supreme Court Justice, who was appointed by Trump, will probably decide who wins this case. He is conservative.

to be germane to something - to be relevant to something, to legitimately apply to something

issues germane to collective bargaining are inherently political - unions engage in collective bargaining, meaning they negotiate for the whole group (collective)...and the guy who brought this case to the court says that collective bargaining is a political process in itself (inherently). Therefore, he should not be forced to support a political organization. He is saying all unions are political.

The First Amendment - this is a part of the Constitution which protects many of an American's rights, especially a person's right to 'free speech'. He is saying that if he is forced to give money to a political organization, his free speech rights are being violated.

to subsidize the speech of a third party - to pay for the message of a political party

advocacy - to advocate for something means to speak in favor of it. So the guy, Janus, is saying that Illinois is heavily in debt, but these unions keep demanding higher and higher salaries for their workers, and this is killing his state. He does not want to be a part of this.

the current fiscal situation - the current economic situation of Illinois, which sucks.

a stagnant economy - an economy which is not moving, seems dead. A stagnant body of water has old, rotten, polluted water in it.

the case boils down to - the central issue of the case is.....

coffers - budgets

to file a brief - in an important Supreme Court case, all kinds of organizations will 'file briefs', meaning they will send documents to the Supreme Court advocating for a certain decision.

to impose - to force

Vicente Fox says that Trump's mouth is the "foulest shithole in the world."

I am guessing that within the next four years, due to the presidency of Donald Trump, the world will become familiar with every curse word/dirty word in the English language.

President Trump just introduced the dirty word 'shithole' to English learners world-wide.

So, as a responsible English teacher, let me discuss the meaning of this term that my president so suddenly introduced to you.

You could say that, literally, a shithole is a toilet, but it is actually an outdoor toilet, basically a hole in the ground where people might defecate (to defecate is the polite verb for to poop or to shit). 

If you say that a place is a shithole, you are saying it is really a lousy, rotten, bad, dirty, disgusting place - like what you might find at the bottom of a shithole.

So, apparently, Trump asked the question, "Why do only people from shithole countries come to America?"

What the world has to understand is that Donald Trump has no capacity for self-restraint (self-control). He can't say 'no' to any urge or desire he feels. Whatever he feels like saying, he has to say. Sometimes he'll change his mind and say exactly the opposite. He lacks the ability to reflect on or think about his actions and he never questions whether the way he feels is right or wrong or whether he might hurt someone through something he does or says. He is like a boat just being pushed around on the ocean, going wherever his emotions or emotional responses take him. 

Furthermore, after he does something, he is incapable of assessing whether what he did was right or wrong. He seems capable of attacking others for their faults and errors, but self-assessment is beyond his little pea-sized brain.

So Trump is, basically, the perfect example of a Republican in the USA.

Here is an article about the current president of the USA and his 'shithole' comment.

The article:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/world-reacts-to-trumps-shithole-countries-remarks/ar-AAuAekh?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=wispr

Vocabulary to help you understand the article:

to prompt - to cause

condemnation - to condemn something is to say it is very wrong

divisive - it pushes people apart instead of bringing them together

explicitly - openly, directly (the opposite of explicitly is implicitly - this is when you hint or imply something and don't say it outright)

to summon someone - to call someone to appear before you

to commemorate - to remember

to displace - to force something out of its usual space

to be accorded - to be given

granted - given

strife - trouble

vacant - nobody is there

the foulest -  if something is foul it is super disgusting

to proclaim - to loudly state something

a betrayal - not being loyal to something/someone

a narcissist - someone who is in love with himself

white supremacist - a white person who thinks that white people are better than other people of other races

to defy logic - to violate the laws of logic, to make no sense

Elon Musk's plan to use a new business model to help save the planet

Elon Musk was the founder of Paypal and he is now, among other things, the CEO of Tesla Motors.

What's interesting about the NY Times article below is that it seems to indicate that Musk has developed a new business model based on his awareness of human nature and his concern for the environment. 

For example, everybody knows that gas-burning cars pollute the environment. Few people have, however, abandoned their gas-burning cars because these cars make their lives easier. So although people know they are polluting the environment, they just don't seem to think about it nor does this make them want to switch to electrically generated cars (which would not contribute to adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere).

Therefore, Musk wants to appeal to everyone's self interest since appealing to the interests of the planet does not seem to work. It is Musk's intention to make a car that is better and cheaper than fossil-fuel (gas-burning) cars so that people will want to switch to cars which are better for the environment, and they will switch for completely selfish reasons.

Here is an interesting and thought-provoking article followed by interesting vocabulary from the article and some good discussion questions. 

The article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/25/business/despite-roadblocks-for-tesla-elon-musk-is-moving-full-speed-ahead.html?_r=0

Vocabulary:

to be unveiled - to be revealed

to hit a speed bump - a speed bump is a literal bump in the road that drivers have to slow down for; these speed bumps are often placed near schools so that drivers will not speed through areas where there are children. Figuratively, a speed bump is anything that slows your progress down. The speed bump in this article is the fact that a man died while driving a Tesla run by auto-pilot and this is causing problems for Tesla.

premature - too early

fatality - a death

to hail something as - to praise something as 

to be bent on - to be committed to; if you are bent on something, you have determined you are going to do something and it might not be possible to stop you

muttering - when you are upset and can't stop saying something quietly to yourself, but you don't want others to hear what you are saying

schadenfreude - this is a German word...it means to feel happy when someone you don't like is suffering 

a sheer need - a pure or obvious need

to crank out - to produce

ramping up production - increasing production

his wit is dry and understated - his sense of humor is very subtle

the turd in the punch bowl - a turd is a piece of crap or shit; a punch bowl is a bowl filled with a type of fruit drink that you often find at parties (people scoop the punch out of the bowl with a scooper and fill their cups with it). So to have a turd in your punch bowl is to have something disgusting in something you would like to use. He is saying that we are ignoring these greenhouse gases but we would not ignore a turd in a punch bowl.

to epitomize - to be the best example of (so here the Paris accords (meetings) were the perfect example of how slowly the governments around the world work to solve problems)

to be agile - to be flexible

resentment - when you dislike someone or something because you think they have hurt you

a disruptive entrepreneur - usually the word disruptive has a negative meaning but here it means Musk has disrupted the way entrepreneurs usually do business and he is forcing them to change

a nagging question - a question that won't go away; one person nags another person if he keeps bothering him: i.e. Did you take out the garbage? When will you take out the garbage? Didn't you say you were going to do this? Can you do this soon? etc.

volatile - unstable

audacity - being bold, showing courage when nobody expects you to

to muse about something - to think deeply about something

the advent of something - the beginning of something

flaws - problems or errors in some type of system 

detractors - people who disagree with Musk

full throttle forward - to go forward as fast as possible

Questions:

What do you think motivates Elon Musk?

How does he want to contribute to saving the planet?

Should he be held accountable for the man who died in the auto-pilot car?

Is Tesla using its drivers as guinea pigs? (A guinea pig is a small furry animal that some scientists use for experiments. So let's say there is a new restaurant in your neighborhood but you don't know whether it is good. And let's say your roommate says he is hungry and looking for a restaurant. You might tell him to go to the new restaurant because you want to use him as a guinea pig - you want to test the restaurant on him first before you try it.)

Was the death a big deal to you?

Why do energy companies view Tesla 'warily'?

How might Musk be the Henry Ford of this era?

What will finally motivate people to buy electric cars?

Who would be more successful in regard to protecting the environment - business or government?

How is the government helping business to create 'greener' technology?

What impact will Tesla cars have in the immediate future?

How is Musk influencing other businesses?

Should more scientists try to be entrepreneurs?

What is Musk's background?

Do we really need autopilot cars?

Can autopilot ever really work?

Did Brown cause his own death?

American police officers continue to kill innocent black men?

The video on the link below is really horrifying.

It shows the aftermath of a black man (Philando Castile) shot by a white police officer in Minnesota. The man was shot in front of a child and the man's girlfriend. 

Apparently the cop stopped Castile as he was driving and asked to see the man's driver's license. Castile apparently looked like a person who had robbed a store a couple of days earlier. Castile, according to his girlfriend, then pointed out that he was carrying a gun, but that he was carrying it legally - she claimed that he had a license to carry the gun (although police now seem to be saying he did not have a license to carry the gun publicly). 

Apparently, when the police officer saw the gun, he shot Castile (the officer and the girlfriend who took the video are presenting contradictory stories, so it is difficult to know just exactly what happened).

The African American community in America is outraged (extremely angry) because they perceive that throughout the United States police officers continue to casually shoot black men.

In my opinion it is absolutely disgusting how the police treated his girlfriend after one of them shot her boyfriend. These cops acted worse than animals instead of acting like professional human beings. 

Where do these guys receive their training from? There is no need for them to over-react like this all the time. This is why there are protests all around this country - how long does it take for cops to realize they are expected to act like MEN and NOT WORSE THAN ANIMALS?

Read the story and see the video here:

http://nypost.com/2016/07/09/minnesota-cop-who-killed-castile-says-he-reacted-to-display-gun/

Vocabulary to help you understand:

to 'display' gun - in newspapers they often shorten sentences so the headlines should say that the cop (police officer) reacted to the display of a gun (the cop claims he shot the black man when he displayed or showed a gun)

to contradict another story - if one story contradicts another, it provides facts that are the opposite of the facts in the first story

carrying a licensed pistol - the person who was shot had a gun, but he was apparently carrying it legally (he had a license for it)

license and registration - when a police officer pulls a person over in his car, the cop usually asks for the person's drivers license and car registration certificate.

distraught - emotionally shocked, depressed, devastated

to elaborate - to add extra information

All Hamburger Meat Has Poop in It

Hmmmm, does that hamburger look good to you?  Does poop look good to you? Yes, it looks as if every sample of hamburger meat tested last year had some poop in it (poop is otherwise known as 'crap' or 'shit' in America - it is waste material...the stuff that drops out of your butt and into your toilet bowl).

How did poop get into all hamburger meat? I don't know, nobody is saying. But since I read this article back in April of 2015, I have not had one hamburger. Cows love me now. And I probably won't get cancer as quickly either.

Yes, I would advise you to please stop eating poop...I mean hamburgers.

The article:
http://nypost.com/2015/08/24/your-ground-beef-is-probably-contaminated-by-poop/

Vocabulary from the article:

to be contaminated by - this means that something you think is pure really has something else in it that you don't want to have in it

Labor Day barbecues - Labor Day is in May - it is a holiday celebrating work. Many people barbecue in their backyards on a grill on this day.

fecal - poop-like

urinary tract - the little biological tube that allows the pee to leave your system and go into the toilet

antibiotics - medicine to kill germs

a sustainable environment - an environment which is not being destroyed, an environment which can survive on its own

to confine animals - to keep them in small areas

to slaughter - to kill animals for food

to crank out - to produce quickly with little regulation or monitoring

superbugs - germs that can't be killed (bacteria or viruses)

160 degrees F = 71.1 C

to be on guard - to be super careful, to watch something or some situation closely

A woman was fined for a nasty and malicious Yelp review

For some reason, people think they can post anything they feel like saying on the internet. Well, one woman learned (the hard way) that you simply can't do this (according to the judge who fined her).

She felt it was her 'freedom of speech' to attack a business owner whom she didn't like on the website "Yelp".  Indeed, Yelp does not seem to have any guidelines posted for its users about what is freedom of speech and what isn't, so I think Yelp should be sued by the business owner as well.

Unfortunately, this is impossible because of a 1998 law that was passed by the US Congress. According to this law, no internet company can be held responsible for postings placed on it. So if I own a website that allows comments by anyone, and someone writes something horrible about another person which is not true or which is meant to harm the person, according to this law the person who posted the statement can be sued but I who own the website can't.

This law was passed during the early stages of the internet and is clearly a bad law.  Why? Well, if someone who doesn't like you goes to a site and attacks you, and you write to the site, it will basically simply tell you that they don't care. Congress passed a law which absolves them of responsibility (says they are not responsible for what is on their site) and so they won't remove nasty, false and malicious comments even if it is readily apparent that the statements are false and that any decent company would remove them. You have to sue the person who posted the content.

Their attitude seems to be: "OK, this is horrible, it might destroy an innocent person's life, but we don't have to remove it and so we won't. It's too much trouble for us and we don't want to hire a few more employees to help make sure that innocent people are not hurt." The 1998 law was meant to protect these companies from crazy comments users might make, but the companies have been using the law to justify these harmful comments and the cyber-bullying that goes on on their sites. Why? Money makes the world go around. A responsible company would remove anything harmful and malicious, but the current internet companies simply refuse to do this.

So this woman learned a big lesson and she was lucky. The judge probably should have, in my opinion, fined her more for her attack on the guy. 

The article:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/s-woman-pay-1g-fine-bashing-business-yelp-article-1.2370681

Vocabulary:

for bashing floor refinishing business; for attacking a business that makes older and stained wooden floors look better

a fine - this is a type of punishment in which a person has to pay the other person or the government money

Staten Island - this is one of the 5 boroughs or areas of New York City

the reviews are in - the journalist is joking a little...after a play the actors will wait for reviews by theater critics and when the papers arrive they'll say 'The reviews are in!'  In this case the review relates to what the woman from Staten Island wrote about the floor refinishing business

to bash, bashing - to attack, attacking

a judge - someone who is in charge of a courtroom

a con artist - 'con' comes from the word 'confidence' - a con man or con artist is someone who gains your trust or confidence only to try to get money from you illegally. If someone keeps promising something and keeps stealing money based on that promise, he is a con man or con artist.

a scathing review - a very, very nasty, harsh, severe review which is critical or attacks someone

rants - negative, nasty, mean and aggressive comments

crossed the line - she went too far, what she did could no longer be considered freedom of speech

to refinish a floor - usually the floor is sanded with an abrasive or rough material ad then varnished so that it looks new

green chemicals - chemicals that will not hurt the environment

peeling - she meant the surface of the floor was coming up in curls

she was unable to contain her  anger in a coherent sentence - she was so angry she wrote in badly broken English; her English didn't really make sense because she was so angry

the guy mat the owner - should be: the guy Matt, the owner, 

coherent - meaningful

is a scam - she meant, is a scammer (someone who steals money from people through scams - illegal plans

to rob - to steal from

BULL-----ER - a bullshitter, someone who lies (this is a dirty word)

urging - encouraging

libel - lying about a person to hurt him/her

personal in their invective - she made very personal comments in her attack on the owner

to impugn his integrity - to call his integrity or honesty into question; to make people believe that he has no integrity

her bid - her attempt

I'll fight you tooth and nail - I'll fight against you with everything I have (like an animal, with my teeth and nails)

The perfect penis size?

Esquire has reported that researchers have used 3-D printing technology to provide sample penises to women to determine what the 'perfect' male penis might look like. Actually, the researchers are interested in the length and width that women seem to prefer.

So I guess if this study has any value, the value would be in debunking (disproving) that women like huge penises. Of course, this makes sense since a huge penis will, obviously, hurt the woman during sex.  Women like 'average' size penises, which, again, seems to make sense since an average size penis evolved to coincide with what might work most effectively in conjunction with your normal, everyday vagina.

Here's the Esquire story:

http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/sex/a37712/heres-what-the-perfect-penis-looks-like-according-to-women/

Vocabulary from the article:

a phallus - another term for the male sex organ (penis)

to ascertain - to find out

to chill - to relax

an anaconda - a very large snake

a stack - a collection of something piled one on top of the other

peer-reviewed - fellow scientists read and comment on the article before it is published. If an article is peer-reviewed, it has the support of a number of scientists before it is published.

enormous - huge

erect - hard

disembodied - the penises were not connected to any men

dongs - slang for penises

skin color cues - apparently the fake penises were blue so that there would be no racial prejudice involved in selecting the best penis

a one-night-stand - having sex one time with someone and never seeing the person again

the character of the penis-haver - the author means that the personality of the guy having sex with the woman is more important than the size of the penis