At every family reunion there's someone who can out-lie the table. Tell us another one Ed Toppins!
In his 2008 book "Outliers", Malcolm Gladwell declared the revolutionary idea that world-class expertise in anything comes after lots of practice. Using Bill Gates, the Beatles, and every Canadian hockey player who ever laced a skate, he ruminated that true outliers in a field had at least 10,000 hours dedicated to their passion.
I, of course, did not actually read this book. But Tater did and she told me all about it.
Any amount of practice is good and you sure don't have to do that much to be decent at something. But to be an outlier, someone way beyond the average, the magic only happens after 10,000.
For those of you wondering how long it takes to put in 10,000 hours, it would take 250 forty hour work weeks. That was 5 years of work back before the Republicans saved us from unions and paid vacations and pensions for those of you wondering what a forty hour work week is.
If you're a true believer, technically it would take you 416.66 days to reach 10,000 hours and that's only a year and two months. I just don't think anyone could keep up that pace, no matter how much Red Bull they drank.
If you could only put in an hour a day, it'd take you nearly 27 and a half years.
There are a few things that hit 10,000 for me, besides sleeping. None of them come to mind at the moment, so just take my word for it. My world-classness speaks for itself.
No matter how you get there, I think we all can agree 10,000 is a pretty impressive number. Whether it's hours or just that many times doing something, reaching 10,000 requires single-mindedness and dedication, no matter your pursuit.
Which leads us to celebrate the outlier who, without doubt or chicanery, easily outlies them all. None has ever come close. Just this past weekend, we learned the Obfuscater in Chief has passed 10,000 in just over 800 days occupying the Oval Office.
To be exact, on April 27 we learned the Donald had publicly delivered 10,111 false claims in 828 days. This feat is all the more remarkable when you realize it took him 600 days to reach 5,000.
Clearly, Cadet Bonespurs realized he was loafing in his determination to MAGA by averaging only 8 lies a day. In the next 228 days, he kicked it up a notch or four by dishing 23 lies a day, smashing through the 10,000 lie threshold faster than Tricky Dick and Slick Willy combined.
It's impossible to highlight one or two of the Oval Office Fraud's declarations because that would be unfair to all the other beautiful little whoppers he's laid on his devotees. So we'll drop this little tidbit we also learned this week.
The 2017 Tax and Jobs Act was supposed to benefit the workers of America. A study this week showed 6% of workers saw an average weekly raise of $6.21 or $233 a year.
So clearly it did it's job. Just ask the Donald.