Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

You are here: Home / It’s only a change of time

It’s only a change of time

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They say that timing is everything. Two studies suggest that they have a point.

First up and hot off the presses, try not to have your surgery on Friday. Your chances of dying go way up whether you do it in a hospital that does or does not spell the word color with a ‘u’.

Meanwhile if you find yourself before a judge, hope like hell that you show up early on the docket. A court in Israel handed down favorable parole decisions around seventy percent of the time first thing in the morning and then got less friendly fast, reaching a low of about zero right before lunch.

Of course nobody expects people to work like robots. I cannot tell you how many teenage hours we spent trying to work out what made cops chase or not chase and give a ticket or a warning. There was general agreement that red paint and two doors was trouble, young males with poor grooming got it worse, stay polite, slow down in Ohio and lord help you if you decide to speed while black. Every profession run by people will have its good moments and bad moments. Still, in important cases like sentencing judges and life-saving hospital procedures we really should try to understand the predictable biases and make some effort to fix them.

Seriously, your chance of parole went down to zero point zero if your case came up right before lunch. Anyone think that the researchers randomly picked the one court on Earth that acts like that? No? Then maybe we should take a quick look across the legal system. Hospitals too.

Reader Interactions

42Comments

  2. 2.

    Soonergrunt

    That has to suck.
    “What are you in for?”
    “A case docketed at 1:45 PM on Friday, you?”

  4. 4.

    Gin & Tonic

    I’m guessing Cassidy would rather shower in prison than have his parole hearing right before lunch.

  7. 7.

    pokeyblow

    When is the best time to post a mildly contrarian idea on a blog like this without setting off a bunch of shrieking shut-in?

  8. 8.

    pokeyblow

    When is the best time to post a mildly contrarian idea on a blog like this without setting off a bunch of shrieking shut-ins?

  11. 11.

    cmorenc

    Another important HOSPTIAL rule:
    AVOID if possible going to a “teaching” hospital in July, and by “teaching hospital” I mean one heavily involved with resident physicians-in-training. (This class of hospitals is much broader than hospitals that are formally part of some university hospital system). At the end of June every year, the current most “senior” resident group for ALL specialties of physician graduate and move on, and a spanking-new still wet-behind-the-ears group of first year residents (in specialty) or raw interns (first year beyond medical school) have just freshly arrived. Although the regular staff (and teaching staff) physicians more or less remain the same year to year, teaching hospitals rely heavily on residents in training as their workhorses, and this workhorse resident physician staff effectively loses an entire year of experience every July 1st.

  12. 12.

    Southern Beale

    Yeah you wanna talk about unfair? Look at the death penalty. Just sayin’.

    Okie dokie, death of another right-wing myth:

    The Fake Story About the IRS Commissioner and the White House
    White House records show Douglas Shulman signed in for 11 visits, not 157, between 2009 and 2012.

    […]

    Complicating the picture is the fact that just because a meeting was scheduled and Shulman was cleared to attend it does not mean that he actually went. Routine events like the biweekly health-care deputies meeting would have had a standing list of people cleared to attend, people whose White House appointments would have been logged and forwarded to the check-in gate. But there is no time of arrival information in the records to confirm that Shulman actually signed in and went to these standing meetings.

    Indeed, of the 157 events Shulman was cleared to attend, White House records only provide time of arrival information — confirming that he actually went to them — for 11 events over the 2009-2012 period, and time of departure information for only six appointments.

    According to the White House records, Shulman signed in twice in 2009, five times in 2010, twice in 2011, and twice in 2012. That does not mean that he did not go to other meetings, only that the White House records do not show he went to the 157 meetings he was granted Secret Service clearance to attend.

    Oh OW I hate it when a right-wing lie is exposed!

  15. 15.

    japa21

    I don’t know if it still holds true, but there was a statistic several years ago that basically advised not to buy a car that rolled off the assembly line on either a Friday or a Monday. Friday because the folks where thinking more about the weekend than the work, and Monday because they were still trying to get over the effects of the weekend. Of course, since then automation has gone up. It may also have been something put out by anti-union people.

  16. 16.

    MikeJ

    @Southern Beale:

    White House records show Douglas Shulman signed in for 11 visits, not 157, between 2009 and 2012.

    How long until we hear, “IRS commish sneaking into WH without signing in!”

  17. 17.

    ? Martin

    There’s actually two problems here (we have this same kind of problem in my job):

    1) The workers being tired and shifting their perspective from the individual being serviced to themselves. This becomes a lot more pronounced when the employee is overworked or stressed. Reducing stress in the workplace is an easy first step to minimize the problem.
    2) The person being serviced often gets blamed for the timing. We think of monday services and early morning services as going to people who are eager, proactive, and therefore more ‘deserving’ – it’s almost all subconscious but it’s a widespread problem. Now, nobody picks their appeal hearing time, and someone is going to get that friday surgery slot no matter how eager and proactive they are. This is a trickier problem to solve, but you can make some headway by changing how the scheduling takes place – get the people providing the services involved so they consciously know the reasons for the timing, put the more challenging cases earlier, and find ways to remind everyone that the timing isn’t a judgment of the person.

    I’ll also note that this is yet another way that poor people get fucked over. I can easily schedule all of my appointments at 8AM (and I do) because I have a job that affords me that flexibility. The 5PM appointments usually go to people with hourly jobs. So some of the judgement of the person isn’t subconscious – in some industries you do see a change in the nature of the person you see at the start and end of the day, and other biases come into play.

  19. 19.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Southern Beale:

    If you think that mere facts will kill a wingtard myth, I have prime beachfront property in the Dakotas that I know you’ll be interested in.

  20. 20.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @? Martin:

    Reducing stress in the workplace is an easy first step to minimize the problem.

    But that will deprive the assholes in management of their jollies…of the power trip of stressing people out.

  21. 21.

    Southern Beale

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I know, I know. *SIGH*

    Hey I saw some Freeper said the ricin letter to Obama was a “false flag” — he evidently sent it to himself because .. ???

    1. Send ricin-laced letter to myself.
    2. It gets intercepted by security.
    3. ???
    4. MAGIC!

    Wingtards are so fucking stupid.

  22. 22.

    ? Martin

    @Southern Beale:

    Indeed, of the 157 events Shulman was cleared to attend, White House records only provide time of arrival information — confirming that he actually went to them — for 11 events over the 2009-2012 period, and time of departure information for only six appointments.

    COVERUP! The WH snuck him in so Obama could pick which people and groups to audit and not leave a paper trail! Busted!

  24. 24.

    NonyNony

    @Southern Beale:

    Okie dokie, death of another right-wing myth:

    Wait you mean that the Daily Caller didn’t provide due diligence in their reporting? I’m shocked.

    (I might buy the theory that there’s a mole at the Daily Caller planting these stories for Tucker to find to make Tucker Carlson look bad. Except that it’s Tucker Carlson so it would be the most pointless thing ever to plant stuff to make him look bad.)

  25. 25.

    David Hunt

    @muddy: That’s Gay, Athiest Sharia Martial Law! Everyone knows that all those things go together. Well, every wingtard “knows” that.

  26. 26.

    Omnes Omnibus

    There is a possibility that the judge’s calendar was arranged so that those whose files indicated that bail was likely were front loaded.

  27. 27.

    Ruckus

    Used to say never purchase a car made on Monday or Friday. Same idea. People are people, we get tired, we get moody, we get hungry, and all the other things we get. And that’s when we want what we are doing to be over so we can move on and attempt to fix whatever is making us want to move on. It’s human nature and I doubt we will change that. We can understand it and work within it’s bounds but how will the fact that we are biological beings allow us to change it?

  28. 28.

    Violet

    @? Martin: The surgeons I worked with boasted about how long it had been since they’d taken a vacation. The medical students I knew said they would have loved to go into surgery but the hard core go-go-go attitude of surgeons put them off. The students wanted more of a life. The ones who did go into surgery were already the ultra Type A types. Vacation was a dirty word.

  32. 32.

    aimai

    @Southern Beale: Anyone remember back to the stone age when Cheney’s administration refused to release the actual names of actual people who had actually advised him on energy policy? Anyone?

  33. 33.

    catclub

    @aimai: Yep. Then he said the Vice presidency was the fourth branch of government, a curious hybrid of executive branch and senate, accountable to neither and with unlimited powers. Good times.

  34. 34.

    quannlace

    Why the higher risk on a Friday surgery? Cause everybody’s trying to get away for the weekend?

    Used to be ‘don’t go to an ER or get admitted on a weekend” cause most of the labs and other tests (X-ray, CT, etc.) would virtually close down. Now they run 24/7.

  35. 35.

    Mandalay

    @aimai:

    Anyone remember back to the stone age when Cheney’s administration refused to release the actual names of actual people who had actually advised him on energy policy?

    Exactly…

    There is no Bush Administration public-records data about who went to the White House. As incomplete as it is, the Obama White House data is more public information than we have about any other administration, or the visits of any other IRS commissioner.

    This is an ironic side issue of the whole debacle:

    When Obama took office, as part of his transparency initiative, these Secret Service swipe and appointment records were made public. In retrospect, that was both a bold move and a confusing one, as the records have created an impression of total transparency the quality of the data is not able to support.

    Obama was trying to do the right thing and got a kick in the balls as a thank you.

  37. 37.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mandalay:

    Obama was trying to do the right thing and got a kick in the balls as a thank you.

    I’m sure there are many days when that seems like the story of his life.

  38. 38.

    pokeyblow

    @Tom Levenson: I enjoy disagreeing with commenters (also enjoy agreeing with them), but see no point in trolling those who make blog posts.

    If you want me to stay out of your threads, let me know and I’ll do my best to comply.

  40. 40.

    Tom levenson

    @pokeyblow: I think you missed my intention. You just reminded me of one of the great pop culture references to this general topic. No personal message or comment intended. I’ll admit my sense of humor is a little off center; my apologies for unintended insult, but maybe a little snark meter adjustment might be in order

  41. 41.

    pokeyblow

    @Tom levenson: No, no problem at all. I saw that cartoon when it was printed, and think it’s the balls.

    I’ve got no problem with giving or receiving grief, especially if it’s funny and good-natured (frequently not the case here). But since you replied directly to me, I asked, and you answered, and everything’s fine.

    Cheers!

  42. 42.

    JoyfulA

    @quannlace: Does any surgery other than emergency or ambulatory get scheduled for Friday? I’d suspect that Friday surgery is more dangerous because it’s rush surgery that had to be done stat, surgery that would have been riskier than most whatever day it was done.

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