One way to tell if an “expert” is bogus is to ask them a question. It should be a fairly accurate question, not too broad to answer. If their response, no matter how detailed you make the question, is, “Well, it depends” followed by half an hour of bullshit, the person is not an “expert.” One of the things that … Continue reading
At this time of year, whenever I look out into the mid-Atlantic or the Gulf, large storms are everywhere. It is difficult not to think of Katrina when I see the big blotches of orange, yellow, and white out over the warm water. It is impossible to think of Katrina without thinking of all the flooding and a devastated New … Continue reading
I apologize for two days without posts. My Web host decided to get quite illogical on me, so I have spent the last day and a half moving to a new Web host, and a day before that researching which host was the one for me. I will write a post about that experience in the next few days. For … Continue reading
This is from the September 7, 2007 broadcast of HBO’s outstanding series Real Time, starring Bill Maher. As he often does, Bill makes a lot of sense in this excerpt. Bill would make one heck of a curmudgeon, from whatever state he wishes. And finally, New Rule: If you want to bring Jesus to the unbelievers, you can’t be surprised … Continue reading
It seems to me that for the last ten or fifteen years, everything has been all about cheap, and cheaper. Very little is about “quality,” unless it is also about “luxury.” There was once a time, well within my living memory, that an object did not have to luxurious to be of good quality. We need to get that back, … Continue reading
I suppose that it would be possible to think of me as a Dutch-American. My ancestry is mixed European, really, with Dutch the largest component. My mother, who was in a great position to know, always told me that I was half-Dutch, half-Irish, half-English and half-assed. See, I told you that she ought to know. ;o) But I don’t think … Continue reading
It seems that we are moving back toward a very sad period of reverse racism and reverse ethnism in recent months. It is a trend that dismays me. We should not be polarizing these issues further; instead, we need to be bringing people closer together on these issues. Some people, though, cannot walk by a box of dry tinder an … Continue reading
I am having a very hard time trusting anyone that I do not personally know and can vouch for from direct historical experience. I am sure that not everyone else is lying to us, but it is very hard to tell who is who. This is almost certainly a matter of having been conditioned to expect bullshit from people in … Continue reading
Automotive advertising has taken a turn for the lethal. There is no other way for it to end up. These ads, of late, are full of video footage of successful young men driving their (sometimes) mediocre cars at ridiculous speeds through the downtown portions of major metropolitan areas. Even Volvo commercials are doing it. Safety, indeed.You will a see young … Continue reading
As far as I can tell, Labor day is an idea whose time has gone. I have always been ambivalent about labor unions. They seem to have done just about as much harm as good. There has always been the odor of crooked dealings about them, even though they righted a wrong or two many decades ago. But, whether they … Continue reading