Thoughts Before The Alarm Sounds

      When it comes down to opinion versus facts in an argument, there are well-known tools available which opinion can use to overcome facts.       For example, if one is arguing against experts, persons who have devoted a major portion of their lives to understanding the subject under discussion, one can always find, or even create out of nothing (e.g., the Discovery Institute), a couple of renegades to dispute the majority. Then the opinionated one does not discuss the competing claims; instead he trumpets far and wide that “even among the experts there is disagreement on the subject.” The idea is to sell the imaginary controversy, not the facts. This is the method used in the case of evolution versus intelligent design. Hopefully this movement ended with the opinion in the Kitzmiller vs Dover Area School District case.       Another tool of the opinionated is to take some statement or event out of context,...

      Today’s blog takes a look at some of the popular comic strips of the 1930s, 1940s and later. If you are a member of the post-youth set, see how many you can remember. If you belong to the younger set, perhaps you will enjoy seeing what your parents and grandparents thought was funny. Please keep in mind that those who remember these strips were struggling through the great depression. We took our humor where we could find it.        Alley Oop (1932 - ) was a stone age character, who along with his Friend, Foozy, and his girl friend, Ooola, rode around on his pet dinosaur, Dinny. In 1939 they were brought into the 20th century by virtue of a time machine invented by Dr. Wonmug. As to be expected, complications followed.       Bringing Up Father (1913 – 2000), the official name of this strip, was commonly called Jiggs and Maggie after the two main characters. They were immigrants from Ireland; Jigg...

      Dreams can take us to magical places and into seemingly impossible situations. In a dream we may walk out of our front door into a new and strange, even scary, landscape. We may be transported into a strange and nightmarish land of fantasy. There appears to be no limit to the range of our dreams.       But a limit does exist. All dreams are personal, and both research and common sense indicate that one can only dream of things that one knows about. That is not to say that one needs to actually experience dizzying heights or fierce dragons, but a person who has never heard of a dragon will not dream of one.       Dreams are usually triggered by an event which has occurred while one is awake: a problem that is being worked on, a traumatic event, or even something as innocuous as a scene in a book, or a song being played in the background. While one is asleep, the mind tries not only to file the memory of th...

      The Senate is set to vote on the 2,300 page Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act , designed to establish much needed reform in the financial services industry. Supposedly the bill will monitor the types of transactions which led to the recent recession. With the announcement that Republican Senators Collins and Snowe of Maine, and Brown of Massachusetts would support the bill, the required 60 aye votes on Thursday seems assured. But as usual with the Senate, anything can happen.       The bill establishes a number of new government departments (Surprise! surprise!) to implement and maintain its regulations.       The new independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be housed at the Federal Reserve, and will be responsible for ensuring that consumers get all pertinent information when shopping for mortgages, credit cards and other financial products. It will protect them from...

      There is a saying that the success of a business is dependent upon three things: location, location, location, and for many businesses that is true. For example, if you are managing a restaurant or a retail store, your establishment needs to be located where customers can easily find it.       But no matter what your business, whether you are a drug dealer, an aircraft manufacturer, or anything in between, there are three things even more important than location: customers, customers, customers. Especially with the increasing use of online buying, if you have a good delivery service available, your business could be located way back in the mountains. But without customers, you may as well be selling buggy whip sockets or antimacassars (look it up).       There are very few people who can afford to be a customer without having a job. So it is extremely important for the economy to include a large number of...

     It seems to be a rather widespread notion these days that “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion,” and on the face of it, I agree. But behind this notion lurks the further belief that all opinions are equal, mine is as good as yours, and I can easily dismiss yours with, “That’s just your opinion.” And on this point, I could not disagree more.       In some cases, one’s opinion really doesn’t matter to anyone else. In my opinion corn is much tastier than carrots, but with the exception of my wife who does the grocery shopping, or my restaurateur when I order a side dish, no one cares. However, if I keep insisting to my circle of friends that corn is definitely better than carrots, I soon find the circle getting very small.       How can two opinions be compared? Perhaps by their truth value. If two people arrive at opposite conclusions from the same set of public facts, at least one of them must be wrong. If m...

      I don’t want to bore you with a recap of my activities during the past ten days, so I will try to keep it short.       For several years my legs have been getting weaker and my balance has been deteriorating, and the doctors finally decided it was due to a pinched nerve in my back. So I decided to go ahead with an operation to relieve the pressure.       It worked great – I have had very little pain, and although I have not been able to navigate too well since the operation, it is due to “complications” which seem to accompany much surgery, especially for post-youths such as me. If I had known about them, I might not have gone through with it.       Anyway, the night of the operation, my bladder refused to cooperate. After a night of really, really, really bad pain, they finally got around to relieving the problem, at least temporarily.       I promised ...