Laurence Gonzales in his excellent DEEP SURVIVAL observed "Sometimes an 'expert' is someone who's gotten away with a really stupid thing a couple of times."
In the greater scheme of life, taking out the time to question authority, asking if assertions add up, asking 'who profits from this?', and giving thought to whether the butterflies in your stomach are onto something are all good survival mechanisms.
Remember that campaign ad that asked who would be answering the phone at 3 AM in the White House? No one guessed who would be making that call....
I'm following AETV's "Hoarders" series with great interest -- they're done in much the same format/paradigm as "Intervention" and the subjects are given psychological counseling as well as professional organizers and physical labor to clear out dwellings, et cetera.
Conversely, the program is making me feel better about my clutter, in that I'm not in danger of losing sight of my floors.
'There's a simple answer to everything ...but usually it's wrong!'
IIRC, the study found there's a correllation in self-reporting -- those in the top third of whatever skill or ability is being tested tend to underestimate how good they are.
(I really wish more HR departments would pay attention to this study -- it seems to me the loud, boastful incompetents get more than their share of jobs and job interviews. But me, I'm just a competent and fruitless job seeker, so I may be speaking from frustration.)
I can only strongly hope that Krauthammer gets something very painful that keeps him conscious but totally unresponsive so that he can linger as long as possible while medical personnel and his family argue over what procedures he would have OK'd.
I won't go so far as to hope it leaves his estate destitute, but that would also serve him right.
For a moment there, I thought it might be called the 'More Moose Festival' which would certainly distinguish it from the other moose festivals out there.
I am so glad to live in a state that doesn't allow insurance companies to discriminate against pre-existing conditions. We're also experimenting with mandated universal healthcare, which may or may not break the state budget. I hope not -- I've been unemployed for a long time now, but one of the things that hasn't been a worry is that I'm covered, and will be covered no matter what.
You know, the difference between these Town Hall disruptors, and both Code Pink and ACT-UP is that the latter two are real true grassroots organizations.
It's weird to think of Anne Frank as being only 7 years younger than my Mom, had she lived. Because of the diary, she'll always be a young girl to those know of her.
Just out of curiosity, has Epstein made any recompense to the woman he attacked and/or paid a fine/did public service/attended court-ordered rehab or treatment? Because that would certainly influence how I'd look at an employee or coworker of mine who was trying to put a bad act behind him or her, and whether I'd publicly defend said person.
As long as we're going for tenuous connections, I found out several years ago through genealogical research that I'm related to one of the doctors who testified as to Thaw's insanity.
The more I've read about Thaw, the more I'm convinced that, technically, my g'g'g'-whatever-uncle may have been completely right. That was one seriously disturbed man who needed to be locked up.
Late to the party, but I'd still like to recommend Hindenburg: An Illustrated History, text by Rick Archbold, paintings by Ken Marschall as a bonanza of images and history not just of the titular zeppelin, but of all dirigibles leading up to it. Not only historic pictures and contemporary illustrations but a complete floorplan of the Hindenburg.
My favorite fact, gleaned from it: the Hindenburg had a smoking room -- it was windowless and negatively pressurized to make sure that no sparks could escape.
Also, pictures of the Hindenburg rooms look strangely modern, partly because most of the furniture was built from aluminum, for the weight savings.
Reading this book, I realized that truly, zeppelin research was the NASA of its day. And also, THAT was the model that early SF extrapolated that spaceships would be like. (And the fact that we call them spaceSHIPS is indeed the same concept that leads the Germans to use FAHREN instead of FLIEGEN.)
Which one of the survivors was quoted as saying "The lesson of the Donner Party is that you shouldn't take shortcuts, and move smartly along"?
Well, it's no Uluru, but I'll allow as it's still a Pretty Big Rock.
From a Twittering friend, alternative names she's collected (or thought up) for Not-Swine Flu:
Piglet's revenge, Whine Flu, Aporkalypse, Swineabifida, Snoutbreak, Hamdemic, Sowmanella, Hogwarts, and #1 is Hamthrax
What can you get out of a prisoner after the 182nd waterboarding that you couldn't after, say, the 2nd or 3rd?
When you do it that repeatedly, it's clear it's not information you're after, you really want to totally break the prisoner so that they'll give A Confession that allows the torturers
a) to make a public show-trial to tell everyone how excessively guilty you are of the most politically advantageous charges they can think of,
and b) provide the most advantageous 'proof of guilty' that justifies the torture in the first place.
As for my tombstone near the smoking ruins of my city, I'm thinking I'll go with the simplicity of "I'd Rather Be Right." Possibly in Scriptina.
My speculation is that since the ranking system doesn't get run on every item every day -- less often for titles that sell like 2 copies a year, if that -- that the problem started out as a small glitch that only affected a couple thousand books, and only showed up in the general Search function, which if you're missing a title you don't know, it's hard to notice it's missing.
Then as the new rating algorithm was finally applied to more and more items as time passed, you finally got into enough numbers that authors and publishers noticed something was up -- and the biggest reranking may have run just before a holiday weekend.
Oh, it's going to be an "interesting" Monday for the Marketing and IT departments at Amazon, all right!
Now the truth comes about about Rahm Emanuel's missing digit -- too much study of the cripplying self defense moves!
Huh. I'm wondering if the game didn't start out as a simulation for real German rescue planners and then some enterprising developer realized that it could be enjoyed by non-professionals.
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