Monday, September 26, 2005

Guinness Makes Your Poop Black

Now that I have your attention I want to address a subject I wrote about a few months ago: advertising on our site.

We really don't have a problem with advertising. There is that whole issue of being honest but not forthright, but hey who are we to split hairs. Oh, yeah, we run this blog. Its just, if you are going to post an ad for say "Cat Furniture" come out and ask us and let us have a bit of your profit.

Lately we've gotten comments from people who sound genuine and we want to believe they are. They just don't all sound 100% like real people. If you like the stuff we have here, great, that's what it's for. If you lead in that you like us and then tell people to buy your cat furniture we have to question your motives.

We keep the comment field open because we like discussion, we're absurd. If you want to get people to your site because you want to sell something come out and say it. Look at the title of this entry, it's declarative and neither specifies a positive nor a negative effect of drinking Guinness. It does, however, have nothing to do with what I'm writing here. We can draw a similarity to your ads.

If you want to advertise on our site do one of two things. If you advertise in the comment field announce that you are advertising, then blow smoke up our ass and tell us how cool we are. If you want to legitimately advertise on our site ask us. I'm sure we could work out something with our provider and what not.

For everyone else who reads us don't be shy. Drop us a line and leave your name. Feedback is welcome and needed in our otherwise loveless lives.

Monday, September 19, 2005

A quick note on US poverty

Lately I've been hearing news organizations supporting Bush's tax policies as beneficial to the poor. They say that the poverty rate in the middle of Clinton's term was 13%, while Bush has us at 12%. Unfortunately they give no context for the rate.

The numbers are true but Clinton inherited 15.1% from Bush Sr. in 1993. Bush Jr. picked up Clinton's 11.7% in 2001. You can check the numbers at the US Bureau of the Census: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/hstpov2.html. (It's also fun for me to note that the last time the rate was 11% was 1979).

Does any one remember the projected surplus we had going into the millennium. Now we borrow money from other countries so we can stay afloat. Currently this country spends more than it takes in. Most people who are struggling to survive know that a major hold on advancement is their credit card bill. If you spend more in a month than you get in a month you end up in debt. If you don't find a way to increase your income people come to your house and take all that cool stuff that you bought. The only other option is to cut your spending and control it.

Of course, if you grew up rich, you may not have the same appreciation for fiscal responsibility. You may end up running an oil company, Major League Baseball Team and quite possibly an entire nation into the ground.

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Cognitive Dissonance

About a year ago I was hanging out with my niece. She's was 4. We were in her backyard playing near the swing set. A spider appeared and she ran away, skipped out. I brought her back over to have a closer look at it. We were able to get pretty close and she wasn't as afraid. She informed me that it was poisonous.

Now, I'm not a spider expert. I do know that the number of poisonous spiders appearing in the North American North East are few and this didn't look like either one of them. I tried to explain to her that the spider we were looking at was a common house spider and that it posed no threat to us (unless we walked into its web, was blinded by it and then wondered on to a busy highway... You know). She told me that her friend at school told her spiders were poisonous.

I could see my appeal wasn't sinking in. I introduced her to the Encyclopedia. She took to that very quickly. We looked up spiders and found a good spread on them which she had me read to her. One of the facts that came out was the low level of poisonous spiders that can harm humans. I found a picture of our spider and a description of it. None of this information sunk in for her.

I don't know if it was because she wasn't paying close attention or just wanted to make-believe spiders were poisonous. My fear is that she couldn't refute information that was given to her by a reliable source (to her). I hate to think that the role I play in her life is so small that she won't believe an adult over another 4 year old.

I give you this little story because I have a feeling this happens even more often once we grow up. I talk to so many people that truly believe things they're told without any second thoughts to it. Frustratingly, they tend to deny the validity of statements made contrary to what they believe. It happens to every one, including me. It is very important for us to come to terms with the idea that we don't know everything, some people know more than we do about certain things and we should never settle for an explanation.

Don't think for a moment the information you have is complete. Never stop questioning. More importantly pay attention when the answer comes.