My Own Thoughts

It’s white, not green. But it’s there.

I’ve always been an ENFP, with an occasionally stressed ENFJ showing up. However, when I took the test today, it said I was an ISFJ. Yes, I am living like an I, but I’m not an S no matter what. Strange.

can be found here. Some of them include: Man will See Around the World….. Automobiles will be cheaper than horses are today. Farmers will own automobile hay-wagons, automobile truck-wagons, plows, harrows and hay-rakes. A one-pound motor in one of these vehicles will do the work of a pair of horses or more. Children will ride [...]

You have to believe that the more helpless you are, the safer you are from criminals. You have to believe that ordinary people, ordinary people in the presence of a gun turn into slaughtering blood-thirsty butchers and they resort to normal ordinary behavior as soon as the gun is removed. … That we must get [...]

Facts to ponder: (A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000. (B) Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year are 120,000. (C) Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171. Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services. Now think about this: Guns: (A) The number of gun ownders in the U.S. is [...]

Wizbang posts on the reality of protection in the US. (The police aren’t required to save the individual. The military can’t be there. The workplace won’t be there.) He says, rightly, that we all need to be prepared to defend ourselves. Then he goes on to talk about the heroes who defended us and others [...]

Captain’s Quarters blogs about McCain’s discussion of gun rights after Virginia Tech. The first lines are from an article; the second are his response. Other candidates in both parties have stayed largely silent on the issue in the immediate aftermath of the killings, except to express their sorrow. Quite frankly, the other candidates have the [...]

Wired talks about freeware Elgg that is supposed to be the academic equivalent of MySpace. I wonder if it works on Macs. And I still would have to actually learn how to post pictures. But I like the idea for online courses.

when evil threatens, we must do our utmost to thwart it. I shouldn’t just think about how I can get my students to safety. We should think about how to take the shooter out. The first sentence is from Big Lizards.

Go here to watch a moving presentation. And remember.

Newberg learned that during religious rituals our limbic system, the parts of the brain associated with feelings and memory lights up with blood flow. This helps embed our beliefs even more deeply. And this reaction is powerful enough to even help restore function or memory to brains limited by damage or disease. Newberg found people [...]

The instructor tells the soldier, “You are in the Bronx. A black van is stopping in front of you. Three African-Americans are getting out and they are insulting your mother in the worst ways … Act.” The soldier fires his machine gun several times and yells an obscenity several times in English. The instructor then [...]

“Ancient Perfumes Recreted, Put on Display in Rome” says that most perfumes were spicy: “herbs and spices, like almond, coriander, myrtle, conifer resin, bergamot — and not flowers.” I wonder how I’d like conifer resin as a perfume. But I like vanilla and brown sugar. Maybe I can use in Dielli.

I was told last time at IAH to go through the metal detector with my arms out. This time the TSA people said I might be trying to fool the metal detector and made me go back through. (Did I miss hearing about terrorists who fooled the metal detector last time?) At RDU we were [...]

In the interest of perspective: The biggest pro of homeschooling is the students. I get the boys I love most in the world as students. I get to hang out with them. We get to have fun. We’ve picked weeds- counting. We’ve made coke floats- science. We’ve made elephant parades- art. We spent time together. [...]

A while back I wrote and posted a blog entry Homeschooling: pros and cons. Recently I got a nasty note saying there weren’t any cons in the article. There were. Here’s a short version of the cons of homeschooling. The biggest con to homeschooling is the personal responsibility. If I am my sons’ only teacher, [...]

The News and Observer has announced the name of the innocent lacrosse team members’ accuser. I agree with that choice. She’s been shown to be a liar and why should she be protected? They weren’t. But now they say they aren’t sure that their standing policy of not id’ing assault survivors’ names will be under [...]

There is a soil microbe that is a highly effective, and fairly immediate, antidepressant. Maybe that is why so many people enjoy working in the garden, even when it is hard work.

I just read that most people would prefer not to fly on Friday the 13th. Good. Maybe the plane won’t be too crowded.

Apparently it is a biological imperative.