Touring the Valley

Gimme More

2026-10-25T11:25:51.222-07:00

There are people who actually imagine that trump (and others like him) can't be bribed because "he's already rich." Somehow, they have failed to observe what is on display every day: the insatiable greed of the ultra-wealthy. For a normal person, enough is enough. If I had, say, $100,000 in my bank account, and someone tried to tempt me into sin by offering another $1000, such a person would

Achievements and Honors

2026-09-21T16:28:30.592-07:00

Washington, DC: Martin Luther King statue with Washington Monument in the background George Washington did not spend his time as President campaigning to get the nation's capital city named after him. He did not build monuments to himself, nor did he fantasize about the time when statues and monuments in his honor would exist throughout the country. He did not hope to become a king, and never

The Threat of a Fake Emergency

2026-08-29T12:57:07.592-07:00

The head of The U.S. government's executive branch has threatened to declare a "national emergency" for the purpose of taking over elections, if Congress does not pass a radical voter-suppression bill. Elections were held as usual in the U.S. during the War of 1812, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Elections were held as usual during the 1918–1920 flu

Cutting it Off

2026-08-28T16:37:42.485-07:00

Photo by César Badilla Miranda on Unsplash In this article, we take a look at some of the surgeries commonly used to remove or modify certain body parts. What is being done, and why? Circumcision Circumcision is a surgical procedure that removes the foreskin from a penis. Historically, circumcision has been practiced routinely in many different cultures, often as part of a ritual

Does He or Doesn't He?

2026-08-01T10:26:40.910-07:00

Photo of Trump ignored by leaders at G7 in France, June 2026MANDEL NGAN / AFP via Getty Images For many years, rumors about Donald Trump's body odor and possible urinary and fecal incontinence have circulated on social media. The gossip is often accompanied by photos that may have been manipulated or generated with AI. In some cases, real, undoctored photos that seem to reveal unpleasant

"Unworthy of Life"

2026-06-19T18:34:24.062-07:00

This excerpt is republished, with permission, from "Let's Go Somewhere Else". Much of what we know about the WWII concentration camps comes from the Nazis' own documentation of events; they kept meticulous records and took many photos. They were intent on documenting everything they did, because at some point Hitler wanted to set up a museum about the extermination of the Jewish race. Upon

Whose Mail Is It, Anyway?

2026-06-10T13:06:27.954-07:00

Photo by Mathyas Kurmann on Unsplash As you probably know, the war on voting includes a campaign to eliminate voting by mail. donald has now issued a proclamation instructing the Postal Service to deliver ballots only to people whose names appear on a list approved by the federal government. There are many obvious flaws in this plan. People who oppose it point out that the states,

One Man's Ego

2026-06-05T16:28:38.611-07:00

Around the year 64, the Roman emperor Nero commissioned a huge statue depicting himself as a god. The bronze statue, designed and constructed by the Greek architect Zenodorus, was approximately 115 feet high, comparable to our Statue of Liberty. It was so heavy, it took a team of 24 elephants to move it. The statue was not covered with gold. Known as the Colossus of Nero (Colossus Neronis), the

Whose Fault is it Anyway?

2026-05-26T23:18:37.031-07:00

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash Before "no fault divorce," people who wanted to dissolve their marriages faced serious obstacles. Typically, one partner had to go to court and prove that the other partner was at fault. Reasons could include adultery, desertion, extreme cruelty, and habitual drunkenness. The judge would hear the evidence and then decide whether the claim was

"You Will Ride a Bicycle, and You Will Like It."

2026-05-25T12:47:21.822-07:00

A bicycle garage in Amsterdam Photo by Anthony Tilke on Unsplash There are a lot of people who quite adamantly believe that every city's air quality, transportation and parking problems could be solved if we would just ban cars and make everyone ride bicycles everywhere. This would make our streets "pedestrian friendly." What they often fail to consider: Will employers provide

Why You Shouldn't Use AI to Write Your Blog Posts

2026-05-11T20:07:00.000-07:00

Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash I asked Claude, a generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot to write a blog post on "why it's a bad idea to have AI write a blog post. Here's what I got. Why You Shouldn't Use AI to Write Your Blog Posts There's a certain irony in asking an AI to make the case against AI-written content. But maybe that's exactly why it works — who better

Random Observations

2026-05-06T12:15:00.000-07:00

Photo by Ondrej Bocek on Unsplash Every business, every website, every product - they all want me to download their app. Each of these apps does only one thing: serve the interests of that one product or site. I have enough apps on my phone. I can't manage thousands of them, and even if I could, I don't want to. We now have government officials urging us to dress up for airplane

Priorities

2026-03-18T08:48:00.000-07:00

AI-generated image The powerful people who are privileged with deciding our fates exhibit a strange mentality. Some, apparently, really believe in certain "end times" prophecies and hope to hasten the end of the world for religious reasons. Others truly don't care about life on earth, and just don't mind destroying everything. But all of them want to get rich along the way, as if the memory of

Random Thoughts

2026-03-11T22:33:00.000-07:00

Imagine what it would be like if wars could operate only on Tuesday and Thursday from noon to 4:00, while billions of dollars were poured into the children's library. ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ We need to outlaw the medicine bottle caps that require "push down and turn". ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ The same people who want to legislate personhood for fetuses and zygotes, routinely deny the personhood of

SAVE What?

2026-02-14T23:12:00.000-08:00

The Issue The SAVE Act, formally known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, is a proposed U.S. bill that would require individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship—such as a passport, birth certificate, or enhanced ID—to register to vote in federal elections. It passed the House on February 11, 2026, by a vote of 218–213 along party lines, with one Democrat joining

"Comply or Die"

2026-01-25T18:04:00.000-08:00

11 seconds before the shooting, Mr. Pretti is restrained by multiple agents. Still from video by Philophon via Reddit. The New York Times. Greg Bovino, head of ICE, says the agents who killed a man on a public street in front of witnesses are the "real victims" and the dead man is to blame for his own murder as a peaceful citizen behaving legally. If Bovino had been around in the seventies,

Recent Random Thoughts

2026-01-24T17:31:00.000-08:00

"Do You Hear the People Sing?" Les Miserables If you're aiming your cell phone at the same time you're aiming your gun, you're making a snuff film.