BerniePragle

I just remembered more of a story I told you a couple months ago. Hyner View State Park not only has hang gliding, on the back side is an archeological dig site. As I remember, some of the first lifeforms that moved from water to land were found here. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Location-of-Hyner-Pennsylvania-on-a-palaeogeographical-map-of-the-latest-Devonian_fig10_213774166

Anybody know how well that works at Liberty University? Say, in Religious Studies classes...

Mr. Phillips, I'm appalled!

This makes me think back many years to a friend I had in college. We were both struggling to make any sense of some BS Social Science elective we were taking. I think it was Philosophy, Psycology or something where we were always looking for the reasons behind our actions. One day in class the professor brought up baseball players spitting. He explained that there were various reasons for it. The only two I can remember were because everyone else was doing it you had to follow along, and because someone you admired did it. My buddy muttered "Sometimes you just gotta spit" just loud enough so everyone could hear it. The class roared its approval. Sometimes you can way overthink things. Sometimes you just gotta spit. Sometimes you gotta strip to make weight. End of story. I sure didn't see all of this in the movie. Ignorance is Bliss, I guess.

You're groveling now. Stop, you're better than that.

The primary colors?

For those of you who don't know, watch a few of Frankie's weather forecast videos. He's a very cool guy.

Your perspective is exactly correct.

Last I knew it was working for Jesse Ventura. I wish he wouldn't have gone. I think we could have used him. Still could. Note: There was no half joking emoji for me to use.

Sounds like a good plan!

An awful lot to think about with retirement. Just a couple for you: * Honest question to think about. If you were able to retire at 50, what would you do with yourself? Trust me, don't just think about the times when you were on vacation and the weather was beautiful and you would have enjoyed a month or two or twenty off. Think about the times when you've had a week or two vacation and it's rained almost all of it. Think about when you have time off in the winter. I've always loved to read, work on cars, garden, etc, etc but there is something to be said for answering that alarm clock in the morning. (I know that may be hard to believe, but it's true for the most part.) * You will have very little knowledge of inflation, your particular health care costs, and many other aspects of the expenditure side of your time from 50 to whenever. You have little knowledge of how much the government will want you to make up for the last 20 or 30 years of their screwups and many years to come. I'm only sure that someone will have to pay the freight. Poor people can't and the ultra rich guys seem to have figured out a way to contribute very little. That narrows it down a lot. * You can't be sure of the rate of return of your investments not only from now till 50, but also after 50 to whenever. Last I knew you couldn't withdraw 401k monies till 59-1/2 so you would need something to live off of till then. In my opinion, it's extremely debatable if you want to withdraw from your 401k at 59-1/2 anyway. Everybody's different. My goals and wants have changed a lot in the 20 years since I was 50. My wife and I always had jobs that paid very well. We were lucky to have had many years when it was pretty easy to make 10 to 20 % per year in safe investments. We've been healthy and don't have any kids or grandkids living in our basement, lol. Most of all we were both lucky to find careers we enjoyed 95% of the time. We pretty much always lived such that we could survive on either one of our salaries. You'd be amazed how much more enjoyable jobs are if you can tell whoever you want to go *&%$ themselves if they have earned it. 98% of the time that isn't even necessary if the people who would earn it from you know you would do it. I once had a worthless, self-serving jackass make some snide remarks about my method of analyzing a system that was well beyond his comprehension. Things escalated between us. I zipped up my notecase, shook the hands of the other 4 or 5 people in the meeting, and walked out the door, leaving about $30,000 of a contract behind. It was worth it. I had another job in a week anyway. Think not only about when you think you'd like to retire. Think about what you'd like to do then. Not just some of the time, but most of the time. The toughest questions to answer aren't financial. They are about life, priorities, and such. My advice... You're a smart guy, find a job you enjoy, or at least don't mind going to. Make sure you're getting compensated commensurate with what you're bringing to the party. Don't plan so much to retire. Plan to enjoy working till retirement, and maybe beyond. Just one guy's perspective. Your mileage may vary. PS You're exactly right about the inflation. Regardless if Biden, DJT, Bobby McGee, whoever is running the country, if the government throws money at companies and individuals without them contributing goods or services (during Covid), there HAS to be inflation. More money put in circulation, less goods to buy... inflation!

Actually, Science decides. The gods of Physics, Chemistry, Biology are impossible to BS. Unlike what seems like the majority of the US public.

I started that course in 1978. I'm almost halfway through.

O'Connor has looked real good again this year. Should be a good one.

That would be a question for Mr "Planned Obsolescence and GDP" that was floating through here lately. I'm sure he'll tell us it's not as simple as he just wore it through.

(F) None of the above.

Yep. You're the first one to ever think of that. Thanks for enlightening us. To know what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge. -Confucius To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge. -Socrates The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge. -Daniel J. Boorstin, Librarian of the United States Congress And I'm sure countless others.

Or not...

If you ever get a chance to see Vanessa Collier, she's amazing.

OK. You got halfway there...

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." -Daniel J. Boorstin, Librarian of the United States Congress OK, I'll bite. Who is the ubiquitous "they" and exactly how do "they" benefit from having you erroneously believe something? Try to answer without the overused "control", "trampling on my freedoms", etc.

I'm not sure that's something I'd brag about. Mathematics is the most logical of subjects, but many, many other things make sense on some level to most people with a thought process.

I have a bit of a scientific background myself. I won't go into the details because then we'll just be into the usual "leftist insulting my intelligence" thing. When I watch some of these The Way the Universe Works type of shows, I snicker. There are a whole lot of assumptions that go into the conclusions "we" draw about the very, very small and the very, very large, and many other things. I have no doubt that much of what we think will be disproven in 50, 200, 5000 years. That's the way Science works. Heck, I've always said that 500 years ago, the smartest people in the world thought the earth was flat. Of course that statement isn't exactly true, but it only served to prove that we're always learning and to get a laugh. The sad part is that some people still believe the earth is flat. I don't think many of them are scientists, or have ever taken and passed a legitimate science course. Science is far from infallible but I'll definitely take it over a bunch of fairy tales written thousands of years ago, retold, interpreted, and translated countless times, always with an ulterior motive. Don't fool yourself, this is EXACTLY what this bill is about. When you say get the politics out of Science, I would say this bill in Montana is one of the biggest examples of politics trying to take over Science and our educational system. I even remember that great scientific mind, George W Bush (lol), reassuring us there was no such thing as Global Warming. Was that not politically motivated? Oil man Bush and oil man Cheney deciding the validity of Global Warming? No thanks.

This sounds like the ultimate "Us v Them" move. I'll use a phrase favored by the Conservatives... They have an agenda. I think that's pretty obvious. Easier to snooker and control people when they're stupid AND ignorant. I snicker, as anybody with 1/4 of a brain should, when I hear this "earth is only 6000 years old" or such nonsense. Questioning the Theory of Gravity? Wow! We do not know EXACTLY how gravity works and may never know. Certainly with this head-in-the-sand type of education we never would. They want to differentiate between theory and fact. I would start by differentiating between belief and fact. Without modern scientific theory, methods, and thought process, these morons would still be riding donkeys and wearing fig leaves. Pretty obviously not using computers and cell phones, driving cars, etc. I try not to paint with too broad a brush, but the picture of this Daniel Emrich just reeks of the "holier than thou" hiding deep, dark secrets. A la Josh Duggar and many, many more.