The Things Kids Retain

Everybody seems to think their children are brilliant.

But my sister and I apparently have a genuine knack for producing prodigious offspring (no, not together – that’s disgusting and I don’t know why you thought of it — but as long as we’re on that topic, if you know a good “Arkansas” joke, go ahead and tell it to yourself… unless you’re from there, in which case, you won’t get it).

I thought it was pretty amusing, this past weekend, watching 2 (almost 3)-year-old Jenny widen the eyes of my friends as she spontaneously referred to “John Piccaine” and “Obama” as “politicians.”

My 6 (almost 7)-year-old niece is apparently going through a phase where she likes to “yell at” and not just “yell towards” (as in, “get excited and talk loud”) like Jenny.

Today’s report:

Mom:

“I have had enough. You are going to take a timeout. Then, you are going to sit down with a piece of paper and write down how a little girl who is 6, almost 7, should treat her mom. You can do it as a story, or you can do it as a list of rules.”

Niece:

“Could I do it as a Venn diagram?”

Petroleum-Related Musings

“Is It Worth the Trip for Cheaper Gas?”

Okay... so gasoline prices have come down to less than half of their former peak. Fundamentally, I knew they would, although the naysayers and doomsayers had me second-guessing myself.

The question is less important, perhaps, now that we’re paying less again, but it’s an interesting question all-the-same:

Is it worth driving out of your way for cheaper gas?

Of course you know, the simple answer is “maybe.”

There are a lot of know-it-all people, it seems, who would try to make this a yes-or-no question, but it’s more complicated than that. (Sort of unlike the question “do you save money by leaving your air conditioning on during they day, or by turning it off?” That is a stupid question. If it is not running, you are paying nothing. It doesn’t “work harder” when you turn it back on. It’s either “on” or “not on.” You save money if you turn it off. Duh.)

Assuming it’s not already too late, I would like to respectfully ask that you refrain from shaking your head or rolling your eyes at the notion of me working out the formula for this. Fact is, the answer is less interesting than the process of discerning the answer to this critical question:

What exactly, am I trying to solve?

Condensing the question properly often simplifies the solution substantially.

Question: How much money do I need to save in order to make it worth a trip “out of my way” in order to purchase discounted gasoline?

You remember “word problems” in school? I always remember hearing people say things like “I hate word problems!” Not me. Problems in life are made up of words. So here’s the “word answer” to the problem above:

Answer (simple): “You have to save enough to pay for the gas required for the trip.”

Yes, that’s the simple answer.

Answer (simple, wise-guy): “Remember: You have to save enough to pay for the gas required for the trip, just to break even.”

How do we turn that into numbers that make sense?

I thought, and thought, and thought some more about this. I came up with several formulas that seemed to make sense, but they all disagreed with each other.

Finally, here’s where I ended up.

Answer (complex): “You will have to buy additional gas for the trip, in order to have the same amount of gas when you return, as you would have purchased locally. Figure out how much gas you need to buy to make the trip by taking the round trip distance and dividing that by the miles-per-gallon you expect on the little outing to the gas station. Add that to the amount of gas you need to buy, then multiply by the cheaper price, while multiplying the originally-desired quantity of gas by the higher price.”

Example:

The cheaper gas station is 8 miles out-of-my-way. My round-trip distance is 16 miles.

I get 20 miles per gallon.

Taking these first two, dividing “miles” by “miles per gallon,” I find that if I g to the distant gas station, I will need to buy 0.75 additional gallons in order to end up with the same amount when all is said and done.

The amount of gas I want to purchase is 15 gallons.

Local Total Cost = Local (high) price of gas x 15 gallons

Distant Total Cost = Distant (lower) price of gas x 15.75 gallons

If Local Total Cost is less than Distant Total Cost, stay home!

But what if it really is less?

Local = $1.86⁹ x 15 gallons = $28.03⁵.
Distant = $1.75⁹ x 15.75 gallons = $27.70⁴.

You’ll save money.

“Wait,” you object, “if the price of gas was 11¢ lower, why does your calculation show that I only saved 2.2¢ per gallon for the 15 gallons? How can that be?”

Ah... remember... the gas to make the trip wasn’t free. To end up with 15 gallons in the tank, we had to buy extra when we got there. We used half of that extra on the way, and half of it on the way back... and now we are still 15 gallons ahead.

And we saved a whole 33¢ total for the whole tank, even though gas was 11¢ cheaper... or, to think of it another way, we got 12 gallons at full price and only 3 gallons at the price difference we figured up in our heads when we saw the difference in price.

Hmph. Math sucks.

To make matters worse, the more expensive the gas gets, the greater the difference between “here” and “there” must be before the trip is worth it.

Math really sucks.

Incidentally, this is probably related to one of those things they taught you in school would be “useful someday,” though they never mentioned just how.

---

Reverse Gas Drive-Off?

You know what a “gas drive-off” is. It’s when you don’t pay for your gasoline after you purchase it. I suppose, if you purchase diesel fuel, that would be a “diesel drive-off,” but I’d bet that if you were listening to a police scanner when units were dispatched to investigate such an offense, that you’d still here it called a “gas drive-off.” What do you think?

The Oklahoma Pump Pirates’ Act apparently prescribes loss of one’s driver’s license, a fine of up to $500, and/or up to 6 months in jail for stealing gas, but this (along with the need to be a law-abiding citizen) isn’t enough for some people.^[1]

As you can see above — and “ha, ha,” if you don’t live in Oklahoma and this price looks cheap to you — gas prices have returned to reasonable levels.

But, as prices went up, so did the incidence of drive-offs, so in Oklahoma, now, we have to pay first... and naturally, once “they” take something away, “they” seldom give it back – so even though prices are back down, we’re still carrying our cash inside.^[2]

But a few days ago, I stopped to fill up. This particular gas station is very conveniently located to use as a pit stop even if you don’t need fuel, and has a very handy Indian casino (the “Seven Clans Little Bit o’ Paradise Casino”) with smoking permitted and occasional free soft drinks. The point underlying all of that detail is that I don’t always buy gas when I stop at that particular spot.

I went inside, did some “business,” pre-paid the attendant $20.00 (amazing – I only needed $20 worth of gas! That hasn’t happened recently) and walked back out to my car.

Having the severe case of ADD that I have, I contemplated the fact that I very easily could have gotten off on some other thought, and forgotten all about the fact that I had just prepaid for a little over 10 gallons of gas… driven off, and forgotten all about it – at least until I tried to go to sleep that night.

This, my friends, could have been a “reverse gas drive-off” – instead of taking their gas without paying them, I would have been paying them without taking their gas.

What would they do?

When would they figure it out?

How many managers and supervisors would have to be called in to straighten out the mess?

I pondered this. Naturally, right? (Fortunately, I didn’t get so engrossed in the thought that I actually did what I was think about.)

They might not even notice until the next person pulled up at the pump.

If that person were not paying attention, they could have just pulled the hose, selected their grade, filled ‘er up, and gone inside. At which point, they would say something like “I’ve got $18 on pump #6,” and the attendant would give them $2.00 change.

It would be pandelirium.^[3]

Or, if the next guy went right in to pay, and said something like “I need $30.00 on #6,” the attendant might ask, “Do you mean $10 more, or an additional $30 for a total of $50?”

They would probably send the cops after me and arrest me for causing the chaos that would doubtlessly ensue.

The lesson here is clear:

Current Rule: Do not pump your gas without paying.

New/Corollary Rule: Do not pay for your gas and not pump it.

---

“Mom, I Have Gasoline.”

Bit o’ trivia: When I was a little kid, I did what kids do. At least some kids. At least, me. Heck, I have no idea what other little kids did, because I was a weird one. Witness:

I sometimes associated things together that didn’t belong together. Case in point, “gas” vs. “gasoline.” I always assumed these were synonyms for the same thing. To my eventual embarrassment, they are not.

First, gasoline is not a “gas,” by any proper definition. It’s a liquid.

Second, the gas you purchase from the underground pipes to heat your house, heat your water, and cook your food is always called “natural gas,” not “natural gasoline.”

Third, and most importantly, the gas you expel that is politely called “flatulence” is most definitely not called “gasoline.”

Unless you’re me and you’re a little kid.

Scenario: A sudden stink surfaces in a somewhat-confined space. The question, asked by me and/or my little sister, growing up, was not “who cut the cheese?” The question was “who has gasoline?”

There is a more proper way to phrase this question, however… because a person who “has gasoline” may simply have stomach cramps, and the “gasoline” that is “on their tummy” may not escape.

So “has” is not correct. The operative verb associated with this type of “gasoline” — again, by the definition of me and my sister — is “to let,” as in, “Did you let some gasoline?”

Srsly.

And still, to this day, in my mind — despite the fact that I know better, without question — the word “gasoline” is still associated with… that.

...which is why, when I go to purchase fuel for my vehicle, I say, “I’m going to purchase some fuel.”

---

^[1] I surfed the web to confirm these details, and I can’t find it. Not sure why that might be. I did see where the idiots in the State Senate were pushing to make a law that allowed police not to bother investigating a gas drive-off at gas stations where prepayment was not required, while simultaneously making it illegal for a gas station attendant to permit
anyone to dispense gas before paying... which is pretty stupid... and typical of lawmakers. Put the burden on the honest people, not the criminals.

^[2] Admittedly, some gas stations do have “pump start” cards for cash customers – they know who you are, so if you start the pump with your card, you’re still busted if you drive away. A pretty clever innovation, I must say.

^[3] No, you’re an idiot, not me. This is a joke phrase, and not even an original one.

If You Don’t Have Something Helpful to Say...

... then please don't offer any “help.”

I don’t know about you (seems like I say that a lot, doesn’t it?) but I spend what seems like a significant amount of time “googling” for technical information. I work with a lot of Free and Open Source Software, which means a lot of the support is “community support” – i.e., you get your support from other users and historical postings in technical forums.

I just love (meaning “hate”) running into things like this.

I have substituted {translations} in place of the technical details, because this situation is far from unique.

First Guy:

I want to {set up a system a certain way} and I am wondering if {this particular thing goes wrong, later}... {this bad thing occur}?

Simple. Answering the question.

Second Guy (responding to First Guy):

“I don’t see why you would want to {do what was asked above}… Why not just {do this obvious thing which incidentally is completely the opposite and will not accomplish what you want, which I assume you are too stupid to realize} because {my idea is a better idea.} Your choice...”

Jerk. Why? Why!? Why does this guy think this message is worth posting?

The answer to the question, of course, is “yes, if {thing goes wrong}, then {result you predict is correct}.” Optionally, if the respondent really felt the need, he could have offered constructive alternatives... of course, the {opposite thing} he proffered was in no way helpful, because, as I mentioned, it was truly the opposite thing, and was obviously what First Guy wanted to avoid.

Is Second Guy a know-it-all, a second-guesser, an arrogant egomaniac...?

That those are the words that come to mind.

It wasn’t helpful to First Guy, and it wasn’t helpful to me (although my question was different, anyway, and not addressed in this particular thread).

This kind of crap clutters the forum with irritation and nonsense. Clearly, First Guy had some reason for considering his alternatives, other than to be told his idea was stupid, would you not assume?

Adding injury to insult, (yes, that’s backwards, but also apropos), you’ll notice that Second Guy didn’t even bother answer the first guy’s question!

Insulting First Guy, and wasting my time.

I have a migraine. Srsly. Maybe that’s why I’m so chipper about this whole thing.

Spring Forward... Fall Back... But How to Stop Falling Back?

My “energy-saving” thermostat has done a number on me.

I really should have suspected that it was a half-baked product when I found that in the summer, the “wake,” “day,” and “sleep” periods could be set as low as 60°, but the “evening” period can’t be set below 71°… I genuinely hope that’s a design defect, not more of Big Brother’s thermostat regulations… yes, that should have served as a warning of more to come.

Here’s the thing.

We left Daylight Saving Time over a week ago... well, all of us did except for my thermostat.

My shiny programmable thermostat still thinks it’s last Sunday morning, between 1:00 and 2:00... and for all I can tell, it will never change its mind without an external influence being exerted.

See, every hour, when it gets to 2:00 a.m., the thermostat sets itself back an hour to 1:00 a.m... and then an hour later, when the thermostat thinks it’s 2:00 again, the thermostat sets itself back to 1:00 a.m. again. It’s been in this loop for days, now.

Brilliant design! Well-tested, too. :(

It’s okay, though... really... because this is the time of year in Oklahoma when you switch your system from “Cool 70°” to “Heat 70°” and back again at least once a day. Seriously. So I’ve had the schedule bypassed for over a week, anyway.

---

Incidentally, I put “energy-saving” in quotes – not because the thermostat doesn’t actually “save energy,” because I suppose it does... but it’s important, here, to draw brief attention to the fallacious nature of a premise that I’m not buying into.

When countering the opposition, it’s important never to accept an invalid premise – otherwise, you can end up arguing a point not worthy of argument.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… this is not about saving energy. It is about saving money. It’s not about saving the planet. It’s about saving my wallet. The planet is doing just fine, and will continue to do so, with – or without – my “help.” There is no moral virtue in “saving energy.” There’s not really even such a thing as “saving energy” on any significant scale.

It’s as ridiculous as the notion of “wasting water.” How do you waste water? Lock it up and prevent it from ever entering the ecosystem again? Hide it in jugs under your bed?

Some would say that you “waste water” when you take a long shower.

Let’s think about this... the water comes from a lake or river... it’s treated chemically… runs through a series of pipes, perhaps an intermediate storage tank or tower, to my house, through the pipes, out the shower-head, over my glorious body, down the drain, to the sewer, through a treatment plant, and back to another lake or river… where exactly in that process did I waste water?

Yes… I paid for the treatment and delivery of the water, as well as for its subsequent transport, treatment, and discharge... but the amount of water never changed... I just moved it around a little bit. And, it’s in the same good condition it was in before I used it... possibly even better.

You could say I wasted money, but you can’t say I wasted water.

Simple. Really!

Lions Are Growing...

“Lions are growing like yellow roses on the wind
and we turn gracefully in the medieval garden
of their roaring blossoms.

Oh, I want to turn.

Oh, I am turning.

Oh, I have turned.

Thank you.”

— Richard Brautigan (Poet)
Charles Shere (Reader)
James Moorer (Scientist)

You’ve encountered something so bizarre, strange, and inexplicable that you can’t help but be fascinated by it... right?

Case in point.

Listen to it here.

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Is this Political Correctness Run Amok... or is it an humbling Lesson in psychology?

If you know me, then you know that I do not like to be a reactionary. By that, I mean I do not like to be like the people who get all “up-in-arms,” “outraged,” or “righteously indignant” over some real or imagined injustice before I have all of the information required to have an intelligent view on the matter.

Funny thing is, it seems like some of those same people, sometimes, don’t even change their tone when their original outrage is shown to be unmerited… “well,” they huff and puff, “still – it’s the principle!” Yeah, the principle is great except for the fact that your whole premise just fell apart… so back off a bit, okay? Catch me next time.

When I saw Roger Ebert’s blog post “Thank You For Smoking” about the U.S. Postal Service’s Bette Davis postage stamp, my own initial reaction was “Here we go again!”

It seems as if the postal service has a stamp of Bette Davis… but do notice anything unusual?

Notice anything ... missing?

When I saw this, a little fire self-ignited under my collar: “How can political correctness have gone so nutso that we are so paranoid about cigarettes that we would airbrush one icon of an era out of the hand of another icon of an era?”

Did the fear of the noisy do-gooder minority result in such a transparent effort to “sanitize” the photo?

How stupid do they think we are? It’s so obvious… right?

I’ve seen this picture before, and I knew when I saw that photo that the cigarette had been airbrushed out — and poorly, at that!

It jumped out at me. You’ve seen it too, right?

But that’s actually the funny part.

You see, it’s not quite like that.

You haven’t seen this picture before. There was no cigarette. There was no picture.

Srsly. You don’t even have to “watch the watch.” No hypnotist needed. I’ll explain.

I am naturally curious – suspicious, some would say – and as I’ve mentioned before, I try to be certain I have all of the information. Admittedly, my emotions got the best of me. In fact, as you can probably conclude from what I’ve written so far, this post was actually going to be called “Political Correctness Run Amok.”

But before posting, I did some research.

It’s always better to keep your mouth shut and look stupid, rather than to open it and remove all doubt.

I was curious to find the actual photo. It turned out to be a bit of a tricky search... but I finally – I think – have it in custody.

The closest photo appears to be this one.

Hmph. No ciggie.

In fact, if you look at the photo above, it becomes more obvious that her hand is supposed to be holding her lapel.

That’s it?

Yes, apparently.

The fact that the postage stamp looks like a poorly-modified “sanitized for your protection” photo is only an unfortunate — and comical — coincidence.

As I was saying, there was no photo. That’s why you haven’t seen it. If you think you have, there’s the lesson in psychology for you... sometimes we trust ourselves and our memory even when that trust is not merited.

The portrait on the postage stamp is actually a painting that was made specifically for the stamp. It’s essentially a fictitious portrait for which Bette Davis never actually posed. Not a problem. But also not a photo that you’ve seen. Or that I’ve seen. We do not remember it. If we think we do, our memory is deceiving us.

“Film diva Bette Davis becomes the 14th inductee into the Legends of Hollywood series on the 100th anniversary of the year of her birth. A consummate actress with a magnetic screen presence, Davis (1908-1989) played a wide variety of powerful and complex roles during her six-decade career. Her riveting performances, acclaimed by critics and fans alike, resulted in 10 Academy Award nominations for best actress; she won twice for her starring roles in Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938). Artist Michael Deas of Brooklyn Heights, NY, based his painting for the stamp on a black-and-white still of Davis made during the filming of All About Eve (1950). The selvage, or margin, photograph is a black-and-white still from Jezebel. Deas worked under the direction of Richard Scheaff of Scottsdale, AZ.”

— http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/2008/sr08_094.htm

This YouTube video shows Margo’s “monologue” from the movie All About Eve.

For a good time, check these highly whimsical alternative renderings of the portrait.

And back off a little the next time you think you can trust your own memory.

kthxbye. :)

Stick With the Facts — Why is That Hard?

— 2009-03-10 18:00 ETA: See a newer older different version of the e-mail at the end of this post.

---

Let me tell you a little bit about my friend, Sandra.

She’s very smart, very cute, very single...  and very liberal.  :(

She sends me e-mail “forwards” from time to time that tend to “set me off.”

As a real, legitimate conservative, I’m not afraid of ideas. 

Facts don’t unsettle me. 

Opinions don’t unsettle me, either. 

What does get me stoked up is the display of opinions as if they were facts, the relaying of questionable information as if it were authoritative, and people getting defensive when I “call b.s.” on them for trying to engage me in a false premise.

I apologize in advance: I can’t come up with the correct quote, here... it’s along the lines of “would you rather be right, or popular?”

The implication is that you should “go along to get along” and not put a too-fine point on accuracy, lest your friends leave you because you’re bull-headed.  Unfortunately, I’m much better at being “right” than I am at being “popular.” That is not to say that I’m just so doggone intelligent that nobody can keep up with me.  Not at all.  The point is that I value the truth above just about all else, including – oftentimes – other people’s feelings. 

My physiological makeup, as well as my experiences, and my line of business – one aspect of which is forensic analysis of technical data – lend themselves to this mindset: facts don’t lie.  It seems many people want to cast a wide net and call everything under that net “opinion” – as in, “you believe what you believe, and I’ll believe what I believe.”

Unfortunately, that mindset simply collapses under scrutiny.

“Agree to disagree” simply does not fly, when it comes to facts. Opinions are another matter: we can agree to disagree on which football team is better, whether a certain restaurant is great or horrible, or whether dope should be legalized. If I see it a different way than you, it might be appropriate for you to try to change my mind...  but the only way you’ll succeed is by giving me some facts — not by giving me more opinions, and not by ridiculing my current position.

Additionally (again – we’re talking my work again, here) a lot of people consider me an authoritative source of “is this true?” when they get something unusual in e-mail.  I’ve been researching and debunking questionable information for years. 

I have a knack for this:  I call it the “smell test” – something just doesn’t smell right.  This comes very naturally to me, and it aggravates people — some, more than others — that I am so readily able to snap to a conclusion about a lot of things.

But — and this is a big one — I don't like being a hypocrite.  For that reason in particular, I don’t like being a reactionary when I encounter something that rubs me the wrong way. 

I don’t like getting “all in a huff” or “righteously indignant” over some real or imagined harm or injustice – I want the facts first.

Nevertheless, I suspect it’s human nature – or maybe just my nature – to have an urge to launch into a tirade of “in your face” correction and/or derision. 

But, if you compare the paragraph above, with the paragraph directly above that, you’ll see that if I do indulge in such responses, I’m guilty of the same offense to which I took offense.

I value Sandra’s friendship, so I don’t want to provoke her with grandstanding and “you’re wrong/I’m right” attitude...  but at the same time, I simply can’t tolerate the kind of things in the message below.

Here’s her e-mail, and below that is my response.  See how many errors and inconsistencies you find.  The text is copied verbatim.

From: Sandra Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2008 2:08 PM Subject: FW: snopes.com Who is snopes.com? We now know.  I always wondered who owned and ran the site, but never questioned who was the big group behind it.  I had same thoughts with Wiki, factorfiction.com and others.  after finding this out I’d be careful using snopes.com as the truth.  We know Wiki is not a credible site for checking.  Anyone can change/add info on Wiki.  It is not a site with ANY cred.  Now I have the same thoughts with snopes.com and factorfiction.com.  The point is be careful not to use just one as a fact check.  Do you find the following interesting? Is it true? Where do now go to find out the truth? checked on yahoo.com, and verified owned by the two people mentioned in the following article........  David and Barbara Mikkelson -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, Stop for a moment.  Ardency here.  Sandra has committed a mortal sin of “forwarding”...  did you spot it? You notice how the top part of this e-mail looks like she wrote it? I suspected she didn’t, and sure enough, she later confirmed this fact for me.  When you forward something (if you must!) make sure you don’t give the impression you wrote it.  Clean it up, and get rid of all of those annoying >> at the beginning of every line, but leave the “From” and “Date” — at least of the original sender.  Back to the e-mail.  The change in typeface, below, is from the original message.  The impression is that someone other than Sandra wrote the part below.  That much is true, but of course, someone other than Sandra also wrote the part above.

For the past few years www.snopes.com has positioned itself, or others have labeled it, as the ‘tell all final word’ on any comment, claim and email. But for several years people tried to find out who exactly was behind snopes.com Only recently did Wikipedia get to the bottom of it – kinda makes you wonder what they were hiding.  Well, finally we know.  It is run by a husband and wife team - that’s right, no big office of investigators and researchers, no team of lawyers.  It’s just a mom-and-pop operation that began as a hobby. David and Barbara Mikkelson in the San Fernando Valley of California started the website about 13 years ago - and they have no formal background or experience in investigative research.  After a few years it gained popularity believing it to be unbiased and neutral, but over the past couple of years people started asking questions who was behind it and did they have a selfish motivation? The reason for the questions - or skepticism- is a result of snopes.com claiming to have the bottom line facts to certain questions or issue when in fact they have been proven wrong.  Also, there were criticisms the Mikkelson’s were not really investigating and getting to the ‘true’ bottom of various issues.  I can personally vouch or that complaint. A few months ago, when my State Farm agent Bud Gregg in Mandeville hoisted a political sign referencing Barack Obama and made a big splash across the internet, ‘supposedly’ the Mikkelson’s claim to have researched this issue before posting their findings on snopes.com.  In their statement they claimed the corporate office of State Farm pressured Gregg into taking down the sign, when in fact nothing of the sort ‘ever’ took place. I personally contacted David Mikkelson (and he replied back to me) thinking he would want to get to the bottom of this and I gave him Bud Gregg’s contact phone numbers - and Bud was going to give him phone numbers to the big exec’s at State Farm in Illinois who would have been willing to speak with him about it.  He never called Bud.  In fact, I learned from Bud Gregg no one from snopes.com ever contacted anyone with State Farm.  Yet, snopes.com issued a statement as the ‘final factual word’ on the issue as if they did all their homework and got to the bottom of things - not! Then it has been learned the Mikkelson’s are Jewish - very Democratic (party) and extremely liberal.  As we all now know from this presidential election, liberals have a purpose agenda to discredit anything that appears to be conservative.  There has been much criticism lately over the internet with people pointing out the Mikkelson’s liberalism revealing itself in their website findings.  Gee, what a shock? So, I say this now to everyone who goes to www.snopes.com http://www.snopes.com to get what they think to be the bottom line facts...’proceed with caution.’ Take what it says at face value and nothing more.  Use it only to lead you to their references where you can link to and read the sources for yourself.  Plus, you can always google a subject and do the research yourself.  It now seems apparent that’s all the Mikkelson’s do.  After all, I can personally vouch from my own experience for their ‘not’ fully looking into things.

My response:

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael [mailto:ardencylive@hotmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2008 5:07 PM
To: Sandra
Subject: Re: snopes.com

Sandi, did you write the part at the top of this e-mail? Hope not.

There’s pretty much no accurate information in this e-mail...  in fact, there’s a lot of ironic self-contradictory information here... 

First, Wikipedia is trashed as being not credible...  but then it’s cited later as an accurate source...  (of information on snopes.com)?!

Wikipedia is, in fact, a very credible source of information, for a variety of reasons.  It has very strict standards -- such as No Original Research (you can’t just post something “you know from experience” -- you have to cite your sources), Neutral Point of View (articles must maintain a neutral, facts-only perspective), and Verifiability (facts cited must be verifiable and from reputable sources).  Wikipedia is community-policed -- yes, “anyone” can edit an article, but others can roll-back those edits.  It is not a free-for-all.  If you don’t believe that, select an article and edit it by adding a controversial point of view, and watch what happens...  your edit won’t be there for long. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability

“For several years people tried to find out who exactly was behind snopes.com” ...  they did? Really? They didn’t try very hard.

The bottom of every page on snopes.com says:

Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2008
by Barbara and David P.  Mikkelson
The material on this site may not be reproduced without permission.

“We now know?”

What-ever!

It’s ironic that the reactionary who wrote the e-mail below overlooks the fact that if someone “always wondered,” that must mean they never scrolled down to the bottom of any page at snopes.com.

Or, you could check the registration record for the “snopes.com” domain name...  easy enough, right?

Registrant:
David Mikkelson
   P.O.  Box 684
   Agoura Hills, CA 91376
   US

   Domain Name: SNOPES.COM

   Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
      Mikkelson, David          snopes@best.com
      P.O.  Box 684
      Agoura Hills, CA 91376
      US
      (702) 988-4047 fax: (818) 261-3054

   Record expires on 08-Jan-2011.
   Record created on 09-Jan-1997.

Huge mystery, there!

So I’ll say that as for the Mikkelsons, their ownership of snopes.com has never been a secret.  I’ve known it for years...  I (Michael, the guy writing this e-mail to you, Sandra) actually corresponded with Barbara via e-mail back in 1999.

Wikipedia isn’t an entity -- it’s not something like CNN, Fox News, the Washington Post, the Miami Herald, that “gets to the bottom” of things -- Wikipedia is a repository.  It has no agenda. 

As for the rest of this...  what agenda is the author taking, anyway? Conflicting points: The Mikkelsons are “Jewish, very democratic, and very liberal.” I take offense to the person’s mention of them being Jewish.  That’s relevant...  how? They’re “greedy liberal Jews” seems to be the impression the writer is trying to leave with us.

Okay, so let’s say they are liberal...  that impacts their article on the topic...  how? Read the article.  I see no agenda.  What agenda would they have? That State Farm made him take it down because they are part of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy? Well, that’s not it...  because they cite a spokesman saying that management requested that it be taken down because they did not endorse it ...  and that Mr.  Gregg did not call them back.

The writer of this e-mail makes a number of unsubstantiated claims -- none of which would be tolerated, incidentally, on Wikipedia -- such as that “I learned from Bud Gregg that no one from snopes.com had ever contacted anyone with State Farm.” That statement is ridiculous on its face -- how would Bud Gregg know whether anyone at State Farm had been contacted by Snopes? Did he call every single person at State Farm and ask, “hey, did Snopes ever call you?” It’s a preposterous claim that could never be substantiated.

— 2009-08-12 17:30 ETA: In spite of being very weasely (which may alternately be spelled “weaselly,” if you prefer, but not “weasly”), this is not actually an example of “weasel words,” also prohibited on Wikipedia, but the word “weasel” is just a funny word and if you’ve never heard of “weasel words,” I thought you needed to. Once you’re familiar with the concept, you’ll be amazed how often you encounter them.

I agree that liberals seem to have an agenda to discredit anything conservative, and I’m sure the liberals feel the same way about us -- but what I do NOT see is how this article does that in any way.  Mr.  Gregg put up a sign.  They acknowledged it. 

The article is very straightforward, to the point, and cites its sources.  Oh...  and the whole point of the article is this: “Did an insurance agent post this sign?” Their answer...  yes.  Yes, he did.  “True.”

The article even mentions this e-mail:

An e-mail circulated in October 2008 falsely claimed that we contacted neither Bud Gregg nor State Farm about this subject.  We did in fact attempt to contact both Bud Gregg and State Farm; only the latter responded to us, and provided the information cited on our page.  Similar information was reiterated by a State Farm Public Affairs Specialist in a letter to the Teche News:

I would like to respond to the article that appeared in the Teche News regarding the political sign displayed at the Bud Gregg insurance agency.  Mr.  Gregg is an independent contractor to State Farm®, and his views do not reflect those of State Farm Insurance Companies.  Management requested the sign be removed as soon as its presence became known.  It was taken down on July 3.  Mr.  Gregg’s sign was not endorsed by, nor consistent with State Farm’s corporate practices.  The company does not endorse candidates, nor take sides in political campaigns.

Moreover, the author of the e-mail and Mr.  Gregg provided conflicting information: The former claimed Mr.  Gregg took down the sign because he received threats about it, while the latter told other inquirers he had removed the sign because he discovered the quote it displayed was erroneous.

— http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/chicken.asp

Our anonymous e-mail author wrote, “In their statement they claimed the corporate office of State Farm pressured Gregg into taking down the sign, when in fact nothing of the sort ‘ever’ took place.” Okay, Mr.  Expert, then why did you not mention what did take place?

The true irony is that people are forwarding this without checking snopes.com, Wikipedia, or doing any other research on the matter for themselves.

Hugs and kisses as always.  Tell your friends.

---

Sandra, classy lady that she is, took my e-mail in stride, even so far as to say she was “...impressed with [my] knowledge and [my] opinion…” and that in spite of the fact that “we do not always agree...” she wrote, “...I cannot disagree with you here...”

Now...  the interesting point that may be lost on you, my beloved reader, is this:

This has absolutely nothing to do with me “being right.”

People say to me, in a very accusatory way, “you always have to be right.”

I disagree with that.  (Marie would probably say, “see? You even have to argue about whether you have to be right.”)

I disagree with you, because on matters of fact, there’s no argument, and there’s no opinion involved.

Ironically, what’s happening here is the complete and polar opposite of me “wanting to be right.” The fact is that I want you to be right.  I want you to look good.  I wanted Sandi to be right.  I wanted her to have all the facts, so that she wasn’t participating in the spread of misinformation. 

I want the truth to speak for itself and I want errors and inaccuracies to be given no voice. 

It’s not about me.  It’s about truth. 

If you’ll hear what I’m saying, and accept the facts, we’ll both be right...  on the other hand, if you have facts to contradict my opinion, I’ll evaluate your facts, and change my position. 

It’s not about me.  It’s about truth. 

I know, I already said that twice, but it bore repeating.

As I remember, this was junior high school...  they tried to teach us to differentiate “fact” from “opinion.” I was frankly always baffled by the very idea that one had to “learn” this at all.

   Fact: Baseball is a sport.

   Opinion: Baseball is entertaining.

Just how tricky is this? Whether or not you agree with the fact that baseball sucks (joke! That’s an opinion!), it should still be obvious that the opinion is an opinion — regardless of how widely-held it may be, or how widely-held you might think it is, or should be.

I believe that “critical thinking” is the phrase I’m referring to, here…

Critical thinking consists of mental processes of discernment, analysis and evaluation.  It includes possible processes of reflecting upon a tangible or intangible item in order to form a solid judgment that reconciles scientific evidence with common sense.  In contemporary usage “critical” has a certain negative connotation that does not apply in the present case.  Though the term “analytical thinking” may seem to convey the idea more accurately, critical thinking clearly involves synthesis, evaluation, and reconstruction of thinking, in addition to analysis.

Critical thinkers gather information from all senses, verbal and/or written expressions, reflection, observation, experience and reasoning.  Critical thinking has its basis in intellectual criteria that go beyond subject-matter divisions and which include: clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logic, significance and fairness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking

I wasn’t taught this in school… and I most certainly wasn’t taught this growing up – if anything, it was the opposite: I was taught to roll over, accept, buy in, and then vehemently defend… without actually doing the critical thinking to see whether what you’re defending is actually able to stand on its own.

And that, my friends, is the ultimate point: If it is able to stand on its own, it has no need to be defended... and yet, it should be defended for exactly the same reason: it’s able to stand on its own.

I think I always knew this intuitively, but it’s taken me years to develop it as far as I have to date... but I call it progress.

I welcome your feedback!

---

— 2009-03-10 18:00 ETA: I received a different version of this e-mail today, forwarded to me by a friend of a known Snopes-hater who had forwarded it to him, as if to say, “See!?”

Interestingly (and believe me, I use the term in a very loose sense), this “new” version has some words added and some words deleted... so which one is the original? No, I don’t really care which one it is... but it’s an interesting insight into human nature — we tweak things... even things that aren’t our own creation:

At the end of the paragraph that reads, “...not really investigating and getting to the ‘true’ bottom of various issues...” the sentence, “I can personally vouch for that complaint” is missing.

Then, there’s an insertion:

When I saw that Snopes had falsely claimed that Obama’s Birth Certificate had been properly validated, I realized something was wrong with either their research and/or their credibility. It seems something is seriously wrong with both.

Aside: I didn’t vote for him, because he was absolutely transparent from the get-go. I, like Rush, want him to fail at implementing his socialist agenda, but facts are facts and it’s difficult to argue with the logic Snopes used in analyzing and debunking the various “wishful thinking” claims.

The next sentence is changed from “A few months ago...” to “Then a few months ago...”

Then we see “the Mikkelson’s are Jewish - very Democratic (party) and extremely liberal” has been changed to “the Mikkelson’s are very Democrat and extremely liberal.” Did somebody find the Jewish reference offensive or irrelevant and remove it, or did somebody add it? Sadly, I’m not sophisticated enough as a linguist/profiler — or whatever specialty one would be — to successfully deduce which was the earlier version.

— 2009-08-12 19:30 ETA: I was egosurfing today and came across this post. I enjoy reading good prose, and if I also happened to have written it, then that’s all the better. In retrospect, I suspect the “...Jewish - very Democratic (party) and extremely liberal” version is the earlier version of this e-mail. I’m still no textual critic, but it seems to me that it would be illogical to change “Democrat” to “Democratic (party)” because the former is a simpler and better expression of the point, considering the ironic dual meaning of the word “democratic” when applied to philosophy and the “blue state” party. The original author likely wrote “democratic” and clarified with “(party)” because he or she realized it was ambiguous, but didn’t have the mental stature to express himself more clearly (also evidenced by the “Jewish” reference). So from this apparent textual evidence, I’ll speculate that someone with a bit of sensibility edited the original “...Jewish - very Democratic (party) and extremely liberal” to read “the Mikkelson’s are very Democrat and extremely liberal.” So there.

Know Thy Audience...

...lest thou lookest like a fool.

I just received an annoying phone call. I was originally not sure if it was on my office phone or on my home phone, because I was outside at the time and the phone I had with me rings on all the lines. I answered:

“Cable Office. Michael.”

“Could I speak to Denise, please?”

That’s actually a new one… I get calls all the time for other names… but I can’t remember getting calls for Denise before.

You might be tempted to laugh and ask, “why didn’t you just ask, ‘can I take a message?’ or say ‘Denise is 12 years old… what business do you have with my daughter?’ or even ‘My wife, Denise, left me with the kids and a bunch of bills and ran off with a guy named Hank, who rides a motorcycle. Is that you, Hank? I’ll kill you if I find you!’”

The answer to your question is that most of the wrong-number calls I get are collection agencies — not looking for me, mind you — they’re looking for whoever used to have whichever of my numbers they’re calling. The most annoying thing about this is that the person doing the calling is usually working behind an automated system, so they don’t even know what number they called. Srsly! So a little fun, here, is not in order — if I offer, jokingly, to take a message, I’ll have a hard time convincing the bill collector that I was kidding.

Back to the phone call.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know anyone named ‘Denise.’”

“Would you be a registered voter, sir?”

“I would be.”

A political poll, presumably. Fine. Never mind that I clearly answered the phone as not only a company, but as a media company — the kind of people political callers really don’t want to talk to. I guess he wasn’t paying attention. That isn’t surprising, considering what ensued.

The precise words of the caller are not 100% clear in my memory… but here are the points I remember from the brief encounter:

• Some guy is running for county commissioner, and he had something to do with the call.
  
  
• The reason they were calling was just to encourage me to vote (as opposed to vote for the guy funding the call… uh huh).
  
  
• The guy’s opponent was Marcey Gregory.
  
  
• Marcey Gregory sucks, and I should not vote for her unless I want higher taxes.

Hey — that’s not me saying that — I don’t know Marcey Gregory… this was just what the guy was trying to imply, when he told me about Marcey Gregory’s desire to raise taxes, blah, blah, blah, unlike her opponent.

Well, this is where it gets a little confusing. I live in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and I don’t recall hearing of Marcey Gregory. I have business lines from three other counties (in two different states) that also ring in here, and I don’t really have a way of knowing which number was called.

So naturally, I asked: “What county are we talking about, here?”

“well, uh, sir, it is uh, the, uh present county, and Marcey Gregory has [more non-specific badmouthing of Marcey Gregory]”

“Hang on a second, dude… I need to ask you again, what county are they running in?”

“Click.”

Nice. Talk about feeling the love. They’re a telemarketing company, hired by Marcey Gregory’s opponent, to convince me to vote for him, and they don’t even know what county they’re calling me about… How lame can you get? And then to hang up instead of doing something — anything — to look legitimate.

Possible alternative actions for the telemarketer:

• Actually be in Marcey Gregory’s opponent’s county.
  
  
• Know what he’s doing in the first place.
  
  
• Look at his cheat sheet and say, “Oh — why, right here in Sedgwick County, of course. You live in Colwich, right?” (He wouldn’t be right, but that’s the exchange from where where my “Wichita” telephone number rings in.)
  
  
• Laugh, and say, “wow, I’m embarrassed to admit it, sir, but actually, I’m in a call center in Poway, California, and we were hired by Marcey Gregory’s opponent, because she sucks, and we’re calling a lot of different people… Let me look that up for you. And by the way, Marcey Gregory sucks.”

No, he picked the “hang up on me” option, which wasn’t entirely a nice plan.

I actually had to look it up to find out that it’s Sedgwick County, Kansas. Yes, I have a phone line there. Yes, I’ve had that number for over a year. Yes, it’s a business phone, not a residential one. No, I don’t know Denise. And since it’s unlikely she’ll call to check, I can’t even take a message.

Denise — call me. You know the number.

I looked at the caller ID after looking up Marcey Gregory online. The caller ID says “Wireless Caller, Private Number.”

I always answer my phone, and I never block my number, because I find it very annoying when people (like one guy I know) block their number when making calls, or (like my mother) ignore calls from numbers they don’t recognize.

I guess this guy must work for Earl’s Budget Telemarketing, Screen Door Repair, and Small Engine Service. (Apparent Motto: we poll people using our cell phones, with our ‘free nights and weekends.’”) Maybe it was Earl, himself. Not cool, Earl.

This is Marcey Gregory. You doubtless will now remember her name, like I do, but... uh...

Have you noticed anything conspicuously absent from this post?

Yep. It’s the name of Marcey Gregory’s opponent.

I haven’t mentioned it, because I don’t remember it.

My telemarketer buddy was so busy telling me Marcey sucks that he didn’t impose the name of the “good guy” on my subconscious.

But I remember Marcey’s name, and this whole incident has called the election to mind and prompted me to investigate it further.

For example, the top page of the web site of the City of Goddard, Kansas, where Marcey Gregory is mayor, contains a letter from the Goddard City Council praising her fiscal responsibility and decrying falsehoods being parlayed by her opponent... whoever that may be.

If I were registered to vote in Sedgwick County, that’s probably the name I’d remember when I went to mark my ballot, even though when it came down to it, I might not agree with her on the issues — I really don’t know.

Ironic, though, isn’t it?

— 2008-11-08 21:30 ETA: Bummer. Marcey Gregory lost. She was the only democrat I was pullin’ for in the whole election cycle. Her opponent, by the way, was “Karl Peterjohn.” Gfnnckk. Sorry. Milk coming out of my nose. Beavis would have a field-day.