How the Pandemic Should Have Been Handled

Both Democrats and Republicans share in the failure to manage the Covid-19 pandemic.

Both Democrats and Republicans have argued that the United States isn't handling the pandemic well. It's easy to blame the Trump administration for their failures because the man in charge is a man who has no idea of how run anything but his mouth. But Congress was always in a position to do something. From where I sit they have devoted most of their energy to posturing and trading insults and injuries.

Our Founding Fathers were Socialists, So Why Aren't We?

The men who founded the United States of America were socialists.

The United States was born out of socialism. We may have been the second socialist country in modern history after Switzerland. Unlike nations ruled by monarchies, our constitution declares that "we the people" own everything our government owns: roads, buildings, arms and munitions, ships, etc. We're socialists through and through and yet the modern debate over socialism pretends we are something else.

The Real History Behind Great Fairy Tales

Petrus and Catherine Gonsalvus may have been the real inspiration for "Beauty and the Beast".

Who doesn't love a great story? People have been telling stories since Grunk first met Ulgo around a campfire. Stories are the stuff of legend. Or something like that. You know what I mean. We love a good story. A lot of fairy tales are really good stories. That is why they make such good Disney movies. I've been doing a little research and I've learned about the real history behind some fairy tales and legends. It's interesting stuff.

How to Invest in Movie Studios

If you want to invest in movie studios, you probably wan to start with entertainment ETFs.

Every time I go to the movies to see a big blockbuster film I wonder who owns these companies. You know that Disney and Sony and all those guys are publicly traded companies. But who are their stockholders? They say the most expensive companies in the world are owned by large mutual fund investors, private pension plans, and such. So how do you get a piece of that action if you are not a millionaire?

Why Would Space Aliens Visit Earth?

Alien abduction stories are crazy but if they are real the aliens must have a reason to grab people.

My family got together to celebrate Dad's birthday a couple weeks ago. We watched "Battle Los Angeles" starring Aaron Eckhart. I feel like he's an underrated actor. The whole family really enjoyed this movie. We had a long discussion about how realistic it might be. The whole question is why would aliens invade Earth. In the movie some scientist says they may have come for the water but there's water everywhere in the Solar System. If they came from another star why not just stop in the icy cloud running around the Solar System and get their water there?

My Global Warming Fantasies

Burning forests are a Biblical prophecy. Every time I hear about a forest fire I think of that.

Do you think about climate change when you're not reading the news? We all see the headlines about the polar bears and the ice caps. But when you're driving down the road on your way to work or the store, do you think, "I'm burning gas, releasing carbon into the air?" I don't but sometimes I feel like I should. We use energy-saving devices, cut down on our driving, and have talked about getting an electric car. But I feel like we should be doing more about global warming.

Things My Daddy Didn't Tell Me About Games

It's just a game, right? We should play games but not take them too seriously.

It doesn't matter what kind of games you play there is always something new to learn. I must have played Scrabble for 15 years before I heard that game is played in dozens of languages with different tile sets. I just always assumed everyone used the same tiles. But there is a science between Scrabble tile selections. Another interesting fact I learned only a few years ago is that 4-suited playing card games originated in China sometime in the 900s. We've been playing these games for over a thousand years!

Plucking Success from the Grip of Failure

You may not have much appreciation for just how expensive software development is but it is one of the major factors of business development expenses for many different industries.  In 1995 a company called The Standish Group published a fascinating in-depth study of major software projects that failed.  One of those projects was a joint effort by American Airlines, Hilton Hotels, Marriott Corporation, and Budget Rent-A-Car to develop a revolutionary reservation system that would service all their customers' needs.  One of the project leaders was Nicholas Bredimus, then President of AMR Travel Services (an American Airlines subsidiary).