By Jim Willis on Dec 20, 2007 in Society & Culture | 1 Comment
To all my Democrat friends:
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion [...]
By Jim Willis on Dec 19, 2007 in Society & Culture | 1 Comment
Warning: To avoid embarrassing yourself, please stop right now and close the door, or wait until you’re alone before reading the rest of this post. Why? Because if you’re like me, you may just laugh out loud, thereby drawing curious stares from those around you.
Here’s the setup: Periodically, a militant vegetarian (sometimes called [...]
By Jim Willis on Dec 18, 2007 in Education, Gov Eliot Spitzer, Government & Politics, Taxes & Spending | 1 Comment
Only in New York would you find a state facing a $4 BILLION budget gap, and a recommendation from the governor’s own appointed education panel to spend an ADDITIONAL $3 BILLION on our public university system. Let’s see, back when I went to school, 4+3=7. So $7B in the hole is better than $4B in [...]
By Jim Willis on Dec 17, 2007 in This Site | 0 Comments
In an ongoing effort to make this blog easy to use and navigate, I’ve introduced two more new features:
1. Printable versions of articles. From time to time when I read blogs and websites, I want to print something out so I could read it over later, or perhaps pass it on to someone else. With [...]
By Jim Willis on Dec 16, 2007 in Movies, Reviews, Society & Culture | 2 Comments
Talk about adding insult to injury. I’ve just had a look at box office revenue figures for this weekend. The Golden Compass (see my previous thoughts on this movie) earned a paltry $9M in revenue, for a total take of $41M since opening two weeks ago.
By comparison, Alvin and the Chipmunks earned $45M–in its first [...]
By Jim Willis on Dec 13, 2007 in Government & Politics, Society & Culture | 11 Comments
Some who read this blog are friends and family in far flung locations, so you likely don’t read the Press & Sun-Bulletin, our local newspaper, nor the “story chats” posted online. Story chats allow readers to post their thoughts about a particular story, add new information, or engage in spirited debates with other readers. As [...]
By Jim Willis on Dec 12, 2007 in Business, Government & Politics, Taxes & Spending | 13 Comments
The Public Policy Institute of New York State reports this cheery news: New York is the second most costly state in the nation for businesses. The most costly state? Hawaii, which is separated from the mainland by half an ocean.
The Institute uses the following criteria when making its evaluation: average annual wages, cost of electricity, [...]