October 11, 2012

How soon is very soon? Not soon enough

El Cabrero has been a terribly inconsistent blogger these days. I'm out of state at a staff retreat, and staff retreats in my organization are kind of like endurance events...minus the health benefits.

However, this tantalizing bit of news can't go by uncelebrated. Ken Ward reports in the Charleston Gazette that additional federal indictments related to Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine disaster, which killed 29 coal miners in West Virginia in April 2010, will be forthcoming "very soon."

Previously, the federal prosecutor said that indictments were coming "soon." That was a few weeks back if memory serves.

I'm hoping the "very soon" is much sooner than "soon." It can't come soon enough for me. I feel like a little kid on a long car trip. Are we there yet?

ON THAT NOTE, here's a related story.

JUST DO IT. Here you can learn nearly 130,000 good reasons why expanding Medicaid would be good for WV

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

October 09, 2012

Theory and experience

I've read through many tomes and scientific treatises that dismiss the idea of free will as a fantasy. I can readily admit that human freedom is constrained by things like genetics, conditioning, experience and social situations but somehow I can't completely give up the notion. 

I thought about this again, freely or not, whilst perusing James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, in which the  latter said, "All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it." I think I'm in the experience column.

Note: I'm about to hit the road for a while so posts will be irregular.

INEQUALITY. Here's another look at why it matters.

URGENT SMART SLIME MOLD UPDATE here.


GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED