Category: opinions
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Chocolate Ratings
I like chocolate. It’s probably my favorite sweet. Closing in on 50 years old, I came up with a new life goal – try as many types of chocolate as I can, rate them, and see if I can find my favorite chocolate. This page documents my ratings. Milk Chocolate Dark Chocolate White Chocolate (coming…
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National Youth Leadership Forum-Engineering & Rice Elite Tech Camp
I posted previously about National Youth Leadership Forum (NYLF) and its extremely expensive summer camps. In that post, I detailed what the camps included and that, from my perspective as a college professor, the camps did not seem worth the money involved. Of course, I cannot call these camps “scams” because you are getting something…
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Nexis Uni – Date Search Limited to 1 Year, No Issue Browsing, and No Obituaries
I’m a college professor. As a result, I have access to a number of research resources that most people don’t have, including my university’s library, which subscribes to numerous databases to help me and my colleagues (and our students) with our research. I was looking for some very specific information from the Los Angeles Times…
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Unethical Amazon Review Modifications
I don’t always review products on Amazon. I don’t have the time. But there have been two instances over the past year when I have been contacted by someone because of a review I wrote on Amazon. Both times, these individuals have tried to bribe me to remove my negative review of the product. Here’s…
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Letter to the Editor: Government of the Corporations, by the Corporations, for the Corporations
While accepting “donations” for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars from lobbyists, corporations, and special interests may technically be legal for Governor DeSantis, there is no question that is unethical. These are “bribes by another name.” And what they suggest is that our Governor is not the Governor of the people of Florida, but…
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Letter to Stacy White, County Commissioner
Stacy White, Hillsborough County Commissioner, filed a lawsuit that is preventing Hillsborough County from improving its transportation infrastructure based on a ballot measure that was approved by 57% of voters in November 2018 (more about this here). Here’s the email I recently sent him: Commissioner White, I want to let you know that I’m really…
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Letter to the Editor: Ashley Moody’s mixed up priorities
I find it more than a little concerning that Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody wants to kill a petition drive to ban assault weapons (Ban Assault Weapons Now) but hasn’t said anything about the secretive effort to restrict constitutional amendments that is possibly being funded by utility companies in Florida. If Moody cared about Floridians…
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Letter to the Editor – Gun Control Laws
Attorney General Ashley Moody filed a brief with the Florida Supreme Court opposing a state constitutional amendment banning assault weapons on Friday, July 26th. That was two days before a young man opened fire at a festival in California, killing three people and injuring a dozen more with an assault rifle he purchased legally. AG…
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Disingenuous Christian Proselytizing
I get a lot of emails. I try to answer all of my emails but am increasingly realizing that some of it may not be worthy of a response. For instance, a few days ago I received an email from someone claiming to have listened to a podcast I did. Here’s what he wrote: Hi…