expralitemonk

A post office near me was slated for closure, but the citizens who would have been affected by this closure raised a stink and it was rescinded. This particular community is composed of fairly wealthy people who felt that it was a hardship to drive an extra 3 miles to the nearest post office, but interestingly, don't think it's a hardship to drive 10 miles to get groceries. (This town has no grocery stores.) As long as the post office leadership is overridden by whiners and their congressmen, no progress will be made.

The postal system was devised back when it was a major, all day hassle to visit the closest village. Now it takes 5 minutes and you can pick up a coffee on the way.

I met him at a book signing at the Boulder Book Store in the mid 90's. He walked to the front of the audience, and said "I'm feeling a bit wobbly today. I was recently in Texas and asked my friend: What do you do for fun in Texas?"

At this point I thought he was going to say, "And we got really drunk." But he said "So we went shopping for cowboy boots." And he proudly showed us his boots.

The conventional flush toilet requires a massive water treatment system with pumps every few miles to push the wastewater through the pipe. But the costs are hidden from the payer, which makes everyone happy.

Maybe journalists need to be rebranded into "intelligence gatherers." Not many people will pay for stories. They will pay for useful intel that isn't shared with a wide audience. "They" being governments, corporations, investors.

Interesting fellow. Earlier in his life he was a heavy-metal guitarist: in 1979 he sent a demo tape to the group Iron Maiden. (He wasn't hired...) Later he wrote a history book fortelling the decline of the West and the rise of the East, and the CIA asked him to conduct a seminar on his studies.