8/10/05:  Is there any such thing as reality TV?  It seems like it would be more accurate to call them "people with no acting experience who hope to attract sufficient attention to break into Hollywood" shows.  Every person on every single reality show seems is a wanna-be actor, or singer, or whatever.  You don't have Joe the plumber or Mary the lunchlady do the reality show and then go back to their regular life.  It's a stepping stone for everyone.  As a result you have bad actors with no script being featured on prime time television.  Who thinks up this crap?  

6/15/05:  The Michael Jackson case is over and he has been found "Not Guilty" on all charges.  What a surprise.  I would have thought that a jury of twelve people would have been able to focus on the facts of the case and not been distracted by the irrelevancies of the accuser's mother's unpleasant personality.  I saw two of the jurors on the "Today" show yesterday and was amazed at how quickly the term "slack-jawed yokel" popped into my head.  One of the jurors actually made the comment that she didn't feel it was her place to judge Michael Jackson.  Hello?  Can I get a ruling on the definition of "JURY" please?! 
     And the reaction of the Jackson fans outside the courtroom was baffling to say the least.  There were people screaming and collapsing with apparent relief, and at least one moron releasing a white dove in celebration.  OK, maybe you dig his music because it has a nice beat and you can dance to it, but he openly admitted that he enjoys sharing his bed with young boys.  He's been accused numerous times of molesting young boys, and has thrown millions and millions of dollars at some of his accusers to make them go away.  Shouldn't that make even the most ardent fan start to at least consider that maybe there's a little fire to go with all the smoke?  

5/31/05:  As I mentioned already, I don't like polygraphs.  I know some people think they are "better than nothing" or "a useful tool" but I disagree.  Check out this site for more information.  A useful analogy I came across the other day for the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of the polygraph was to compare it to a medical test.  Imagine for a moment that a certain diagnostic test for cancer had a 80% accuracy rate (which is actually much higher than the accuracy of a polygraph, but I'll use the 80% figure to be generous.)  For every one hundred healthy people that took the test, twenty of them would be diagnosed with cancer and have to start chemotherapy.  For every 100 people with cancer who took the test, twenty of them would be given clean bills of health and sent home with no treatment at all.  Some people might look at those numbers and think they're not bad - certainly they're better than having no test at all.  I suppose that's one way of looking at it.  But I wonder how many people would think that test was in any way useful if their wife or child was mistakenly diagnosed with cancer and had to go through the horrors of chemotherapy, or, even worse, if their wife or child had cancer but was sent home by the "expert" with a clean bill of health.  

5/14/05:  Whenever I watch a few minutes of "The Apprentice" I always wind up thinking to myself that if I owned a company I wouldn't want any of those people working for me.  They are all whiners and crybabies who refuse to take any responsibility for what goes on.  I would never want to turn my back on any of them.  If I was in Trump's place I'd look at their actions during the "game" and fire all of them.  You can't be a whiner and a liar and a cheat and a backstabber in a contest and not be one in the rest of your life.  Surely someone as successful as Donald Trump must know this.  And don't try to argue that you have to be that way to succeed in business.  If I was running the contest and saw someone lying in order to get ahead, what on earth would make me think they would restrict their lies (if they won and I hired them) to subjects that would help my business?  Wouldn't they also be perfectly willing to lie in order to avoid admitting a mistake or to cover up something they've done wrong?  How far is it from there to lying about who embezzled a million dollars from the company's accounts?  Is that the kind of person I would want working for me?  I don't think so.
     I think the crop of absolutely shitty reality shows we've been subjected to for the past couple of years is due to a series of simple mistakes in various network offices.  The group that sits there and listens to ideas for new reality shows does so with the erroneous assumption that all of the ideas can't suck as much as they seem to - at least one or two of them must be feasible.  So, after listening to idiots pitching ideas at them for weeks, they decide to go with whichever idea sounded the least unintelligent, which is how we get shows like "Chains of Love", "Who Wants to Marry My Dad", and "Nanny 911".  If you collect 100 pieces of dogshit, the best-tasting one of the bunch is still going to taste like dogshit.  Hello?  

5/9/05:  I don't like polygraphs, and I'm not the only one.  I had to "pass" a polygraph when applying to be a police officer, but since then I haven't had to take one.  I would be very reluctant to take another one for any reason, which automatically leads some people to conclude: "Aha!  He must be hiding something!"  Check out this link from Salon.com and this one from the Washington Post.  Polygraphs have the aura of being good "lie detectors" but they are not.  You have to make a whole lot of assumptions in order to believe that a polygraph is telling you what you think it is telling you. 
     I think the polygraph is a useful interrogation tool for police and any other law enforcement agency, because it can intimidate some people into telling the truth.  But you could get the same effect if you forced someone to drink a mixture of harmless ingredients and told them it was a "truth serum" that would poison them if they didn't tell the truth.  If the person believed you, he would probably try to be truthful.  If he didn't believe you then he might or might not be truthful - which wouldn't help tip you off to his state of mind at all.  Either way, is the "truth serum" functioning as a scientific tool?  No way.   

5/5/05:  Why would you argue with professionals who in all likelihood know more than you?  If I walked into the post office to mail a package and was told by the clerk that I had to wrap it differently or cover the old writing on the box, would it make any sense for me to argue that the package was wrapped properly or that the old writing didn't make any difference?  The clerk handles packages and deals with postal regulations all day, every day; what on earth would make me think I know more than him?  Along those same lines, it's amazing to me the number of people I encounter on the job who apparently believe themselves to be experts on the law.  Let's say (hypothetically, of course) that I saw a speeding car go by at 74 MPH in a 45 MPH zone, and by the time I could pull out, turn around, and catch up to him he had crossed over the town line and was perhaps a quarter-mile or so into the next town.  When I told him he'd be receiving a ticket he confidently corrected me, telling me he knew he was over the town line and therefore I was legally prohibited from issuing him a ticket.  He was absolutely confident he was right and would not listen to my explanation about the violation occurring in Brookfield.  He told me several times that a friend of his had told him that the police were only allowed to write tickets in their own town no matter what the circumstances, and he didn't want to listen to anything I had to say.  How much sense does that make?  His friend knows more about my job than I do?  Okay, buddy.  When I gave him the ticket and told him about the court appearance he was required to make (in order to avoid having an arrest warrant issued for Failure to Appear) he signed the ticket and then tossed it into his back seat and said:  "I don't have to worry about the court date because this is an illegal ticket.  You can't turn it in or you'll get in trouble."  

4/28/05:  For a while there was a problem with drivers paying more attention to their cell phones than they did to the road.  That problem still persists, actually.  But there's another problem I've been noticing lately - morons who pull very slightly to the right side of the road to use their cell phone.  If they actually pulled off the road I wouldn't refer to them as morons; what they usually do is pull over a couple of feet and park, even though half their car is still hanging out in the travel lane of the roadway.  Sometimes they do this just over the crest of a hill or just around a blind curve.  They often do it when they are within a few feet of a parking lot of other similar clear area that would enable them to get completely off the road.  When I walk up to their car and ask them if they are blocking the road and creating a traffic hazard because they are broken down they tell me that they're merely talking on their cell phone, then they self-righteously add that they're not one of those people who talk on their cell phone while driving - they're much too safe to do that.  Hooray for them.  They're probably the same people who paid $15 a pop on the Internet for packets of dehydrated water from Hong Kong.