News and Views

A recent Harris poll indicates that belief in God is steadily declining in the United States. In 2009 82% believed in God, while in 2013 it was down to 74%. As might be expected, Republicans are significantly more likely to believe (87%) vs Democrats (72%); independents were at 70%. Belief rose from 64% for those […]

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I have to admit to mixed feelings about Edward Snowden. On the one hand, a government needs to keep some secrets, and betraying those secrets can cause great harm to the country. On the other hand, it looks like our government has been participating in some illegal and immoral actions, and from that perspective Snowden […]

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After returning from Taiwan I finally signed up for new health insurance, and found the healthcare.gov website working well. I ended up buying a policy that costs about $100 more than my current policy and has a higher deductible ($5500). There’s no copay for doctors; I pay everything until I reach the deductible, then the […]

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Climate change deniers like to take graphs of surface air temperatures for the last 10 years and claim that they disprove that the earth is warming. This is “cherry-picking” the data. Look at the following graph from NASA. If you only focus on the past 10 years, you might think that things have stabilized. True, […]

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The word “malaria” comes from the Latin for “bad air”. Before the mosquito connection was discovered, people thought that the disease came from exposure to air from swamps. Black Plague in the middle ages was also thought to be caused by exposure to bad air, and the rat-flea connection was only discovered in the 19th […]

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It’s been almost three months since my foot surgery (September 16). Two months of extreme inactivity (minimal walking, no bike riding), and then a couple of weeks of some bike riding and three weeks of lots of walking in Taiwan. Our hotel room in Taipei was on the 12th floor (oops — 11th — no […]

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We are back from Taiwan, as you may have inferred from my previous “Global Entry” post. Here are a few items I found interesting on the trip. First, it was nice traveling “upper class” in what United calls “BusinessFirst”, implying that it’s between a normal Business class and a normal First class. The lie-flat beds […]

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A few months ago Gisele and I signed up for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Global Entry program. On our recent trip to Taiwan we were able to use some of the benefits. Global Entry is a program US citizens can apply for, where the CBP does a background check on the applicant, […]

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Just before coming to Taiwan I bought a tablet computer — the Nexus 7 from Google. It’s a 7″ Android tablet. Small, but perfect for traveling. Now here in Taiwan, I found a compatible Bluetooth keyboard, and plugged a mouse in to the USB port (this could also be Bluetooth in a future iteration) and […]

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Devon, his girlfriend Xiang-Xiang, Gisele and I are taking a few days to visit a few scenic areas around the island. Here are Xiang-Xiang and Devon.

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