of the siteBrain Teasers
If you want to increase your IQ, you must challenge your mind in novel ways. Traditional school, with its emphasis on memorization and robotic regurgitation of that information, is far too easy.
In my ER sites (this one and ERbook.net), as well as Fascinating Health Secrets, I explain how I transformed myself from dunce to doctor and became what one of my bosses described as "the smartest doctor" he ever knew. On this page, I will present some brain-teasers of varying difficulty that will make your mind do what it was designed to do: find a solution to new problems.
Note that you do not necessarily need to solve any of these questions to boost your brainpower; merely "straining your brain" (as I colloquially term it) on a regular basis is sufficient.
Incidentally, I know the correct solutions to these intellectual puzzles, all of which have applicability in the real world. If you want me to judge whether your answers are correct, contact me.
1. Assume that you're just an average person with no celebrity status, media connections, or pile of money that could help you influence the outcome of a Presidential election. You're not even Joe The Plumber; you're just one man, with one vote, but with a knack for thinking outside the box. What could you have done to prevent Obama from being elected President? Please don't waste your time or mine by suggesting something stupid, such as assassination. Instead, posit—if you can—a way to rapidly change how others perceive him. Think of a way to make him go from being put on a pedestal to being such a laughingstock that he couldn't be elected mayor of the smallest town in America. Liberal Democrats would treat him like a leper, and even avid supporters, such as Oprah, would vote for his opponent.
This one is admittedly difficult, so have a cup of coffee as you put your feet up and think WAY outside the box. I considered implementing this tactic but decided against it because it was legal but not ethical. (Incidentally, it's too bad that the folks at ACORN are not equally concerned with ethics, but that's another story.) Any ideas about what I have up my sleeve? By the way, this method has nothing to do with the myriad reasons for voting against Obama that I presented elsewhere after a short discussion of why medicine is now a more desirable career. Most people vote based on emotions and preconceptions, so no amount of evidence will sway their opinions. If reason won't work, what will?
1 a) Another brain teaser pertaining to politics: After the 2008 Presidential election, conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity spoke wistfully of "rebuilding the conservative movement." They and other conservatives melancholically think they will have little ability to legislatively advance their agenda once liberal Democrats control the Congress and Presidency after January 20, 2008. Name at least two practical, legal, and ethical ways that conservatives could quickly force liberals to moderate their positions, thereby effectively giving power to conservatives that is at least equal to that wielded by Democrats. If this is too challenging, propose a practical solution that may not be legal, but is one in which the government would be powerless to stop it or control it.
Comment: While I think that fiscal conservatives are generally smarter, more ethical, and more mature than liberals (if you wish to argue that point, read this page first and try countering the evidence presented therein in a rational, substantive way—not in a shrill, histrionic manner), I am stunned by how conservative leaders seem to be almost constitutionally unable to think outside the box. Even the brilliant ones disappoint me with their exiguous creativity. I believe it was Rush who disparaged Barack Obama for never having had "an original thought in his life." That's not true. Say what you will (and I did) about how vastly overrated Obama's intelligence is, but let's give credit where credit is due: he ran a superlative campaign, and crafted an outside-the-box strategy that enabled an inexperienced politician with no notable accomplishments to convince Americans that he would be the best one to lead us in these tumultuous times. (Let's also give credit to the Democrats in general, who succeeded in pulling off what is arguably the all-time greatest political deception: hoodwinking Americans into thinking that the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac collapse was largely due to Republican malfeasance when, in fact, it was clearly initiated and exacerbated by numerous missteps by Democrats, as this factual analysis reveals.)
1 b) Lurking deep in the minds of every federal politician is a fear that Americans will eventually wake up and realize how the US government is shafting Americans to an unconscionable degree. However, that fear is not very pronounced because Americans are so sidetracked by other things that they have little time to devote to politics**. Unfortunately, most citizens fall for the campaign rhetoric and bumper-sticker slogans, making the monumental mistake of paying more attention to what politicians say instead of what they do. With that as a preface, what is the single greatest fact that would cause the 99% of Americans who don't know it to take the scumbags in Washington who are literally ruining our country and throwing all of them out of office?
Note: If you are not interested in politics and don't mind skipping some very interesting reading that you won't find elsewhere, jump to where the brain teasers resume below.
** I spent hundreds of hours before the 2008 election thoroughly researching the candidates. If you read a synopsis of the information I collected, you may very well come to the same startling conclusion that I did: Things are far worse than what the mainstream media is willing to admit. Politicians have huge egos but often no commensurate degree of intelligence; they often don't know what they're doing, and occasionally when they do, they use that aptitude to bamboozle us and screw us, not to solve problems. (Have you noticed that government almost always magnifies problems, not solves them?) Without a major miracle or a major reawakening of voters (don't hold your breath!), we have so many looming disasters that the Crash of 2008 is just going to be the opening punch in a salvo of major blows that will, I predict, ultimately result in the collapse of the US government or a civil war. Had anyone suggested that to me before I did that research, I would have raised an eyebrow and asked, "Whatcha been smokin'?"
One of the many alarming facts that I discovered is that the US government uses deceptive accounting practices to keep us from realizing how bad things really are and how they are bound to get far worse in the future—think Enron times one million. Ever hear the saying about how "Hope is a good breakfast but a bad supper"? In other words, there is a time to discard optimism and substitute a cold, hard analysis of the facts in place of blind faith that just isn't panning out. Well, the time for hope is over. I am characteristically optimistic, but I'd have to be a Pollyanna on Prozac to not be pessimistic about our future. Look at the facts and decide for yourself. Not only are we on the wrong course, but we're pushing the accelerator even harder as we head for the brick wall in front of us. We don't even have a mechanism in place that might ward off the approaching disaster; it's as if our accident avoidance equipment is broken and the windshield is so blackened that we can't even see where we are going, thanks to the mainstream media that is working overtime to pull the wool over our eyes.
If the mainstream media were doing its job in keeping politicians honest, we wouldn't be in the mess we are now. However, the mainstream media is clearly in bed with the Democrats, doing everything they can to keep you in the dark. For example, you probably heard about Obama's connection to numerous radicals, such as Bill Ayers, one of the co-founders of the Weather Underground. You probably heard about them bombing the Pentagon, police headquarters, and a judge's home, but what you likely never heard was the full extent of their ultimate plans: They didn't just want to sprinkle a few bombs here and there around the United States to protest the Vietnam War, they wanted to bomb us into submission, take us over, brainwash every American in "re-education centers" and exterminate everyone who couldn't be brainwashed; they estimated they'd need to kill about 25 MILLION Americans!
Is that all? Hell, no! They also planned to let us be invaded by the Russians, Chinese, North Vietnamese, and Cubans . . . and only God knows what they would have done with us! Obama used slick lawyer-talk to hide the full extent of his connections to Ayers, a man who can be compared with Hitler in terms of his evil aspirations. Ayers was (is?) so deranged that he urged kids to kill their parents; Hitler was unquestionably evil, but even he never suggested anything like that. Ayers is married to Bernadine Dohrn, another domestic terrorist who was twisted enough to say the following about what followers of Charles Manson did when they slaughtered actress Sharon Tate (then 8½ months pregnant) and the LaBianca family. Dohrn rejoiced, "Dig it! First they killed those pigs and then they put a fork in their bellies. Wild!" Obama launched his political career in the living room of Ayers and Dohrn, despite attempts to deny that or cover it up. You need not be a psychiatrist to know that there is probably something fundamentally wrong with a man who chooses to associate with people who advocated mass murder, killing parents, and delighting in the disgusting murder of a pregnant woman and her baby. If John McCain had ties to anyone even remotely that radical, the mainstream media would have tarred and feathered him so relentlessly and thoroughly that his political career would have been shattered forever.
Bottom line? After weeks of research, I know that I've only scratched the surface in terms of uncovering how incompetent our government is and how lax the press has been in investigating Obama's wicked connections that cried out for a thorough investigation. But what did we get instead? The press and the director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, a Democrat, working overtime to dig for any dirt they could find on Joe The Plumber, a man whose sole "crime" was asking Obama a good question. So don't think that the mainstream media will help citizens regain control of a government that is clearly out of control. When we crash into that wall, as we almost inevitably will, almost no one will see it coming until it is too late.
I wish that I had a crystal ball to see how this will all end. The writing is on the wall; the United States is likely doomed to collapse or be split in a civil war that may make the first one seem almost civil in comparison. What I would love to see, with the aid of that crystal ball, is what Americans will do to the politicians. Judging by what happened to Mussolini and his mistress, even once-strong totalitarian governments can evaporate so quickly that their leaders are reduced to running around the country like pathetic dogs with their tails between their legs, doing their best to stay alive, but eventually succumbing to a populace so enraged that its fury couldn't be dissipated by merely murdering them; instead, Mussolini and his associates, including his mistress, were hung like animals upside down from a rack so that Italians could spit on them and beat them into a pulp.
Might the same happen to American politicians one day? That's a good question. Barack Obama, the man who loves to harp about the many flaws of America, would likely be the first to admit that Americans are not morally superior to others around the world, including Italians. From what I learned in college and by reading extensively thereafter, the desire for revenge is hard-wired into us. It played a useful role throughout much of human history (before the advent of effective police and judicial systems), such as by discouraging people from doing wrong out of fear of justified retaliation. A caveman probably loved his children just as much as modern fathers do, but he couldn't call 911 if someone wanted to kill his son or rape his daughter. So what could he do? Pick up a rock and bash in the skull of the offender. React in disgust if you must, but it was that primitive justice system that enforced some measure of order and stability upon ancient civilizations. The basic principle is: You harm me or one of my loved ones, and you'll regret it. Big time.
Unfortunately for politicians, the DNA that makes us seek revenge did not vanish once courts appeared. It's still there, just held in check because most of us have internalized the idea that it's better to leave justice to our imperfect justice system than to be a trigger-happy vigilante. All of this might prove very comforting to politicians worrying if they will be "Mussolinied" (to coin a new verb), but there are a couple of facts that might dash their sanguinity:
- When people are very stressed, the parts of the brain that normally restrain aggression are less active. The dominant internal message in the mind often goes from one of caution ("Don't do it! You'll regret it!") to one focused on the fleeting pleasure of revenge ("It will feel so good to punch him in the nose!"). Unless you've worked as a police officer or ER doctor (as I have), or some other field in which you see how vicious and out-of-control people can become with surprisingly little provocation, you likely have little idea of just how savage people can be. Trust me, very.
- Ever notice how dogs behave differently in packs than individually? People are the same way, as psychologists—and history—have repeatedly proven. The slightest little provocation—and I mean little—can make people go berserk, such as when sports fans riot after "their team" loses a game. If you're familiar with engineering terms, you may recognize the escalation of their anger as being analogous to an out-of-control system of positive feedback (your furnace thermostat operates on a negative feedback principle that shuts the furnace off when the house is too warm; if it were governed by positive feedback, it would make the furnace run constantly once the house became too warm, making your home ever more hot). Now if you think that people become pissed about sports, just wait until the next major financial crisis, or the one after that, when people belatedly realize that not only are things bad now, but they're bound to get much worse. (Again, if you think that I've misread the tea leaves, I've love to compare your evidence against mine.)
Although most members of the mainstream media are less prominent, it would not surprise me to see that a population bent on revenge might "Mussolini" (verb) some of the more notable ones, basing their wrath on the fact that the media has clearly been complicit in devastating America by keeping most of us in the dark about what our dastardly politicians are up to.
What good will all of this do? Precious little, of course, as is true of most revenge. However, the silver lining in this dark cloud may be that future leaders, whomever they may be, will say to themselves:
"Screw the special interests and fat cats on Wall Street. Screw the leeches who made careers out of sponging off taxpayers. From now on, we're doing whatever is best for the great people who make this country work, because if we screw them again, we might be the next batch to be Mussolinied."
Yes, I know what you're thinking: "It'll never happen here." My Aunt Florence was an Italian-American who devoted much of her life to studying Italian culture and history. When I was a child, she told me about how Mussolini and his mistress met such an ignominious end . . . all the more ignominious when you consider how he was once revered by many Italians as being a savior and almost God-like.
Just like someone else we know.
My prediction: I think that it is going to be a bloodbath. A regrettable one, because the evanescent joy that some will obtain by slaughtering politicians will inflict a staggering amount of collateral damage upon innocent people and our infrastructure. Yes, our future leaders will be more circumspect in serving us and only us, but only the funeral directors will be the real winners.
All of this makes me very sad. When I was a kid, I was so proud of my country (unlike Michelle Obama) that I'd tear up almost every morning while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in elementary school. I believed in the greatness and goodness of our country and the people in it. I naively assumed that our politicians were just as patriotic, but the truth is something else. Let's dispense with the bullshit that politicians throw around in a perfunctory attempt to sound mature and statesmanlike by not questioning the patriotism of their opponents, as McCain and Obama did in the last election. Instead, let's look at the evidence: In the past few decades, American politicians have done more damage to Americans and America's future than have every terrorist and enemy nation we've ever faced combined. Osama bin Laden is supposedly Public Enemy #1, but I could make a better case that many federal politicians have inflicted harm upon our nation that is far worse and more enduring.
Quibble with that opinion if you like, but facts are facts. You might counter that bin Laden killed people in addition to inflicting economic damage. True, but look at the big picture: Do you have any idea of how many people die on the job every year, and driving to and from work? If they were taxed less, they could maintain the same standard of living but work less and drive less. Do you know how much people work every year just to pay their taxes? Even average folks work over half the year. While guesstimating their overall tax burden, most people overlook countless miscellaneous taxes and the elephant in the room: the 22% corporate tax that is embedded into the base price of your purchases, fooling you into thinking that you may be paying "only" 6% sales tax, for example. Politicians like Obama try to garner public support by promising to increase corporate taxes. What he and other Democrats will never say is that all corporate taxes are ultimately paid by the consumer. Therefore, everyone starts out with a sales tax that's approximately 28%. Now add in your income tax, Social Security tax, state income tax, property tax, city tax, gasoline tax, and hundreds more. Add 'em all up, and you will be shocked— and probably more than a bit angry at how politicians have cleverly camouflaged those taxes so well that most people aren't even in the ballpark when they estimate their total tax burden.
The number of people who die working to pay taxes they shouldn't have to pay will pale in comparison to the number who die in the next civil war. It'll never happen here, right? Don't be so sure. Don't just blindly say that things will never get that bad; instead, try explaining what miracle might prevent that almost-inevitable disaster from occurring.
Once you realize how high our taxes already are, it is clear that we can't tax ourselves out of the mess we're in. Now look at what Forbes magazine (September 29, 2008) said about our true national debt: it's not the $10 trillion that politicians admit to; it is really over $70 trillion . . . that 70,000 BILLION! (People went ballistic over a "mere" $700 billion bailout; imagine something that is 100 times worse!) Forbes is famous for their diligent fact-checking, but other experts have pegged it at "only" $52 trillion. This debt is growing so rapidly and relentlessly that it can never be repaid, especially considering that we elect politicians like Obama who plan to spend money like drunken sailors, figuratively telling your children and grandchildren to go to hell. "Let's not solve this problem, let's compound it by spending more so that the same fools who elected me might give me a second term. I won't be in office when the shit really hits the fan, so what do I care?"
Get out a history book, Barack. Read it.
After weeks of researching the candidates and our financial predicament, I am almost convinced that Obama is a powder keg of danger. However, I wish him well and hope that he exceeds all of our expectations. He has the potential to become one of our greatest Presidents, not because of any great aptitude (his reputed brilliance stems from him being babied and glamorized by the mainstream media; if you study what little he's willing to reveal about his academic record, it is clear that he's no genius), but because all great Presidents served in times of crisis. Ones who were equally or more gifted but served in relatively quiet times went down in history as being bland and forgettable, such as one of my relatives, Chester Alan Arthur, the 21st President of the United States (1881-1885), whose most notable accomplishment was signing the Civil Service Act into law. Yawn. Oh, yeah, he was also famous for eating three-hour dinners that made a 7-course meal seem like a snack. If appetite can be inherited, that might explain why I set a world record for eating Christmas cookies that eventually led to me writing a book about weight loss that reveals how people like me with appetites that won't take "no" for an answer can still be slim.
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I considered writing a book of advice for Obama, now that Saul Alinsky (author of Rules for Radicals) is dead and hence unable to guide him, but the chance that Obama would listen to a virtual unknown like me is zero. Furthermore, I've committed an unpardonable sin in his book: criticizing him. Obama does not seem to handle criticism well; just look at how he reacted to what Hillary Clinton said about him. Did she say anything that wasn't true? Not to my knowledge. It doesn't matter. She's smarter and usually more sensible than Joe Biden, yet he picked him as his running mate: someone who I think may have some degree of brain damage (now that I am on this subject, I think that John McCain has a very mild case of incipient dementia).
Shortly before the election, Obama said, "There's a certain segment of hardcore Sean Hannity fans that probably wouldn't want to go have a beer with me." I disagree. I think that most people, myself included, will mend fences with anyone. I am alarmed by Obama's past, and would love to ask him how on Earth he would voluntarily go into the home of people who wanted to overthrow the United States and kill countless Americans, but I would do my best to see things from his perspective (putting yourself in someone's else's shoes is generally a great way to start overcoming whatever differences separate you; when I did that years ago, I immediately realized what was the perfect antidote to racism).
I would love to ask his opinion on why he thinks that society is so resistant to change even when the proposed change is innocuous and wholly beneficial (such as why plenty of students but no educators are interested in how I went from sixth-grade dunce to a doctor who graduated in the top 1% of my class in medical school). If Obama wanted to share a beer with me (or two sips, because I'm not much of a drinker), I'd reciprocate by spending the rest of his administration doing whatever I could to make millions of students smarter and more creative. If President Obama told educators to listen to me, they would, and we'd see students achieve like never before. Perhaps I am being too optimistic, but I think that might even be the catalyst that would help solve our current economic crisis. American prosperity is founded on productivity and innovation, both of which could be vastly improved (here's one way to do this).
While I am alarmed by Obama's past associations (who couldn't be?), I am willing to forgive those lapses in judgment and give him a clean slate as he moves forward. While I am willing to do that for the reason I mentioned in my analysis of what led to the Crash of 2008 (perhaps Obama just used his many radical associations to advance his career and, after achieving his objective, he might cast off the nutty ideas he used as bait to lure voters eager for something new), I am not encouraged by the first major decision he made after being elected President: appoint Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff. Emanuel served on the board of directors of Freddie Mac when scandal was brewing at that federal mortgage firm. According to government reports reviewed by ABCNews.com, the board failed to spot "red flags," such as misreporting profits to deceive investors. Is this Obama's idea of change?
Emanuel is a highly partisan, pugnacious Democrat who is noted for his intense, combative style. He is infamous for reportedly sending "a rotting fish to a pollster who had angered him." One of the perennial Democratic spokespersons/apologists (I think it was Lanny Davis) tried to trivialize that by saying it was just a joke. A joke? Sending a dead fish to someone is widely regarded as being a death threat.
Emanuel added to his infamy by reportedly standing up at a dinner to celebrate Bill Clinton's victory and shouting "Dead! . . . Dead! . . . Dead!" as he stabbed a steak knife into the table after rattling off each name on a list of Clinton's enemies. A campaign veteran said that "the table looked like a lunar landscape" after the outburst. "It was like something out of The Godfather. But that's Rahm for you."
After joining Clinton's campaign team, he reportedly introduced himself to the staff by standing on a table and yelling at them for 45 minutes. He is also reported to be constantly spinning, gesturing, and fidgeting.
But that's Rahm for you? No, that's mental illness for you. That isn't just my opinion as a doctor. When a psychologist friend of mine heard a commentator discussing some of the bizarre things that Emanuel has done, she looked at me with a look of dread on her face and said, "He is nuts." After reading about him, she opined that he seemed to be "a spoiled brat who never grew up" and one who used "temper tantrums to get his way." Bruce Reed, who served with Emanuel in the Clinton White House, was quoted as saying that "grown men lived in mortal fear of what he might do to them if they couldn't get the answer he wanted."
Spoiled brat, indeed.
Just what we don't need in the White House: a match that might spark Obama's radical tendencies, and someone who deals with political opponents by raging directly or indirectly about death*. Instead, we need to usher in a new age of cooperation and understanding.
* Note to the liberal bloggers who might counter with, "What about your discussion of how current politicians might meet the same fate as Mussolini?" That was a prediction and only a prediction. I strongly believe that:
1) The pen is mightier than the sword—explaining why Obama is wildly more successful than Bill Ayers.
2) You can't kill ideology by killing people. Bill Ayers may not agree with me on this point, but that puts me in very good company.
3) I believe in both the Golden Rule ethic of reciprocity and the US Constitution, and hence have no desire to deprive anyone of life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness unless they first attack one of my rights. If everyone abided by this pledge to not be the first one to pick a fight, no one would ever fight.
4) The spectrum of rabid political philosophy in this country is so wide that virtually every politician is loathed by someone. No doubt there are even kooks who would love to "Mussolini" (verb) Sarah Palin, someone who strikes me as being a wonderful person who entered politics for all the right reasons. Therefore, I am not eager to let a mob decide who lives and who dies, but I still predict that the US government is leading us down a path that will eventually result in a major calamity.
5) Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should do it. If you read the brain teasers below and especially this note about them, you'll see that my creative brain generates ideas even when I don't go looking for them. For example, after watching a number of crime programs on television, I was struck by how unimaginative criminals are. They want to rob a bank, so they go there with a gun and demand money. If they want to kill someone, they use a gun, bomb, or poison. Those Stone Age methods don't impress me, so my brain, apparently thinking it could do much better, subconsciously began generating ways to rob banks or kill people near or far that have never been used by anyone and could not be linked to the perpetrator. It's not that I want to kill anyone, because my joy in life is in creating, not destroying. However, I did recognize that inventing novel yet practical ways to commit the perfect murder or bank robbery is a great intellectual exercise—hence why I posted some on this page.
As I mentioned below, crime writers seem fascinated by the subject of the "perfect murder," yet their idea of the perfect murder is my idea of being locked into unimaginative inside-the-box thinking. A perfect murder should leave even the best detectives scratching their heads, wondering not just who committed the murder, but how they did it—even if the detectives witnessed the murder!—and whether it was even a murder at all . . . or if it was, what on Earth could have caused it. Forget about "undetectable poisons," because (a) that requires no imagination and (b) what's undetectable today may very well be detectable tomorrow as technology progresses.
As I mentioned below, I've thought of undetectable ways to kill people next to me, or even thousands of miles away in cities I'll never enter, without any weapon, poison, or proxy. Every time I think about this subject, I generate a wholly new way to do it, so there are many possible methods—but why all of the criminals and crime writers in history cannot conceive of just one such method is a mystery to me. In any case, all of this is just a long preface to illustrate my belief that one should not necessarily do everything one can; a corollary to this is that people with power should not always exert the full extent of their power and do whatever they can legally or practically get away with. If Saddam Hussein had my level of creativity, he could have ruled the world, not just Iraq, and the US Armed Forces would have been powerless to stop him.
My idea of power is cutting up logs into lumber and using that wood to build a beautiful shed, so I have no aspirations of using the power that I could wield to control other people. I wish that our bureaucrats and politicians felt the same way, but many of them possess a despicable desire to do anything they can because they can.
I took a break to eat while writing this section and saw former Clinton advisor Dick Morris on the November 17, 2008 Hannity & Colmes program discussing why Hillary Clinton should not become Secretary of State. Morris said that Bill Clinton has been jetting around the world collecting many millions of dollars . . . for what? As payback for what he once did? Or might do in the future? Or what his wife might do? When an ex-politician married to a current politician collects so much money, it's natural to wonder what under-the-table deals led to it, and what those deals did to the little guys in the US and other countries. My guess is that politicians, past and present, use their influence to enrich themselves at our expense. Shocked, aren't you?
Even the liberal New York Times is questioning the wisdom of some of Obama's choices for other high-level positions within his Administration: Timothy Geithner for Treasury Secretary, and Lawrence Summers for Director of the National Economic Council. In an editorial, the Times said that both men ". . . played central roles in policies that helped provoke today's financial crisis. Mr. Geithner [. . .] also has helped shape the Bush administration's erratic and often inscrutable responses to the current financial meltdown, up to and including this past weekend's multibillion-dollar bailout of Citigroup."
When Mr. Summers was Treasury Secretary in 2000, the Times said that he ". . . championed the law that deregulated derivatives, the financial instruments — a.k.a., toxic assets — that have spread the financial losses from reckless lending around the globe. He refused to heed the critics who warned of dangers to come. That law, still on the books, reinforced the false belief that markets would self-regulate." More like self-destruct.
Geithner and Summers are intelligent men who've made major mistakes that are now contributing to the financial collapse of the United States. With so many thousands of brilliant economists to choose from, why didn't Obama pick ones with a better track record? What on Earth was he thinking? For someone who is supposedly so intelligent, Obama does some rather stupid things. Perhaps the simplest explanation for Obama's inscrutable choices is that his knowledge of economics is so limited that he cannot adequately judge the competence of economists. If Obama's academic records are ever released—he has so far taken great pains to keep them secret—we will likely find that he couldn't even master undergraduate economics.
I think that it is high time we abandoned our divisive two-party system in which Democrats and Republicans waste an inordinate amount of time and money fighting one another, doing things that are calculated to beat the opposing party, not to serve the best interests of the American public. Think of how well a household would run if husbands and wives fiscally fought one another with the same intensity as Democrats and Republicans. Frankly, I think that we would be better off with a benevolent dictator who could be immediately removed from office if a majority of voters thought that he wasn't benevolent. However, that's just pie-in-the-sky musing. Democrats and Republicans have a stranglehold on American politics, and they're not about to release their death grip until our nation is figuratively choked to death. Unfortunately, we're already well on our way down that road.
After weeks of wondering what the heck is wrong with our country, I think that I've found one of the central flaws that explains why extremists often come out on top during the Democrat and Republican primaries. To make this easier to understand, imagine a beauty contest in which most of the contestants are blondes or brunettes; the exception is one redhead. If the winner were determined by who received the most votes, the one who prevailed very well might not have been the prettiest one. Judges with an affinity toward blondes would see their votes dissipate amongst the several blonde contestants; ditto for brunettes. Judges with a fondness for redheads would be more likely to vote for the single contestant with red hair even if she weren't perfect.
Now think of how this analogy applies to political primary elections: voters who preferred somewhat more moderate candidates voted for candidates like Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, or Bill Richardson. People who preferred a radical candidate with a reasonable chance of success had one choice: Obama. While the sum of the total votes for more moderate candidates far exceeded what Obama received, the voters who wanted a moderate candidate saw their votes dissipate amongst the several moderates running. Obama came out on top, even though a majority of people voting in the Democratic primary preferred a more moderate candidate.
This Clinton-Edwards-Richardson (et al.) fratricide illustrates how our political system is inherently flawed by giving a huge competitive edge to candidates with extreme ideology. That's the problem; does anyone have any practical ideas on how to change it? If so, please contact me; I'd love to hear your opinion.
If you want to read some of the facts that substantiated the opinions given above, and if you want to gain a better understanding of the quagmire that threatens the future of the United States, read my summary. (It may be one of the longest summaries in history, but when I research something, I dig as deep as I can. Some of the stuff I uncovered will—or should—blow your mind, to put it colloquially.)
Now for some decidedly less contentious brain teasers:
2. You're a teenager who travels 30 miles (one way) from home to work each day. Your girlfriend lives an additional 2 miles away (i.e., 32 miles from your home). You want to visit her every day you work, but your strict father inspects your car's odometer daily to ensure that you drove to work and not a tenth of a mile further. Without tampering with your odometer, how can you drive your car to your girlfriend's home every day without your father knowing?
3. Let's say that you commit a heinous crime and readily confess your culpability in court. "Yes, judge, I did it. I am guilty." This crime is so morally outrageous that people would ordinarily love to see you behind bars until the day you die. What could you do to make the criminal justice system throw up its arms in exasperation and grudgingly admit that it has no choice but to let you remain free forever? (Hint: The correct solution does not involve a legal technicality; instead, it is a way to force the courts to back down for any crime in any jurisdiction.)
4. You are widely suspected of being a killer, and are in court being tried for murder. The prosecutor disparages your ethics, which infuriates you. How could you kill him in court with a hundred people seeing everything you do, without anyone knowing that you killed him? Hint: The correct answer does not involve a bomb or any similar Neanderthal tool.
Note: If you contact me to see if your answers are correct for the above two challenges, I will not give you the solutions because this would undermine the authority of the entire criminal justice system and indelibly affect the world, permitting savages to kill, rape, and plunder without fear of legal repercussions. I've always loathed criminals, but after two of them killed my father and dumped his body in a swamp, my contempt for them is now even greater. Obviously, I do not want to do anything to help those scumbags, which is why I will not publicize the "how to kill and get away with it" methods that popped into my head. It's not that I sit down and try to think of ways to beat the legal system. I just happen to be exceptionally creative, and my brain generates ideas about almost everything under the sun, even when I don't consciously think of a given topic. For example, a few days ago I ran outside during a cold, rainy, windy day to replace a piece of vinyl siding on my home that was partially detached and flapping in the breeze. It took only a minute to do that, during which time my only conscious thought was to get back inside as soon as possible. While I snapped the siding together again, I suddenly conceived of a new way to remove stumps (other than using heavy equipment such as a backhoe, stump grinders, or "takes forever to work" stump rot accelerators). The technique I invented was simple, safe, quiet, low-cost, non-toxic, and wouldn't make a mess. Great idea, but why did I think of it—and why did I think of it THEN? I don't know. A few of my inventions resulted from a conscious effort to solve a problem that I'd been working on, but most of my innovations pop into my conscious awareness for reasons that I cannot explain. (BTW, I later prototyped this idea and it worked very well.)
Update: I thought I had a good idea of what criminals are like after working for years as an ER doctor, but after watching true crime documentaries on TV, I now have a better conception of the unbelievably shocking and horrifying things that criminals do every day. This realization strengthened my conviction that we're not being as tough on criminals as we should. Criminals have a very powerful ally: the Constitution of the United States, which prohibits punishments that are cruel and unusual. I am no fan of cruelty, but with all due respect to our Forefathers who wrote the Constitution, I think they were not looking at the big picture. If you look at this from a societal perspective, wouldn't it be better to decrease the overall level of cruelty in society, especially cruelty toward innocent people? Of course! If we administered harsher, more cruel punishments, we could reduce crime, and therefore lessen the suffering endured by the victims of crime, and their families. I've read enough research to know that criminals are deterred by more severe punishments. Once the potential penalty becomes severe enough, most criminals would decide that earning a living by mowing a yard or picking apples doesn't look so bad after all. (Incidentally, this would also reduce our problem with illegal immigration, because they are filling a void left by Americans who think they're too good for manual labor.)
I have a challenge for you: If you think our current response to crime is adequate, begin watching true crime documentaries and then see if your opinion doesn't change. It is not a question of whether we're going to have cruelty, because there are enough evil people to ensure that cruelty is commonplace. Instead, the real question is whether it is morally preferable for society to inflict cruelty upon criminals to reduce their cruelty upon US, or whether it is better to continue our present policies that obviously do not do nearly enough to deter criminals from raping and butchering young girls, frail grandmothers, and everyone in between.
5. How can you lose weight without dieting, drugs, herbs, exercise, or surgery? (Hint: People who've read my weight loss book know the answer to this one!)
6. You're an average guy: not particularly handsome, rich, famous, or otherwise appealing. How could you make a gorgeous woman eagerly want to marry you, even if she would ordinarily be so far out of your league that she would never otherwise give you a second look? (Sorry, men, but the solution to this one isn't free. If you want it, consult me and don't be a cheapskate in paying for the priceless info.)
7. According to the law governing the conservation of energy and reams of experience in the real world, electric generators require more input power as their load increases and more power is drawn from them (essentially, that is why you pay more to your electric company when you turn on your air conditioner or more lights). How can you make a generator that draws LESS power as its load increases? Yes, I know this contradicts seemingly insurmountable principles of physics . . . speaking of which . . .
8. How can you make a current flow in a circuit without a return wire or other conductor to complete the circuit? (See this page for a more detailed description.)
9. How can you tap (i.e., cut threads in) a hole from the inside out? (See this page for a more detailed description.)
10. Snowmobiles, ATVs, and automobiles typically have springs and shocks to improve their ride quality (smoothness). Snowmobiles, in particular, have evolved from having little suspension travel to more, because more can give a smoother ride. How can you make a snowmobile with ZERO inches of suspension travel give a better ride than the latest ones with over a foot of travel?
11. You're a hot young woman intent on retaining her virginity until marriage. A carjacker jumps into your car and forces you to drive to a secluded spot, where he plans to rape you. How could you get the thug to kill himself before he does that?
12. How can you protect your home from burglars without the usual ineffective countermeasures, such as burglar alarms, warning signs, dogs, and lights? (See this page for the solution.)
13. How can you make people eagerly want to live in homes that are MUCH smaller than average? (See this page for the solution.)
14. Imagine that you have a time machine and set the dial to return to Flight 93 on the morning of September 11, 2001. What could you tell your fellow passengers so they could successfully defeat the terrorists and regain control of the jet instead of nosediving into a field in Pennsylvania? (Hint: They had everything they needed and more, but were too blind to see it, and too much of "inside the box" thinkers to utilize those tools and tactics.)
Where did the time go???
15. The passage of time seems to accelerate with increasing age. To a child, a year can seem like an eternity, but to an adult, a year can be fleeting, leaving that person wondering where the time went. People could extend their lifespans by following my tips in Fascinating Health Secrets and even The Science of Sex (most of the info in the latter book is salubrious in addition to being conducive to sexuality), but most people are too busy watching TV to read. (Why everyone wouldn't spend a week reading to gain additional years of life AND have better, happier, more productive lives is beyond me. If you don't buy my books that discuss those topics, perhaps you could clue me in on why illogical brains make the illogical decisions that characterize them.) In any case, while most people are too shortsighted to do anything to extend their lifespans, almost universally people would like to live longer or at least make those years seem to pass more slowly. How can you achieve this? (Hint: If you understand why time seems to pass more quickly as you age, the remedy for it is obvious.) Note: If you want the solution to this, consult me and pay $100. Why that figure? According to the November 12, 2007 issue of Time magazine (how apropos!), the current average cost of a meal at the best restaurants is $143 in New York City, $103 in San Francisco, and $90 in Chicago. If you don't think that making 75 years seem like 200 is worth the price of a good meal, you have enigmatic priorities, or are depressed and want life to pass more quickly, in which case you should see a therapist and read what I have to say about depression in Fascinating Health Secrets.
You could try yelling "Halt!",
but it won't do any good.
16. You are stranded in the woods with nothing but your clothing. Initially, you had five companions, all of whom were attacked and killed by hungry grizzly bears. A particularly large bear has been stalking you for the past few days, charging toward you, but stopping just short. You fear that his bluff attacks will soon turn into the real thing. How can you use his immense mass against him and kill him, rather than being digested by him? Bear in mind (pun intended) that grizzly bears are smart enough to methodically plan how they stalk and attack humans, according to researchers. Hence, assuming that bears are easily outwitted could be a fatal mistake.
17. You are a contestant on a reality TV show in which you must devise ways to defend yourself from attacks by increasingly deadly animals. No contestant has yet survived past Week 10, when the producers stock the island with bears that attack only at night and, atypically for bears, in packs of several animals, like wolves. The producers offer to quadruple the million-dollar prize if you agree to take a sleep med that's so effective you wouldn't hear a jet taking off from 50 feet away. You are determined to win that $4,000,000, but show rules prohibit building a cabin to fend off the bear attacks, specifying that you must sleep on the ground, with nothing but your sleeping bag between you and the stars . . . and possibly eternity, too. What could you do to prevent the bears from snacking on you that week?
18. How can you freely post your contact info on various Web pages so that legitimate users can easily contact you, but spammers cannot?
19. How can an online service help you meet people in the offline real world even if they do not participate in online dating?
20. How can an online service enable you to contact people on paid dating sites without paying those sites? (Hint: For the answer to the last three items, see www.MySpamSponge.com.)
21. How could you reinvent the wheel so it provided vastly improved traction, ride quality (smoothness), and tip-over resistance?
22. What simple device could you add to automobiles to slash the fatality rate of head-on collisions?
23. Name three ways in which you could parasitically sap the energy in nearby vehicles to power your car without their drivers knowing what you're doing. (While these techniques are highly effective, they are also highly unethical. If you want ethical ways to save fuel, read my free Gas Saving Tips e-book.) While you're at it, name two ways to extract energy from passing vehicles to power your home.
24. Without tampering with your meter, how could you get free power from your electric company? (To the best of my knowledge, this technique—and the parasitic extraction of energy mentioned above—are unethical but not yet illegal, because something must be described in order to be outlawed, and no one except me has evidently thought of these ideas yet.)
25. If the civilian and military leaders in the federal government were more creative, how could they have used the power of the Internet to safeguard our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan?
26. In the snowbelt areas, county Road Commissions are responsible for plowing the public roads during the wintertime. All counties have a limited number of trucks and manpower, so it may take several hours to a few days after a snowfall to clear the roads. Without using high-tech (but exorbitantly expensive) methods such as heated roadways, how could counties clear the roads much more quickly than they do now without using their snowplows?
27. Without using a robotic vacuum or maid, how could you keep your floor clean without manually vacuuming it or otherwise taking time to cleanse it?
28. (Based on a true story) A couple built their $660,000 dream home only to later discover that the soil in their neighborhood was loaded with asbestos, a naturally occurring mineral that can cause mesothelioma, a very aggressive form of cancer. That beautiful home is now sitting vacant because its owners decided that losing $660,000 was preferable to living there and possibly dying from cancer. Other than suing (which isn't feasible in this case), name two things they could do to recoup their loss.
29. People typically fall backward if they slip while descending a slippery slope but forward while ascending a slope. For a number of reasons, falling backward is more likely to produce injury. An elderly woman who lives alone previously broke her hip while walking down her paved driveway in the wintertime. She is now terrified of falling again, and with good reason (hip fractures are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality). However, she won't wear ice cleats, because she found those cause her to easily stumble while walking even on flat ground. She cannot afford to salt her driveway because of its length. Her mailman refuses to bring the mail up to her house; he insists on depositing it in her mailbox, as per USPS regulations. She cannot take an alternate path to her mailbox because of her land's topography. She has no neighbors or family members who could help her. You are her doctor, and she asks you what she could do to retrieve her mail without having to walk down the driveway (she can ascend it without difficulty). Your nurse is yelling for you to see a baby with difficulty breathing stat, so you have only a few seconds to think of a solution to your patient's problem. You're a smart doctor, however, and can easily devise clever solutions to problems. Name two of them in the next ten seconds.
30. How could you rob a bank or person—or even a thousand of them—with virtually no chance of being caught? How could you burglarize a home or business you never enter and don't even know about? (See note above. This is an intellectual exercise, not a Ph.D. course for would-be bank robbers, so I'm not going to help you with this one, either. After watching several crime documentaries lately, I've come to the conclusion that virtually all criminals are incredibly stupid and devoid of imagination. For that, we can be thankful. A truly clever man intent on a life of crime could do incalculable damage. If all criminals were that gifted—or even a tenth of them—it would mark the end of society as we know it.)
A surprising number of crime writers contacted me after seeing my other ER site (www.ERbook.net), even though the only references to crime in that site pertained to specific ER cases. In dealing with crime writers, I've learned that they often seek input from doctors to enhance the realism of their books, shows, and movies. A few days ago, I caught a few minutes of a broadcast showing a group of authors attending a workshop for writers hoping to solve what that program termed "the ultimate intellectual challenge": how to commit a perfect murder. Apparently, crime novelists look upon the perfect murder as a means to enchant their readers. Heaven knows why there is such an obsession with this topic, but I agree that it is quite an intellectual challenge, although hardly the ultimate one.
In any case, I was dismayed by the simplistic ideas proposed by the writers, such as, "How about injecting someone with an undetectable toxin?" Oh, come on, I thought, can't you do much better than that? Use some imagination! I've thought of many ways to commit the perfect murder, but I have no desire to perpetrate murder or any of the other crimes discussed above. I am an inventor, so by definition I think of new ways to do things. After watching a number of true crime documentaries on television while washing dishes or scrubbing my floor, I was stunned by the utter lack of creativity exhibited by criminals. With no conscious effort on my part as I am rinsing dishes or whatnot, my brain easily generates novel ways to commit perfect crimes as I watch numskull criminals exhibit an amazing absence of ingenuity.
Therefore, if you're a crime writer looking for tips on "the perfect murder" or "the perfect bank robbery," I could help you . . . but will I? Probably not. Knowing how to commit a perfect crime is knowledge that is best not disseminated for the good of mankind. Therefore, for the time being, I'll confine my creative endeavors to things with societal value. You're going to love the robot I'm working on now! :-)
31. Magicians use various tricks to make people seem to vanish. How could you make people truly vanish so they are never heard from again? You must make the person vanish in a split-second: Now you seem 'em, now you don't . . . forever. How on earth could you do that? Let's make this a bit more challenging. Let's say that you want to rid the world of every human, except yourself and a few of the cutest chicks from HotOrNot. You would be crazy to do that, of course, but this is beside the point. Purely as an intellectual exercise (see my comments in #30), how could you do it?
32. Imagine that you enter a contest to move a 300-pound load across the country, using your own power only, with the least possible expenditure of energy. (Yes, it is easily possible to measure that.) Design a device to carry the load, which you would then push or pull across the continent.
33. Assume that every square foot of habitable land on Earth has been claimed by some country. You and a thousand of your closest friends conclude that the United States, and every country you can think of, is inexorably headed on the path to hell: higher taxes, less freedom, political correctness and other manifestations of the thought police, excessive reverence for vacuous idols, etc. You and your friends want to start with a clean slate and build a new country, without starting a war with any existing country, or otherwise taking any territory from them by other means. (Even though many of them acquired "their" land by stealing it from others, today's countries won't readily acquiesce if land is stolen from them. "We did it, but you can't. The game was over once we won, and now no one can play the game. Ha, ha.") Where and how do you create territory for a country without taking any territory from other nations? Name two ways to do this.
34. Design a novel method to remove leaves from a yard without using electricity, gasoline, or similar sources of power.
35. Imagine that you are home alone when two handsome young men come to your door asking to use your phone. You let them in, but seconds later a flood of panic overwhelms you as you realize that you've seen these two before: on the evening news a few days ago, reporting how these two thugs are on a multi-state crime spree in which they steal various things from their victims before murdering them. "Leave no witnesses" seems to be their motto. What could you say to them to stay alive? Hint: To successfully answer this, you must understand what motivates criminals. Don't bother pleading for your life, because criminals are incredibly self-centered people who think nothing of snuffing out a life just for the chance to get $35 or have sex for five minutes. (Note: This is based on a true story, except none of the victims thought of how to stop the killers.)
36. Minutes after kidnapping someone, you are driving on the freeway with your victim and joyfully contemplating how you'll spend the ransom money you're sure to collect. Seconds later, you see a police car rapidly approaching with his lights on, signaling you to pull over. Being a good little citizen, you readily comply, knowing that the officer will ultimately apologize for the inconvenience and send you on your way. You're not even fazed when the officer asks to search your vehicle, looking for the victim. "Of course, officer, be my guest," you respond with a smile.
Sure enough, the officer finds nothing and tells you to have a nice day. How on Earth could you get off scot-free?
37. People who hike, jog, or bicycle in the woods are occasionally attacked by bears or mountain lions, such as Anne Hjelle. Without using a firearm, pepper spray, or other conventional deterrent or weapon, how could you safely go into the wilderness, confident in the knowledge that any bear or mountain lion that saw you would figuratively pee its pants and run away in sheer terror? Hint: The correct answer does not involve wearing clothing emblazoned with a picture of Michael Moore. (Incidentally, one of my relatives knows him quite well and opines that he is disgusting, even though she is a staunch liberal. Moore seems to actively cultivate his disgusting image by making comments such as the one he uttered about an approaching hurricane being proof of the existence of God, because that storm threatened to cause enough death and destruction to interfere with the Republican National Convention.)
38. Your wife is an avid gardener and has plants covering every square foot of your property. She is determined to grow the same plants next year, but 20% more of them. How can she do that without crowding the plants, stacking them vertically, or buying more land?
39. Before mailing a letter, you weighed it and applied the correct amount of postage. However, the post office weighed it and determined that its weight exceeded the maximum for the postage applied. Both scales were correctly calibrated and the post office did not recently increase their rates. No one made a mistake, and no one opened the letter to insert additional contents. What might explain the weight discrepancy?
40. How could you use scraps of aluminum foil to heat your home in the wintertime?
41. Name one simple, low-tech, inexpensive item you can buy at any lumberyard or home improvement store other than insulation that you could use to reduce your winter home heating bill by at least 50%. If that is too easy, think of a way to achieve the same result without spending a penny. Still too easy? Try slashing your heating bill by 90% for zero cost.
42. How could we eliminate every cell phone company, and every cell phone tower, in the world while giving people MUCH better cell phone coverage at much lower cost? Hint: You and everyone else could make money off this idea, even while you sleep, eat, or browse my many web sites. Why haven't the geniuses at Google or Microsoft thought of this one?
43. Imagine that someone offered you $10,000 if you could escape from an airtight chamber by entering the correct sequence of numbers on a digital keypad. This seemed like an easy way to make ten grand, because you were told that the correct combination was posted on the second page of a notepad inside that chamber. Once the door was closed with you inside, you realized that the chamber is lightproof. There is no standard light source (flashlight, candle, etc.) in the chamber. How might you generate enough light to read the combination so you could unlock the door before the chamber's air supply was exhausted?
44. Let's say that you aspire to become a mega-celebrity. What "take-home" lesson from the Presidential primary elections could you use to increase your chance of achieving your dream?
45. Name three ways in which you could sink a ship without touching it or using a weapon of any sort.
46. Presume that you have a deep (say, 300 feet) well with a standard submersible pump located 300 feet down into your well shaft. One day, your pump dies, as all pumps eventually do. You would like to have it fixed, but you can't afford it, and the Federal government has not yet provided "Well Care." If you cannot fix your pump or buy a new one, how could you obtain water from the well, using common simple household items?
47. A staggering number of Allied soldiers were injured or killed while trying to land on the beaches of Normandy during the D-Day invasion in World War 2. Using technology available at that time, how could you—a smart commander—have safely landed all of your men, without a single scratch?
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The Perfect Murder: From perennial crime writer obsession to practical reality
As I mentioned above (here, here, here, and here), I invented several ways to commit the perfect murder. While I never sought to devise such methods—they're just a byproduct of my multifaceted creativity and technological prowess*—I generally conceive of yet another such technique every few weeks. I previously believed that it was best to not divulge that information, but the recent economic decline of the United States is triggering political instability that may necessitate its usage. I will not release my methods to any Tom, Dick, or Harry because the ease of killing anyone near or far would likely unleash unending waves of revenge murders for trivial reasons. I once believed that most people were inherently good folks who did not need laws to restrain them, but I now think otherwise. Think of how savagely people can behave when they think they're anonymous, such as while driving or using screen names to post flaming content to Internet forums. With trivial provocation, they can behave like petulant infants.
* For example, while speaking with a friend on the phone tonight, I suddenly thought of a way to generate a computer virus that could make it past any firewall or antivirus program. We weren't discussing anything even remotely related to computers, and I have NO desire to write computer viruses (I detest malicious people and malicious acts), so why that idea popped into my mind at that time is a mystery to me.
With something that would boil anyone's blood—such as when a Goliath corporation sues David because their legal staff needs to justify their employment—well, heck, if you can kill the attorney and make it seem like a totally natural death, why not do it? While you're at it, why not take out the entire legal department, the CEO, and Board of Directors? Or why not kill the guy who wrecked your marriage? Or the unbearable boss? Or even the noisy neighbor? Can you say ad infinitum?
If someone really infuriated you, you might decide that death was too good for him, so you might decide to do something that would make his life such a living hell that he'd kill himself. While all of my perfect murder methods are selective in terms of targeting specific individuals, some can only kill, while others can do things that are arguably much worse. Use your imagination.
Incidentally, I have a high threshold for deeming something a perfect murder method. None of them involve guns, knives, bombs, or poisons because police are very proficient in investigating such cases. A truly perfect murder is something that is lethal yet looks like bad luck, and is so unusual that it has never been used before and likely will never be independently conceived by anyone else in the future. Additionally, the method must make veteran detectives scratch their heads in befuddlement, and it must not be traceable to the perpetrator. No accomplices, either. They always talk.
With that as a preface, you can readily understand why I—someone who wants to make this world a better place for everyone (except attorneys, of course)—am very concerned about how such knowledge could devastate the world not only now, but forever. Once the cat is out of the bag, it's too late.
At the risk of having you fall asleep if I mention politics again, I've recently spent hundreds of hours trying to assess how bad our economy is, and what that bodes for the future of the United States. I concluded that, without a miracle, our prosperity will continue to dwindle. That will inevitably weaken us militarily, because our Armed Forces are ultimately fueled by money. The USSR crumbled when its military expenses decimated their economy; the same could happen to us. In the past few weeks, I've been stunned to find several noted people talking about the end of the USA. In From Bailout to Bliss, I discussed how a prominent Russian political analyst predicted long ago that we were headed for the economic scrap heap and eventual disintegration. At the time he made that prediction, the US economy was booming and there didn't appear to be a dark cloud in the sky—except to people who are brilliantly prescient, such as that Russian professor.
Since this is primarily a page of brain teasers, here's another one for you: Can you figure out why I mentioned perfect murders on this page? Yes, they are great fodder for stimulating your brain, but I had an ulterior motive, too. Can you guess what it is? BTW, it is probably the antithesis of what you think. Want a hint? Think globally and long-term. Still too enigmatic? Read From Bailout to Bliss and read between the lines. If you are satisfied with where the world is headed, crank up the volume on your iPod, check out the latest gossip on vacuous celebrities, and be good sheeple. Your grandchildren will curse your complacency.
"To sin by silence when we should protest makes cowards out of men." — Ella Wheeler Wilcox
"Millions of men fought to create and defend the United States, while many millions of men and women are now watching it crumble without taking the time to learn what truly went wrong and how they should respond. Judging by how they spend their time, they think that watching American Idol is more important than saving America. The freedom and prosperity that we have enjoyed for so long was a gift from preceding generations, who paid a heavy price for it. We're now flushing that gift down the drain." — Kevin Pezzi, MD
