Category Archives: Social Commentary

Business, General, Law, Social Commentary, Technology and Society, Weird

Am I “Able” to Open the Exit-Row Door?

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OK, this post reminds me of a conversation I had Friday night on the flight I managed to escape to (not “from,” despite the movie) LA last night.

I’d gotten the ticket with miles, because the last-minute prices to DC were nuts, the only way to do so was to (a) go out of IAD instead of DCA and (b) fly into SNA (John Wayne Airport in Orange County) instead of LAX. Thursday, I asked American if I could change it by going same-day standby, and they said, sure, if you want to burn more miles. So I was resigned to going to Dulles, and flying into Orange County, and Patricia picking me up there, with at least a 45-minute drive each way.

Fortunately, God (or whoever controls the weather) intervened, and my flight from IAD was delayed sufficiently that I missed my connection to SNA, and managed to get reassigned to a flight that went to LAX, with no penalty.

So I’m in an exit row on the flight, and the flight attendant comes by with the usual FAA-required question: “Are you willing and able to assist in opening the door in the case of an emergency?”

I’d been asked this question before in similar situations, but this time, I realized that I couldn’t say “yes” with any honesty. Because I had never actually opened an emergency door. Sure, I’d read the instructions, but had I ever done it? No.

So I said to the flight attendant (because I can occasionally be a pain in the ass from my pedantry, and it had been a long day), “Well, sure, I’m willing, but how can I know that I’m ‘able’? I’ve never done it before.”

There was an American captain sitting next to me, dead heading, and I said, “I’d bet no one in this row, except him, has ever opened an emergency door in an aircraft, so when you ask us if we’re able, there’s no way for us to know.”

The flight attendant is now flustered, and asks if I want to be moved.

“No, I’m sort of kidding, but it’s not a useful question, despite the FAA rules. What you should be asking is if I’m willing and have sufficient strength. I am and do. But none of us know if we are able, and we all hope that we don’t have to find out.”

Education, Media Criticism, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Kate McKinnon’s Impressions Of Democrat Candidates

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These are actually pretty good, but it feeds a pet peeve: “…if you think we’re going to beat Donald Trump by just having all these plans, you’ve got another thing coming.”

That’s the transcript, and to my ear, it sounds accurate (in that it was what McKinnon actually said, and isn’t a bad transcript). Maybe she was saying that Williamson would have said that, but I suspect that it’s what she thinks the expression is.

No, sorry, people, it’s “…another think coming.” “Another thing coming” makes no sense at all. Note the word that starts the sentence.

The people who say that do it because they think that’s the proper expression, regardless of how little sense it makes, because when they’ve heard it, they munge the ending “k” of “think” with the beginning “c” of “coming” in their ears and therefore thingthink that people are saying “thing.”

Administrative, Health, Social Commentary, Weird

My Close Call With The Ambulance

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Anyway, feeling much better today. Just sore left arm, like I’d been overdoing something with it yesterday. Which in a sense, I had been.

Business, Culinary, Economics, Education, General Science, Health, Media Criticism, Popular Culture, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Those “Impossible” Burgers

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It may be a surprise to some, but not to me, that they are neither healthier for the eater or for the environment.

I’d like to eat actual lab-grown meat, but it has to be cost effective, and nutritionally equivalent to the stuff on the hoof (or claw).

[Update a couple minutes later]

In reading, as is often the case, part of the health claim derives from the false notion that eating “red meat,” and particularly saturated fat, is unhealthy. There is zero scientific evidence for either. So they’re basically proposing to replace something humans have been eating since the dawn of humanity with some lab-produced glop about which we are completely ignorant of its nutritional effects.

Education, General Science, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

The “Republican” Brain

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A refutation of a stupid thesis (including a dumb book by Chris Mooney). If I had time, I’d write a book called “The Democrats’ War On Science.” It would have a more solid basis than Mooney’s.

Oh, and this once again puts paid to the notion of “peer review” as having any value.

[Update a few minutes later]

“Consensus,” and politics disguised as science.

https://twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/1142073634028044288