Steve and Judy's Travels!

He made the point that he was 74, and the average life expectancy of an American male was 76, so he could only expect a couple more years.  Self-serving B.S.  This year I’ll be 78.  By his measure, by my birthday, I’ll have a life expectancy of -2.  It might be a true statement that the average life expectancy of an American male born today is 76, but given this guy had already attained the age of 74, his expectations from there are something completely different.  Every time we achieve another year, we get a new life expectancy.  Take all the people that have already died by that age out of the equation, and his average life expectancy at 74 is now 86.  Besides, it’s an average expectancy, not a specific prediction.

Real data, intentionally misapplied, to mislead.  Grr.

A few weeks ago.

That’s not very many steps from our house.

It was really loud.

In the context of news, it’s the tendency to ingest a perspective we already agree with.

Even without an outside source telling us, we already know how our chosen news sources lean.  The ones we watch the most tend to lean the same way we do.  Here is an outside source documenting what we already know.

The chart can be explored in detail with this link:

AP and Reuters are pretty close to the middle.  MSNBC is to the left, Fox news to the right.  Clicking on any individual source reveals more about how the rating was determined.

The chart not only documents any political leanings of the reporting but does that against an axis of reliability; is each source more likely to be reporting verified facts, or do they tend to just make up stuff to fit their narrative.  That could be useful to know.  Isn’t it interesting that apparently the more a news source skews left or right, the less it relies on reliable evidence to make its case.

Of course, to believe this chart might be useful, a person would have to accept that it’s from an unbiased source and its methodology is sound to begin with…

LBH Ranch.

There are a lot of happy chickens here!

https://vitalfarms.com/farm/lbh-ranch/

When we first moved to Boulder Colorado in 1968, we were blown away by the forest and trails of Flagstaff Mountain.  Flagstaff was not rugged and inaccessible, but small, round and friendly; right there adjacent to town.  A city street is suddenly switchbacks. 

It’s an open Colorado kind of forest with an unobstructed view.  Besides the road, hiking trails lead from town to the top.  Longer challenges snake off into more remote terrain.  In 1968 I wanted to hike every step of every trail.  I think I did.  In 1968 I was blown away.  I still am.