Early Retirement for Injured Federal Employees
Who is the greatest fraud of all time? Of whom do we consider a “fraud”, and what is the criteria upon which we compare and determine the final judgment? Certainly, many would include Bernie Madoff in that category; but what of tricksters and hoaxes that will have you believe in magical powers of levitation, bending spoons and non-invasive surgeries? Is the greater hoax based upon the sheer number of believers, […]
It is nature’s way of getting rid of the old and replacing it with the new. Sometimes, however, nature is slow in its processes and the environment surrounding doesn’t quite keep pace with the steady progress of unresponsive mechanisms — as in the horse’s winter coat that remains for weeks despite the sudden heat wave that overtakes the region. […]
We enter into a race; we finish in the bottom third. We take a course for advancement of learning; we barely pass the final exam. We often ask ourselves throughout the montage of life’s challenges: Is that the best we can do? Sometimes, the answer is a quiet but simple, “Yes”; at other points, perhaps it is a time for reassessment and revamping of the approach, the methodology, and even the key ingredients of who we are. Self-congratulatory utterances and inane emptiness of self-esteeming servitude has often been described as the enemy of modernity. […]
We all have them; we just never like to admit them to others (which, of course, becomes unnecessary and an irrelevancy if one has a spouse, who is more than willing with energetic bluntness and zeal to volunteer as the one to point them out, quite vocally at that, and without a hint of jealousy at not having them, and with a fury of warning looks darting at crosswinds if one dares to suggest otherwise). Whether by deep in the recesses of forgotten caverns of childhood psyche damaged in the whirlwinds of growing up, or infected by osmosis by bad company in good times, we will never know. […]
The difficulties inherent in deriving universal truths from particular observations have been annotated throughout the history of logical analysis, from Hume to Popper, and continue to haunt attempts at scientific certitude. That probabilities can be imputed, as opposed to arriving at undeniable conclusions, allows for that “wiggle room” which is the hallmark of modern science. Today, where the intersection and commingling of science, politics and entertainment requires less than rigorous experimental verification, and where drug companies argue for fast-tracking of medications with limited-to-little trials, even of “controlled” ones […]