Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 271
February 3, 2015
What caused the housing bubble
The collapse of the housing market a few years ago was caused, reportedly, by predatory lending practices on people who couldn’t really afford to buy a house, coupled with shady investment instruments from the world of high finance. But a new study is questioning that conventional wisdom. Most of the people with bad loans turn [Read More...]
Marijuana without the high
Lots of people have been hailing the medical uses of marijuana, leading a number of states to legalize the drug if you have a prescription. Now Israeli researchers (Israel being the world’s leader in research into medical marijuana) has developed a strain that gives the medical benefits without that unfortunate side effect of the “high.” [Read More...]
February 2, 2015
The dissolution of religious institutions
In an article about a prominent non-denominational pastor who has decided that he needs to go to seminary, the writer, Michelle Boorstein, discusses non-denominational churches as an example of the larger phenomenon of “the dissolution of religious structures.” Now we usually think of the decline of religious institutions in our culture in terms of fewer [Read More...]
Mitt Romney won’t run
Though some polls showed that he would be a front-runner and though he has been acting and talking like a candidate, Mitt Romney said that he won’t be running for president in 2016. Who else should make the same decision? From News from The Associated Press: Mitt Romney ended his rollercoaster return to presidential politics [Read More...]
The Eight Human Truths of Impulse
Candy sales have been soaring ever since marketers started putting their wares by checkout counters. Such “impulse buying” increases the longer customers have to wait in line to get to the cash register. Now, though, self-service checkout, online retailing, and other technological developments mean that consumers are spending less time in checkout lines, which manifests [Read More...]
January 31, 2015
The Cranach Super Bowl party!
You are all invited to the Cranach Institute virtual Super Bowl party! It will be located at this blog and it will last all weekend. Please bring your own food and beverages. The Green Bay Packers, my team, were 5 minutes away from getting to go to the Super Bowl when the Seattle Seahawks made [Read More...]
Does God determine who wins the Super Bowl?
Last year a respected research institute found that 50% of sports fans believe supernatural forces are at work in sporting events. That includes 19% who believes that God determines the outcome, 26% who pray for their team to win, and 25% who believe their team has been cursed. More recently it’s been reported that 25% [Read More...]
Live-blog the Super Bowl
Here is where you can comment on the Super Bowl as the game is unfolding. Comment on the plays, analyze what you see happening, complain about mistakes, talk trash, get into sports arguments, whatever you want.
Live-blog the Super Bowl commercials
A curious development in the history of the NFL championship game has been the role of commercials. Viewership is so huge for the big game that ad agencies have been going all-out to come up with the best commercials they can devise. So commercials have become themselves a beloved part of the festival. And for [Read More...]
January 30, 2015
Saturday’s special edition
Tune in tomorrow for a special edition of this blog, a rare Saturday posting! (Want to guess what it will be about?)
