Not Necessarily Front Page News

Greetings Readers,

I have not been able to write a new article for some time now but I am not giving up the blog. I have been keeping notes and have quite a list of articles I plan to write. In addition some of you have made requests for articles you would like to see and I am considering those too.

A preview of what is around the corner: UFOs vs Flying Saucers, Why Americans Suck, Ghosts are Real (but what are they really?), Religion/Atheism/Humanism, Modern Language, Mail Order Brides, Bigfoot, Michael Moore, Abortion, Black African Americans, State of Fear (the US Media), Why guns are good, and so much more!

I hope you check back regularly. I will make an effort to make a status update in Facebook whenever I post an article but you might miss the update. Lately I have been putting a lot of my efforts into getting healthier (mentally and physically), going back to school full time to complete a BS in English, and working on my novel. In addition I am holding on to a part time job so I can pay all my bills. This blog is still important to me though and building an audience (no matter how small) is something that is also very important to me. So please take a moment and recommend my blog to anyone you know who might enjoy a little bit of intellectual stimulation.

In closing, I need to mention that most of my forthcoming articles will be opinion pieces. My previous articles essentially set the ground work for how I look at things, my attention to being unbiased, factually truthful, and using a wide range of sources. Having said that, I am still learning and have so much to learn yet. So some of my articles might seem a bit immature. If that is the case then please take a few moments to write an intelligent rebuttal (or critique or follow up) to any article to help guide me in my journey for truth and understanding. My overall goal with this blog is to collect enough articles to put together a non-fiction guidebook on thinking and seeing the world more clearly. Along those lines my ulterior motives are to make the world a better place - even if it means facing some truths many of us might wish to avoid.

Cheers,
Todd

How Many Sides Does a Coin Have?

One of the issues we find ourselves floundering with in the age of information is that we have too much information. We are literally being swallowed up and distracted by an overwhelming amount of data. Our internal filters are flooded and our thoughts so bombarded we hardly have the time to establish what information is true, false, lies or non-truths. Just because we are drowning in a pool of knowledge does not mean we should stop learning or thinking. On the contrary we need to use our heads more than ever!

Several years ago I found myself reaching the breaking point. I had a mid-life crisis of the intellect. I realized that from a philosophical stand-point nothing was real and nothing was true. Needless to say depression ensued. I had to find solid ground or I felt I might go insane. After analyzing my thoughts and searching the world for patterns (and a bit of therapy) I deduced that it would be a fair thing to say that the world would still exist if I was no longer here. That I had to accept reality as it is and move on. That no matter what information I had been given and no matter who gave me the information facts must exist. Once I reached that point it became clear that I needed to do several things in order to survive intellectually:

·        Be completely and totally open-minded to any idea, thought, perception or piece of information.

·        Always have a healthy dose of cynicism in regards to everything I learn and encounter.

·        Never assume I know everything

·        Never assume any single source of information is infallible

Once I reached the point where I could center myself intellectually and look at the world with open but intelligent eyes, a lot of things simply began to make sense to me. At the same time many things I had taken for granted became foreign and intelligible. I had always been one who loved to read and to learn, but after opening my eyes I realized it was not enough and that much of what I had learned growing up was simply wrong.

During these times of self reflection I began using a system of research which would help me to learn new things without getting lost in a world of non-truths and lies. Whenever learning about a piece of information I would approach it as if it were a coin.

How many sides does a coin have? If you answered two then I think you need to dig out a coin and look it over. Coins actually have three surfaces or sides. You could call them top, bottom and middle; perhaps left, right and center; or just say, “Heads, tails and edge.” No matter how you look at it there really are three sides and not two.

Any piece of information is the same in its most deducible form. There is what you know, what someone else knows, and what may be true or common knowledge. In order to learn about that particular item you need to research all three sides. A lot of people will generally settle on one side or another and forget about the rest. For example you might be told a piece of information by someone in authority or someone you trust. That does not mean the information is a fact, it very well might be false or a lie or even a non-truth.

Whenever encountering a new piece of information think about it, chew on it in your mind for a little bit. Do not be afraid of asking questions and never rely on one single source for information. When you really begin to think about things and view them from different angles you will develop an ability to have confidence in what might readily be true or false. But keep in mind that you do not know everything. In fact, there is not a single person living or dead that knows everything.

Using the coin analogy when approaching sources will also help you in getting to the truth of the matter and reducing thinking errors. Let’s use a famous battle for example: The Battle of the Bulge. When it comes to what happened during that battle there are still at least three sources of information:

1) The winners of the battle have their version of events.

2) The losers of the battle have their version of the events.

3) The factual (true) events of the battle, i.e. what really happened.

It can be very difficult to get to the facts – just look at events such as Roswell or John F. Kennedy’s assassination. More theories seem to exist about these events than facts! No matter what information is in the public it remains that somewhere there are facts, we just have to find them; until we can find them though we will be stuck in clouds of misinformation.

As I try to understand a new piece of information or to review something I might already know I will use a variety of sources. Getting onto the Internet and visiting a dozen different sites does not constitute a variety of sources by the way. I have noted a tendency for example that something might get published on Wikipedia and then several alternate sites will copy that info and use it themselves. Although Wikipedia has very good information, it should never be used as a single source. Recently I was researching a specific topic and found five instances of “documentation” on the Internet supporting what I had learned. After reading each document though it was very clear that all of them were word for word copies of a Wikipedia entry. So please keep in mind that no matter how useful the Internet is, it should never be your only source.

Whenever looking at historical events try to find whatever original documentation might be available. If only one or two sources exist and they state essentially the same thing it is safe to say you are not getting all three sides of the coin. Finding contradictory information is the best way to get on the path of finding out the facts of an issue. And no matter what information you might find do not forget your strongest tool – your own brain. Think about what you are reading and learning. Apply your knowledge and experience to it. And always remember, no matter how much you learn on any given topic you will never know everything.

Truth vs. Non-truth

There is a tendency to view the term “true” to be equal to “fact” whereas “false” would equal “fiction.” I have no debate with this use of the words but I have noted a tendency to deviate from this usage in common parlance. Specifically, in many faith-based systems, the word truth no longer means a fact but instead means “a presumed fact based on belief.” In many ways I do not have issue with this use of the word truth either, but I have noticed that an appropriate opposite term does not seem to exist in this situation.

Let’s work this out a little bit so we can have a deeper understanding of what I am trying to state. All synonyms of the words “true” or “truth” refer to a fact based on knowledge, perception or experience. None of the synonyms actually address the usage of “a fact based on a belief” leaving the terms to be somewhat incomplete. This is problematic because a fact that is based on a belief and not on an actual fact only has a chance of being true and by definition cannot be a fact! Thus, in modern usage stating that something is true really only means that it might or might not be a fact. Talk about a useless word!

Whether it is a useless word or not it is still a word used with a great amount of frequency and good intentions. My real issue with this word is that all of the antonyms to true or truth seem to point to an exact opposite of fact and do not take into account the actual meaning of the word. I have searched all over the web and through stacks of reference books including all of the major dictionaries and have been unable to find an acceptable word to express the proper negation of “true” or “truth.” Due to the lack of an appropriate term I began using the expression “non-truth.” It occurred to me that someone must have beaten me to the conclusion that a non-truth would be the proper cancellation of truth but in all my research I have been unable to confirm this. The only use I could find of this term was in mathematics whereas certain quantities might be considered truths and their opposites would be non-truths. Outside of mathematics it would appear that this term is not in common usage and I may take it into use without any fear of rebuttal.

Before going forward I do feel the need to address the word “lie” which is often used as an opposite of truth. When a lie is presented the person stating the lie knows before hand that what they are saying is not true. Thus they are intentionally giving false information and this is not the same as a non-truth.

The correct usage of the expression “non-truth” would be in situations where the person believes they are stating a fact when in fact they are stating something false. The intention is to be truthful and they are sincerely stating what they know to be a fact. Here are some examples:

1)      Charlie was raised in school system where he was taught that the land which we currently refer to as The United States of America was freely given to the Europeans as the native inhabitants of the land didn’t want to keep it to themselves. This union between the natives and the adventurous Europeans was one filled with love and hope and today we still celebrate with a holiday called Thanksgiving. When asked about the founding of America Charlie is telling his version of the truth when he says “Thanksgiving is a joyous time where we celebrate the friendship of natives and Europeans in the new world.” He is not telling a lie, but he is telling a non-truth as today we accept that the Europeans were conquerors and the natives were chased out of their homes and eventually relocated into reservations.

2)      Sarah was raised in a church where it was believed that drinking the blood of snakes would bring her closer to God. To dismiss this belief would be the worst sin she could possibly commit and would result in her living an eternity being raped by demons. When she leaves her community and relocates in small town America she finds that none of her friends drink snake blood. She is appalled by this and scared for her friends. She loves her new friends and is sick at the idea of them being raped for eternity by demons. Due to her good nature and love of her friends she works hard to convert them to her belief. It is only out of love and compassion she takes on this mission. Sarah is telling her version of the truth when she says “drinking the blood of snakes will bring you closer to God and will allow your soul an eternal peace.” She is not lying – she honestly and sincerely believes what she is saying. She is stating a non-truth, not a ridiculous fantasy as most Americans would view it.

3)      Albert wrote a report on how the buffalo which grazed the plains of America had been hunted almost to extinction by the cowboys as they claimed land to farm and live on. His 7^th grade teacher gave him an A as he was able to write a well rounded argument and support his claims. Several years later Albert used the same report with some minor edits as a thesis at college. He received a D and had to make an appointment with his instructor so he might understand why he performed so badly. It was pointed out to him that several factors were incorrect and he needed to perform better research before writing a report. Some of the factors were: A) No buffalo have ever existed in America, only bison. Buffalo were creatures living in Africa, Asia and some parts of Europe but never brought to the new world. The Europeans called the native animals “buffalo” as they assumed them to be the same creatures that were back in the old world. B) The bison were hunted almost to extinction in the Great Plains by the natives, not the immigrating Europeans. The natives were dislodged from their homes and had to rely more on meat and less on plants for food and over hunting occurred. Albert was not lying or even trying to bullshit his instructor, he simply had learned a non-truth as a child and accepted it as a truth as an incorrectly educated adult.

Now that we have a term to act as a proper opposite of truth when needed we might be able to put information into perspective as we think about it. Whenever you are presented information do not automatically assume it is the truth. I am not saying you need to assume everything is a lie, just keep in mind that when something is said to be true it could be a non-truth or a lie. With some research one should generally be able to sort out the truths from the non-truths, though our current education systems, faith-based systems and government will generally do their best to discourage you from doing so. The next time someone tells you “this is the truth and if you question it you are a bad person” then it is pretty safe to assume they are giving you intentional non-truths, or lies as we call them in layman’s terms.

Are Little Green Men Real?

This one is so easy that I can simply say with 100% accuracy that the answer is no. A fair percentage of my readers will look at that statement and shake their heads in positive or negative affirmation; some might even gasp out loud or yell at their monitor. That is understandable but I feel my point is valid. Let’s focus for a moment on the title of this article and think about what is actually stated.

Are Little Green Men Real? First of all, has anyone ever seen one? There are hundreds of thousands of reports of extra-terrestrial sightings documented annually on a world wide basis, yet none of them ever seem to mention little green men. What we really need to do then is to think about where the expression comes from.

The first accepted use of “green men” outside of mythology and fictional literature was in 1955. Referred as the “Kelly-Hopkinsville sighting” a couple of men stated they saw short silver or metallic looking beings that they thought to be from another planet. A newspaper reporter made fun of this claim by stating that the men saw “little green men” and it seems to have taken hold from that point on. This reference might have been due to the use of green in fictional literature as the skin tone for beings allegedly from Mars. Thus the reference to “little green men” is a joke at best and a misnomer at worst.

In all fairness, if beings do exist on other planets, they might be green; the point of my statement about them not existing is in regards to our perception of what it means to be a little green man. Let’s take a journey together and explore this article with a more accurate and thought-provoking title:

Do Extraterrestrial Life-forms Exist?

Now we have opened up a valid topic for discussion. Once again let’s break the title down a little bit so that we will know exactly what we are talking about. What is a Terrestrial? Simply put, if you were born on Earth you are a Terrestrial. Terra is the Latin name for our planet; Earth of course being the English name. Adding the word “extra” is a way of stating that the being in question was not born on Earth. So, technically speaking, once a human baby is born in outer space, that baby will be an extra-terrestrial, or ET for short. Another common name for extraterrestrials is simply to call them aliens. The word alien means a non-resident or outsider. These days we commonly hear the term “illegal alien” in reference to the Mexican immigrants who enter the United States without following the proper legal channels. For the remainder of this article I will refer to these beings (extraterrestrials, not illegal immigrants) as aliens as the long version is simply too long and the short version might provoke thoughts of Elliot, Gerty and “phone home” every time I make reference to it.

I wish I could simply state yes on this topic and have facts to support my stance, but if any facts do exist in support of aliens being real they are currently not available to the public at large. And no, I am not supporting government cover-ups or any conspiracy theories, the facts are simply not available if they do indeed exist. What we need to do then is to sit back and think about what it would mean to be an alien. Does the alien need to be alive and able to think? Does it have to be able to move around? Does it have to look like us – having two arms and two legs and one head?

In order to sincerely think about this topic maybe we should try and answer some of these questions before going any further. What is life? To give a quick and easy answer we could say that if something is able to change through internal chemical reactions it is alive. So if something is able to alter itself (consume matter, change, age, etc.) or reproduce (sexually or asexually) it is a life-form. So what about thinking? How can we possibly account for thought in living things? My stance on this is that we cannot deduce whether something living is able to think or not. Our medical technology is still in such early stages that we do not know what a large percentage of the brain even does. Sure, scientists have been able to map the brain and note what areas appear to react when outside stimuli is introduced, but we still have no idea if a soul is real or why we only use 35% of our brains at the most active stages of thinking. When our technology reaches the point where we can quantify whether a soul is present or not and what the other 65% of our brain is for, then we can look at lower life-forms such as plants and insects and even germs and deduce whether they actually think or not. Until then, we truly do not know, we are only making educated guesses.

Before I go on I feel I need to quantify my statement about how much of our brains we use. The universal idiom is that we only use 10% of our brains. I have not been able to locate the origination of this fallacy. With our current technology scientists have been able to deduce that a normally functioning human brain uses about 15% of its total capacity in situations involving the least amount of thought or stimulation, such as resting or a dreamless slumber. In situations where the person is using several areas of the brain simultaneously (thinking, remembering, seeing, hearing, etc.) brain usage goes up to about 35% of total capacity. That still leaves a whopping 65% for us to eventually find a way to use. Perhaps we were able to use it in the past – that is the theme for a future article as I already have theories on this topic. But let’s get back to aliens:

So how do we measure whether a life-form is able to think, if it is sentient, if we do not have the technology to do so? For the sake of argument I think we would be safe stating that the being is a thinking sentient life-form if it is able to communicate in some manner. This could include something auditory or even a simple movement, as long as the sound or movement conveys some sort of meaning. So what about our last criteria; does it have to look like us? My stance is that no, the being in question should not be required to have two arms, two legs and a head. The scientific community has already established that dolphins are very intelligent sentient beings and they do not even slightly resemble humans.

To summarize what would be required for something to be considered an alien here is our checklist:

1)      Not born on Earth

2)      A living thing (life-form)

3)      Able to communicate in some manner

4)      Have any form or structure

Now that we know what we are looking for, let’s take a step back and think about where it could come from. How much real estate are we looking at here that could potentially hold these beings? We will start with what we know about our local condition. To the best of our current knowledge we are the third of eight planets which orbit around a star. In addition to these eight planets are a few dwarf planets (you might recall Pluto which not too long ago was incorrectly referred to as a planet in most school systems) and at least 10 satellites (the closest one we call the Moon). These planetary bodies orbit around a star (the Sun) and form a solar system. I do realize a lot of this is grade school science, but a review never hurt anyone and often times it is best to review known variables when preparing to think about unknowns. So let’s add it all up; our solar system has at least one star and at least 20 potential Earths. Are you ready for me to throw a wrench into the mix? Have you ever heard of planetoids? These are additional orbiting bodies which might be big enough to sustain life but do not qualify as planets, dwarf planets or satellites. Our solar system has about 540,000 of these, which means we have a lot of real estate to search over in our quest to find life. To keep things easy we will ignore those for now and just focus on the biggest entities which number 20 at bare minimum.

Since we know for a fact that Earth has life that matches criteria 2, 3, and 4; that means that there is a 1 out of 20 (or 5%) chance of life in our solar system, of our system having an “Earth-like orbiting body.” That may seem small, but would you be willing to buy a lottery ticket if you knew you had a 1 out of 20 chance at winning? Of course you would, look at how high the sales are when there is only a 1 out of 1,000,000 chance of winning! So let’s take that number and apply it outside of our solar system.

Take a look out at the night sky and spend a few moments counting all the stars. Each star is theoretically the center of a solar system located within our galaxy. I think I would be safe in saying there are at least 100,000 stars in the night sky. Of course my number is probably way low, you might guess a million or even a billion, but I doubt anyone would refute there being at least 100,000 stars out there. I just do not have the time to actually count every single star and I think I should be able to prove my point with even a number as low as I have chosen.

We have already established that our solar system has a 5% chance of having an Earth-like orbiting body in it, which is our planet of course, so let’s apply that to our 100,000 solar systems that we can see in our night sky. Five percent of one hundred thousand equals five thousand. That means at the very least 5,000 solar systems in our night sky may contain Earth-like orbiting bodies!

Are you ready to take it a step further? As you may recall from science class solar systems get bundled together into galaxies, and all of the galaxies bundled together make up the universe. Of course we could go even deeper and discuss clusters or even multi-verses, but we shall keep it simple and just go solar system/galaxy/universe as technically this is still correct. I am going to choose another low number and take a stab at guessing how many galaxies are in our universe which may be similar to ours. For the sake of argument I am going to use the very low guess of 100,000 galaxies. Each one could potentially contain 5,000 solar systems with Earth-like orbiting bodies in them just like our galaxy. That gives us a total number of over 5,000,000,000 planets in our universe that could be just like Earth! Please keep in mind that this is a very low approximation. It seems like there is a very good chance of aliens living out there when you consider that there are potentially five billion planets out there just like ours!

Now I am going to play devil’s advocate and attack that already very low number. As we stated earlier there was only a 5% chance of an Earth-like planet in our solar system which we applied to the universe and came up with at least five billion possible Earth-like planets in our universe. Pretend for a moment that we are in a different solar system and looking at Earth. It appears that Earth is the only planet featuring intelligent life, which using our criteria would mean that the solar system has only a 5% chance of containing alien life-forms. So let’s once again apply the 5% chance to our five million potential Earths. That still leaves us with 25,000,000 planets in the universe which might contain alien life-forms!

After thinking about this for a little bit and realizing there are potentially (as a bare minimum estimate) at least five billion planets in our universe which might support life and at least 25 million of those most likely has intelligent life living on them, I think the question we truly need to ask is what chance is there that aliens do not exist?

A Few Words from James Todd

Dear Readers,

The first week of my blog went better than I expected I have to admit. Over 100 people viewed my blog in the first week. I have no idea of course how many people actually read the whole article, but I am happy with just knowing that so many people took the time to visit the page!

If you wish to comment on my articles you may message me at: James Todd on Facebook

I will also turn on commenting on the blog but you will need to have a Blogger account to do so. If you find issue with anything I state I kindly ask that you present an intelligent comment and support for your claims.

I am not listing any of my sources as I want to remain as informal as possible but I assure you everything I have written has been confirmed to the best of my knowledge to be true. My goal is to accrue enough articles to put into book form and at that time I will properly footnote everything, provide sources as needed and hopefully have every single statement confirmed or removed. Having said that, there is room for errors to show up, after all, this is just a blog. A blog with high aspirations but a blog nonetheless.

I hope you continue to read my posts and please check back weekly as I will try my best to publish at least one article per week.

Cheers,
Todd

Why Think When We Have The Internet?

Many scholars believe that 500 years from now they will refer to the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries as the Information Age. To a great extent many people refer to the present in that fashion, which might be symbolic of how different this age may be compared to those that came before. Do you think that anyone sat around a campfire about 5,000 years ago and said, “Hey, we are living in the Bronze Age. I can’t wait to see what is coming next; the Stone Age must have really sucked.” This is a time in our history when very strange and interesting things are happening that will have a lasting effect on humanity. We are so integrated into our own lives that we have already identified the age we live in! But what does it all mean?

Many scholars focus on computers and the use of the Internet when describing the age we live in. But I think there is more to it than that. There are fundamentally three events happening right now that have never happened simultaneously since man first walked the Earth. These events could be summed up as the abilities to instantaneously document, distribute, and access information.

The first event is the ability to document (record) information. This ability has been around for almost as long as man has been using tools but has limited usability without the means to disseminate the information. Some of the earliest means of documenting information were placing symbols on objects. The placement of symbols might be using blood or other fluids to make paint and then applying the paint to cave walls, pottery or any other object where the distribution of information could be useful. Sometimes the information might be as simple as letting others know who the object belonged to whereas other uses could be to try share the story of an event. These primitive recording devices pale in comparison though with today’s technology. We can now digitally record almost any event using sound and video at the same time and make this recording as the event is happening. The digital information can easily be copied and each copy is the same exact quality as the original. So perhaps the ability to document information is not as impressive as it has been around for almost the entire existence of thinking man – but we have come a long way in the amount of time it takes to make such a recording. Just think about how long it would take me to write out this article using a stone and chisel!

The second event is the ability to distribute information. We now have the means to transmit information to any person at any place at almost any time. This literally means that with our technology a person who is visiting a “lost tribe” in the African savanna could be informed within 30 seconds of an event occurring in a small town on the other side of the world given that the sending party and receiving party have the right electronic gear. For the sake of conversation let’s say that the event is the birth of a baby boy and the interested party out in the savanna is the boy’s uncle. As recent as 120 years ago it would have taken several days in the absolute best of circumstances for the new uncle to have received the information. Today he could be called directly from the hospital on his satphone (satellite phone) as the umbilical cord is being cut. He could hear the baby’s cries as it takes in its first breaths! Just take a moment and think about this, let it sink in. Man has been on the planet for over 200,000 years and yet for the first time since man first began to speak we have instantaneous communication across the entire surface of the planet!

The final event is the ability to access all of this information. Gone are the days where you would have to spend several hours in a library researching card files in order to gather enough information to begin actually researching a specific subject. As recent as 30 years ago you could spend an entire day in the library just gathering sources for your research without having conducted any actual research. Two thousand years ago it was common to spend several weeks in a library just to find a specific topic. These days you can literally sit down at a computer and type in your subject and within minutes know everything you could possibly want to know about that particular subject. You need to be aware though – just because it is on the Internet does not mean it is true.

THINK ABOUT IT

One of the largest problems we have today though is the misuse of information. This is not a new event as humanity has been misusing information almost since it first began to communicate. But due to the “instantaneous” factor it has become very easy to not only give out false information in large quantities but for large populations of people to receive and believe in that same information. Let me give you an example by using a conversation that occurred today between me and a friend.

Due to the context of the conversation I am going to use a false name for my friend and as I did not have a recording device on me I will paraphrase the conversation. The key here is that the subtext has not at all been altered and I did not change anything that would affect the usability of this conversation to provide an example.

Peter: “I got roofied over the weekend.”

Me: “Wow, someone put something in your drink to knock you out?”

Peter: “No, it just blacked me out a little and made me say things I would not normally say.”

Me: “That does not sound like roofies. Roofies are Rohypnol and sometimes used in date rape. It knocks people out for several hours and causes short term memory loss.”

Peter: “Roofies are not Rohypnol. They are Rufilin. That is why they are called ruffies.”

Me: “That does not sound right, I am not sure I have even heard of Rufilin.”

Peter: “Trust me, I KNOW. I saw it in the movie The Hangover.”

Here are some of the problems that arise in the example. A person who I consider being relatively intelligent and experienced has derived their knowledge of a specific topic from a movie script. He was very sure of himself, to the point where I had to research it later once I was near a computer as he had created a certain amount of doubt in my own level of knowledge. After researching for a little bit I discovered that when they used the street term roofies (ruffies) in the movie they made up the name “rufilin.” This might have been due to an error by the script writer or it may have been intentional to show that the character lacked knowledge. Some people on the net even have the opinion that the director chose to use a made up drug name to discourage people from seeking out the real drug. Whatever the reason might be, the overall problem in this example is that a pop culture reference became a fact in the mind of almost any person who watched the movie and had no true knowledge about the topic.

So now that we are in the Age of Information and surrounded by almost as much bad information (non-truths) as we are by good information (truths) I would like to try help by clearing up as much as I can. My main goal is to share truth and to promote thinking in my fellow man instead of an instant reliance on pop culture or easily accessible web-pages. I hope you learned something from this article and I truly hope you will share this blog with everyone you know. I will try to add at least one article per week but there may be times where I might add three or four in a given week. So be sure to check back at least once a week.