Below are the texts of most of the answers web pages in an easily printed form.
We invite you to use this site as a source for free information or free advice. We provide answers, when appropriate, to visitors seeking another opinion, another avenue to the information they want, or to find out what questions they should be asking. Our emphasis is on personal, professional, or policy choices, especially those with an ethical component.
At times, everyone needs to ask questions, of life, of its personal life, of the nation, of what is right and wrong. The questions may be ones that could be asked of the person sitting next to you on a bus, or they could be asked of a professor, or a counselor (personal or otherwise). If the need is for information that might be found in a reference, it might not have the book handy, or may simply have been unable to find the answer in the available books (or even the internet).
We have not established a "chat room" at this site. Some people like the chat room experience, others do not. We expect that some may use our answers as a basis for their contributions to a chat room, or that experience in such a room may lead them to develop a question for us.
It is our hope that we can be one source of answers, or at least one avenue to answers. We are not technicians or experts in any specialty. But we have a broad background and may be able to help.
If a question appears appropriate to our enterprise, we will answer it in one of two ways. First, we may simply field the question as one would do in a conversation. Second, we may suggest ways in which the questioner might go further in looking for an answer. We will seldom have time to research the answer, but will do a little "looking around" if the topic is one that particularly interests us. (If more effort is desired, you should consider our consulting service.)
In many cases, we will feel quite incompetent to say anything. In these cases, we intend to tell this to the questioner as soon as we get to its question.
We make no claims as to special knowledge or abilities, including even the ability to make a correct referral when that would seem appropriate. Therefore, we accept no liability for the ways in which a questioner may understand our answers or the ways in which it may use them.