Everyone knows that face masks are effective in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. Indeed, most infectious disease experts tell us that, until a vaccine becomes available, widespread public use of face masks is the only way to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Yet many Americans have been reluctant to adopt their use. ...
In industrialized nations, particularly in the US (the most advanced of all nations), scientific and technological progress increasingly protects people from the environmental forces (such as famine, predators, extreme weather, and disease) that have plagued humanity since its origins. Such progress, however, also increasingly relaxes the forces of natural selection ...
There’s nothing like a pandemic to catapult political and healthcare leaders to heroic heights. Overnight, they have become our saviors against the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. ...
On June 30, at a climate change meeting in Abu Dhabi, UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres exclaimed, "Every week brings new climate-related devastation... floods, drought, heatwaves, wildfires and super storms." This weekly barrage ...
America’s elite upper class would argue that the US economic policies of the last half century have been, overall, quite successful. Adhering to an ideology of compassion that was adopted by the Democrat party ...
The United States is the most advanced industrialized nation in the world. It’s economy produces the greatest GDP (total quantity of goods and services), doing so with the greatest productivity (GDP per capita). Rapid productivity increase through technological advance has ...
The iconic orange- and black-winged monarch butterfly, one of North America’s insect wonders, is on the path to extinction. Its population has collapsed by 90% since the 1990s. ...
Diversity, more precisely, the ideology of diversity, has become the most dominant force in America’s institutions of higher learning. It is a massive project, developed over several decades, designed to provide America’s marginalized minorities with educational opportunities previously denied to them by an oppressive white America ...
Alt-Right groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and Neo-Nazis are right-wing organizations whose members are vile, fascist thugs. They have been routinely denounced for decades by both political parties, incessantly so after the ‘Unite the Right’ rally ...
Blunderdale, a fictitious village located on a river bank, decided to build a levee to save its people (and their homes and businesses) from the devastation of flooding. After an exhaustive “100-year flood” analysis, ...
In recent weeks, immigrant-rights rallies have been held in protest of president Trump’s threat to deport millions of illegal aliens. On January 14, 2017, such rallies were held in 50 cities across the country. This “Day of Action” initiated “a new phase of activism in defiance” ...
In colleges across the nation protesting students struggle to bring justice to an oppressive America. Racism, homophobia, xenophobia, genderism, culturally inappropriate Halloween costumes, and free speech are common sources ...
On November 8, to the disbelief and disappointment of the mainstream media (including Fox News) and polling organizations, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton to win the 2016 presidential election. Befuddled pundits everywhere scramble to explain the inexplicable horror ...
"It’s not hard to get some of these assholes to pop off,” said Democrat operative Scott Foval. He was referring to members of labor unions and homeless communities, including mentally ill individuals, that he has recruited, trained, and paid to incite violence at Donald Trump ...
The traditional, and most popular, theory of human nature is that the cognitive faculties, psychological qualities, and behavioral traits that characterize humans are animated and controlled by an immaterial soul that inhabits our material bodies. A soul, it is believed, is endowed to each of us by God ...
The "Great Depression" began with the stock market crash of 1929. In all previous depressions, there was little, if any, federal government intervention to extricate America from economic travail. It was held that the federal government possessed neither the knowledge nor the constitutional authority to meddle ...
I was on my way to work. Kind of shaky since I missed eight hours of
sleep and my morning coffee. But at least my deprivation was for a
great universal cause. The world was a mess ...
Climate catastrophists are distraught. The planet is headed for hellish doom, and few of its inhabitants care enough to alter its climatological trajectory in any meaningful way. The world has ignored catastrophist demands to decarbonize its economies ...
On December 12, 2015, climateers the world over celebrated as a new climate change accord, known as "the Paris Agreement," was approved. It was the culmination of four grueling years of behind-the-scenes negotiations designed to save the planet from ...
Climate change experts from more than 190 countries are said to be on the verge of forging a binding international accord that will reduce humanity's CO2 emissions to a level sufficient to stave off future global warming. ...
American manufacturing, once the principal source of American economic power, has become a pale shadow of the world-dominant competitor it was only 30 years ago. Although the productivity of American workers still vastly exceeds ...
In 2009, Vice President Joe Biden announced a $539 million Department of Energy (DOE) loan awarded to Fisker Automotive. Fisker, a newly formed crony capitalist firm ...
In his 2015 State of the Union address, President Obama asserted that his economic policies are working. "The economy is growing and creating jobs at the fastest pace since 1999," he declared. "The shadow of crisis has passed." ...
American manufacturing is in decline. It has been for decades, shrinking to half of what it was at its peak, in 1979. During the 2000s alone, it lost one-third of its workforce -- largely blue collar workers who, without a college education, could earn a middle class wage ...
If you are a working age adult who is stuck in a low-wage job, or have no job at all, then you belong to the largest segment of the American labor force: a vast, sprawling underclass, with little, if any, economic value to the society that it burdens ...
The "Population Bomb" is back. Progressives, including the climate change crowd, have recently re-discovered the looming global population crisis. Burgeoning humanity is the root cause of famine, pollution, resource depletion, stagnating wages, ...
The more the Obama administration talks about the war on terrorism, the less we know. What are we fighting? Is it violent extremism or radical Islam? Okay, it's actually radical Islam ...
Modern feminism was launched in 1963 with the publication of Betty Friedan's landmark book, The Feminine Mystique, which starkly revealed, to the bewilderment of then male-dominant American society ...
Vannevar Bush (in his famous 1945 report to president Roosevelt, Science: The Endless Frontier) attributed scientific progress to "the free play of free intellects, working on subjects of their own choice, in the manner dictated by their curiosity for exploration of the unknown.” Bush argued ...
I have a conflicting message to my eight readers: kinfolk and two
friends equal eight. And it’s only seven readers when cousin Sidney
is busy or out of town ...
At the People's Climate March last month, a throng of boisterous protestors trudged through the streets of Manhattan, demanding that elected officials finally begin treating climate change as a top priority. "Climate Action Now," demanded a popular ...
The United Nations defines social justice as "the fair and compassionate distribution of the fruits of economic growth." Furthermore, social justice is impossible "without strong and coherent redistributive policies conceived and implemented by public agencies." ...
Having been married more years than I care to reveal, let me tell you that during our marital partnership we’ve only argued about two things: 1) the number of raisins per cubic inch ...
The Internet is awash with websites promoting green jobs. Unlike regular jobs, green jobs are socially and environmentally responsible. And they are more rewarding and ...
For those of us troubled by issues such as economic decline, unemployment, public debt, health care, foreign policy, or federal power, our worries have been misplaced. President Obama now tells us that income inequality is the principal concern ...
I love the first amendment. I’d swap the Magna Carta, bowling night, and the “right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” - all for that golden guarantee to freedom of expression ...
Lately, the climate change movement has been celebrating. A recent International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report expressed 95% confidence that half of the warming during the previous 60 years was manmade. In January, the EPA ruled ...
"Scientists sound warning after first death from new H10N8 bird flu reported," blurted the latest flu alarm. A 73-year old Jiangxi Province woman died last December from a new strain of bird flu called H10N8. Following last year's H7N9 scare ...
Let's say you were put in charge of Obamacare. It sounds like a daunting business -- to provide affordable health care insurance for 30 million uninsured Americans. But what if you ...
Milton Friedman's notion that "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand," has been borne out for decades in US energy policy. Sitting on top of the world's most prolific supply ...
Obamacare is upon us. Uninsured Americans will begin enrollment at health insurance exchanges this October. The floodgates will be open to 57 million uninsured American citizens and legal residents, who will finally have the opportunity ...
Well, I’ve seen it all. I mean the long arms of the nanny state. Yes,
they’re always thinking of me – my health, my safety. Could expenses
connected with monitoring (monitoring, not governing) my life have
driven the Feds into unimaginable depths of debt and many states into
the lobby of bankruptcy court? ...
Can you imagine Adam - G-d’s first human creation in Eden’s green
meadow? See him, newly minted. His fresh body gleaming and his mind
totally empty of facts, attitudes, opinions - as empty as Eden is of
thorn bushes ...
When it comes to objective, non-biased perceptions of my fellow human
beings, I pride myself on my lack of bias. If three men in plaid
Walmart shirts knock me down, kick me passionately in the ribs ...
Guess what happens on May 22 through May 25. No, it’s not my wife’s
birthday. It’s an event that food lovers and oenophiles (that’s a big
word meaning wine lovers – I looked it up) circle on their calendars ...
According to the Wall Street Journal, James Dimon, CEO of J. P. Morgan
Chase, makes 23.1 million a year and probably has free access to the
Coke machine ...
Remember the Benghazi attack, the one against our consulate in Libya, where terrorists murdered our ambassador and three other Americans? Vaguely? It was the debacle that we were told was caused by a silly anti-Islam video -- and led to the lengthy series ...
A month after the mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, President Obama launched his campaign to reverse the increase in mass gun violence. With families of the victims in the audience, he ladled out a thick emotional stew ...
America was founded on the idea of individual liberty -- that free men are rational individuals whose interests are vastly more harmonious than antagonistic. As such, it was the first moral society. All previous systems ...
I collect markers of what I call “roadkill” legislation — roadside
signs that demean my intellect or destroy my privileges. My favorite,
of course, is “Click it or Ticket”. Get it? How clever ...
After two months of misleading and conflicting White House statements explaining the Benghazi fiasco, more questions have been raised than have been answered. No one should be astonished, therefore, that the recent resignation of CIA Director, David Petraeus ...
On September 11, 2012, Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were murdered in a terrorist attack on the American Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. After weeks of delusive statements to explain what provoked the attack ...
Most people, including many Obama supporters, were stunned when the Obama administration blamed 'The Innocence of Muslims' for the 9/11 attack on our Benghazi Consulate ...
Hardly a day goes by without president Obama blaming our economic woes on the "failed policies of the past." Incessantly blaming them for the financial crisis he inherited, the president has made Wall Street reform a top priority ...
Prior to the 1990s, most of us had never heard of climate science. Yet, in a few short years, it was catapulted from obscurity to global prominence. As with many scientific disciplines today, climate science relies on fear ...
Our cleaning lady was smiling widely as she polished our dining room
table. And she was in such a good mood she didn’t drop or break a
single goblet or plate ...
I’m getting ready for the New Orleans Wine and Food Experience.
NOWFE, they call it: May 22 through 26. They do it every year. What
is NOWFE? To me it’s the kiss of ...
In 2006, when gasoline was selling for about $3/gallon, an outraged Senator Obama assessed our dependence on foreign oil and proclaimed, “The time for excuses is over.” Today, as gasoline approaches $4/gallon, now-president Obama tells us to use less ...
We're all screwed. Soon we'll be leading frugal, monotonous, energy-efficient lives. Drastic lifestyle reductions are urgently needed to save the planet. It is a moral imperative (moral euphoria, to some) - that, and government taxes, regulations, rules ...
Where has she gone? You know who I mean. She wore her hair up -
impaled with a pencil - chewed gum, called you “Sweety” - maybe
“Honey” - and usually touched your shoulder ...
According to its website, Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is a people-powered movement organized in "response to the Great Recession caused by our financial and political leaders." It vibrates ...
It's difficult finding a good green job today, even after spending $110 billion in stimulus money to help create them. Newly formed green energy companies ...
Strangely, have you noticed that of all the sports, football wins the
corruption cup every year. I think the U of Miami should be awarded
permanent possession ...
I know, I boast too often about Jewish achievements - philanthropy,
the arts, science. Jewish names are sprinkled through the list of
winners. But Mr. fixits are not ...
This June, President Obama began celebrating the success of his auto industry bailout. In a speech at an Ohio Chrysler plant, he bragged that he had saved the industry from collapse ...
The marketing hype behind new electric vehicles (EVs) such as the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf makes me think of the 1901 children's novel by L. Frank Baum called The Master Key. Promotions and testimonials allude to a green economy in which zero-carbon footprint vehicles shuttle us to sustainable clean energy jobs as our dependence on foreign oil is whisked away in the zero-contaminant breeze ...
In all the world’s ancient literature: Sumerian, Egyptian, Babylonian -
only in our bible do we find an anti-tax text. It’s in Samuel I. The
Israelites beg the Prophet ...
Taxation was the theme as me and my good friend, Herb, hoisted a few
at the neighborhood pub the other night. It was his civic duty, he
noted, to suck up the suds. Did not our federal government benefit
from a healthy tax on alcohol ...
I grew up in a blue-collar world listening to jokes and snide remarks about government workers. They were uttered frequently by my father, and the fathers of most of my friends, especially during tax season ...
The Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty designed to lower global temperature by having industrialized countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. That the United States (US), the largest energy consumer, has not ratified the treaty frustrates climate control advocates ...
Mike and Gabe moseyed into a bar, their favorite watering hole, just over the county line. It was mid-afternoon on a hot Alabama August day. They were beat from framing houses since sun-up ...
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur - as every Jewish child learns in
prekindergarten - are about forgiveness. Jews of all theological
stripes - even those whimsical souls who spread mayo instead of
mustard on their pastrami, eat sweet rolls on Passover, and think
the Pentateuch is an olympic event - regard these holy days with
extreme gravity ...
I decided to read the new ObamaCare law. I started with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). It’s 906 pages that reads like the legalese on my widescreen TV warranty. That is, I think I understand what it covers, but my stomach tells me I won’t know for sure until something breaks - when customer service starts reading things to me from the fine print section ...
Of course we all know the law of unintended consequences but some of us don’t know that Robert Burns - eternal poet laureate of Scotland - said it better: “The best laid schemes of mice and men gang oft agley” ...
I came up with the term “technothrope” as a tongue-in-cheek, somewhat sarcastic description of my love-hate relationship with technology. “Technothrope” has some Latin connotations of “one who loves technology” but I could just as easily have called this column the “mistechnothrope” because as often as I love new technology, I hate the consequences of humans using (and misusing) it. ...
In the global warming debate, an understanding of global warming language is critically more important than an understanding of global warming science. Since the science has increasingly been found to be specious and the most vocal scientists to be neurotic, dilettantes with political agendas, this is very good news ...
With the passage of the Obama health care bill, the U.S. can be divided into three distinct health insurance groups. Group 1 consists of retirees on Medicare. Group 2 consists of working people with private health insurance to cover them until they retire. Group 3 consists of the 32 million people for which health insurance ...
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be scarier than we think. By “we” I mean everyone, including Iranians, not looking forward to the Apocolypse a few years from now when Iran has nuclear weapons ...
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a tragic and devastating disease that has killed about 500,000 people in the U.S. since it was first detected in 1981. It is a syndrome of diseases, any one of which can be triggered by immunosuppressive agents. Syndrome is medical-speak for “we don’t know what’s causing the problem.” That was bad news for early victims (mostly homosexual men and drug addicts). Unfortunately, it’s the same news today ...
I’m a map geek. As a child in the seventies, I always loved long trips with my parents. The day before, I would plan the best route and draw it on a map. During the trip ...
My 1985 Toyota Supra doesn’t qualify for the Cash for Clunkers program because it was rated at 19 mpg. It might have got 19 mpg in 1985, but today it barely gets 12 mpg. Plus, it burns about 2 quarts of oil per week. So much for the environment; I was going to buy one that got 48 mpg. Now I have to keep my gas guzzling, oil spewing environmental scourge. ...
We’re in a health care crisis. Health care is a catastrophe. Costs are out of control. Millions of people can’t get quality health care. According to President Obama, our health care system is broken and it is “breaking America's families.” Only a huge, trillion-plus dollar, 1000-plus page, government-controlled, universal healthcare program can fix it. Only government can bend the cost curve down to pay for it. ...
I’m a car nut. I’ve always loved automobiles, of all kinds, shapes and colors. I love the technology in modern cars and the lack thereof in older ones. I’ve owned many cars; not because I’m a car dealer, but because I grew up with ...
The other day I was trying to solve America’s problems. It turns out that it’s pretty hard work, and frustrating as well. I spent hours, yet even my best solutions didn’t make everyone happy. My economist friends hated ...
According to polls, most of us believe that “insufficient funding” is the most important problem facing our public schools. Teachers’ unions, school boards and education experts are not surprised. They have created the perception. Nor are our political leaders surprised. They count on our fear ...
President Obama’s national security policy has recently become a hot topic in man-caused disasterism circles. The president’s repeated apologies to foreign leaders for the bellicose and arrogant behavior of the Bush administration have been front-page news. And now that Top Secret national security documents have been released describing the enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA, the coverage has intensified. ...
I hope Earth Day reminded everyone to do his/her part in saving our planet. The government recommends that we start using things like fluorescent light bulbs, hybrid cars, windmills and solar panels. These energy efficient, eco-friendly devices will save the planet, but we have to make sure we clean up properly when they break. ...
I like to bike down to our neighborhood park. The wind sings along
with the spinning bike wheels; an easy, five-minute downhill ride. On
the way down, you coast like a hockey puck on buttered ice. Of
course, going home is a chore that would daunt Sysiphus. As they say,
there ain’t no free lunch. ...
I hate lawyers and politicians. They make my life miserable with all their useless, moronic laws. Because of them, everything takes longer and costs more. I try to do my taxes to save money. But I can’t understand half of the tax laws. Thanks to these clowns, the tax code is something like 80,0000 pages. They use it to extract my tax money, most of which they squander on stuff I don’t want or never see. Like a fool, I always pay. Then I’m subjected to the mockery of political leaders that don’t pay. ...
In Islam, a Muslim man can have up to four wives, they are literally his property and they must be devoutly obedient to him. If a wife disobeys, the husband can beat her. Indeed, mere suspicion of disloyalty or ill conduct suffices. This sounds like a pretty good deal to me – religious authorization to beat your wife ...
Right now, my stimulus money is earmarked for a Ford Fusion (see, “I’m Buying A Ford”). According to the experts, it’s as good as a Camry or an Accord in performance and reliability and better in safety and fuel economy. However, it looks like G.M. and Chrysler are going to get more bailout money – amounts so staggering that I’m pretty sure even I could build a good car. So let’s take a look at the likelihood of them coming up with something better than a Fusion. ...
I’m tired of hearing about CEO’s who meet with our political leaders to promote, and show their support for, the Stimulus Bill. Most have not impressed me. Many have almost no grasp of economics and, frankly, seem ill equipped for running a business of any size. From what I can tell, their overtures are no more than clumsily veiled attempts to increase their share of the stimulus money. They are begging. ...
I’ve been looking over the Stimulus Bill to see what’s in it for me. I’m trying to find programs, projects, grants, …, anything that will help me with my monthly utility bills or mortgage payments, make it easier to get a business loan or a car loan, keep my employer in business, or at least slow down the erosion of my retirement savings. I know this sounds selfish, but I’m desperate. ...
The old fashioned print media - books, magazines, newspapers - all
passe. The pundits, from their TV pedestals, have announced the death
of reading. ...
[Medical errors and the warm and fuzzy fog of national self-denial]
We are in the midst of a large hospital-construction boom. A recent USA Today article described it as one trending toward luxurious suburban buildings with high tech equipment and hotel-like amenities designed for treating the affluent and well insured. I hope they will be safe ...
After an exhaustive review of the many Muhammad cartoons engendered by the original 12 published in Jyllands-Posten last September, we found the ten most likely to piss off the typical radical imam. Our hat's are off to the winning cartoonists, although, as a Catholic ...
[AARP's Utopian vision: A geriatric therapeutic state that we can't afford not to create]
After several years of receiving offers to join the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), I decided to visit their web site. Approaching retirement and with three of my four children approaching marriage, two publications immediately caught my attention: Reimagining America: AARP's Blueprint for the Future and For My Grandchild: A Grandmother's Gift of Memory. ...
Excerpted from 'Letters from an American Farmer', 1781
I WISH I could be acquainted with the feelings and thoughts which must agitate the heart and present themselves to the mind of an enlightened Englishman, when he first lands on this continent. He must greatly rejoice that he lived at a time to see this fair country discovered and settled; he must necessarily feel a share of national pride, when he views the chain of settlements which embellishes these extended shores. When he says to himself, this is the work of my countrymen ...
