A former Democratic rising star, a presidential candidate and software entrepreneur, Andrew Yang, has declared independence from the party. He says he believes he can make “a larger effect” as independent. What???
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says Covid vaccines are safe for “pregnant people.” The White House budget’s term for mothers is “birthing people.” There is clearly an effort to draw a distinction here; what is it?
Was the January 6th D.C. riot a threat to the nation or do we take a guy wearing antlers and standing on a desk seriously because we take all outliers seriously?
Jeopardy: Hilary Clinton defending her husband by dismissing criticism of Lewinski Scandal: Where did the phrase 'vast right-wing conspiracy' originate?
Anthony Fauci made national news in 1983 with an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association warning that AIDS could infect even children because of “the possibility that routine close contact, as within a family household, can spread the disease.” Was that following the science?
A $3.5 trillion spending bill will cost nothing? Why do you have to trust your dentist more than your politician?
Does a successful company promote or discourage competition?
The spontaneous emergence of social cooperation – the emergence of a system vastly more complex, responsive and efficient than any government could organize – is not universally acknowledged or appreciated. It discomforts a certain political sensibility, the one that exaggerates the importance of government and the competence of the political class.(will) Remember the Dept. of Energy managing the distribution of gasoline during Carter?
Getting daily updates on the scientific analysis of viruses or illnesses or the thickness of a glacier is like a Zeno's half-steps to a destination. Are we there yet?
Following people into bathrooms with cell phone cameras: what are the rules of decorum? Could a male activist go into the woman's room because of the activist's higher purpose? Are there inflection points when politics are based upon sensibilities?
Universities seem to demand students, who are at very low risk for significant Covid illness, prefer the less strong vaccine for their students over the deeper and longer-lasting natural immunity of exposure. Who does that decision benefit most?
Only 11 percent of Americans 25 years old have been in a household within the top 20 percent of household incomes. But 70 percent of Americans 60 years old have been in such a household at some point in their lives. So, there's been more economic mobility and equality than people say?
The government is threatening to solve the supply chain problem. Will they use the same people who solved the gasoline crisis?
With the male/female college ratio 40/60, women will be marrying less earning, less educated men. Will this cause cultural problems? Will those men be called gold-diggers? Is there a comedy here?
Many players who had mediocre careers in Pittsburgh have moved on to good careers elsewhere. Does this mean that the Pirate's problems are deeper than simple egocentric avarice?
'Law and Order' icon Mariska Hargitay is Jayne Mansfield's daughter?
If our professors, media leaders and tech CEOs hate us, who is going to help us think our way out of this mess? (somewhere)
An investigation has found that the Canadian military used the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to turn on the Canadian people propaganda techniques intended to be used against foreign enemies. The plan was developed by Canadian Joint Operations Command without the direction of civilian leadership. Practice makes perfect?
Is economics no more complex than a man can support himself either by his own work or the appropriated work of others?
In 1987, Oprah Winfrey opened her show by announcing, “Research studies now project that 1 in 5—listen to me, hard to believe—1 in 5 heterosexuals could be dead of AIDS in the next three years.” Remember when scientists and politicians spread the belief that AIDS was a heterosexual illness, that people with it did not have to declare it in hospitals and could not be tested for it--even pregnant girls whose child could be protected--without the patient's permission, and if you denied the narrative, people screamed at you and called you homophobic. Is that an example of an illness being politicized?
Do we really expect the company created to grade the physical appearance of coeds will put women's sensibilities above profit?
The day after the whistleblower appeared on TV, Facebook shut down. Coincidence?
We are self-absorbed people. Those elements of culture--cohesiveness, common vision, sacrifice, the moral legitimacy of government--are replaced by entrepreneurs in space, bitcoins, and the sheerest of the clothes at the expensive event. Are we whistling past the graveyard or screaming past it?
Speaking of screaming, Biden has nominated for comptroller of the currency a woman who went to the University of Moscow on a Lenin Scholarship. Is stupid always funny?
China's “one-child” policy has resulted in a rapidly aging population that has turned a worker surplus into a dearth and has led to a socially destructive shortage of women. Beijing has found no solution to counteract decades of counterproductive social engineering. Did they have a model?
So the migrants move on. And we move on. The Afghan event will be remembered in history but not this week; this week we have a new Covid scare. And the migrant problem has been replaced by a new Covid scare. Do you think these distractions are random?
Carbon fuel is responsible for 81% of energy use in the world today. In 20 years it will make up 73%, this under the most optimal condition. Do you get the impression from politicians and the news that the shift away from carbon is more successful than it really is?
While most taxes are passed on to consumers, a large portion of corporate tax increases is actually paid by labor down the line. Workers, not owners, pay at least some share of higher corporate taxes. Psaki’s position—the Biden White House’s position—is that this sort of thing is “absurd and unfair.” Like gravity, for example?
Is just being 'not-Trump,' enough?
The current U.S. top rate of capital gains is 29.2 percent, which is much higher than the OECD average of 19.1 percent. Nine OECD countries do not tax long-term capital gains, while other nations only started taxing long-term gains in recent decades, such as Canada (1972), Ireland (1975), and Australia (1985). Former Fed chair Alan Greenspan testified to Congress in 1997 that the proper tax rate on long-term capital gains is zero. Biden has proposed doubling the top federal capital gains tax rate. With state taxes on top, that would push the U.S. rate up to the highest in the OECD at 48.4 percent. Why is taxing savings so important to the Left?
The proposed spending bill contains a segment that empowers and funds the IRS so inspect any American's bank account that has contained $600. What type of person thinks that reasonable?
Although SARS-CoV-2 has proved unpredictable, no virus in history has ever continued to evolve to higher pathogenicity. As we learned from HIV, mutations usually incur costs to viral fitness or render the virus weaker. No vaccine-preventable or immunity-inducing infection has ever raged on as a pandemic indefinitely. And lethality limits viral success. So is the anxiety about the next 'wave' reasonable?
Stanford students on bicycles: 41% are masked, 17% wear a helmet. Is mask-wearing the projection of hypochondria?
Following a long-term historical reality, high school boys have greater math aptitude and out-perform high school girls on the Math SAT, especially for the highest test scores. In 2021, 153 boys scored 700-800 for every 100 girls. Is this proof of discrimination?
[Ezra] Klein’s suggestion that changing the status quo requires conservatives and libertarians to stop denouncing Uncle Sam for big fiascoes like Solyndra, the solar company that infamously went under shortly after receiving a $538 million loan guarantee from a green-energy program under the Obama administration. Denouncing such waste, Klein insists, only serves to embarrass the government for its failures, thus prompting it to be more cautious. As such, Klein would like “to somehow quiet these players looking to point out every failure.” So, the more damage the better?
In 1981, after 190 years of federal spending, the national debt was “only” $1 trillion. Now, just 40 years later, it’s more than $28 trillion. Is that innocuous?
Sometimes the animosity the Left has for progress is hard to understand. The rich will always be rich. A free economy does not benefit them nearly as much as it does the common man. The advantage of a free economy is that production provides for most of the culture, not just the wealthy. This wealth is not Bezo wealth but the wealth of the common man, whose improvement outstrips that of the improvement in the wealthy. So, what exactly is the objection there, envy?
The bill in the House Ways and Means Committee would extend the existing $7,500 EV tax credit through 2031 and remove the 200,000 car per manufacturer cap, which both GM and Tesla have hit. Currently, there’s no vehicle price limit on the credit, so people can use it to buy electric Porsches. Why do we want to tax the rich, yet at the same time subsidize their projects and purchases like green energy?
Darwin's thesis of the notion of evolution and the pressures that bring it about starts with the phrase "I think..." Einstein's paper on the nature of light starts with the sentence "It seems to me..." Here the concepts of two of science's giants are introduced with hesitancy. Humility. Wouldn't it be grand to have the leaders of politics, certainly a less objective field and one that has always promised mass homicide, have equal caution?
Is rodeo bull riding discriminatory? Should there be cow riding?
"...the conflict isn’t over that specific policy proposal, or even about vaccine mandates. It’s not about the politics surrounding abortion or immigration or foreign policy. It’s not about issues of health or eating habits, about sexuality or workout routines. Those are all downstream from the much bigger, and much deeper question: For what purposes may societies condone the use of violent force?" --Book
Fentanyl in the U.S. illegal drug market is mostly supplied by China. China is the world's most controlled police state in the world. So China doesn't know this and can't help?
Under the new proposals, a family with three kids that make 100,000 dollars a year will qualify for 10,000 dollars subsidies annually. One of the unspoken elements in the Founders' creation was that limited government protected us from more than just government power, it protected us from ourselves. Can a subsidy like this ever be revoked?
Dollar Store is raising prices to $1.25. Wonder why?
So how did 14,000 Haitians living in South America end up on our border? What mysterious flocking tendency suddenly arose and forced them to gather together, all look north, then move as a body to the American border? And where did they go?
Adams, Jefferson, Madison, AOC. Ah, philosophy. “The right of property,” Arthur Lee of Virginia declared, “is the guardian of every other right, and to deprive the people of this, is in fact to deprive them of their liberty.” So property rights are more than an ideal, it's an indicator of freedom. Is this a common opinion of property now?
Does the government work for the majority?
Steak at Giant Eagle is $25/lb. Don't worry, the government plans $1 billion in beef subsidies. Where will the beef lobby and their cronies put that help?
Hinckley has been released?
A 2020 McKinsey report notes that the United States is home to more than 500 pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities—among the highest concentrations in the world—and that the biggest risks to those supply chains are political, not economic. Last week, President Biden issued an executive order initiating a White House-led review of “key” global supply chains (including medical goods and semiconductors) that have been affected by the pandemic. Is that good news? Even the nationalist Trump got out of the way of the development of the Covid vaccine.
A significant source of conflict in this world revolves around how much interference government can make in individual decisions. Sometimes those restrictions come because the government knows what's best for the individual, sometimes what benefits others. Is either of those good reasons?
Apparently, Nobel Prize winners suffer from 'imposter syndrome.' So, a genius looks at previous winners like Einstein and Curie and feels inadequate?
The secretary-general of Nato confirmed that Russia ‘engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organizations – environmental organizations working against shale gas – to maintain Europe’s dependence on imported Russian gas’. I'm sure no one is surprised but why is no one mad?
There is a debate at the highest level in Great Britain--literally-- over whether or not women have a cervix. Is this just idiotic or is it scary?
"This odd mix of childlike sentimentality and economic illiteracy makes no room for the obvious truth: that industrialization and market economics transformed the nasty, brutal and short lives of most people into something that at least approached the comfort and security that were once the sole property of those who were the inheritors of privilege. This is the quite shamelessly blatant refrain of the most aggressive elements of the climate change lobby."(Janet Daily) Do we just like aristocracies?
There are serious restrictions coming as not all entitlements will be able to be paid for as new entitlements are being added. Will the future conflict in the U.S. be between competing entitlement groups?
How could the Pirates have a Fan Appreciation Day and not a Fan Appreciation Month or Three Months?
Euclid's geometry, the epitome of logical reasoning, is based on no fewer than 33 axiomatic, unprovable articles of faith. Are there assumptions that are not based on faith?
How did the Steelers beat the Bills?
"The working class have much more to lose by an inquiry to capital than the capitalist. They are more interested in its security. Because what threatens the one with loss of luxury and superfluity, threatens the other with the loss of necessity."(Acton) Why is the success of the average man over the last 200 years not more celebrated? And why are people not more cautious when tampering with it?
The fight over the budget is among the democrats, not with Republicans. Is that because the Puritan is unable to join or compromise?
If all ships are feminine, what is a man-o-war? Is that discriminatory?
Approximately two-thirds of the migrants who lived under the Texas bridge will not be removed from the country, an official said. Well then, what are we doing with them and why?
USAA Insurance has employer criteria to screen its applicants. Is that discriminatory?
About 1.24 million more men are incarcerated than women. Does discrimination explain the disparity? What can be done?
It would be worth your while to review the appearance of a mom objecting to reading material in Fairfax High School, Va. Google it, maybe under what she read from a school book called Lawn Boy. This reading was cut off by the board because there were children present. Stupidity is not irony. Are we morons?
Democrats are now aiming to create new entitlements and expand the existing ones, not only for the poor but also for the professional class. Workers making $200,000 a year would be eligible for a new national paid family and medical leave program. Earlier this year the American Rescue Plan Act expanded the child tax credit for households earning as much as $150,000. So, if need is not the basic criteria for government charity, what is?
Women have, on balance, outperformed men academically. There are more men failing to graduate from high school than women. About half of women entering a four-year college graduate in four years, compared with only about 40% of men. The average collegiate grade-point average is about 3.10 for women, versus 2.90 for men. Men are also more likely to have disciplinary problems in college. Are these disparities examples of discriminations?
Marxist-Leninist Pedro Castillo is now President of Peru. We will be treated to unknown years of optimistic predictions followed by rationalized economic failures culminating in domestic violence and blaming successful non-communist countries. Is there anything that will make people stop doing this?
Do we let all immigrants in because they are “looking for a better life” or close our borders completely and inhumanely? Are these the only two options? Is this the only place in America where the choice is binary?
Gas prices in Europe have risen more than 250% this year, while Asia has seen about a 175% increase since late January. In the United States, prices have surged to multi-year highs and are about double where they were at the start of the year. Electricity prices have also risen sharply as many power plants are gas-fired. Does this look like a situation where you would want to decrease the production of natural gas, especially when the alternative is coal?
Women are marrying later—at age 28 on average in 2020, up from 20.3 in 1960. A dramatic drop in fertility has accompanied this trend. The birthrate today is slightly below 12 for every 1,000 people, about half the 23.7 in 1960.
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry advocated for 'coronavirus vaccine equity' during an appearance at Saturday's Global Citizen Live event in New York City. Markle, 40, emphasized that billions of people around the world do not have access to the coronavirus vaccine during her remarks. "Every single person on this planet has a fundamental right to get this vaccine. That's the point, but that's not happening," Markle said.
Do people understand that shortages imply that not everyone gets what is in short supply? So, if not everyone can't get something, how is its distribution decided upon? And, for starters, why does the U.S. have to take a vaccine away from a guy in Georgia and give it to a Libyan? There clearly is an imperative there; what?
Why do we have a debt ceiling? A little charade for us?
For those of you with some anxiety deficit, I offer the Nipah virus. In the two strains of Nipah encountered so far — originating in Malaysia in 1999 and later in Bangladesh — pigs and fruit bats are believed to have been the intermediary hosts. It has a low infectivity rate but its mortality rate is 70%. Feel better?
The women's outfits that have appeared in the world--Megan Fox and the like--raise an interesting problem: How should an average woman respond to such carnality? Is it good and liberating or is it dangerous to women?
The California recall vote implies that there is boundless expectation from government and no expectation. What is that?
The design of scientific studies is as important as the concept behind it. There are a number of failed studies that failed because they were doomed from the start by the very structure of the study. Stats deficiency in the study's creators?
Food and Drug Administration threatened to fine the principal investigator of a clinical trial for failing to submit results as required by federal law, marking the first time the agency has widened its list of targets that could face penalties for such a violation. Do you know that 30% of trials are said to go unreported?
Can you imagine the argument for voting for Gavin Newsome?
Gen. Milley is in trouble for the ultimate in American culture and politics. an allegation about an allegation. Because we are used to this kind of nonsense, we take it in stride--as we do the indictment of the Democrat operative who started the ball rolling on the Russia-Trump 'allegation'/plot. Unfortunately, as with so much of our foolishness, there is a real problem here. Why would we have a structure that allows a single person to start a nuclear war? And, if we think that's a good idea, was Trump more a risk than Biden is?
In Clint Eastwood's new movie, he plays a two-fisted bronco-busting 92-year-old with several love interests. Parlor game: How many metaphors can you create here in 60 seconds?
All political concepts and visions are expressed through a hierarchy. What hierarchy is immune to self-serving abuse?
An outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 caused by the Gamma variant infected 24/44 (55%) employees of a gold mine in French Guiana (87% symptomatic, no severe forms). The attack rate was 60% (15/25) among fully vaccinated miners and 75% (3/4) among unvaccinated miners without a history of infection. No note of severity? Are all infections the same?
Imposter syndrome occurs when high-achieving individuals have a pervasive sense of self-doubt combined with fear of being exposed as a fraud despite objective measures of success. 144 residents completed the assessment (response rate=46.6%; 47.2% male). Only 22.9% had “none to mild” or “moderate” imposter syndrome. A majority (76%) had “significant” or “severe” imposter syndrome. There were no significant differences in mean scores amongst male and female residents (p=0.69). Does the equality of the problem mean there is less of a problem?
Does there come a time when government is so embarrassing that able people don't want to be associated with it?
A recent survey of U.S. high school students conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 1.8% of students identify as transgender. More than one-third of transgender adolescents surveyed had attempted suicide in the previous 12 months. The historical norms were one in 30,000. What is happening?
A U.S. official said recently he is convinced the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan carried out this week’s horrific attack on a maternity hospital in a majority Shiite Muslim neighborhood in Kabul, killing 24 people, including newborn babies and mothers. These aren't our partners, right?
Illegal immigration has been a glaring problem for quite a while so why are Haitian illegal immigrants being sent home?
So, with this Milley thing, wasn't independent foreign contact the reason that Flynn had his life ruined?
According to GQ, the top 10 earning male models earned a combined total of $8 million last year, compared to the $83 million the top supermodels of the world acquired over the same year. Is that an example of discrimination against men?
As Democrats scramble to finance their $3.5 trillion expansion of the entitlement state, they can’t find more than $2.2 trillion in taxes to raise, so they’re hoping to fill the gap with $500 billion in savings from price controls on drugs. In spite of Pharma's unbelievable Covid vaccine success. These politicians know the basic law that price controls decrease availability, right? In Ridley’s view, the scientific establishment has always had a tendency “to turn into a church, enforcing obedience to the latest dogma and expelling heretics and blasphemers.” This tendency was previously kept in check by the fragmented nature of the scientific enterprise: Prof. A at one university built his career by saying that Prof. B’s ideas somewhere else were wrong. In the age of social media, however, “the space for heterodoxy is evaporating.” So those who believe in science as philosophy are increasingly estranged from science as an institution. Is there an institution that does not come with a hierarchy?
The Hoover Institution's John F. Cogan and Daniel Heil report that the Biden 4 trillion dollar spending plan would add more than 6 million households, and more than 21 million Americans, to federal entitlement rolls. That would raise the share of nonelderly American households receiving such entitlements by seven percentage points and push it above the 50 percent mark. Is there a point where giving citizens other peoples' money becomes undesirable?
“More than half of Britons suffering from long Covid might not actually have it” – so reports the Telegraph‘s science editor Sarah Knapton. So, how is 'long Covid' diagnosed anyway?
The principal preoccupation of the framers of the Constitution was with restraints on authority. The word “travel” is not in the Constitution. Neither is the word “bacon,” but we have a right to have bacon for breakfast, and to raise our children. This puzzles people who think rights are privileges — spaces of autonomy — granted by, and revocable by, government. Such thinking paves the road to what some seem to want: a permission society, where what is not explicitly permitted is implicitly forbidden, or at least contingent on the grace of government. (someone) Isn't this the opposite of the structure of American government where what is not specifically granted the government is withheld?
Will the Imperial College London’s infamous Covid model expose forever the weakness of models?
Incidental or mild cases accounted for a rising share of so-called COVID-19 hospitalizations—nearly half by the end of June. That means it is increasingly problematic to treat that number, which includes COVID-19 patients without life-threatening symptoms as well as COVID-positive patients admitted for other reasons, as an indicator of severe disease.
So do such cases qualify for federal subsidy?
Are employees really working for bosses or are they working for themselves?
Scientists who are skeptical of chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci’s proclamations about the coronavirus pandemic don’t want to go public with their concerns for fear it will affect their funding, Sen. Rand Paul claimed. So scientists do not want to contradict their underwriters. Is that an unreasonable assumption?
Stated in dollars, the typical female staffer working in the Biden White House earns $20,000 less on average per year than the typical male staffer. Is that meaningful?
It is a delusion to think of the individual in primitive society as free. There was no natural liberty for a social animal. Freedom is an artifact of civilization. This is from Hayek. So, in the modern hip lingo, freedom is a construct?.
Professor Susan Michie, a member of the Communist Party of Britain and SAGE scientist who openly endorses a “zero Covid” strategy, revealed on Channel 5 News that she believes social distancing, including mask-wearing, should continue not only into the long-term but forever. Is there such thing as a cultural vandal?
The Biden administration on Monday morning announced an interagency plan to deal with the effects of frequent extreme heat waves caused by global warming. Turn on the AC and open the windows? (We already do that in our house. You're welcome.)
“The masks worn by millions were useless as designed and could not prevent influenza. Only preventing exposure to the virus could.” – John M. Barry, The Great Influenza (2004) “Abandoning masks and social distancing now would be the worst possible move for Americans and their political leaders. The 1918 pandemic teaches us why.” – John M. Barry, Washington Post, March 12, 2021
Is it fair to put these side by side?
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 54% of American Adults disapprove of the policy allowing Americans to select the gender they would like printed on their U.S. passport, even if it does not match the gender on supporting documentation such as a birth certificate, previous passport, or state ID. Are you surprised that people care?
