Their Job Is To Spread Fear
The English physicist Freeman Dyson, one of the great minds of our time, gave an interview at Yale a few years back about his (skeptical) views on anthropogenic global warming. In that interview, he elucidated his belief that those in the climate community who have...
Take All The Time You Want
... just don't take it from me. Yesterday morning, like every other weekday morning, I dropped my wife off at the local Metro North train station. As I started to leave the station, the one road that leads to the exit was blocked by a car discharging a passenger. I...
Arrogant Ignorance
There was a video (now deleted) making the rounds of a CNN reporter demonstrating his ignorance regarding firearms, specifically, what an "automatic weapon" is. During a discussion about the Ferguson riots, reporter Don Lemon confused semi-automatic weapons with...
Occupational Licensing
• In Washington State, someone who wishes to braid hair for a living needs a cosmetology license. This license requires 1600 hours of education, not one hour of which involves braiding. This training requirement exceeds that required for emergency medical technicians...
Rich People – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
CEO compensation is a favorite bugbear among the class warriors, especially within the context of overall income disparity. I've seen people, with utter sincerity and great earnestness, propose capping CEO compensation to some multiple of the lowest paid employee in a...
Libertarianism – Going Mainstream
A week ago, the New York Times Magazine published a lengthy piece titled Has the 'Libertarian Moment' Finally Arrived? Yesterday's Wall Street Journal had an op-ed Libertarian, Liberal Lawmakers Share Concerns About Police Tactics in Ferguson. Drudge has added...
The Perils of False Conflation
The first sentence of Chapter 1 of Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" reads: Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them. It's astounding to consider that, 238 years later, it remains not only true and...
Someone Else’s Story
I am only one of countless millions who were shocked and saddened by the death, apparently by suicide, of Robin Williams. I grew up listening to his comedy albums (to the point where I can recite some of his bits verbatim) and watching him on television, and as an...
Diversity of Desire
Last night I watched the documentary 20 Feet From Stardom. The film, about back-up singers in rock and roll music, won last year's Oscar for best documentary feature. Not having seen its competition, I cannot attest to whether I agree with the award, but it was an...
Ultra-Right-Wing
Watch European politics for any length of time and you will hear certain fringe political parties and groups (and in some cases not-so-fringe) described as far-right or ultra-right-wing. Typically, these groups become identified thus because of strong nationalistic...
It’s Never Been Tried Before
Any libertarian who has spent enough time playing in the sandbox that is political argument, whether vocal, written or on the Internet, has had to deal with a box full of pat arguments, challenges, refutations and dismissals of libertarian philosophy. One of these is...
Taking the Painkiller
In an interview way back in 2009, Obama appeared on ABC and fielded a question from a woman about her elderly mother that involved late-in-life and end-of-life medical decisions. A quote from Obama caught my eye: Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but...
The River and the Market
A river flows downhill. You can dam it, you can divert it, you can put obstacles in it. But, no matter what you do, the water will find its way, and it will do what flowing water always does. All your interference does is hamper its optimal travel down the hill. Left...
Judicial Favoritism
A long-awaited appellate court decision came down today. The case, Halbig v Burwell, involved a challenge to ObamaCare's subsidies for lower income enrollees. The law specifies that the subsidies be provided to those who enroll in exchanges established by the states,...
They’ve Always Been There
Spend any time arguing on the internet or simply reading comments sections attached to political opinion pieces and you will certainly bear witness to shocking demonstrations of ignorance, stupidity, bald-faced dishonesty, raging hatred, and invective that would make...
You Don’t Own That
The Left's recent frothing anger over the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision has been great fun for those of us who bothered to figure out its actual contents, given how ignorant so many of the protests and protestors have been. Apart from the humor, the protests have...
The Eleven Commandments
Elizabeth Warren, senior senator from Massachusetts, academic, lawyer, and possibly of slight Native American heritage, set both ends of the left-right spectrum astir with a recent speech in which she list eleven commandments of progressivism. Many adore her and see...
A Better Cheater
Much is being made of House Speaker John Boehner's stated intent to sue President Obama over his purportedly excessive use of, lets call it discretion, in implementing the laws that Congress has passed and he has signed. The President is mandated by the Constitution...
An Engineer’s Curse
I had a dream the other night. Actually, I have dreams most nights, but I rarely remember them, and most of the ones I remember tend to fade from my conscious memory rather quickly. From time to time, though, memory fragments stick around long enough for me to wonder...
Will Social Media Become a Public Good?
There was a tempest recently when it was revealed that Facebook had conducted a psychological experiment on several hundred thousand users, manipulating news feeds in order to assess emotional reactions. People were outraged, of course. Nowadays, people are outraged...
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