June 13, 2022

Senators announce bipartisan agreement on gun proposals

"Today, we are announcing a commonsense, bipartisan proposal to protect America's children, keep our schools safe and reduce the threat of violence across our country," the Senate lawmakers said in a joint statement released shortly...

March 26, 2021

Who's shooting?

As one might guess, different news organizations and other groups that compile data use different criteria for listing mass shootings.  I'll go with that of the Congressional Research Service ("four or more shot and killed in one i...

March 23, 2021

Who's really committing this sudden spate of anti-Asian hate crimes?

Robert Long in Atlanta must have been motivated by racial hatred because...well, just because — because he is white!  And a Christian!  Law enforcement, including the FBI, cannot find proof that it was a hate crime, but it m...

November 10, 2020

Biden's vote tallies and Benford's Law

Benford's Law "states that the leading digits in a collection of data set are probably going to be small."  It has frequently been applied to election results to identify signs of manipulation — for example, th...

October 28, 2020

Google and happy white women

Go to Google, search "happy black woman," press Images, then scroll down several pages.  Repeat with "happy Asian woman."  Then try "happy white woman."  Notice anything?  The...

October 4, 2020

That time a 60s white woman berated me over social distancing in the checkout line

Checkout line at Sprouts.  I stood on the green social distancing circle while the woman ahead of me, white, 60s, put her things on the conveyor belt.  She turned to me, scowled, and swept her hand down dramatically, pointing at m...

October 2, 2020

Volkswagen's electric microbus: Much virtue-signaling, little virtue

Electric vehicles are coming from Volkswagen.  Hate to disappoint, but if you love the environment, this is a step backward. Recently, an amendment to a green energy bill in the House was defeated.  It would have required the s...

September 18, 2020

Why shouldn't police use of force be disproportionate?

The headline for the Arizona Republic, 30 August 2020, front page, blares, "Police Power out of Balance."  (I searched on the Republic's website as well as on two different search engines to find the article — no luck....

April 15, 2020

Covid-19 and racism

The left is busy telling us that Covid-19 hits everyone alike. Here’s an example from the National Immigration Forum: “Policymakers should respond to COVID-19 by considering the health and safety of all people — including all types ...

January 16, 2020

The debates, USMCA, and climate change

In their January 14 debate, all the Dems said the USMCA was marginally better than NAFTA (that alone gives me pause, if these characters praise it in any way), but Bernie (maybe others too, I forget) said he would not sign it because it doesn't m...

September 18, 2018

The real Christine Blasey Ford

"Now I feel like my civic responsibility is outweighing my anguish and terror about retaliation," Christine Blasey Ford told the Washington Post. "Retaliation"!  Au contraire, this will make your career...

May 31, 2018

Teacher attempts to school Trump on grammar, beclowns herself

CNN, The New York Times, The Independent, USA Today, Esquire, et al. have gleefully jumped on a Facebook post by a Democrat, a retired high school English teacher, who "corrected" the president's grammar.  "I have never, ...

April 18, 2018

Asking animal-loving liberals about bird-frying solar power

Three years ago, I took an Uber to SeaTac Airport.  The driver was an older gentleman, very nice guy.  (No, that's not ageist – I'm an older gentleman.)  He was an active birdwatcher, avid member of Audubon...

April 17, 2018

A quick look at Michael Cohen's judge

"Judge hands defeat to Trump and Cohen," blares the headline. Kimba Wood...Kimba Wood...where have I heard that name before?  Well, look at this.  She was Bill Clinton's second choice to be attorney gene...

February 28, 2018

Why I hate conspiracy theories

"MSM Florida Shooting Narrative CRUMBLES: Teacher Saw Shooter In 'Full Metal Garb,'" shouts the headline. Police maintain the suspect Nikolas Cruz arrived via an Uber ride at 2:19 p.m. and initiated his attack within 1 min...

February 13, 2018

Michelle's and Barack's portraits unveiled

The Smithsonian has two new portraits, of the former first couple. Portrait-painter Kehinde Wiley explains his portrait of Barack: "When you look at this painting, there's sure an amazingly handsome man," he said.  "Bu...

January 14, 2018

Will Trump's tax cuts pay for themselves?

Will President Trump's tax cuts pay for themselves?  Of course not, according to NPR and the rest of the MSM.  They all just know that Reagan's tax cuts "exploded" the deficit. Here are the data, so when your ...

December 1, 2017

Matt Lauer: How cheap is contrition?

"As I am writing this I realize the depth of the damage and disappointment I have left behind at home and at NBC."  That is startling: a media bigfoot did not know that showing his penis to a coworker or giving her a sex toy is in...

November 30, 2017

White House decorations are beautiful...and the media howl

Melania has decorated the White House for Christmas, and it's gorgeous.  Melania doesn't look too bad, either. The decorations are up! @WhiteHouse is ready to celebrate! Wishing you a Merry Christmas & joyous holiday season! pic.t...

October 8, 2017

What Happened in Vegas

I imagine that this will light up the comments section, but someone needs to write it: the conspiracy theories cropping up over the Las Vegas shooting are as noisome as mushrooms on a dunghill after a spring rain.  In discussing some of the more...

August 20, 2017

Two professors: USA Today readers too stupid to understand planned Confederate TV series

We now know that if David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, creators of Game of Thrones, proceed with a series on HBO based on the premise that the Confederacy won the Civil War, it would be “highly irresponsible.” Oh, highly. We know that because...

August 18, 2017

The Summer of Love, 50 years on

While Andrew Ferguson recently explored the darkness at the heart of the so-called Summer of Love, NPR is in full spate, gushing over the awesomeness of the fiftieth anniversary of the summer of the hippie.  Here's the signoff from a July 1 ...

June 15, 2017

Senator Sanders is feeling the burn

Bernie Sanders is in high dudgeon: "I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms."  That was in reference to James Hodgkinson, erstwhile volunteer on the Bernie for President campaign and the shooter of Republican congressmen ...

May 30, 2017

Henry David Thoreau: Millennial before His Time

The Thoreau Society is gearing up for the Thoreau Bicentennial Gathering: Celebrating the Life, Works, and Legacy of Henry David Thoreau on 11-16 July. It’s a safe bet that speakers indulging in six days of hagiography will be sorely needing so...

May 1, 2017

Income inequality, 1820 vs. 2017

Georgette Heyer (pronounced "hair") was a prolific British novelist, writing over 50 novels beginning in the 1920s.  She is credited with creating the genre of Regency Romance, lots of fun for a quick read.  (The Regency...

April 29, 2017

'From Oakland to Greece'

"From Oakland to Greece, f--- the police!"  Such was the clever rhyme protesters used at Heather Mac Donald's recent speech at Claremont McKenna College, where total costs for four years of schooling exceed a quarter mill...

April 21, 2017

Latest 'cultural appropriation': Badminton for charity

Fraternity boys raising money for veterans?  We can't have that – not if they do it with cultural appropriation! Seems as though the lads of Sigma Alpha Mu at American University wanted to raise money for Armor Down with a badminton...

February 24, 2017

Bad grammar? It’s all good!

Correct grammar is apparently just a social construct, much like gender, to judge from the sage commentary of the vice chancellor at the University of Washington Tacoma: The university's Vice Chancellor, Jill Purdy, claimed that th...

January 3, 2017

Banning books in the postmodern world

Abrams Books, the New York-based art book house, withdrew Bad Little Children's Books: KidLit Parodies, Shameless Spoofs, and Offensively Tweaked Covers late last year because it was insensitive.  Oh, my.  That whetted my desire to find...

December 19, 2016

Just folks in the Chappaqua woods

Journalism – alive and flourishing at the Washington Post! Consider this article on sightings of Hillary and Bill "in the wild," or at least in the 44-acre nature preserve at Chappaqua.  And look at the reportorial credentia...

December 16, 2016

Hillary’s costly farewell

Ah, it puts a smile on my face and a bounce in my step to see Hillary’s entourage bring out the long knives and cut up Huma. Then I read about Anthony’s newest woes, and my smile turns into a grin. Compounding Weiner’s finan...

December 13, 2016

Designated haters

After watching the first two episodes of Designated Survivor, I’m done.  The writing is not up to that of 24, and Kiefer Sutherland plays a curiously low-energy role.  But mostly it’s the P.C. plot.  Terrorists bl...

November 30, 2016

Mr. Trump: Put new media in the White House press room!

“While approximately 750 reporters hold White House credentials, the briefing room holds 49 seats, and they are occupied overwhelmingly by mainstream media reporters, with barely any assigned to the new dot-com world.” The TV network...

November 23, 2016

Eye-roll alert: Obama's advice to President-Elect Trump

Obama delivered his pearls of wisdom in Peru, to a conference for the doomed Trans-Pacific Partnership.  Great choice of venue, sir. As for how Trump should dispose of his companies, "Obama says his assets were significantly smaller than...

November 22, 2016

The NYT Rededicates itself to Reporting the News Fairly

Remember Pinch Sulzberger’s pledge after the election to cover Mr. Trump’s “policies and his agenda fairly”? Well, here we are, just a week on, and the Newspaper of Record is breathlessly giving a run-down on the likely candid...

November 16, 2016

Time to stop illegal alien 'acts of love'

The "illegal" in "illegal aliens" says it all: they're criminals.  All 11 million – or 18 million – or 30 million – or whatever the number is. So the argument is about how many "real" crimin...

November 16, 2016

Android phones call home...to China

Some Android phones have been calling home – to China.  Don't worry; it's only some, "only" 120,000 Americans who have had "the full contents of text messages, contact lists, call logs, location information and other...

November 15, 2016

Do not quote Thomas Jefferson!

Warning!  Microaggressions ahead! The president of the University of Virginia had the gall to quote Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Snowflakes at her school in an effort to reassure them about the election that so traumatized them: ...

November 14, 2016

China warns Trump

“China Warns Trump against Abandoning Climate Change Deal,” blares the headline in the Financial Times: China has warned Donald Trump that he will be defying the wishes of the entire planet if he acts on his vow to back away from the...

November 14, 2016

Let the smugness begin

Ah, the moral superiority of the sophisticated Europeans, ever eager to point out the ignorance of the rubes across the Atlantic: Mr. Trump, during his campaign, said that Belgium was a village somewhere in Europe… We must teach the Presi...

November 14, 2016

New York Times promises to lie no more

On Friday, Pinch Sulzberger, publisher of the N.Y. Times, wrote a letter to his newsroom apologizing for their coverage of the Clinton/Trump campaign while simultaneously asserting they were completely unbiased.  As non-apologies go, his is...

November 2, 2016

Eric Schmidt, Google, and the Hillary campaign

In April 2014 Eric Schmidt, the Number 3 at Google (though Sheryl Sandberg might disagree), sent his thoughts about how to organize Hillary’s campaign to Cheryl Mills, John Podesta, David Plouffe, and Robby Mook. It’s deeply revea...

October 31, 2016

The Berlin Wall, JFK's censorship, and Daniel Schorr

Scott Simon had a story on NPR last Saturday about CBS and NBC doing documentaries of tunnels under the Berlin Wall during the Kennedy administration.  “People died trying to climb over it while others labored to carve tunnels beneath...

October 27, 2016

'We need to clean this up!'

It is hilarious watching the N.Y. Times tiptoe around Obama's knowledge of Hillary's private email address: Besides the implication that the Clinton team had worked to protect Mr. Obama, the messages about Mrs. Clinton’s priva...

October 20, 2016

'Don't Be a Puppet!'

Hey, kids!  Thinking about becoming a "violent extremist"?  Don't Be a Puppet! (Wall Street Journal article here.) Seriously – the FBI has created a website, complete with state-of-the-art graphics from about 25 years...

September 13, 2016

History repeats itself with Hillary losing consciousness and staff claiming the same ailment

Have you heard the one about Hillary fainting in public, and then her staff claiming they had the same "gastrointestinal" illness?  Sure you did, in 2005. Hillary Clinton fainted during a speech in 2005, blamed then on "an acut...

May 29, 2016

Barack at Hiroshima

What oratory, what outreach, what uplift Barack was privileged to read at Hiroshima (full text here).  What masterful speechwriters we employ for our president. We see these stories in the hibakusha [survivors of the atomic bombs]. The woma...

April 20, 2016

When an ankle bracelet goes off at the White House

Last weekend, Barack was holding a "Brother's Keeper youth initiative ... to keep men of color out of trouble" at the White House when the ankle bracelet of one of the rappers in attendance went off. Rick Ross, the "artist"...

April 8, 2016

Rent to a felon...or else

The U.S. Department of Housing has just determined that refusing to rent to a convicted felon may be a violation of the Fair Housing Act, and National Public Radio seems to approve. Felons are not a protected class (yet) under the Fair Housing Act...

April 2, 2016

The face of poverty in America, 2016

Sunday morning, 10:30, Walgreens, waiting to pay for my photos.  I become aware of the cashier at the stand behind me saying to her customer, "tobacco, alcohol, lottery tickets – this is a list of the things you can't buy with foo...

March 31, 2016

What the media are missing about Brussels

With the endless stories on Brussels, the elite media is trying to fathom "what went wrong" with Belgium's security apparatus.  But when the enemy is inside the perimeter, you've already lost. Take "In Divided Belgium, ...

March 25, 2016

If we just go shopping, the terrorists will lose

Barack was at it again after the Brussels bombings: It is very important for us to not respond with fear. ... But we defeat them in part by saying you are not strong, you are weak. We send a message to those who might be inspired by them to say ...

January 29, 2016

Billionaire Clinton Donor Avoids Prison

In 2009, Hansjorg Wyss, the former CEO of Synthes, was indicted for directing “subordinates in executive management meetings to conduct illegal human drug trials.” Five people died. Four top executives went to prison. But not Hansjorg Wys...

January 21, 2016

A quick reminder on 'peak oil'

The Wall Street Journal recently printed an excerpt from "The Next Oil Crisis Looms Large – and Perhaps Close," printed in the Aug. 28, 1998 issue of Science magazine.  According to a study from the International E...

January 17, 2016

Meditation on a lost iPhone

On my walk to the park this morning, I came upon a huge mess on and around two picnic tables: paper, food, cans, bottles, and (the worst) a broken whisky bottle on the concrete beneath a table.  Not just a few pieces, but a million pieces. ...

December 6, 2015

Tashfeen Malik's 'fiance visa': Good job, DHS

"Immigration officials said the K-1 ['fiancé visa'] review was more extensive than the vetting of a foreigner who planned to only visit." "More extensive."  That's curious, because I have an in-law who i...

July 27, 2015

What's the Difference?

The day after John Russell Houser opened fire in a theater in Louisiana, the Washington Post knew exactly what motivated him: The gunman who opened fire Thursday in a Louisiana movie theater was a onetime entrepreneur who inveighe...

July 10, 2015

Is Obama's plan to love ISIS to death?

Just send all your friends images of LGBTs hugging on the steps of SCOTUS, tweet to #LoveWins, and voilà!  We'll shame the Islamic State into surrender!  A better ideology defeated the Nazis, and it can work again! Who thinks ...

July 6, 2015

Carbon Tax, Value Added Tax, Sales Tax -- and Puerto Rico

“If Hillary wins and we take back the Senate, I believe many of our Republican friends will say, 'Well, OK, we have been starving the government for revenues, we need revenues.'” Thus spake Chuck Schumer, “the soon-to-be ...

July 6, 2015

Castrati on the Potomac

“Lawmakers alarmed over Iranian nuclear windfall,” blares the headline in USA Today.  Oh my, “alarmed”!  Obama is poised to release $150 billion to the Iranians as part of his nuclear “deal.”  What a...

July 5, 2015

ICE's Transgender Care Memo

When I opened the email about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offering illegal aliens (sorry, detainees) their choice of underwear, I thought it was a hoax. Nope, the news release is here and Further Guidance Regarding the Care of Tran...

June 25, 2015

FBI's DNA database needs adjustment

It's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff here, but in a nutshell, the FBI says that the odds of making a match to a criminal’s DNA from their database were off and required adjustment. I'm not sure which is more despicable: the...

December 13, 2014

Run, Warren, Run!

That would be Elizabeth Warren, junior senator from Massachusetts, for the presidency of these United States, “a fighter for working people and a champion for the middle class.” You can sign the petition at Moveon.org, “Democracy in...

March 29, 2014

'War against Doctors'

“War against doctors” has a ring to it, made to order for Republicans. I wonder if they'll use it in the fall? Electronic Medical Records (EMR) should make a doctor’s practice more efficient. Of course, that depends on the da...

January 23, 2014

Professorial Logic

Socialism -- ideas so good they must be made mandatory. I had lunch recently with a young lawyer. When an undergrad he wrote a libertarian column for the student newspaper that took issue with the university's new policy of requiring students living...

January 17, 2014

More global warming pseudo-science

When everything is proof of climate change, warmists enlist even dinosaurs in their cause. You see, Mother Gaia, the being known as the earth on which we crawl, has been here before. Two British professors, Dr Wilkinson and Prof. Ruxton, aver that sa...

January 14, 2014

Home Energy Audits

The Department of Energy is flogging use of software that measures home energy use. Here's how it works: A trained, "qualified assessor" comes to your home -- for a fee -- and collects approximately 40 pieces of data about the home's "envelope" ...

December 24, 2013

Income Inequality: 'The Defining Challenge of Our Time'

We are in for three more years of increasingly shrill lectures from the president and his surrogates regarding the direst condition facing America today: income inequality. At the Center for American Progress, a very friendly venue for him, Mr. Obama...

October 16, 2013

Michelle's Garden and the 'Congressional Showdown'

Oh the horror! The "Congressional showdown" is forcing Michelle's demo garden into wrack and ruin! The "Obama Foodorama " by Eddie Gehman Kohan is evidently "The Blog of Record about White House Food Initiatives." It's not clear if it is paid for by ...

June 15, 2013

Obamacare Too Expensive - for Congress

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May 17, 2013

Lois Lerner: The Impossible Ingénue

Following the administration's well-worn template, the Obamaites' response to scandal is to savage their enemies and lionize their friends. Gregory Hicks, former deputy chief of mission in Libya, has been effectively demoted for, among other things, ...

April 26, 2013

The Earned Income Tax Credit Fraud

What, massive fraud in another government entitlement program? Well, the Washington Post is too coy to use the F word. No, that's not fraud, simply "improper payments." We're talking about the Earned Income Tax Credit, whereby a person can earn up to...

April 25, 2013

Marketplace Fairness Act

When is a tax not a tax? Why, when it promotes "fairness," when it creates a "level playing field," when it enjoys "bipartisan support." So is everybody on board with the Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013, which will force everyone who buys on the Int...

April 21, 2013

The 'I' Word

"Islam" is the I word, the greatest taboo amongst "journalists" and government spokesmen today. Consider this article at CBS News. Two years ago the FBI interviewed the older brother, Tamerlan, looking for "extremist ties" or "ties to Chechen extre...

February 22, 2013

Coordinating Their Stories?

Now we learn that the president did talk to Hillary the night of the Benghazi attack, at 10:00 pm, just when she was putting out her first video-made-them-do-it statement. Jay Carney says the president was getting an update. I think he misspoke. Wha...

January 25, 2013

Another Missed Opportunity

Benghazi occurred over four months ago, and the Republicans, most of them lawyers, could not prepare a decent examination of the Madame Secretary? What are they paid for? I did not go to law school, have no staff, and have not studied Benghazi very t...

January 19, 2013

'We don't have the time or the resources'

When Vice President Biden called in officials of the "gun lobby" so he could check the I-talked-to-the-NRA box, James Baker, NRA Director of Public Affairs, told the vice president that in 2009, "77,000 people tried to get through the NICS system to ...

January 19, 2013

A Meaningless Number

Fixthedebt.org is trying to do the right thing. Perhaps the problem is that they are bipartisan and don't wish to offend anyone. A recent posting which they are blasting out via Facebook and emails begins thus: $650 billion. That's how much the recen...

January 14, 2013

'Gun Violence in America Is Off the Chart'

In August 2012, Fareed Zakaria wrote a piece for Time magazine in which he asserted that "gun violence in America is off the chart compared with every other country on the planet. The gun homicide rate per capita in the U.S. is 30 times that of Brita...

July 23, 2012

Economics PhDs Only, Please

The utter contempt which our masters reserve for hoi polloi, the common herd, is on display in a paper written by one Dr. Athreya, an economist with the Federal Reserve of Richmond. The learned doctor is intent on showing just how stupid and unqualif...

July 10, 2012

Trillion dollar giveaway looms

The drumbeat to forgive student loans grows apace. Each new article must have a sympathetic case study or two to tug at our heartstrings. Consider this, from Bloomberg News, a story picked up by newspapers across the land. The poster child this time ...

July 6, 2012

UN Taxes: They're for the Poor!

The corruptocrats at the UN have been trying for years to collect taxes directly. The dues levied on member states (26% from the US) are not enough. Not nearly enough. Never enough. Now that august international body has issued a report on raising mo...

July 6, 2012

Explaining away Obama's Lies in 'Dreams From My Father'

David Maraniss reveals lie after fib after stretcher after prevarication told by the future president in Barack Obama: The Story, "a deeply researched, 600-page study of the president's ancestry and early life." And how do the president's supporters ...

July 1, 2012

It's Not a Tax, It's a Choice

The White House insists, pace SCOTUS, that the individual mandate in ObamaCare is not a tax. White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters traveling with Obama on Friday that the mandate enforces a penalty, not a tax, because people have a choice ...

May 30, 2012

Janet Napolitano's Nasty Words

Breathe easy! The NOC (that would be National Operations Center) of DHS (Department of Homeland Security) has analysts checking social media against their ADBs (Analyst Desktop Binders) for Bad Words. Really Bad Words. Words used by terrorists. Go he...

April 10, 2012

A Congressman who gets it

I saw a politician last week. I had not attended a political event since I went to one of Sam Coppersmith's townhalls some 18 years ago. Mr. Coppersmith rode Bill Clinton's coattails into office. When I went to that townhall, Mr. Coppersmith had rece...

March 5, 2012

Bond yields say it's over for Greece

Greek one year bond yields have now gone above 1000%. That's right:  ONE THOUSAND PERCENT. One has to wonder what happens on March 9th, whether the leadership of Greece (not its citizens) will be able to bluff its way into another round of bailo...

February 16, 2012

Respiratory Illnesses in the Navajo Nation

After writing my most recent blog on the installation of solar panels on a Navajo hogan, I received email from a man who has lived on the Navajo reservation for 30 years: "I think your perspectives on Navajo today were quite precise, causing me to wo...

February 15, 2012

Bringing Electricity to an Indian Hogan

Mark Snyder Electric installed the solar panels on the Navajo hogan that was declared unfit to live in shortly after the project was finished. In his response to my article on the subject, he invited me to continue the conversation, which I do h...

February 12, 2012

Coup in the Maldives

Well here's a head-scratcher. The Religion of Peace backs a coup that overthrows a democratically elected government on Tuesday. On Thursday the US recognized the new government. There were reports that the police and security forces forced the presi...

February 8, 2012

When Is a Tax Cut Not a Tax Cut?

When it spawns a new tax. Remember last December when our public "servants" in Washington "gave" working folk tax relief in the form of a payroll tax holiday? Yay! An early Christmas! Thank you Santa! Well, they needed to "pay" for this generosity so...

February 6, 2012

Bringing Electricity to an Indian Hogan

Would you spend $60,000 to install solar generating equipment on an Indian hogan?  I, and all those who pay their bills to my local utility, have.  A great success, no?  Then imagine that, days after turning on the lights, the voluntee...

January 27, 2012

Wealth Transfer on the March: 'Reforming' the Lifeline Program

Do you pay your phone bill? I do. Should you also pay for those who do not wish to? You already do. Does that give you a warm glow to know that you are helping spread the wealth, unasked? You see, phone service is so vital that everyone has a right t...

January 25, 2012

Keystone XL, Obama and Buffett

When President Obama rejected the Keystone XL oil pipeline in order "for the President to determine whether the Keystone XL pipeline is in the national interest," the losers were blue-collar workers who would have built it -- as well as any American ...

January 7, 2012

Requirements for a Government Job

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has a wonderful mandate: to see that Americans get a "fair shake," a "fair deal" from those predatory lenders at the big banks, according to President Obama. Sounds like mom and apple pie. Who could be against...

December 24, 2011

Alt Power Gestalt

We have been bombarded for years with lectures from Mr. Obama and the left in general about how America is "not doing enough" to "invest" in alternative energy sources.  A Google on "America alternative energy falling behind" yields 4,300,000 hi...

December 22, 2011

Chevy Volt Costing Taxpayers Up to $250K Per Vehicle

Yes, you read the headline right. A quarter of a million dollars per Volt so far. Article here. Especially choice is the reply from a GM spokesperson: the Japanese and Korean governments give bigger subsidies -- sorry, "investments" -- to their batte...

December 4, 2011

The Ultimate Green Power: Crematorium Heat

The waste heat from a British crematorium will be used to power electric turbines. Yay! Well, the outcome is so apt: one body will power 1,500 TVs for one hour. My parting gift to humanity is supporting an episode of Jersey Shore. Talk about giving b...

December 3, 2011

TSA Stops Dangerous Looking Purse

Well, we can all rest easy as the TSA fearlessly stops another plane hijacking. It seems a 17-year-old girl tried to board a plane in Jacksonville, Florida, carrying a purse with a small, plastic revolver embossed on the outside. Embossed, as in par...

November 24, 2011

Be Here Now

Saturday mornings are for garage sales and NPR. Drive time during the week I listen to talk radio, but on the weekends that medium is given over to a grab bag of programs, such as quack medical cures. Last Saturday NPR interviewed a British author, A...

November 23, 2011

Pepper Spray at UC Davis

Comes now an email with a link to treehugger.com and this comment: "Not a good situation, when the police get like this... reminds me of the 60s... yet another reason the 2nd amendment (sic) is so important." No, it's not a good situation -- when the...

November 15, 2011

Chicks with Guns

Chicks with Guns, by Lindsay McCrum, is "a playful yet perturbing visual essay on the statistic that some 20 million women in America own guns," to quote the review on the Time website.  My favorite is Jenevieve, of San Antonio, Texas, standing ...

November 13, 2011

Electric Smart Meters

Not long ago the electric company replaced our meter with a smart meter so they won't have to send someone into our yard every month. Now comes an email, complete with link to stopsmartmeters.org, informing in breathless language that smart meters ar...

September 2, 2011

The Hot-Air Car

Those of us of a certain age remember the conspiracy theories that involved geniuses in garages inventing fabulous carburetors that would enable a car to get 100 or 200 miles per gallon -- but then the serpent crept into paradise: Big Oil bought...

August 18, 2011

Nobody to blame in green jobs fiasco

Here's a record Mr. Obama can run on. A year ago his administration gave a grant to Seattle for $20 million, a grant with "heady goals: creating 2,000 living-wage jobs in Seattle and retrofitting 2,000 homes in poorer neighborhoods." Mayor Mike McGin...

July 26, 2011

The Budget Crisis Explained to a Nineteen-Year-Old

A junior in college majoring in finance asked me the other day what I thought of the negotiations coming out of Washington, D.C. I'll call him Arthur. Not much. The premise is raise taxes now, and a future Congress will make cuts later. Trust us. Tr...

July 4, 2011

U.S. Fearful of Pakistan?

Lead story, A1, Sunday's Arizona Republic: "U.S. alters, expands Afghan supply routes: U.S. fearful Pakistan may cut off access" This is utterly shameful. Fearful? We're fearful? What kind of cowards are running our foreign policy? Oh, we're making c...

June 23, 2011

James Hansen, Government Employee, Climate Scientist on the Take

Meet Dr. James Hansen, one of the founders of the religion called Anthropogenic Global Warming, more accurately denominated We're-So-Smart-We-Know-What's-Good-for-You. Dr. Hansen has been an employee of the federal government for 30 years, at the NAS...

May 28, 2011

President Obama and Numbergate

Jack Cashill recently detailed what Susan Daniels, a private investigator, has learned about Mr. Obama's Social Security Number.  In a nutshell, the president's SSN was issued in 1977 with a Connecticut Area Number (first 3 digits). Here's what ...

May 7, 2011

Another Brilliant Obama Czar

Everyone is familiar with the claims of how smart our president is. To take just one of the latest examples, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post wrote a column on the subject last week. Milbank took the president's brilliance as a given, then talked ...

April 4, 2011

Another Ethics Problem?

"Another Obama appointee with ethics problem" screams the headline. Missed it? So did I. Actually, the headline buried on A14 of my Sunday paper is far more sedate: "Defense agency gave contracts to firm with links to director." C...

March 29, 2011

Obama and the Birth Certificate -- Trumped Again

[See also: Trump birth certificate: asked and answered]American Thinker has been kind enough to post some 70 blogs of mine, but none has generated as much response as the one last Friday on Donald Trump's demand that the president release his birth c...

March 25, 2011

Donald Trump and the Birth Certificate

Yes, that birth certificate. Donald Trump, the oft-married casino tycoon, is considering a run for the presidency, and he wants to see President Obama's birth certificate. The real one, the so-called long form, not just the certification of live birt...

March 20, 2011

Senator McCain and Gun Control

A friend of mine recently wrote to the senior senator from Arizona regarding his anticipated "reaching out" to the other side on gun control. The senator's response is clearly a form letter, so I am not revealing privileged information by r...

March 8, 2011

Compost from Congress

The Washington Post informed us Saturday, in its oh-so-evenhanded way, that both Democrats and Republicans are culpable in the Compostable Congressional Cutlery Crusade:When Democrats held the House, they introduced new cutlery made from corn. The go...

March 3, 2011

Holder raises the threshold for black voter intimidation of whites

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February 23, 2011

Jay Carney, Press Secretary

The snotty, smirking, supercilious Robert Gibbs has run for the door at last, going for the big bucks of the lecture circuit. As the president told the New York Times, Gibbs had toiled for "relatively modest pay." I'm sure most Americans sh...

February 21, 2011

Are Democrats Crazy?

Uh-oh. An article on budget cuts proposed by Republicans uses martial metaphors: "targets ... attack ... ultimatum." The article in the Los Angeles Times opens with this: "Battle lines over steep federal spending reductions hardened Su...

February 3, 2011

ObamaCare and the Individual Mandate

A commenter on a news blog, sasquatch08, hits it out of the ballpark in his analysis of the individual mandate in ObamaCare, here and here:Science has determined that two drinks a day for men and one for women is quite beneficial. It reduces the chan...

February 3, 2011

General Electric, General Obama, and the Level Playing Field

The nexus between the federal government, labor unions, and some, favored businesses grows tighter by the day. On 21 January our president issued an executive order creating the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, to be led by Jeffrey Im...

February 1, 2011

Gender Gap at Wikipedia

Uh oh! What's a prog to do? According to the New York Times, "surveys suggest that less than 15 percent of its [Wikipedia's] hundreds of thousands of contributors are women." But what portion are transgendered? Do surveys suggest anything a...

January 24, 2011

Regulations Bad, Free Market Good

Is 2011 to be the year when liberals awaken to the virtues of the free market?  First Donald E. Graham, CEO of the Washington Post Co., and now our president himself?  What's going on?When most people hear "Kaplan," they think of ...

December 31, 2010

If I Do It, It Is Holy

Whatever a great man does is good because, well, he's great.  Sound familiar from our contemporary politics?  The same principle is found in Indian spirituality: whatever the guru does is holy because he is the guru.  He is not good be...

December 31, 2010

The Obamas' Kwanzaa Message

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December 23, 2010

Net Neutrality: For some, 'Big Brother' regulation is OK

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December 17, 2010

Austria: Another Small Cultural Suicide

This time it's judges in Austria fining one Helmut G., a 63-year-old, for yodeling whilst mowing his lawn. Yodeling was invented in the Alps and is embedded in Austrian culture, but don't dare do it when your Muslim neighbors are praying. Since they ...

December 15, 2010

Sweden: The Suicide Bombing of a Culture

Watching a civilization commit suicide is a horrible spectacle. The irruption in Sweden is just the latest manifestation of the blight infecting Western Europe. Watch Pat Condell's video on Sweden's suicidal embrace of multiculturalism here, then con...

December 9, 2010

Home Foreclosures and Social Justice

The story of Hannah Swearengin and her mortgage woes tugs at the heartstrings.  Poor health, no job, unable to pay the mortgage ($1,700 per month).  According to Laurie Roberts, Hannah's advocate at the Arizona Republic, "Swearengin is...

December 6, 2010

The Injustice Department

The Justice Department stonewalled efforts by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to investigate the dismissal of a civil complaint against the New Black Panther Party, leaving open the question of whether the department is willing to pursue civil ri...

November 27, 2010

Democrats Digest Lessons of Election

Our president's analysis of why he received a shellacking at the midterms put the blame squarely on us: He may have failed to communicate how wonderful his programs were, but we were too thick-witted to understand that he was leading us to nirvana. N...

November 25, 2010

Obama Props up Faltering Hybrid Market

"Obama Bolsters U.S. Hybrid Automobile Sales in Waning Consumer Market" reads the headline. The hybrid market is now 13 years old. Hybrids have never made economic sense, either for manufacturers or consumers, and the latter have figured th...

November 24, 2010

'Smart Power' in Afghanistan

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November 23, 2010

Increasing Taxes Increases Spending

Many of us suspected as much, and now the proof: for every extra dollar of "revenue enhancement" the government gains, it spends anywhere from $1.05 to $1.81, depending on the model used. Why is this important now? Slide 22 of the Co-Chairs...

November 11, 2010

'What Is Your Take on Jihad and Jihadis, Mr. President?'

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November 6, 2010

What does the Department of Health and Human Services want with my kid's Social Security number?

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November 4, 2010

What I Saw at the Obama Press Conference

Watching the president speak truly is dispiriting, but I managed to do so, gentle reader, to spare you the agony. "No one party can dictate where we go from here." Unlike the last two years? When the president told Republicans, "I won...

October 26, 2010

Liberal Refuses to Take Responsibility for Cheating

"Liberal Refuses to Take Responsibility for Cheating." Now that would be a compelling headline. But what did CBSNews post on their website? "Alex Sink, Florida Gov. Candidate, Accused of ‘Cheating' in Debate." The candidate ...

October 25, 2010

The Narcissism Continues

Sunday New York Times, A1, feature story on our 44th president: "Back on the Stump, a Chastened Obama Takes a Sharper Tone." One wonders if the headline writer bothered to read the article. To start, "Back on the Stump" is puzzlin...

October 17, 2010

Obama on Obama 2.0

Peter Baker's interview of the president in the New York Times Magazine (appearing in print today) has many creepy moments in it. To start with, Mr. Obama "has spent what one aide called 'a lot of time talking about Obama 2.0.'" What is the...

October 13, 2010

Illegal Mexicans Receive Substandard Healthcare - in the US!

"Mexican illegal immigrants in the United States face a higher risk of illness and death from limited access to health care, according to a new study announced this week by Mexico's health ministry ." Don't you love it when the other half...

September 29, 2010

Medical Marijuana and Peer Review Science

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September 27, 2010

Illegal Immigrants and Crime

Well, look at this: illegal immigrants make up 7.6% of the population of Arizona, yet they account for 14.7% "of Arizona's prison population, with none being incarcerated merely for their immigration status." I know, disproportionate incarc...

September 25, 2010

Buffett to Taxpayers: Get over Your Anger

Warren Buffett, second richest man in America, has some stern words for his fellow citizens:Sentiment has turned very sour in the last three or four or five months. I hope we get over it pretty soon, because it's not productive. We will come back reg...

September 24, 2010

Mr. Colbert Goes to Washington

When I saw the headline that Stephen Colbert, of Comedy Central, had testified before Congress, I thought it must be a joke. Well, it was a joke alright, but he was actually called to testify about illegal (sorry, undocumented) farm workers by Rep. Z...

September 22, 2010

WH Science Advisor gives away warmist game

White House Science Advisor Dr. John Holdren informs his fellow global warmists that "global warming" is a "dangerous misnomer." No, from now on we should refer to "global climate disruption." Boy, talk about danger! I f...

September 12, 2010

Separation of Religion and Politics?

A poster on a photography forum I visit occasionally put up pictures taken at the Beck/Palin Restoring Honor rally in Washington, DC. The pictures are worth a look, especially the ObamaCare Official Pace Car (a hearse!) and a T shirt (I won't give it...

September 6, 2010

Just Spoiled Brats?

A recent opinion piece by Eugene Robinson perfectly illustrates the hauteur, the contempt with which the elites survey the majority of us: "The American people are acting like a bunch of spoiled brats ... in a mood to hold their breath until the...

September 1, 2010

O Algae! Save Us from Big Oil!

According to headlines in the Arizona Republic, "Arizona set to become center for algae-based, biofuel industry. Clean, green energy source could replace fossil fuels." Sure it could. And mining green cheese from Selene, Gaia's nearest cele...

August 21, 2010

A Windsor by Any Other Name

... would be as dumb. Yes, Prince Charles, most famous scion of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, has put his bespoke shoe in it again. When last the madcap princeling made the news, we learned that "The Prince of Wales...

August 1, 2010

Pardon for Billy the Kid?

Bill Richardson, Democrat governor of New Mexico, is weighing a pardon for another Bill, Billy the Kid. What is it about Democrats that they so love criminals? Their ongoing efforts to grant felons voting rights are well known. And hasn't Mr. Richard...

July 31, 2010

Think green; but don't buy green

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July 29, 2010

The new Chevy Volt: Overpriced and oversold

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July 23, 2010

Government Motor's upcoming IPO

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July 22, 2010

Obamacare's hidden tax on gold

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July 21, 2010

Obama administration negotiates with the Taliban

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June 30, 2010

What the Robert Byrd obits missed

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June 20, 2010

Diversity and Its Discontents in Krygyzstan

Kyrgyzstan is back in the news. For those who do not follow such things closely, that unhappy nation borders on the western edge of China. The fighting between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks has claimed perhaps 2,000 lives, according to the latest estimate , and ...

June 16, 2010

Who Owns the Land, Anyway?

If you go to YouTube and run a search on "UCLA Mexico immigrant," you can watch a video of Steve Gochez, a high school history teacher, giving a fiery speech on the UCLA campus urging the crowd to rebel against the U.S. and free its portion...

February 22, 2010

New credit card rules will drive up rates, punish responsible cardholders

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February 16, 2010

Killing Republicans Is OK for the Left?

Last Friday my wife and I went out to eat at our favorite restaurant. As we sat down I did not pay attention to the table behind me, but as I ate I began to feel under assault, for the man facing me had a loud voice. After "the Republicans ... h...

February 11, 2010

Global warming is causing earthquakes and tsunamis says liberal author

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February 9, 2010

When 'denial' is a 'pragmatic' option

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December 30, 2009

A few choice words to the airlines over new security measures

This could have been addressed to any of the airlines. I chose Southwest because it has been my carrier of choice for the past quarter century. I encourage everyone to write a similar letter to their airlines.Mr. Gary C. KellyChairman, President, and...

December 27, 2009

Terrorism? What terrorism, asks media?

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December 26, 2009

Save the planet! Eat your pet!

The Financial Times reported that "Carbon prices plunged yesterday in the aftermath of the Copenhagen conference on climate change, dealing a blow to the credibility of the European Union's carbon-trading scheme." An indulgence for a ton o...

September 8, 2009

Triumph of the Banal

With his Back to School Event (text here), President Obama becomes the nation's Nanny-in-Chief, filling his speech with banalities at every turn, a speech as forgettable as any principal's remarks at the opening assembly of the year.The triumph of th...

September 4, 2009

Infantile economics from the left

An email has been making the rounds for some time regarding the obscene profits enjoyed by drug companies. While it may be old news, innumerable credulous souls, like my sister, keep forwarding it as a revelation of The Truth, so it is useful to go o...

September 3, 2009

Obama mixes metaphors in banal Kennedy eulogy

President Obama, he of the soaring rhetoric, needs to give his speech writers a day off now and then. He's obviously been working them to death.Consider his eulogy for Senator Kennedy. While he was seen by his fiercest critics as a partisan lightning...

September 2, 2009

The Organizer-in-Chief

Our Organizer-in-Chief will address students across America come September 8. In preparation for that teaching moment, Teaching Ambassador Fellows at the Department of Education have prepared a Menu of Classroom Activities to prepare the kiddies.Here...