Society & Politics
« Previous EntriesCollege: Who needs it?
Saturday, May 10th, 2008Most people don’t. Let me get this out of the way: there are many jobs that can only be done professionally after many years of careful supervised study. If you are going or went to college to do one of those types of jobs, this post isn’t about you.
This post is about me — [...]
Of Populsim, Envy, and Identity
Sunday, January 6th, 2008The debate last night showed Edwards and Huckabee getting ready to try to win the presidency on typical class-warfare, envy politics. Edwards is the worst, but he’s only being honest about his goals where his Democrat counterparts are being quiet. But Huckabee isn’t much better. Both are running on the notion that the middle class [...]
Global Cooling: Don’t call it a comeback
Thursday, January 3rd, 2008It’s easy to forget that in the 1970s, climatologists were foretelling the coming of a new ice age. We’re supposed to forget about that because now the “consensus” is that we’re causing our own warming spell.
But not according to Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin, a research scientist for the Oceanology Institute in Russia. Dr. Sorokhtin points out that climate fluctuations [...]
Government schooling trains for subservience
Tuesday, September 4th, 2007People don’t seem to realize this very often: allowing the government to control education is inconsistent with living in an individualistic and free society.
Case in point: A Judge rules that school administrators can take punitive actions against students for things they write outside of school.
U.S. District Court Judge Mark Kravitz denied Avery Doninger’s request for [...]
Global Warming Bureaucrats and Politicians
Monday, August 20th, 2007The majority of global warming research is funded by government grants.
These government grants provide excellent job security for researchers. And since they come from the government, an entity not subject to the natural forces of the private sector, results are not particularly important.
Global warming scare mongering gives government agents (politicians and bureaucrats) another foundation on [...]
Good news goes under-reported
Tuesday, August 7th, 2007Presumptive presidential candidate Fred Thompson writes:
“Since the spring of 2003, the economy has had average growth of over 3%, 8.2 million jobs have been created, and the inflation rate has stayed low. The current unemployment rate, 4.6%, is a full percentage point below what it averaged during the 1990s, and there have been 47 consecutive [...]
It’s All About Entitlements
Monday, July 30th, 2007Robert Samuelson writes in Newsweek:
“The aging of America is not just a population change or, as a budget problem, an accounting exercise. It involves a profound transformation of the nature of government: commitments to the older population are slowly overwhelming other public goals; the national government is becoming mainly an income-transfer mechanism from younger workers [...]
Christians, the Bible, and Guns: is Self-Defense Vengeance?
Saturday, July 28th, 2007We’ve all heard the cries of hypocrisy: You can’t be Christian and against gun control; you can’t be pro-life and pro-gun ownership; vengeance is God’s, so why do you need a gun?, etc.
Let us examine, in particular, the charge that being prepared for self-defense is vengeance.
Feingold proves Washington gridlock is good, but tedious
Sunday, July 22nd, 2007I’m a firm believer that usually, it’s good when politicians in Washington are so divided that they can’t pass new legislation. When they’re gridlocked they can’t raise our taxes, pass ridiculous political speech laws like the Campaign Finance Reform, and the like. There are exceptions, of course: we need swift consensus votes on important matters [...]
Emotions Trump Reality
Monday, July 9th, 2007A brain researcher is advising Democrats that they need to focus on voters’ emotions in order to win debates.
There’s nothing surprising about this. I’ve always thought that the liberal line is based entirely on appeal to emotion, rather than a rational view of factual evidence.
What’s more cushy to say: “everyone deserves health coverage” or “the [...]