Archeological records indicate that glass was first invented in ancient Egypt by a bored 25th Century time traveler named Bob Swizzle, who had nothing better to do on his lunch breaks than to create strange paradoxes in human history. Bob’s invention was, of course, welcomed, for glassware allowed for lighter, more decorative, and more aesthetically appealing booze containers than were previously…
In the late 1600s, British political philosopher John Locke told folks that the state, i.e. government, only existed to protect the lives and property of people against encroachments by others. The Founding Fathers relied heavily on Locke’s concepts when writing the U.S. Constitution.
Unfortunately, neither Locke nor the Founders looked critically at the circular logic of claiming for the state…
The tragedy of shattered illusions.
Those emotion-sustaining beliefs in heroes, those expectations for fairness in a world of fallible people. How easily those expectations can be broken, and the shrapnel, sometimes lodged in the mind for years, can be "wicked painful," as they might say in Boston.
Take, for example, the popular science-fiction novelist William Gibson. With a record of…
There once was a tried and true saying, “Charity begins at home,” meaning that, usually, people who know one another have the most emotional connections and incentives to help each another. Local, personal charity tends to cut back on waste and fraud, and when one is helped by a family member, friend, or neighbor, he tends to want to reciprocate, thus strengthening the bonds of family,…
Egads! According to leftist media pundits, President Trump’s new moves to begin repealing the textbook fascist insurance law known as “Obamacare” will cause people to die!
Medical doctor, astrophysicist, and internationally renowned economist Bernie “Ben and Jerry’s” Sanders told the word on Jan. 24 that if “Obamacare” (Care? Really?) is repealed, “36,000 people will die as a result.”
Don’t let…
CNN can’t seem to buy a break. Just weeks after one of its silly hosts, Don Lemon, became publicly drunk on the air and began waxing wistful about how he was “ready for a relationship," the network sees one of its “expert political commentators” make a fool of herself on Twitter, and compound it by insulting people who happened to call her on it.
At about 6:21 a.m. on Wednesday, Sally Kohn -- a…
At the height of the country-punk-reggae-hip-hop craze in May of 1967, a song written and performed by Scott McKenzie hit the radio and changed the music industry. It was called “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” and was remarkable for doing two things.
First, it set the bar for the most parenthetical words in a song title -- so many, in fact, that the 45-rpm single had to…
Last week, the U.S. government announced a new travel ban that, as expected, collectivist critics of President Trump seem to have blithely overlooked. It’s not about foreigners coming into the country, but about U.S. citizens trying to leave.
The new IRS action has been a year in the making, stemming from language inserted into a Republican-sponsored pork highway bill given the beautiful title…
With disgruntled leftists in California promoting the secession movement "Calexit" (imitating "Brexit" in Britain, but sounding sadly like a new brand of laundry detergent) in the wake of last November's elections, let's take a look at exactly how much of a threat that really is - and what the U.S. would look like if "Calexit" succeeded.
The Calexit ballot initiative would see the entire state…
On Sunday, January 22, 2017, President Trump signed an Executive Order that reinstates the so-called “Mexico City Rule,” a move that stops all US funding to international “Non-Governmental Organizations” (NGOs) that provide “abortion services” around the world.
Deriving its name from a 1984 “population conference” in that city, where then-President Reagan announced the new policy, the rule has…
