Our betters have been telling us how to live our lives for so long that it is only the next logical step for them to tell us when to die. We have grown so used to meekly accepting their edicts, even on what words we can and cannot use -- "swamp" has virtually...
The latest political alarm is about arsenic in our drinking water. Yes, Virginia, there is now, has been in the past, and may forever in the future be arsenic in our drinking water. Obviously not a lot or I wouldn't be writing this and you wouldn't be reading it. As...
To crusaders for "campaign finance reform," as with many other political crusaders, the facts simply do not matter. What matters is their vision -- and winning. Facts can be left to others. Most of the arguments for campaign finance reform cannot stand up to the...
Random thoughts on the passing scene: Ad for a ski resort: "If swimming is so healthful, why are whales so fat?" Talk about cloning human beings recalls Winston Churchill's comment about the secrets of the atom, "hitherto mercifully withheld from man." Why create...
It is not often that conservative talk-show host extraordinaire Rush Limbaugh and Harlem's left-wing Congressman Charles Rangel are in agreement on anything. But they both say that the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill, which has just passed the Senate to...
A recent catalogue from the giant second-hand camera dealer KEH listed a Canon camera made for the Japanese navy during World War II. This model is described as one of only 15 such cameras made and as being still in excellent condition. Its price is $40,000. Most of...
Ever since racial quotas in college admissions were banned by Proposition 209 in California and by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in Texas, academics and politicians have been racking their brains to come up with something that would allow quotas to continue under...
Has anyone ever pleaded with you not to buy a Rolls Royce? The argument might go like this: So much expensive materials and so many man-hours of highly-skilled hand labor go into producing a Rolls Royce that, if everyone had one, it would drain so many resources and...
Despite media proclamations of "the public's right to know" and frequent invocations of the First Amendment, there has been a deafening silence from the national media over the storm trooper tactics used on college campuses against student newspapers that carried a...
The last time so many people were as bedeviled as the people of California are today by electrical blackouts was back in 1979, when motorists in cities across the country were lined up for hours at filling stations, waiting to get gas. Both shortages had the same...
THE TERM "LIBERAL" originally referred politically to those who wanted to liberate people -- mainly from the oppressive power of government. That is what it still means in various European countries or in Australia and New Zealand. It is the American meaning that is...
THE ONCE-POPULAR GAME SHOW "Dialing for Dollars" has its present-day counterpart in courts of law -- Demonizing for dollars. The most spectacular bonanza to come out of this process has been the hundreds of billions of dollars shared by lawyers and others, as a result...
Random thoughts on the passing scene: In trying to get away from the pardon scandals, Hillary Clinton has said everything except "Bill who?" After the tragic death of auto racer Dale Earnhardt, no one suggested banning the sport. Yet that is exactly what would have...
There is a computer mouse that glows in the dark and the state of Michigan is sending more than 4,000 of them to businesses in California. This is to remind these businesses of the electrical blackouts that have plagued California -- and of the fact that Michigan has...
It may be easier than you think to get rich quick. Let's take a fairly common situation in California. A couple buys a little square box, two-bedroom house on a modest-sized lot during the 1970s for $30,000 or $40,000. Then, over the years, they pay off their...
Test scores are not the only things that tell us how bad our public schools have become. In San Francisco, the school board voted unanimously to have the city's students take Friday, March 9th, off to go to Berkeley, in order to stage a protest demonstration,...
After every tragic school shooting -- and many other shocking murders -- the question gets asked: "How could he do such a thing?" This has become the centerpiece of a whole set of rituals. Another part of these rituals is the appearance of shrinks, like ambulance...
Any smell more subtle than ammonia or a sewage treatment plant is usually hard for me to detect. However, I happen to be able to smell gas escaping better than most people. On more than one occasion I have walked by someone's home, smelled gas and left a note on the...
Some people may have found it an inspiring example of social conscience when various super-rich people, such as the Rockefellers, came out publicly against repealing the taxes that the federal government levies against the property left by people who have died. But it...
The all-out attempt in the media to scare us away from tax cuts was epitomized by a Newsweek cover with the caption: "Bush's $1.6 trillion gamble." In other words, it is a gamble to let people keep their own money, but apparently it is safe to put that money in the...
While giving a talk in far-off Australia on February 1st, U. S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg may have thought it was safe to take a cheap shot at a fellow American back home. Nor was she restrained by the fact that what she said was a lie. Back in 1997,...
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