Category: Uncategorized

While it’s huge news right now, what Vice President Biden said to the AARP sounds exactly what President Obama said in May. Biden: Vice President Joe Biden told people attending an AARP town hall meeting that unless the Democrat-supported health care plan becomes law the nation will go bankrupt and that the only way to…

In an excellent discussion of what Obamacare will mean, Rick Moran (in a piece titled “Word to the Wise: Don’t Get Sick”), touches on another obnoxious idea from noted euthanasia and infanticide advocate Peter Singer: that we should ration health care. The trouble is, Singer (an “ethicist” — which is like calling Caligula a “moralist”)…

Yesterday a friend sent me a link to this picture of Madonna: When I considered putting it in this blog, I realized that while I would be doing so for entertainment value, it’s also crass and exploitative, because if we live long enough, we will all have sagging flesh. Despite my daily physical exercise routine,…

I’m not enough of a geek to know exactly what to do about this, but this blog is having more and more of a problem with legitimate comments being junked. They are automatically being sent to the “junk comments” folder, where they are easily lost among the many actual junk comments which are generated by…

A New Jersey brewer has attracted the ire of the Mothers Against Drunk Driving, for naming beer after highway exits: New Jersey craft brewer Flying Fish has attracted the attention of MADD, the NJ Turnpike Authority (NJTA), and the press for breaking the taboo with its line of beers named after exits on the New…

We are all taught (at least most of us are) that honesty is a virtue, and that we should not lie to people. At least, that’s the ideal. A piece by Amy Alkon that Dr. Helen linked raises the question of whether there is any duty of honesty towards assholes. Alkon lives near what used…

In case you didn’t catch Glenn Reynolds’ must-read piece on health care this weekend: But there’s another cost that isn’t getting enough attention. That’s the degree to which a bureaucratized healthcare system will squash medical innovation just as we reach a point where dramatic progress is possible. To see how important that is, I don’t…

One of these days I’m going to have to figure out why I find politics so depressing. But it was a pleasant distraction from politics to be asked recently which country I’d rather live in, India or China. I had to put on my thinking cap, and think long and hard. My answer was China,…

You can see an excellent video that explores the Canadian Health Care system at the link. The bottom line? The Canadian system is a two tier system. The poor get long waits (leading to injury and death) the rich buy their health care. Here is the health care bill Congress is preparing to vote on.…

It looks like the scientists who have predicted unending global warming caused by CO2 emissions may be in serious error. No one knows exactly how much Earth’s climate will warm due to carbon emissions, but a new study this week suggests scientists’ best predictions about global warming might be incorrect. The study, which appears in…

I am so relieved that Chinese government has decided to stop “treating” sufferers of “Internet addiction” with electric shock therapy! BEIJING (AP) — China’s Health Ministry has ordered a hospital to stop using electric shock therapy to cure youths of Internet addiction, saying there was no scientific evidence it worked. Linyi Mental Health Hospital in…

Sarah Palin has a few words to say about climate change. There is no shortage of threats to our economy. America’s unemployment rate recently hit its highest mark in more than 25 years and is expected to continue climbing. Worries are widespread that even when the economy finally rebounds, the recovery won’t bring jobs. Our…

One of my objections to socialized medicine is that it would require people who don’t abuse the system to pay for people who do. Like Ricky Alardo: Ricky Alardo, a homeless alcoholic nicknamed Ricky Ricardo, swigs cheap vodka by day at his favorite corner in Washington Heights, then calls an ambulance to chauffeur him to…

I wish people would just calm down a bit and quit it with musical taste inquisitions. I realize that it is normal in high school to criticize the musical taste of your peers, and get all defensive about your own, but the idea that not liking certain music is racist just goes too far. Glenn…

Sarah Palin is upsetting the political apple cart by promising to support Republicans and Democrats who support her agenda. Here is an excerpt from the Washington Times posted at the above link. The former Republican vice-presidential nominee and heroine to much of the GOP’s base said in an interview she views the electorate as embattled…

Regular readers may recall that I have long considered John Dean to be one of the most despicable characters in American politics. Not that I’m alone in my assessment. For years the man has been called a rat, and while “weasel” might be more accurate, such terms do a clear disservice to the animals involved.…

The G8 last week decreed that the governments of the world were going to work real hard to prevent the global temperature from rising more than 2° C. When King Canute of lore wanted to teach his citizens a lesson, he set his throne by the seashore and commanded the tides to roll out. Canute’s…

I don’t know what readers might think, but I think what is happening here is a classic Machiavellian strategy: …[Attorney General] Holder, 58, may be on the verge of asserting his independence in a profound way. Four knowledgeable sources tell NEWSWEEK that he is now leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration’s…

John Holdren, Obama’s Science Adviser has some advice for curing the ills of the globe and especially America. * Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not; * The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation’s drinking water or in food; *…

I have long believed that anti-Zionism is basically a thinly disguised form of anti-Semitism. But what about Jewish anti-Zionism? Is that a rare thing? Maybe not. If these numbers are accurate, there is an undeniable contrast between the thinking of American Jews and the thinking of Israeli Jews. A contrast so large as to raise…