If one were a flea, and one’s entire life was spent nestled among the black hairs on a zebra’s back, one might tend to conclude that zebras are black. Until one met a flea from a neighboring white region of the same zebra’s back. Then an argument might ensue between the two camps over which […]
A friend was lamenting today about having to throw away an expensive bottle of hairspray in order to pass through airport security. That would be bad enough, but then she commented that it was her own fault. That is the truly tragic part. We have all been assaulted with the TSA’s ridiculous propaganda for so […]
In 1906, the Supreme Court case of Hale vs Henkel was decided. The case centered around whether or not the defendant, serving in his capacity as an officer of a corporation, had a right to claim 4th and 5th amendment protection from the court’s subpoenas for the corporation’s records. In the majority opinion, they attempted […]
Friends, neighbors, and relatives, lend me your ears. This is a supposedly free country, where we subscribe to various notions of personal liberty, privacy, and periodically reaffirm our commitment to things like the Castle Doctrine, which states that a man’s home is his castle. In other words, what goes on within the walls of our […]
I’m no fan of Lou Dobbs, and this latest flap about President Obama’s birth certificate is just more evidence that he’s an idiot, but the dialog has highlighted what I think is an interesting political oddity. The Obama administration has chosen to ignore this tempest in a teapot. Okay. I don’t disagree — this claim […]
A few recent stories in the news have caught my attention, so I wanted to comment on them. First, CNN ran an editorial on hate crimes. I already responded to it in the comments, but I wanted to address one other point the authors made. In the last paragraph, they make the claim (without a […]
I like to periodically cover the topic of misconduct by law enforcement, and our story archive continues to grow (now over 130 stories). But a couple of stories since my last update deserve attention. First, the year began with one of the most heinous examples of police brutality in history when multiple cell phone cameras […]
A survey by the Library of Congress in 1991 showed that Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand was the most influential book in America, second only to the Bible. I run into very few people who have actually read it, and at 1,200 pages, it is daunting. However, in recent months there has been a resurgence […]
Allow me to introduce you to the Peterkins. If you’ve never been exposed to this book, I strongly encourage you to read it. Especially the first story in the book. As this article describes: The charm of the story is not in the plot, but in the telling, building up layers of complication, and the […]
We all know what this law says, or at least most of us do. Why is it that so many people who work in government either forget this law, or believe they are exempt from it? I had to comment on this story which brilliantly illustrates this point. The State of Hawaii is ending its […]
Last winter I received a rather curious letter in the mail. It was from a company calling themselves RedLightViolations.com. I’ve seen other scams by mail, and at first glance, I thought that this was just another. It purported to be a citation, issued by authority of the State of Illinois, for running a red light. […]
If you were born within the last forty years, chances are good that you share a healthy skepticism when it comes to claims by our government that the Social Security system can be repaired. We’ve been hearing the gloom-and-doom predictions for at least the last ten years that when the Baby Boomers begin to retire, […]