Fixing the fast-food strike

So, thousands of fast-food workers are out on strike against the national burger chains, demanding that their wages be doubled to $15 per hour. But the national chains don’t control employee wages; how much to pay their people is in the hands of local franchise owners, Therefore, if you are one of the concerned, caring,… Continue reading Fixing the fast-food strike

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Hunger Games for real

“Students can only have one serving of meat or other protein. However, rich kids can buy a second portion each day on their own dime.” This is from coverage of Michelle Obama’s national school-lunch regulations. Protein-starving the peasantry so it will remain docile and biddable is a tyrant’s maneuver thousands of years old. I was… Continue reading Hunger Games for real

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After such knowledge…

I have read very little in the last few decades that is as shocking to me as this: Essay by a teacher in a black high school. My first reaction was that I wanted to believe it was a bigot’s fabrication. I’d still like to believe that, but it was reposted by a black man… Continue reading After such knowledge…

Destroying the middle ground

Here’s a thought experiment for you. Imagine yourself in an alternate United States where the First Amendment is not as a matter of settled law considered to bar Federal and State governments from almost all interference in free speech. This is less unlikely than it might sound; the modern, rather absolutist interpretation of free-speech liberties… Continue reading Destroying the middle ground

Natural rights and wrongs?

One of my commenters recently speculated in an accusing tone that I might be a natural-rights libertarian. He was wrong, but explaining why is a good excuse for writing an essay I’ve been tooling up to do for a long time. For those of you who aren’t libertarians, this is not a parochial internal dispute… Continue reading Natural rights and wrongs?

AGW panic ending with a whimper

This is how the AGW panic ends: not with a bang, but with a whimper. The Economist, which (despite a recent decline) remains probably the best news magazine in the English language, now admits that (a) global average temperature has been flat for 15 years even as CO2 levels have been rising rapidly, (b) surface… Continue reading AGW panic ending with a whimper

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Napier’s Lesson

In the 1840s, Hindu priests complained to Charles James Napier (then Commander-in-Chief of British forces in India) about the prohibition of suttee by British authorities. Suttee was the custom of burning widows alive on the funeral pyre of their husbands. According to Napier’s brother William, this is how he replied: “Be it so. This burning… Continue reading Napier’s Lesson

Why I won’t be signing the “Declaration of Internet Freedom” as it is

There’s been some buzz in the last few days about the Declaration of Internet Freedom penned by some prominent libertarians. I wish I could sign on to this document. Actually, considering who appears on the list of signatories, I consider the fact that the composers didn’t involve me in drafting it to be a surprising… Continue reading Why I won’t be signing the “Declaration of Internet Freedom” as it is

On not ceding the truth to racists

One of the most important reasons not to tell ourselves pretty lies about unpleasant realities is so that we do not hand evil people the power of being the only ones who are willing to speak the truth.

An intelligence test

Heads up, gentle reader. I’m about to give you an intelligence test. To begin the test, read “The Talk: Nonblack version“.

The Grey Lady weeps for Peter Gleick

So, all last week on one of my favorite mailing lists I was hearing various climate alarmists crowing about a document leak from the Heartland Institute that supposedly prooooved that it (and by extension all other anthropogenic-global-warming skeptics) was engaging in a nefarious campaign to suppress its opponents and trash the teaching of science in… Continue reading The Grey Lady weeps for Peter Gleick

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Junk science double fail

Two bits of science news appeared on my radar today with not much in common except that they’re both exceedingly bad news for the political class. That more or less guarantees that they’ll get poor or nonexistent coverage in the mainstream media and is a good enough reason for me to write about them. First,… Continue reading Junk science double fail

Hollywood vs. Obama

The huge groundswell of opposition to SOPA and PIPA is having some interesting ripple effects. Barack Obama announced he would veto these bills if they came to his desk, and now it seems that Hollywood is pissed off over this.

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Through a mirror, darkly

Today the New York Times is carrying a story on Chinese fears of “cultural encirclement”. “We must clearly see that international hostile forces are intensifying the strategic plot of westernizing and dividing China, and ideological and cultural fields are the focal areas of their long-term infiltration,” Mr. Hu said. “We should deeply understand the seriousness… Continue reading Through a mirror, darkly

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