“Earlier in the pandemic, many different groups expressed hesitancy toward getting vaccinated. African Americans, younger Americans and rural Americans all had significant portions of their demographic that resisted vaccination. But over time, the vaccination rates in those demographics have risen, while the rate of Republican vaccination against COVID-19 has flatlined at just 59%, according to the latest numbers from Kaiser.By comparison, 91% of Democrats are vaccinated.”

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/12/05/1059828993/data-vaccine-misinformation-trump-counties-covid-death-rate

Operation Warp Speed, here and its international equivalents, was touted as a big Republican bragging point. What happened?

WSJ: Vaccines are only the beginning

mRNA technology is here to stay, and may be successful in treating diseases and conditions which have so far proven intractable.

Maybe even aging.

Source: Kerry: Unemployed and Unedited.

Ms. Dougherty seems to be in a cranky mood, but I don’t blame her. Dr. Fauci increasingly looks like an oxymoron; a befuddled KGB agent.

Continue reading “Omicron: It’s Here!” →

A friend of mine used to keep a loaded revolver on the coffee table in his apartment. Because he had plenty of valuable property to protect, some legal, some not, the reason for the gun was obvious. But I was curious, so I asked him, “Why keep it on the coffee table?”

Continue reading “My Friend’s Gun on the Coffee Table” →

Use of force law summary

We have discussed self-defense a lot here, but not the use of force in defense of property. 

In most jurisdictions, he use of RESAONABLE force is justified in defending property, but deadly force is not. Continue reading “Defense of property” →

Source: Antiwar.com

While I expect yawns of disinterest, stories of government participation in our entertainment industry deserve to be contemplated.

The reason is straightforward: Entertainment shapes our thinking; to the extent that participation in entertainment allows government to shape our thinking we should know about it and, potentially, try to prevent it.

Of course, most of us assume we are too smart to have our thinking shaped by anyone. But pride of this sort is actually hubris, which can be the cause of tragedy.

If it turned out the entertainment industry was producing an abundance of films, TV shows and news using government support (and creative direction), would that not be concerning?

LTE Don’t take your guns to town

Mr. Candler’s letter starts with the usual hoplophobic, pseudo-psychiatric claptrap assigning supposed motivations to those who bear arms in the public square. Seriously, when is the last time you read of a VCDL, NRA, or for that matter, Militia, member shooting anyone other than in legal self defense? There are millions of us, with tens of millions of AR and AK type arms, and trillions of rounds of ammunition. If we were a problem, you would know by now.

But what is really troubling is the last paragraph, in which he advises that “real men” cower in their homes and leave protecting their homes, businesses, and communities to the police. Continue reading “Who owns the public square?” →

These days when someone extols the virtues of the free market we typically assume they have in mind a marketplace free of government regulation. The term, however, once focused more on evil doers in the private sector, typically aristocrats, land owners, and capitalists.

Continue reading “What is a Free Market?” →

I suppose it is ostentatious to say so, but going through the list of all the things I am thankful for today a pattern emerges. It seems that I am grateful for things that have congregated around me as in a river current.

I cannot credit my own strength or genius for this. Instead I count the strength and genius of others within my reach as pure, glorious miracles. I never deserved any of them any more than the flotsam deserves jetsam.

Thus to my mind does God as metaphor become God as reality.