Scott Adams is taking heat in some corners of the Internet for this tweet:

Note to people who are bad at critical thinking: If we someday learn that getting the vax was a huge mistake, please don’t tell me you knew all along. You are guessing just like the rest of us. Someone will guess right.

— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) December 1, 2021

Continue reading “What’s in a Tweet?” →

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” →

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?

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.

Source: Mises Institute.

This story surprised me, as I had always assumed that vaccines eliminated smallpox. In light of current controversies, I should, however, note that this particular instance of myth busting does nothing to suggest that smallpox vaccines do no good.

Source: Bacon’s Rebellion (BR).

Except for a twinge of nostalgia, this story doesn’t move me much. Philosophically, at least, I am quite happy to see the newspaper industry consolidate into collapse.

Continue reading “Another Media Merger in the Works” →

Source: Kerry: Unemployed and Unedited.

Ms. Dougherty makes the relevant point:

No doubt city officials will argue that Kelly’s offense was sending a small donation through his work email. Sorry, that is NOT a fireable offense. It was the recipient of the donation that ticked off the highly partisan Police Chief Larry Boone and led to the loss of the job Kelly had held for 19 years.

Let’s be honest, 25 bucks sent to a save-the-puppies charity wouldn’t have ended a distinguished career in the Norfolk PD. It was the wrongheaded belief that Kelly was sending money to a guy who was a vigilante.

Another example of penumbra reasoning. This time at the local police department.