N00n

    Some years ago, Virginia started allowing those who wished to pay extra money to have a license plate that has a pro-life message. This year, their legislature has sent a bill to the governor advocating for the pro-choice side. Now, I have a definite opinion on the abortion issue, but what it is doesn't matter to this argument. What matters is that the government of the commonwealth on Virginia has decided to jump into the fray.     There is a long tradition in our country of... Read Full Story

    Everyone has heard of laws that they think are stupid. One thing that many of these laws have in common is that they are over-the-top examples of the government trying to protect us from being stupid. One wonders how often something happened before the government felt the need to pass the law against it. Even more, though, one has to ponder why the government feels that it has to protect us from ourselves in the first place.     Now, everyone loves this topic, because everyone can point... Read Full Story

    Usually I try to write on a single topic, so that in the future you can find interesting, relevant blog posts more easily.  Today, though, what I'm seeing is a juxtaposition of two topics that alone ae interesting to me, but together aought to be interesting to everyone.       There are two long-term threats to the political stability of the world that we are in a position to do something about right now.  The one that everyone is talking about today is global warming.  I'm not going to... Read Full Story

In the carbon cycle, natural fluxes are the biggest, accounting for about 330 gigatonnes per year, and are in near equilibrium The roughly 7.5 gigatonnes coming from all human sources may be sufficient to tip this system out of balance, warming the Earth     The above quote, from a BBCarticle on new data about CO2 uptake by the ocean, is the most concise factual statement about one of the most politically contentious issues surrounding global warming I have seen to date. As it is stated... Read Full Story

    I just got done listening to the President's speech on Afghanistan, and while it's true he gives a good speech, he left out some specifics that I want to know. He listed three main thrusts of our strategy there, and the second one is the most vital, I think, to actually winning the war there. It was to pursue civilian strategies to stabilize the country, to root out corruption and get the Afghan society running on all cylinders. As this is what will ultimately win the war for us (as I... Read Full Story

    I'm not going to write a lot today, but I just wanted to point out that the drug makers aren't doing us any favors with their kickback. Remember this when it comes time to vote next year. It's not just those who took money from Big Insurance to kill any reform that need to be held accountable. We also need to hammer those who took PhRMA money to ensure that the bill, when passed, would still let them screw us over. Read Full Story

    There's getting to be more chatter about net neutrality, with those on the left and right picking sides that really don't make much sense, except that most Americans seem to want it, and so the President is behind it. This lines the Democrats behind it and theRepublicans against it. Other than that, there is no logic I can see behind the decided positions. Most unions that are involved in the fight are on the same side as the Republicans, and it's unusual to see them make common cause... Read Full Story

     I have been hearing a lot of chatter about the war in Afghanistan these days, and one argument I hear raised over and over again against the war is that if we had not spent the money on the wars we wouldn't be in the recession we are right now. This is completely and utterly wrong.     If we hadn't spent the money on Iraq and Afghanistan, it would not have gone into some magical “save the country” fund, nor would it have gone into the pockets of every day Americans. The recession... Read Full Story

    There is an interesting blog here that I read this morning. To summarize, if you believe in social mobility, you don't believe in government-sponsored wealth distribution and vise versa. I have been thinking about this as I went through my day today, and it occurred to me to look up the income statistics of the different parties. What I found was that while those with more money were likely to vote Republican, their votes weren't likely to matter, because they were overwhelmed by the... Read Full Story

    So it's the middle of October, and everyone in America that cares about politics is focused on the health care debate raging in Washington (I wonder whether reconciling the two bills will make the final bill more likely to pass the Senate than the HELP bill alone would have been, or less), and maybe also on the financial reforms that are working their way through the congress, or the troop increases that are or are not happening in Afghanistan.. What most people seem to forget is that... Read Full Story