Today's Politicos vs The Words and Deeds of The Founders

This s a synopsis of the second chapter of Richard Weaver’s Ideas Have Consequences prefaced and intermingled with some thoughts from this reader. That’s the thing about a great book, it’s thought provoking. This is the third in a series of posts about this important book.

Read the rest of this entry »

Peggy Noonan had an excellent piece in last week's Wall Streen Journal which everyone should read. She reminds us why privacy is so important:

Read the rest of this entry »

Most Americans probably do not understand the scope and scale of the NSA's data collection efforts. If they did, they would understand that these numbers are almost statistically insignificant. If the abuse of power and lack of oversight documented in this article in the Washington Post, can be termed "insignificant."

Read the rest of this entry »

Restaurants are particularly vulnerable to the depredation whose unaffectionate nickname is Obama Care. Their profit margins are slim. If they offer a health care benefit, it is unlikely to pass the “essential benefits” test imposed by Obama Care. According to Congressional Budget Office estimates, complying with the mandate will likely be more expensive.

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, some fast food workers in New York and other cities went on strike for a day, calling for an increase in the minimum wage to $15. In some cases, that would nearly double the hourly wages of many of those workers. Of course, we’d be completely shocked to learn that much of this was being supported and underwritten by the delightful folks at S.E.I.U. (Seriously Economically Illiterate and Unaware). As quoted in the New York Times, Mary Kay Henry, the S.E.I.U. president, said, “Our union’s members think that economic inequality is the No. 1 problem our nation needs to solve.”

Read the rest of this entry »

A perspicacious thought from Powerlineblog. You be the judge as to it's merits.

Read the rest of this entry »

Two small email service providers seemingly committed harakiri rather than comply with US government requests demands (the term request implies a choice) for information about the contents of their customers data. Well, actually one of the companies didn't get a request, but "saw the handwriting on the wall," and decided to proactively destroy its systems.

Read the rest of this entry »

Not only are big communications firms like AT&T cheerfully being complicit in assisting the government in whatever it wants - privacy concerns be damned - but they are explicitly amortizing the charges for doing so across all their customers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Psychologist B.F. Skinner coined the term operant conditioning in 1948 to refer to any behavior that generates consequences. Today, the American people are the rats in the cage.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Washington Post featured a story this week about how the NSA is funneling information about Americans to other law enforcement agencies. These "tips" are then obfuscated as the source of the information while, the DEA for instance, attempts to develop a parallel line of investigation to reproduce whatever probable cause was uncovered by the signal intelligence exploits of the NSA.

Read the rest of this entry »