The incomparable Thomas Sowell tackles a basic question: why have we failed in Iraq? We fought a war, at least in part, to overthrow the Iraqi government with the goal of removing it as a threat in the “war on terror.” The U.S. determined that the best way to accomplish this goal in the long-term […]

In a recent column in the Washington Post, the journalist George Will wrote a column on sexual assault entitle “Colleges Become Victims of Progressivism”  (June 6, 2014) in which he was critical of the Department of Justice’s new standards for proving sexual assault on college campuses and skeptical of the statistics backing those new standards.  […]

That sound you heard is not the Ohio rain that is so often punctuated by a roll of thunder, but existential angst as it works its way through the Republican establishment in Washington, D.C. Eric Cantor, U.S. House Majority Leader (R-VA), lost his party primary today to political novice Dave Brat, an economics professor from […]

Elon Musk is truly a brilliant entrepreneur; initial c0-founder of Paypal, visionary founder of SpaceX and now Tesla motor cars.  I met Mr. Musk back in my Air Force days as a launch officer at Vandenberg AFB; my squadron was involved in small launch and we greatly wanted SpaceX to succeed, since costs of large […]

Before I begin this blog, I beg the reader’s indulgence for such a long book review.  However I considered this book worthy of such a detailed examination, due to its popularity and influence, barely three months after its appearance.  I do hope the length will be justified by the service it may provide.  I promise […]

I just finished a very interesting, but somewhat difficult, book on the economic thought of Evangelicals in Great Britain between around 1790 and 1880.  Sounds really boring?  Well, it was a little bit of slogging at times, but it was worth it.  The author is Boyd Hilton, the title is The Age of Atonement:  The […]

President Obama, unfortunately, does not seem all that interested in obeying the law. The list of overt illegality continues to grow and diversify. Beyond immigration and the Affordable Care Act, the President now flouts the law as it relates to military matters. The Obama Administration, through intermediaries, negotiated the release of Bowe Bergdahl, an American prisoner of […]

The United States Supreme Court has issued a ruling in the little-known but important case of Bond v. U. S.  The facts are as follows:  One Carol Bond discovered that her husband was having an affair with Carol’s best friend.  She decided the best way to respond was to spread a poisoned chemical on surfaces […]

According to the Washington Post, Medicare will now cover sex change surgeries. I am not sure what to say about this, frankly. There are really two separate questions at work. First, should people have the freedom to have sex change operations? Second, do we, as a society, and as taxpayers, have an obligation to facilitate […]

I keep reading more accounts of the Veterans Affairs hospital scandals and the proposed solutions, and I am about to tear my hair out (sorry, no “trigger warning” there for the violence).  One commentator has suggested the the VA hospital system be abolished and veterans be given vouchers to “regular” hospitals.  That is a very […]