Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
With a full week’s perspective on the Nov. 8 elections, one can see the U.S. constitutional system, in a macro sense, again worked exquisitely well. The results provided rough justice (and roughly balanced) for two major parties that both failed to earn governing trust. Moreover, the final balance of power is a very good approximation … Read more
When considering options for education after high school, too many parents and students shy away from community college. For years, academic snobs have denigrated these institutions because they believe the quality of education is inferior. It has been referred to as the ‘13th grade’ and ‘not real college,’ discouraging those who may benefit most from … Read more
Using a mix of electrical stimulation and intense physical therapy, nine people with chronic spinal injuries have had their ability to walk restored. All suffered from severe or complete paralysis as a result of damage to their spinal cord. Incredibly, the volunteers all saw improvements immediately, and continued to show improvements five months later. A … Read more
A cult following fails to attract voters dismayed by Democratic policies. With a Democratic White House and Congress presiding over persistently high inflation, economic woes, and deep public dissatisfaction in the direction of the country, Americans turned in a muddled verdict at the ballot box. While Republicans who offered a genuine alternative did well, the … Read more
New York can’t teach kids to read on $30,000 a year Related PostsThe Era of ‘Good’ Fascism? No Classical School Nearby? No Problem Democrats Must Refuse to Use the Jim Crow Filibuster How Digital Youth Became Unhappy—and Dangerous—Adults The Left’s Intensifying Attacks on Catholic Churches
How else to explain the surge in gender dysphoria among American youth? Since 2017, cases of gender dysphoria among 6-year-olds to 17-year-olds have increased by over 170 percent. How permanent will the rather sudden embrace of transgenderism be? No one knows. But the longer it lasts, the more powerful the transgender movement will become. And … Read more
Hey, Lyin’ Ted and Sleepy Joe: Meet Toxic Trump. You know, if the former president had any self-knowledge or even the slightest ability to be self-deprecating, he might consider giving himself this alliterative nickname. After three straight national tallies in which either he or his party or both were hammered by the national electorate, it’s … Read more
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has released the scores for this year’s reading and math evaluations. And it’s not flattering. The Nation’s Report Card revealed that math scores for fourth-graders fell five points since 2019, while those for eighth-graders tumbled eight points. This is the steepest decline since testing began over 30 years … Read more
In what analysts are calling “a referendum on career politicians,” voters throughout the nation are sending a message that they are fed up with “politics as usual” by electing a different set of career politicians than expected. “Voters have made their opinion clear by voting with their feet – voters are done with leeches who … Read more
On the eve of the midterm elections, in which voters will hand President Biden his report card, the White House has settled on a message: Shut up and take whatever we give you. You don’t get to accept hundreds of thousands of dollars in pandemic loans and then attack my Administration for helping working folks … Read more
A quarter billion dollars in losses later, it may be time to give up on Beto O’Rourke Democrats across the country should be grateful for what Republicans are about to do: rid them of a nagging disease known as Betoism. Beto O’Rourke, the erstwhile congressman from El Paso, Texas, who has far more glossy national … Read more
You’ve probably seen it on lots of apps and websites: buttons urging you to sign in with your Google or Facebook account. Sometimes it’s to let you share files, photos or emails. Other times it’s to use Google or Facebook as a quick way to log in somewhere new. My rule of thumb is to … Read more
Many have described the 2022 midterm elections as the most consequential election of our lifetimes. It’s a familiar refrain that gets used each election cycle. Such an apocalyptic description of voter choices on Nov. 8 is certainly overblown. But the importance of this year’s elections shouldn’t be minimized. The results are sure to affect not … Read more
The budget airline AirTran used to air a funny commercial about a couple of grandparents visiting their progeny shortly after the birth of their grandchildren. The grandparents were expecting a week together with the whole family. Instead they were handed the babies at the door, while the new parents jumped into a taxi and headed … Read more
When political violence occurs, sorting out the crazy from the politics can be difficult. Gerald Ford was the least objectionable kind of politician, and they tried to kill him—twice that we know of. Ford, the moderate Republican who did his best to try to quiet things down after Watergate (please let us give up the … Read more
The National Education Association was caught spending 9% of its budget on member assistance and 50% on various political programs. Teachers’ unions have become enormously powerful by turning their membership and their resources into assets for the Democrats. Democrats have generously returned the favor by negotiating favorable contracts and allowing teachers’ unions to dismantle the … Read more
Actress Anne Hathaway appeared on ABC’s The View this week to promote her films, including The Devil Wears Prada, a movie that is now 16 years old. The discussion quickly turned diabolical as Hathaway mused about the importance of killing unborn children to young career women in fashion and other industries. Illustrating George Orwell’s observation … Read more
A zombie is shambling down the street, one leg dragging, arm waving at the sky before collapsing on a discarded cardboard refrigerator box. A thin trail of blood can be seen on the back of his dirty shirt. It’s not Halloween yet. It’s just Thursday. But in the America of Drag Queen Story Hour, of … Read more
No one who has worked in Washington for more than four decades, as I have, can possibly imagine Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. as one of the sharper knives in the drawer. Even in the retrospect of thirty-one years, his attempt to instruct future-Justice Clarence Thomas in natural law theory during Thomas’s confirmation hearings is still … Read more
Despite decades of urban legends and rumors about razor blades in apples or weed in candy, sociology and criminal justice researcher Joel Best has yet to document a single instance of children being seriously injured or killed by goodies they collected while trick or treating. After an August warning from the Drug Enforcement Administration, brightly … Read more
A zombie is shambling down the street, one leg dragging, arm waving at the sky before collapsing on a discarded cardboard refrigerator box. A thin trail of blood can be seen on the back of his dirty shirt. It’s not Halloween yet. It’s just Thursday. But in the America of Drag Queen Story Hour, of … Read more
A while back, I wrote a piece arguing that the right had entered its “hippie phase,” that the radical anti-government stuff and FBI conspiracy theories and sundry political kookery going hand-in-hand with various strains of anti-vaccine and alternative-medicine kookery followed a familiar template—one that did not magically appear in the 1960s but was expressed in … Read more
Since teacher unions care more about lining their pockets and protecting their privileges rather than improving education, I’ll never feel any empathy for bosses like Randi Weingarten. That being said, the past couple of years have been bad news for Ms Weingarten and her cronies. Not only is school choice spreading – especially in states … Read more
Americans without bachelor’s degrees outnumber college grads 2 to 1. But if you and most people you know and have ever known are college graduates, you might not realize that most Americans are not like you and your cohort. As a result, you’re likely to think your class of people is much, much larger than … Read more
Progressive philanthropies are driving a wedge between nonprofits and the folks who want to support them. ‘The bottom is falling out.” That was what Woodrow Rosenbaum, chief data officer for GivingTuesday, told the Chronicle of Philanthropy recently. Rosenbaum, who is one of the authors of a new report showing that the number of small donors … Read more