Author Archives: Ray
The Carpet-Licker and the Cosmo
And other fine, fine cocktails from the 1980’s: Possibly Related: Getting Numb with Rum
One Hundred Dollars for the Best First Sentence
Journal Pulp is offering a $100.00 cash prize for the following: Best first sentence for a novel about a monomaniacal archeologist who discovers for certain the actual resting place of the Ark of the Covenant, and who resolves that, despite its being so heavily guarded, she will open the golden lid of the Ark —…
Three Reasons the Organic Foods Industry is a Scam
The organic food industry has, in the last decade, exploded beyond all sensible proportion so that now, worldwide, the industry is worth roughly $65 billion dollars. Astonishing as that figure is, though, it becomes all the more so when you realize that this entire industry is predicated upon one giant myth after another. In March…
Tiananmen Square: Twenty-Five Year Anniversary — But Do You Know About Chengdu?
Do you remember Tiananmen Square? It’s difficult to believe that it was twenty-five years ago, but today, June 4th, indeed marks the twenty-fifth year anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing, China. This was when the communist dictatorship of that country quashed a political reform movement, which was begun by Beijing students who sought…
The Zen of Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was born June 3rd, 1926, and died April 5th, 1997. Today is his 88th birthday. Ginsberg, along with Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs, is a preeminent figure in the 1950’s Beat Generation counterculture — i.e. the Beatniks — and if you’ve ever wondered what, precisely, these women and men stood for, it…
Runner Takes A Nasty Spill — And Then Astonishes Everyone By Doing This
This was 5 years ago, but I just saw it. During the Big 8 indoor track championships, Heather Dorniden, leading with one lap to go in the 600 meter, tripped and fell to last place. Watch what happens next:
Rebel MD
There are several factors that contribute to the absurd costs of healthcare in America today — and all those factors are, without exception, a result of government intervention, in one form or another. But one factor alone stands out above all others. That one factor is the third-party payment system. It doesn’t matter if the…
Animal Farm and the Krystal Ball
MNSBC host and self-described “Democratic political strategist” Krystal Ball was recently discussing Thomas Piketty’s latest book — the subject of which is income inequality — when she foolishly introduced into her dithyrabmic George Orwell’s famous book Animal Farm. “Even the august and ostensibly economically literate Wall Street Journal tells [Piketty] to read Animal Farm,” Krystal…
Chomsky Redux: Former Israeli First Sergeant Gives His Opinion Of Noam Chomsky
A reader sent me the following audio clip — presumably because the Noam Chomsky post I myself wrote some time ago states several of the things this (much-more-learned) fellow does. Dr. Yaron Brook, with whom I’m only passingly familiar, is, according to his website, a former professor of finance, a columnist for Forbes magazine, whose…
‘WHY MY DAUGHTER DOESN’T RECYCLE’: AN ECONOMICS PROFESSOR’S LETTER TO HIS CHILD’S TEACHER
Recycling, as you know, is one of the principle tenants of the Religion of Environmentalism. Criticize recycling, even on scientific grounds, and you’re a candidate for crucifixion, as I’ve learned firsthand. But of course all the dogma in the world and of course all the adherents to that dogma do not, in the end, alter…
Putting the Cock Back in Cocktail: Rum
Nothing says springtime like a refreshing rum cocktail — refreshing, with its remoter connotations of freshets and bursting water. Come and have a drink with the unwashed:
Five Blood Boiling Facts About Taxes You Did Not Know
But first from the “How-Unbelievably-Stupid-Is-Harry-Reid?” files: Now, then: 5. Among the bureaucrats who want to raise your taxes, only 5 percent think their own taxes are too low. This poll conducted by Gallup shows that “57 percent of Republicans responded that their own taxes were too high. Fifty-eight percent of Independents agreed, while only 37…
April Fool
Have you ever wondered how to run a proper propaganda campaign? Then don’t follow the example of the Obama administration, who, for six solid months, told us repeatedly that they didn’t have any good idea how many people had actually enrolled and paid for an ObamaCare exchange policy — or how many of these same…
How Minimum Wage Laws Fly in the Face of the Irrefutable Law of Supply-And-Demand
A few weeks ago, I posted an article entitled Eleven Facts About the Minimum Wage Barack Obama Forgot to Mention, which I found on a website called The Federalist, and which was written by a man named Sean Davis, about whom I know next to nothing. I liked his article, however, and I was surprised…
Paul Krugman: Finally Wrong About Something?
In June of 2012, left-wing economist and former Enron advisor Paul Krugman — who calls himself (and I quote) “Krugtron the Invincible” — wrote the following in his New York Times blog: “I (and those of like mind) have been right about everything.” Well, unfortunately, his streak of infallibility has just come to an end.…