5 Reasons to Start Eating Full-Fat Dairy, According to Science

Whole milk is good for you in a number of ways  They forget the sixth reason; it's tastes delicious.

Which candidate is least likely to do bad things?

Glen Reynolds argues that Trump is not likely to get away with anything, whereas Clinton is accustomed to doing whatever she wants.

The truth is, neither one of our leading candidates for president is a paragon of virtue. But only one of them has already made a habit of flouting the law while in office, selling favors and escaping the consequences, and only one of them is likely to be able to pull it off from the White House.

And that’s the problem. If Secretary of State Clinton, serving under a president and with an eye on winning a second term in the White House, wasn’t constrained by the rules, who will constrain her if she’s president?

Follow up, how bad will the transition be and why Hillary can't govern.

Update: The Clintons, they're a crime family 

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A great speech by Peter Thiel in support of Donald Trump

This speech is worth your time. Even though the fascinating interview goes an hour, the actual speech only takes the first 15 minutes.

Follow up article in USA Today

Useful corrections to popular myths

This article ostensibly contrasts the worship of science vs. the followers of religion, but the real meat is the list of popular myths that are not true: salt in food, refreezing food, whole milk, skipping breakfast and more. Read this as a means of bringing good things to your lifestyle.

Losing faith in the voters

Someone said that the nation could survive a president like Obama, but it may not survive a nation of people who would vote for someone like him. This article describes a crisis in Canada and America evolving from the ignorance of the electorate.

Which leaves us with the problem of an electorate that cannot think rationally, that is impervious to common sense, that has little or no knowledge of civics and history, that instinctively swallows the junk food the media feeds it and that is incapable of or resistant to the simple practice of fact checking that the Internet had made instantly available. As Virginia Postrel says in The Future and Its Enemies, “we rarely realize how much knowledge we have access to”; nevertheless, we “fall prey to statist rhetoric that promises to dumb down the world.” We know that the younger, ostensibly educated generation has become a lost cause, thanks to the re-education camps our universities have become. As David Risselada writes in Freedom Outpost, “We are at the point now that many people in the younger generations simply have no idea about the true history of our country, or the meaning of her constitution because the left has been in firm control of nearly every institution we have held dear, for decades.

Here's an actual climate scientist with a realistic view

Global warming doesn't make the list of the top ten issues that Americans fear the most. This article by a climate scientist dispels many of the alarmist claims that you hear daily and suggests that politicians are wasting their breath if they want to get elected.

The latest Wikileaks releases have reveled a complex system to enrich the Clintons

The Wall Street Journal has released two articles: Meet the Grifters in Chief and The Cold Clinton Reality. The first article deals with the scheme to use the Clinton Foundation to collect extra money for their personal accounts. The second questions why the FBI isn't investigating the foundation. Because the articles are behind a "paywall", I'll refer you to this article that summarizes the content.

A Jewish atheist's journey to Christianity

A book review of Andrew Klavan's spiritual awakening. Paula Bolyard tells the story of this intellectual who found Christ.

For some, the journey to faith in Christ is an easy one. The required spiritual, emotional, and intellectual assents seem to come naturally. For others, the path from unbelief to faith is much more complicated, moving along a jagged path filled with seemingly insurmountable hurdles. Such was Andrew Klavan's long sojourn from secular Jew to faith in Christ as described in his book, The Great Good Thing: A Secular Jew Comes to Faith in Christ.

University gets paid for fake climate change research

This university wrote fake grant requests to study global warming, got lots of money, reported fake research about anthropogenic caused global warming, then used those studies to get more money.

There is a ton of money out there for research in anthropogenic global warming, but no money for research questioning it, both here in the US and around the world. Climate scientists know where the money is and what their study better conclude if they want more.

Today show takes another opportunity to criticize Trump

Trump gave a great speech at the opening of his new hotel converted from the old Washington DC historic landmark old post office. He converted this neglected, empty building into a world-class hotel saving this architectural treasure.  When the Today Show covered this event on their program, all the talk was criticism of him taking time off from his campaign to do a sales job on his hotel. They said nothing about the speech.

Trump used the opportunity to talk about what he could do for America, comparing his on-time, under-budget development to the disastrous programs done by the government. It was perhaps his best speech, only 10 minutes long, watch it here .

A lesson from the past about presidential polls

In 1980, Jimmy Carter was 9 points ahead of Ronald Reagan. Then, on election night, Reagan won by a landslide .  Read a little history as explained by Rush Limbaugh, it's a fascinating lesson on the meaning of polls.  Of course polling is much more accurate now. Why just a few months ago, polls predicted that Brexit would go down to defeat. Of course it won.

There's no telling at this point which candidate will win the coming election, but reading a little history is educational.

Political cartoons

Is this the best political ad ever?

The Purciels printed up 1200 copies of this voter guide and are quietly handing them out door-to-door and at church. They did some research to locate these web sites:

The links in the photograph won't work, so here they are:

Family Research Council 

Craig Huey

Save California

Nevada County Tea Party

Robyn Nordell

How Hillary treats the little people in private

Hillary F. Clinton Curses Those Who Keep Her Safe

There multiple reports that Hillary uses foul language, especially to those whose job it is to protect her.

Hillary Clinton’s “treatment of DS [Department of State] agents on her protective detail was so contemptuous that many of them sought reassignment or employment elsewhere,” according to a just-released summary of an FBI interview with a former State Department official. “Prior to CLINTON’s tenure, being an agent on the Secretary of State’s protective detail was seen as an honor and privilege reserved for senior agents. However, by the end of CLINTON’s tenure, it was staffed largely with new agents because it was difficult to find senior agents willing to work for her.”

A fun extract of news from Wikileaks

Over a period of weeks, the shadowy WikiLeaks organization has been releasing hacked copies of Podesta's emails dating back years. WikiLeaks almost certainly has ties to Russian intelligence and is obviously up to no good. The requisite caveat lector thus applies. But so far, every email under scrutiny appears to be genuine.

And what a story they tell. America's greatest novelists could not have concocted a tale that so perfectly confirms dark suspicions about how the liberal elites running America really operate. Taken in total, the picture Podesta's emails present is of a man whose tentacles are adroitly moving all the levers of power. In retrospect, Podesta's casual attitude toward Clinton's email problems doesn't look oblivious—it looks prescient. Why should he worry about disgrace for Hillary Clinton when he and his friends in politics, business, and the media dictate what becomes a scandal?

Read this collection of anecdotes from Wikileaks  A little bit here:

The Podesta emails, it's fair to say, have had trouble elbowing their way onto the front page. It's of course an extraordinarily strange season for politics. In any normal year, such revelations might have swamped Clinton's candidacy. But this year she benefits from the media's hopeless addiction to Donald Trump's antics.

Another reason for the relative lack of attention has to do with the reprehensible nature of WikiLeaks. There's something unseemly about poring over hacked emails, even when they are of demonstrable public interest. Few among us would see our personal and professional relationships emerge intact and undamaged if years of our emails were exposed to public scrutiny. When WikiLeaks's initial revelations centered on the Bush administration's efforts in the war on terror, the media largely characterized the organization as a white-knight whistleblower. As the years went on, there was little scrutiny of the organization's methods or ties to foreign intelligence services—even when WikiLeaks indiscriminately released information that provoked riots and protests in multiple African countries, in which hundreds were killed.

Only this year, now that WikiLeaks has attacked the Democratic party, is the organization being reevaluated. After years of tolerating WikiLeaks's founder Julian Assange's hiding out in Ecuador's embassy in London, it was the release of Clinton's Goldman Sachs speech transcripts that finally prompted enough international pressure to get the Ecuadorian government to cut off Assange's Internet access.

But the most obvious reason Podesta's emails are being downplayed is that they are embarrassing to the media. A recent NBC poll found that only 19 percent of Americans approve of the media, a rating well below that of Clinton or even Trump. And the missives in Podesta's inbox reveal good reasons for the media's reputation to be in the dumpster.

Bonus feature: Leaked Emails Offer Clues to How Clinton Would Govern

Gay Republicans Proudly Supporting Donald Trump

“The running joke is that it’s so much easier to be gay in the Republican Party than it is to be a Republican in the LGBT community,”

Charles Moran, a gay Trump delegate from California, was standing just feet from the stage at the Republican National Convention when he heard billionaire PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel give his now-famous speech.

“Every American has a unique identity. I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican,” Thiel told a cheering crowd at the RNC in Cleveland this past July.

Thiel made history that night as the first openly gay RNC speaker, and this week he doubled down on his Donald Trump endorsement, donating $1.25 million to his campaign.

Read what gay republicans say about their support for Donald Trump 

What did Trump say at Gettysburg?

The media won't share with you the people what Trump had to say in his "contract with the American voter". Some of the ideas make so much sense that you have to ask why anyone would object. Here's an extract by Roger Simon, admittedly a Trump supporter, who thinks Trump would win in a landslide if people heard the speech.

Iraq veterans being told to repay their enlistment bonuses

The California National Guard was sloppy in offering reenlistment bonuses to soldiers who signed up for another six years in the military. Now, the Army is asking for the money back, even from soldiers disabled by their wartime service, causing life changing disruptions.

Christian apologetics as it relates to how you should vote

Which candidate supports the basic tenets of Christianity? Here's a discussion of important issues in the coming election as related to Biblical teaching.

Christian music coming to the new Golden 1 center in Sacramento

For those in tune with contemporary Christian music, there is something called the "Winter Jam Tour" which features a number of famous artists that I am totally unfamiliar with.

In Sacramento, we have a new basketball facility built at great expense shared between the Sacramento Kings and the taxpayers. You can attend non-basketball events here, including this concert on November 13. Click on the link above to see the photos of the performers. Click on the photos for biographical information on each artist. If you just mouse over the photo, you can probably see the artists name in the link.

If you are a reader elsewhere, the web site for the Winter Jam Tour is here

A list of all upcoming events in the Golden 1 Center is here. The events are quite eclectic from monster trucks to bull riding to Disney on Ice to high school basketball.

Quick budget lesson

This rather brilliantly cuts thru all the political double speak we get.
It puts it into a much better perspective…..

Lesson #1

* U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
* Fed budget:           $3,820,000,000,000
* New debt:             $ 1,650,000,000,000
* National debt:      $19,271,000,000,000
* Recent budget cuts:  $ 38,500,000,000

Let's now remove 8 zeros and pretend it's a household budget:

* Annual family income:                                   $21,700
* Money the family spent:                                 $38,200
* New debt on the credit card:                          $16,500
* Outstanding balance on the credit card:       $192,710
* Total budget cuts so far:                                      $385

Got It ?????

OK now Lesson # 2:

Here's another way to look at the Debt Ceiling:

Let's say, You come home from work and find there has been a sewer
backup in your neighborhood....and your home has sewage all the way  up to your ceilings.

What do you think you should do ......

Raise the ceilings, or pump out the crap?

Your choice is coming in November

Does it matter that Trump won the third debate?

I was on an airplane during the debate and missed it.  I suppose I could watch it on YouTube, but that's kind of like watching the Super Bowl the day after--not much fun. I watched the Today show this morning hoping to hear about the debate outcome. Instead I was treated to fifteen minutes of news and commentary about Trump's refusal to categorically support the results of the election.  They could have covered that in five minutes, or even one minute, and told me something about the other questions. Instead they brought in every commentator they could find to criticize Trump, even the venerable Tom Brokaw who we learn after his retirement that he too is a liberal.

This writer argues that Trump won the third debate, but that it won't make a difference except in the lesser election battles.

Update: The real winner of the third debate was Chris Wallace, the first moderator to ask substantive questions. Even reliably liberal media like the New York Times and the Washington Post complimented his performance.

Update 2: Is Trump’s refusal to say he’d accept the results of the election the only thing that happened on earth today?

Billy Bush gets terminated but with a golden handshake

NBC had the Billy Bush/Donald Trump tape for eleven years, but held on to it until October, well after the nomination. They had intended to edit out Billy himself and just release the Trump portion, but somebody leaked the whole tape. So now, Billy has to leave the network. It took ten days to negotiate his multi-million dollar settlement.

More here: NBC Has A Lot of Explaining to Do

Are Christians Who Vote Trump Guilty by Association?

We’re hearing from Christians recently that if you vote for Donald Trump, you are “guilty by association,” that the Christian right is stained by the sins of Trump and will never be free from it, and that any who support him have soiled their Christian witness in the church and before the world.

The media respect for the previous Republican candidate

Remember "binders full of women"? The left cast this as a pejorative when it was Romney talking about hiring women to work for him. He was talking about treating women as equals, and searching for qualified candidates. So many qualified candidates, in fact, that their files filled entire binders. Now that that election is over, the media wax nostalgic about what a great candidate they had in Romney.

Scholar Victor Davis Hanson makes the case for Trump

Conservatives should vote for the Republican nominee

Donald Trump needs a unified Republican party in the homestretch if he is to have any chance left of catching Hillary Clinton — along with winning higher percentages of the college-educated and women than currently support him. But even before the latest revelations from an eleven-year-old Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump crudely talked about women, he had long ago in the primaries gratuitously insulted his more moderate rivals and their supporters. He bragged about his lone-wolf candidacy and claimed that his polls were — and would be — always tremendous — contrary to his present deprecation of them. Is it all that surprising that some in his party and some independents, who felt offended, swear that they will not stoop to vote for him when in extremis he now needs them? Or that party stalwarts protest that they no longer wish to be associated with a malodorous albatross hung around their neck?

Donald Trump's war on the media; is there substance?

My experience has been that the media has provided substantially more coverage of Trump's peccadilloes than Hillary's e-mails. This article provides some statistical analysis confirming that opinion

David Burge‏@iowahawkblog

Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving.

Jim Treacher‏@jtLOL

Modern journalism is all about deciding which facts the public shouldn't know because they might reflect badly on Democrats.

Is this is how democracy is supposed to work?

Beginning shortly after the greatest and most bloodless victory in the history of the nation state — the triumph of the West, under the leadership of the United States in the Cold War — the United States gives every appearance of having become a nation of idiots incapable, as Trump points out with endearing zest, of doing anything right. He has the weakness of his strengths and the fault of his qualities. And the Democrats cannot run on their record, as two thirds of the American people think the country has been going in the wrong direction for years, so the only path to re-election is through attacking Trump personally.

 The American election has now become so absurd and outrageous that we are fully into the season of unctuous hand-wringing that the presidency has been mortally wounded as a place of moral and political leadership and that the country is inexorably politically dysfunctional and debased. Is not either candidate better than the previous 

The little act that is destroying our country

The fact that municipal, state, and federal employees belong to unions is really bad for our country. The unions collect the dues and use their money to bribe politicians for better benefits and wages and the taxpayers have no say in the bargaining process. And of course even the most incompetent workers cannot be fired, and the good ones cannot be promoted. Read the history of the Wagner Act and its effect on the country.

Why Did the Media Wait So Long to Go After Trump?

It is my opinion that the media supported Trump until he was nominated because he was the least danger to Hillary. Then they immediately turned on him and began the process of attacking him. NBC sat on their audio tapes for 11 years, until October.

There was precious little media effort to report such stories back when they might have prevented Trump from becoming the Republican nominee.

If you recall, they did the same thing to John McCain 8 years ago. They boosted him during the nomination process, then once nominated, made him look like a loser.

Update The Media withheld stories about sexual assault until it was convenient for a presidential candidate.

Why Trump is the least bad choice

To Restore Article II, Elect Trump

“The Executive branch has grown far too great in its power since the Founding, far beyond that envisioned by the Founders. This is because, as discussed above, due to blind partisanship (largely by Democrats), Article II Section 4 of the founding document has been used far too infrequently, and has had much less disciplinary power than they intended. If Hillary Clinton is elected, as we saw with her husband, this situation is certain to continue.”

October 14, 1947. Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier

Grass Valley resident Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier on October 14

By this time, the 24-year-old Lincoln County native was already an aviation legend. During World War II, he had flown 64 combat missions over Europe and, in a single dogfight, had killed 13 Germans.

America is going the way of the Roman Empire

Civilization is decaying from within.

What would once have been seen as radical neglect of our existential problems is now the normal way of getting by one more day. What destroys civilizations are not, as popularly advertised, plagues, global warming, or hostile tribes on the horizon, as much as self-indulgence, self-delusion—and, finally, abject paralysis

Pearls Before Swine captures the spirit of the Democratic platform

FBI agents view Director Comey as a "dirty" cop

James Comey presides over an FBI in revolt over his leadership, a former U.S. attorney tells The American Spectator, and pursues “paranoid, delusional, and vindictive” measures to prevent negative information leaking out to the public.

It's almost a universal opinion inside the FBI that Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted. The agents and attorneys are in open revolt while Comey tries to control the damage.

Read the article  listing the actions taken at Comey's direction over the recommendations of the people who worked long hard hours on the investigation

Update: Free the FBI 100

Update 2: Clinton Emails: Comey Lied And The Scandal Died

Democratic professors outnumber Republican ones 12 to one.

Growing university gap: Democratic professors now outnumber Republicans nearly 12 to 1 in top fields.  We knew that of course, but this is worse than we thought, especially as we consider the impact on naive students working their way to adulthood. As you might expect, the ratio is highest in the soft sciences and lowest in hard subjects (with math) like economics.  As you might expect, studying economics might tend to make one more realistic about what works and what doesn't.

The meaning of Donald Trump

This thoughtful article explores the significance of Donald Trump in the political environment. Why did such a person succeed this far against both liberal and conservative forces?

What did the founding fathers say about the right of the people to bear arms?

Walter Williams does a nice job of rounding up quotes from the founding fathers about the real meaning and intent of the Second Amendment.  Liberals focus on "well regulated militia" while conservatives look to the purpose.

Professor fired by Cal State Northridge for finding soft tissue in dinosaur bones

A creationist scholar received a six-figure settlement from California State University Northridge to resolve a 2-year-old lawsuit that alleged the scholar had been fired after discovering soft tissue on a triceratops horn and publishing his findings.

It seems the scholars at Northridge objected to the professor's belief in a "young" earth and publishing a scientific paper in support of that belief.

Bad lip reading of the first Presidential debate (funny parody)

Regardless of your politics, this is pretty funny. Sound on.

How can there be global warming if the temperature hasn't risen in 18 years?

Reportedly, 2016 was the hottest year for over 100,000 years. Not so, satellite measurements still show that the trend in global temperatures has not risen for 18 years 

Update: Experts said Arctic sea ice would melt entirely by September 2016

Update 2: Blaming the hurricanes on global warming

Clinton was praying for Trump to win the nomination

The latest Wikileaks disclosure showed that almost any Republican could beat Hillary Clinton except for one.  I believe that the liberal media built up John McCain until he was nominated, then turned on him to support Obama. I have the sense that the same thing is happening with Trump. They kept the other Republican candidates in a new vacuum, saving the really good dirt on Trump until after he was nominated. This is opinion of course, but it fits the pattern.

Of course the media went all out to nominate Hillary. Jim Webb, did a great job in the first debate, but got almost no coverage, ensuring that his views would not be heard. From Wikipedia:

In the first Democratic presidential debate on October 13, Webb reaffirmed many of his moderate policy stances: Particular examples included his skepticism of gun control (pointing out that the other candidates, who were for gun control, were guarded by armed bodyguards on a regular basis), as well as his foreign policy credentials in regards to the Middle East.^[19] Also, on the topic of the Black Lives Matter movement, when the candidates were asked if all lives matter or black lives matter, Webb was the only one who said "all lives matter."^{[20][not in citation given]} As a result, Webb was the third most-searched of the five candidates on Google during the night, behind the frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.^{[21][not in citation given]} Also, Webb saw the most significant increase in national poll numbers in the immediate aftermath of the debate; in a Gravis Marketing/One America News Network poll released the day after the debate, Webb's percentage went up from an average of 1% or 2% to 12%.^[22]

Here's an update, the Clinton team was promoting Trump even before he declared his candidacy 

Reaction to Trump's "locker room talk" and Christian Principles

An excellent article about how the Republican elites abandoned Christian Principles 

For years, Christians in particular have been attacked and silenced as they've tried to challenge the immorality that is pervasive in today's society. When they tell people casual sex is wrong, they get the inevitable, "You have no right to tell me what I can or can't do." If they oppose sexual immorality in any form, including adultery, they’re maligned as sanctimonious puritans by lovers of libertinism.

 How ironic, then, that a culture which rejects moral standards has suddenly become so pure and pristine, sitting in judgment of someone they deem too immoral to become president because of something he said in private. As a logical person, I have to ask these paragons of newly found virtue where this standard by which they've judged Trump is found.Trump

Read the whole thing.

Destroying the economy and prosperity with Socialism is a surprisingly old concept

Clear back in the Roman Empire, central planning destroyed the economy. From Soviet Russia to Venezuela to Democratic Socialism, Capitalism brings prosperity to the people and Socialism brings misery. Even in the poster country for Democratic Socialism, the economy went into decline until they returned their industry to free enterprise. Of course, under Socialism, the rulers always make out well. Only the people suffer.

See the winds of the earth with an interactive glove

This interactive globe will show, in near real time, the winds anywhere on earth. Use your mouse to drag the map around to view different areas. Brightness of the lines indicates wind strength.

Think a new mom can hold her baby for free? Guess again.

My wife had three screws put in her toes to correct "hammer toe". After a few weeks, the screws were removed. You wouldn't think this would be a big deal, but the surgical center charged $7000 for each toe, even though they were all done at the same time. Now I can understand that the surgical center has a lot of overhead, but the idea of charging three times for what was essentially a single visit is insane.  Of course the whole medical billing culture is insane. After Medicare took their discoounts, the center got paid a reasonable amount.  The same thing happens with normal insurance; only people who pay cash get cheated.

Further on the same subject, A hospital in Utah charged a new mother $40 to hold her baby.

In praise of home schooling

Why Self-Directed Education Has More to Offer Than Public Education

 When we began homeschooling in 1987, we lived in fear. Homeschooling was such a new concept that having children walking in daylight during school hours automatically dropped you into the "educational neglect" category. Now, almost thirty years later, academia is beginning to understand our school motto.When you school at home, the world is your campus.

The money quote:

"There are lot of kids graduating from public schools expecting to have a job waiting for them. It's up to us homeschoolers to give them one." 

Feeding the eagles in Dutch Harbor Alaska

Chief Joseph led his people well until defeated

Finally worn down by the US Calvary, on October 5, 1877, Chief Joseph responded to a message from General Howard

I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.

Read the sad story of the Nez Perce treatment by the U.S. Government

History will be made regardless of who wins

Evidence of Hezekiah's desecration of temples of false gods in the Old Testament

2 Kings 10:27 (NIV) “They demolished the sacred stone of Baal and tore down the temple of Baal, and people have used it for a latrine to this day.”  

Archaeologists digging in Israel are excavating one of the false shrines that Hezekiah destroyed. Check out this sturdy toilet placed in the shrine as part of the desecration.

Is Evangelical Protestant Mike Pence a Better Catholic Than Tim Kaine?

I was pleased during the Vice Presidential debate to hear Mike Pence mention how he found the Lord and Savior during his college days. Mike grew up Catholic; Tim Kaine is also Catholic, though he's having to abandon some principles as Hillary's running mate. During the debate, Mike did a better job with Catholic ideals than Tim

Who won the Vice Presidential debate?

This article does a pretty good job of sharing my opinions about the VP debate. Kaine was just annoying. Whenever Pence would present a valid point about Clinton's past indiscretions, Kaine would start talking over him so we couldn't hear the point. It was similar to the tactic used by Joe Biden in the last VP debate, except Joe just laughed to cover Paul Ryan's talking points.

When Joe Lieberman and Dick Cheney debated in 2000, the viewers were left with the feeling that these two should be the candidates instead of Bush and Gore. That didn't exactly happen last night, viewers were probably left with the feeling that Pence should be the nominee instead of Trump. On the other hand, Kaine came across as a jerk. He's probably not like that in real life, and it was just a strategy, but I wanted to hear what people had to say.

The moderator, Elaine Quijano, was someone nobody knew before the debate. She edits CBS' Internet news, but she didn't do a very good job. She failed to control the discourse and exhibited her bias, for example, saying "right" after one of Kaine's points.

NPR Reporter Has No Idea What ‘Come And Take It’ Means

Sunday marked the 181st anniversary of the Battle of Gonzales, the first military engagement of the Texas Revolution, when Texian militiamen, responding to Mexican soldiers demanding the surrender of a small brass cannon, coined the now-famous battle cry, “Come and Take It!”

An NPR reporter marked this anniversary, claiming that Second Amendment activists have no appreciation of its origins or what it means in context. The reporter found people in Gonzales that objected to the flying of the "Come and Take It" flag. The history goes a lot farther back than the reported knew.



Now the flag is spreading among Second Amendment enthusiasts, as well as other venues unrelated to gun control

Freedom of speech, not freedom from speech

If you get your news from the Internet instead of Television, you know that there is a crisis in American colleges and universities where political correctness is destroying the free exchange of ideas. Surprisingly, Janet Napolitano is coming out in favor of free speech in academia  I guess I'll have to revise my opinion about this former Obama cabinet member.

Alaska has a negative state income tax, but that's not enough for some

A few US states are famous for not having a state income tax. Millionaires often move from high tax states like California and New York to zero tax states like Nevada and Florida. Alaska does them one better; they have a negative income tax, funded by revenue from Oil. It works for Alaska because they have a lot of oil rich property and not so many people. If Alaska had a warmer climate, it would be a people magnet as well. Unfortunately, Alaska's oil revenue has been down recently because of the price of oil. Some Alaskans are unhappy that their checks from the government will be smaller this year.

Leap year and the Gregorian Calendar

2016 is a "Leap Year". That means we will also vote for President. The concept of having a Leap Year every four years was introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC and assumed that the year was 365.25 days long.  After a few hundred years, that error began creeping up and in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII introduced the modified Gregorian Calendar widely used today. It corrected the length of a year to 365.2425 days using this clever algorithm:

Every year that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are exactly divisible by 100, but these centurial years are leap years if they are exactly divisible by 400. For example, the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 are not leap years, but the years 1600 and 2000 are.

A roundup of Clinton scandals from a famous insider

For people with short memories, here's a partial list of Clinton scandals. This only includes the better known ones that occurred during the White House years, not including Cattlegate, and who knows what else

Economics for liberals: profits are just as moral as wages unless you work for the government

In defense of profits; a conversation with a park ranger who thinks it's wrong to make a profit on public lands but it's fine to take a salary

The BBC Religious Correspondent doesn't seem very charitable

The BBC has appointed a “well known and respected” journalist, who once suggested someone should “sh*t” in Sarah Palin’s mouth on American television, as their new religious affairs correspondent.

I guess you don't need to be a Christian to report on religious issues, or even have "Christian" principles, though it seems you ought to have a modicum of a moral compass.

Jerry Brown continues to solve all California's problems

Having solved global warming climate change, and eliminated the need for airline service between the Bay Area and Southern California with the "train to nowhere", Jerry Brown has signed a law requiring gender-neutral signs on single-stall restrooms

The most egregious media bias is found in what stories they decide to cover

You probably haven't seen much coverage about the fact that we messed up in Libya by working to eliminate Kadafi. Hillary Clinton was on the forefront of this as Secretary of State, and took credit for what was accomplished before it became obvious that the results were disastrous. Here's what the British House of Commons had to say:

 "This policy," the conservative-led committee concluded, "was not informed by accurate intelligence. In particular, the [British] Government failed to identify that the threat to civilians was overstated and that the rebels included a significant Islamist element. By the summer of 2011, the limited intervention to protect civilians had drifted into an opportunist policy of regime change. That policy was not underpinned by a strategy to support and shape post-(Gadhafi) Libya. The result was political and economic collapse, inter-militia and inter-tribal warfare, humanitarian and migrant crises, widespread human rights violations, the spread of (Gadhafi) regime weapons across the region and the growth of ISIL in North Africa."

So what does the media cover? A gaffe by the Libertarian candidate  Apparently the media have figured out that a vote for Johnson is a lost vote for Hillary

Trump maybe paid no taxes for several years

The big news on all the networks this weekend is that Trump may have paid no taxes for several years. It seems that for tax year 1995, Trump's business lost almost one billion dollars. Because business losses can be carried forward into future years, that gave Trump a sizable deduction to use as a credit later on.

This is not only basic accounting, but legal under the tax code. The New York Times is making a big deal out of this, with the implication that Trump is doing something improper.  Way down in the article the NYT even admits that this is legal.  They are arguing, in essence  that one should pay more taxes than the law requires if you were a good person. Personally, I think there are better ways to give away money than giving it to the government. The IRS will accept donations, but they won't accept bad accounting on your tax return.

The Sunday morning talk shows were all over this. Chuck Todd on Meet the Press called this a "loophole", and the Clinton campaign is all over the story. I would venture to say that none of these people have done their own taxes in a really long time, or else they would be more familiar with the tax code and GAAP (generally accepted accounting practices) which regulates how one reports income.

Of course, both the New York Times and the Clintons took advantage of this "loophole"

The Stars and Stripes Forever by the U. S. Marine Band

"The President's Own" United States Marine Band recorded John Philip Sousa's march "The Stars and Stripes Forever" on March, 3, 2009, in the John Philip Sousa Band Hall at Marine Barracks Annex in Washington, D.C. This video was recorded for the National Museum of the Marine Corps gallery titled "A Global Expeditionary Force 1866-1916," where visitors will find an interactive Marine Band exhibit.

This is a particularly moving rendition. Would you believe four piccolos for the famous solo?

Is Chick-fil-A the preferred fast food of conservative voters?

Democrats are objecting to registering voters at Chick-fil-a They claim that this is just an attempt to collect more Republican voters.  What do you think? Does political leaning affect dining preferences?