Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Carbon capture and geoengineering

In a previous post, I made the point that even if all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions ceased tomorrow, the half-lives of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, together with climate change-driven gas emissions from melting permafrost and methane clathrates doom us to decades more of warming. The only ways to avert this are (1) carbon […]

Letters from an American, July 21, 2023, a Friday

July 21, 2023 (Friday), Letters from an American, Prof. Heather Cox-Richardson Defying SCOTUS, redistricting, and the border. On June 8 the Supreme Court affirmed the decision of a lower court blocking the congressional districting map Alabama put into place after the 2020 census, agreeing that the map likely violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act and […]

About the Past

How we humans came to be where we are today had a lot to do with stability and the invention of calendars. Before stability, glaciers came and went. Best we and most other animals could do was run around looking for food and shelter. After the Last Glacial Period(LGP), aka as the Last Ice Age, […]

Open Thread July 22, 2023 Can Justices be Influenced?

Senate Democrats are not having fun these days unless they’re attacking a conservative Supreme Court Justice. Thursday’s markup of their judicial “ethics” bill was the event of the season. Leading the charge was Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse claiming the High Court is “captured by special interests.” Mr. Whitehouse brought up “freebie vacations.” He also […]

Ron DeSantis doesn’t understand capitalism

I see where failing GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis is trying to salvage his campaign by pivoting to Marxism. He is calling for the state of Florida to investigate Belgium-based AB InBev on the basis of their recent Bud Light advertisements using a trans character. DeSantis seems to believe that AB InBev breached legal duties […]

RFK, Jr, race and COVID-19

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, the notional Democratic presidential candidate, made himself even more foolish than he already was recently by speculating that the SARS-CoV-2 virus was engineered to protect people of Chinese and Jewish descent. Setting aside the fact that there is zero evidence that the virus was engineered and most evidence points to an […]

Considering Alternatives to Patent Monopoly Financing of Drug Development

There is more to this story than just making technology open to the public so others can manufacturer it. Think about what is being said here. The manufacture of face masks went overseas. When many were needed, foreign manufacture could not keep up and the prices were ridiculous. We are in a situation of whether […]

Not All Non Profit Hospitals Deserve Tax Exemption Status

This is the third or forth I have seen concerning Non-Profit hospitals. The issue being whether a Nonprofit hospital provide enough nonprofitable care to be considered nonprofit which entitles them to tax exemptions. As the authors discuss, some for-profit hospitals provide greater nonprofit care. Read on and I am sure there will be more to […]