Most people can tell the difference between a wild rat and a white laboratory rat, but apparently not every alleged con artist sees the importance of the difference. The Wisconsin State Journal reports that Debbie Miller, aged 41, of Appleton ….claimed to find the rat in her lunch April 17 as she ate at the…

I saw a tagline from an ACLU publication that says “Because Freedom Can’t Protect Itself.” True and clever. Defense of civil liberties is a worthy, and very American, tradition. That tradition is one of the many reasons to love America.

What did Burt Bacharach and Jackie DeShannon know in 1965 that Whitewater’s city manager, officials, politicians, so-called ‘people of influence,’ and press do not understand even now? The answer tonight.

Beginning in 1942, Capra directed a series on films for soldiers (and later civilians) called Why We Fight. It says much about the human condition that, even after Nazi Germany declared war on the United States, the government felt it necessary to fund films to explain the reasons for fighting the Axis. In our present…

Sometimes, people will ask why I have posts with videos (or today, music). Why not? America is awash in new media. Blogs are only one of the new media that have hit big in the last decade. For someone who prefers one compliant newspaper, three television networks, and a news magazine or two, this new…

Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal has a book review of two books demonstrating how people choose irrationally. The first is Ori & Rom Brafman’s Sway, and the second is Marc Gerstein’s Flirting with Disaster. (Earlier this year, I read Nicholas Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness, a book that addresses similar themes.) Here is a result from a…

This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision striking down an onerous and unconstitutional ban on gun ownership in the District of Columbia. Individual liberty includes all the rights guaranteed in the Constitution – including an honest reading of the Second Amendment. Anti-gun groups will decry this decision, but the scholarship in support of…

One often hears that a politician or official is 100% or 110% or even 150% committed to his or her work. Perhaps. I will assume that’s all true. Still, some of these same people have prepared to leave only to return and leave again, or have simply tried to leave. They are free to choose…

Over at Reason magazine’s blog, Hit & Run, there’s a June 25 post about how Texas health inspectors almost ruined a Juneteenth event. The officials objected that free sandwiches – 600 of them – could not be served publicly if they were prepared offsite in a private home. The official involved refuses to apologize because,…

I seldom watch television, but that doesn’t mean that I cannot appreciate quality programming. Tonight, on the History Channel, there is a double feature of Monster Quest beginning at 7 p.m. The first episode is about ghosts, and the second is about giant killer snakes. I do not believe that these monsters really exist, but…