Getting Dental Care From the Government Can Be Like Pulling Teeth
David Hogberg writes: The American Prospect's Ezra Klein cites a Washington Post article as another reason we need "universal health care." The article tells the story of Deamonte Driver, a young boy who apparently died of a brain infection brought on by an untreated abscessed tooth. According to Klein, when ...
March of the Lemmings: Media Shuns Climate Change Report’s Good News on Sea Levels, by Dana Joel Gattuso
Remember the headlines last summer, spurred by the release of Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth, warning that massive amounts of Antarctica's ice sheets are melting, threatening to raise sea levels 20 feet worldwide and wipe out Antarctica's Emperor penguins and polar bears? And alarming reports that Greenland's glaciers are ...
British Doctors Disillusioned with Central Control
A poll of 3,000 British doctors, says the London Times, "shows a profession disillusioned with central control, angered by the growth of bureaucracy, and deeply skeptical..." Government-run medicine seems to be working out great in Britain, doesn't it? Hat tip: Socialized Medicine. Addendum: More on the same theme. In a ...
Al Gore’s Energy Use
From the Tennessee Center for Policy Research comes this interesting information about Al Gore's energy use: [Al] Gore's mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES).In ...
NASA Climate Guru: Pretend I’m Being Quoted as a Private Citizen
"Private citizen" James Hansen gets headlines for his personal opinion on the construction of coal plants. Never mind that the headline ("NASA climate guru: Don't build coal plants") refers to his job at NASA, or that an AP article's text identifies him as "NASA scientist James Hansen" and "Hansen, director ...
Social Security Quiz
What percentage of U.S. GDP does Social Security cost each year? A) 0.0042 percent B) 0.042 percent C) 0.42 percent D. 4.2 percent Visit WILLisms.com for more information about the answer (including a pretty scary chart showing what the future holds for Social Security, sans reform), and go back every ...
Bad News For The “Tax Cuts Cause Deficits” Crowd
From David Hogberg: A new report (pdf) out by the GAO looks at how two different simulations affect future budget deficits. The first one assumes that spending continues at the same rate of recent years and the Bush tax cuts are extended. The second assumes that the Bush tax cuts ...
National Heritage Area Elitism Gone Wild
One of the anti-property rights activists fighting for Rep. Frank Wolf's (R-VA) "Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area Act" revealed her confusing, yet interesting, take on American government recently. In response to critics who point out that Rep. Wolf's bill would harm the rights of the property owners within ...
Top Ten Global Warming Myths
Christopher Horner, author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism)," refutes what he considers the top ten global warming myths in Human Events. Here are the myths (go to Human Events for his rebuttals): 10. The U.S. is going it alone on Kyoto and global warming.9. Global-warming ...
This is What Happens When You Only Read the Press Release
David Hogberg has a bone to pick with the Health Care Blog. Says David: Over at the inaptly named Health Care Blog ("Socialized Medicine Blog" would be more accurate), Matthew Holt gives a mini-seminar on the dangers of only reading a press release and not reading the actual study on ...
Global Warming’s Predicted Effects – With a Twist
"Melting polar ice caps to raise the level of seas and flood the continents... the great ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctic are melting and pouring their torrents into the oceans... The earth is steadily growing warmer... the sea level will rise fifty feet... Fish will swim in Buckingham ...
Another Bit Of “Unbiased” Reporting On the U.S. Health Care System
Our David Hogberg found the following press release on Yahoo!: The United States may be the wealthiest country in the world, but we rank only 15th in overall health care for chronic disease sufferers, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). And our health is suffering as a result: According ...
Jonathan’s Law
The Carey family of New York State has been promoting "Jonathan's Law," a proposal to make records concerning the care of disabled children available to the child's parents. The Careys are promoting this law after the state's Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities kept them from viewing records relating ...
Social Security Nominee Rejected Because He Believes in Personal Accounts
Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has announced he is refusing even to hold hearings on President Bush's nominee, Andrew Biggs, to be the #2 official at the Social Security Administration. Baucus is refusing to schedule a hearing not because Biggs is unqualified, but because Baucus ...
The Totalitarian Left
Randy Hall reports that some Methodists are objecting to President Bush putting his presidential library at Southern Methodist University -- but Jimmy Carter's Carter Center is "partnered" with United Methodist-related Emory University. Maybe these particular Methodists only like presidents with "Jewish problems." (Yes, I realize I'm being over-the-top here, but ...
“On Behalf of Jeff Immelt and the Other Sane People at GE, I Say…
...[expletive deleted] you." Why is GE so afraid of a little transparency? The publicly-traded Free Enterprise Action Fund wants GE shareholders to vote on a proposal to require GE management to explain why GE is lobbying in favor of economically-restrictive global warming regulations. The Free Enterprise Action Fund also wants ...
Prosecuting Global Warming Deniers
From Dennis Prager: ...it would not be surprising that soon, in Europe, global warming deniers will be treated as Holocaust deniers and prosecuted. Just watch. That is far more likely than the oceans rising by 20 feet. Or even 10. Or even three. A few years ao, I would have ...
The Hard Look Applies Ockham’s Razor
The Hard Look blog applies Ockham's Razor to climate change: If Franciscan friar William of Ockham were alive today, he would reject the IPCC report and instead point to the work of Dr. Henrik Svensmark, who presents hard data showing variations in solar activity control nearly all global warming and ...
Vaclav Klaus: Environmentalism is a New Incarnation of Leftism
Harvard Professor Lubos Motl's website has an English translation of an entertaining, and very hard-hitting, interview Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus gave recently on global warming. A couple of quotes: "...it's obvious that environmentalism is a new incarnation of modern leftism.""[The idea that Man is demolishing the planet is] such ...
Don’t Squelch Opportunities
Project 21 Fellow Deneen Borelli and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy's Ryan S. Olson are calling on Michigan legislators not to squelch the ability of children in Detroit and elsewhere to attend failing public schools: Legislators: Listen to Detroit ParentsThe start of a new year often carries hope for ...
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