May 08

Anthropologist: modern universities breed conformity rather than intellectual curiosity

Many have wondered why most college professors conform to stereotype: hopelessly closed-minded worshippers of elitist, ‘leftist’ ideology.

David Graeber, a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, suggests in a recent book that the structure and norms of university life breed conformity.

Something about the experience of grad school, the job market, and pre-tenure trials ends up rendering 99 percent of even the most secure academics utterly incapable of meaningful rebellion. It’s a matter that surely deserves sociological analysis. The tenure system is ostensibly there to give professors the security to experiment with potentially dangerous ideas. Yet somehow the process of obtaining it reduces a good proportion of the most perceptive and sophisticated human beings our society produces to a state in which they can’t imagine what a dangerous idea would even look like.

A summary of these points in the Chronicle of Higher Education can be found here.

May 05

Ten years ago, CBO estimated that Congress would run a $151 billion surplus in 2017. Instead, they ran a $665 billion deficit.

Ten years ago, The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that Congress would run a $151 billion surplus in 2017. Instead, the U.S. ran a $665 billion deficit.

Now the CBO projects $12.4 trillion in additional debt over the next decade.

This represents a more than 50 percent increase to the current national debt, which has already blown past $21 trillion. See here.

May 03

New Report: 1 in 6 seniors are millionaires

An astounding new report about American demographics has been summarized by Bloomberg News service. See here.

Average wealth for retirees has risen more than 100 percent since 1989, to $752,000, and the share of those who are millionaires has doubled.

Also, more retirees—62 percent—are enjoying life without physical or cognitive limitations, according to the data. That number is up from 49 percent in 1963.

Thus, most seniors COULD work.

These astounding findings are significant and show that federal programs such as Social Security and Medicare are regressive. They transfer resources from the poor (i.e., the young) to the rich (i.e., the old).

Also, such programs transfer resources from Blacks, Native Americans and Latinos to Whites. This is because whites have relatively longer live expectancy.

In fact, Social Security and Medicare are second only to the institution of slavery in terms of being the biggest programs in American history that transfer resources from Blacks to whites.

May 03

50 year anniversary of “The Population Bomb” hoax

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Paul Ehrlich’s “The Population Bomb.” The book catapulted Ehrlich to superstardom among the world’s scientists, and remains one of the all-time science bestsellers.

Yet the past 50 years of knowledge and human development have proven the book to be fundamentally false. See here.

“Ehrlich prophesied that hundreds of millions would starve to death in the 1970s (and that 65 million of them would be Americans), that already-overpopulated India was doomed, and that most probably “England will not exist in the year 2000.”

As a cure, Ehrlich recommended expanding the powers of world governments to control populations. Sterilization, forced abortions, and one-child policies were a few of Ehrlich’s recommendations. Governments such as that of China subscribed to and adopted Ehrlich’s claims.

Thomas D. Williams writes that “The enduring power of alarmist theories such as Ehrlich’s, which somehow survive being exposed as utterly false, should give people pause before embracing similar theories and their practical corollaries, even when based on ‘settled science.'”

May 01

Professor John Lamb in Bozeman hospital after collision

Lysander Spooner University’s top professor of journalism, John Lamb, was involved in a serious traffic accident earlier today near Three Forks, Montana. Professor Lamb–known widely as “the last free man”–became a Youtube and Facebook sensation over the past two years while covering the Bundy trials and related government corruption.

John is now in an intensive care unit at Bozeman Deaconess Hospital.

Dr. Roger Roots visited Professor Lamb briefly. Lamb has more than a dozen broken bones and severe internal injuries.

Nonetheless John was able to talk and appears to be improving.

Lets all pray and wish John a quick and full recovery.

May 01

Tens of thousands have died due to Canadian single payer health care

If the power of freedom and capitalism were unleashed on medical care, societies would quickly become strong and healthy at low cost.

But governments around the world have choked their subjects with slave plantation style health care.

The Canadian government imposes a government monopoly on medicine, prohibiting Canadians from buying medical treatment.

A new study by the Fraser Institute estimates that tens of thousands have died from waiting for treatment in Canada. The median waiting time for patients in Canada from referral by a general practitioner to the date of actual treatment was 21.2 weeks in 2017. This is 128% longer than in 1993, when it was just 9.3 weeks.

Taxes and spending for the deadly government program are skyrocketing.

Apr 30

Government subsidies to help the poor actually harm the poor by causing prices to rise

The above chart was generated by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and published on Marketwatch.com. It shows the overall price changes of certain products between 1997 and 2017.

As you can see, government-subsidized goods (college tuition and books and medical treatment) have increased at rates much higher than inflation.

Meanwhile, ‘tech’ products such as TVs, cell phones and computers, which are not subsidized by government, have gone down in price relative to inflation.

Government subsidizes college tuition, college textbooks, and medical treatment to help the poor (supposedly). Yet such programs greatly harm the poor.

Meanwhile, the corporations producing tech products are often demonized by government trusters. Yet their products are more easily obtained by the poor than in the past.

There are loud voices proclaiming that corporations are controlling American politics–and advocating the elimination of speech rights for corporations. (The goal of these voices, generally, is to empower government to push more socialistic programs like the programs that produce the high prices of college and health care.)

Apr 30

Chicago’s government water is contaminated by lead

Government-provided drinking water is often contaminated and toxic despite its exorbitant cost.

Here is a story about lead contamination in Chicago’s drinking water.

Apr 29

Australian government seeks further expanded powers to surveil citizen bank accounts, phone records and internet use

Australia is a former British colony. Like the American colonies, it inherited the British common law and the liberties that came with it.

And like everywhere else in the former British empire, Australia became prosperous and wealthy compared to the rest of the world.

Just as in America and Britain, warrants signed by judges were required for government agents to search people’s private records.

But just as in the U.S., the Australian government began carving back on common liberties in recent years–under the claim that the threat of “terrorism” was everywhere.

Some years ago, Australian law switched so that a warrants need only be signed by “the Attorney-General [not a judge] to access Australians’ emails, bank records and text messages.”

And now there is a secret plan among some in the Australian government to further erode the privacy of the citizenry. Government “[m]inisters are reportedly planning to amend the Intelligence Services Act of 2001 to allow” Aussie Home Affairs officials to access citizen records without warrant and without even notifying the attorney general.

“The plan was revealed by a leaked letter from Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo to Defence Secretary Greg Moriarty.”

The secret plan was leaked to the Telegraph.

Apr 29

More death threats against climate skeptics

Mark Morano, author of “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change,” provides many examples of death threats and other violent threats against himself in an unpublished chapter of the book. See here.

(Apparently the publishers did not want to include this chapter, so Morano has self-published excerpts from the missing chapter on his blog Climatedepot.com.)

Researchers who disagree with the government’s apocalyptic manmade global warming theory have been subjected to hundreds of documented death threats. (No one arguing for the government’s theory has ever reported being subjected to a death threat because of his position.)

Other skeptics are subjected to demands that they be imprisoned, loss of jobs, and loss of government research grants. See here (Bill Gray), here (shots fired at John Cristy’s office), and here Oregon State University chemistry professor Nicholas Drapela fired after expressing skepticism).