Cheers to the Doctrine Man for re-surfacing Italian economist Carlo Cipolla’s 1976 essay, The Basic Laws of Stupidity via ClearanceJobs, from which I quote: In his essay – which was initially intended for a very small group of close colleagues – Cipolla presented his laws of stupidity. We all know stupid people exist, he explained,…
Category: Society
Choosing Sides
Today was a bad day to be a police officer – 2 New York City cops were murdered execution-style by career criminal Ismaaiyl Brinsley. Brinsley, who had shot his girlfriend hours before, committed suicide in a subway tunnel after the murders. From the article: Mayor de Blasio and Police Comissioner Bill Bratton addressed the media…
Fighting for 15
For some perspective, $15/hr is scarcely less than what new, degreed teachers earn at many school districts here in Texas. The low pay of teachers aside, it’s ridiculous to equate the value of these jobs in terms of wages. The fact is, flipping burgers and bagging fries are not skills. I’ve been there, done that,…
The Power of No in Parenting and Education
I first have to say that I know a lot of great teenagers. I’m immensely proud of my sons and almost as much so of many of their friends. I stopped as I was writing this and nearly discarded it, keenly aware that I could inadvertently hurt one of these great kids by causing them…
Of Men and Prejudices
The idea that prejudices can and should be eliminated is a fallacy. So long as a man can observe and judge, he will use information to generalize about groups of people, some favorably and others not. Ultimately the question comes down to whether an individual should be allowed to form his own opinion, whether right…
Gunman Dead at U. of Texas
A psycho gunman was loose on a college campus this A.M. and is believed to have committed suicide. A second armed perpetrator is alleged and the search is underway for this person. I’ve asked this question before, but what ever happened to the era of quiet desperation when the terminally insane simply shot themselves? What’s…
9/11 – Nine Years Later
Nine years ago I was working in my home office when the first tower was struck at the World Trade Center. Glued to the television as the skyscraper, a monument to western civilization’s ingenuity crumbled, I understood, truly for the first time, the existential, exponential relationship between creation and destruction. More than anything, the Muslim…
Things Americans Must Not Do
A) Commit crimes against Muslims for no reason; i.e., no stabbing cabbies, etc B) Burn Korans for no reason. Yes, it’s your right, but don’t be an ass with your freedom C) Allow Islam to gain influence over American policy or law. The U.S. was founded by Christians for the freedom of everyone, whereas Sharia…
Americans Should Celebrate as Income Inequality Increases
The Business Insider has a new series of charts describing the “bum deal” working Americans have gotten in the last few decades, including this one demonstrating the fallacious but de facto standard liberal meme, namely that Americans should earn roughly equal shares of the income pie: An objective examination of this line of thinking reveals…
Remembering the Real American Dream
What is the American Dream? Is it dead? Some seem to think so. And they may well be right, according to the modern definition of that Dream. In computing the term Moore’s Law (no relation, sadly) means that “number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit has doubled approximately every two…