There was some things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. —Mark Twain Those who are still addicted to the useless and indeed pernicious vice of following U.S. politics—let me urge you to go into recovery now. The habit of abstinence must be well-established soon  or you will be tempted by the hoopla...

Barack Hussein Obama’s triumphal progress to the presidential mansion was fueled by   the utopian sentimentality that dominates the political thinking of large segments of the U.S. population. Here was a dream combination—dark (but not too dark) skin with the manners and platitudes of a classic Midwestern liberal. It was like lackluster Hubert Humphrey or George...

Recently  I ordered a bit of merchandise from a  Carolina town about 30 miles away.  It took some time to arrive. With a little research I discovered that the package had been sent by the USPS  to Baltimore! And then to Charlotte, 90 miles from its destination and 120 miles from it place of shipping....

The local “authorities” and the corporate media have tried to hide and then minimize the facts, but the blessed “alternative” sources got the news out. In the urban county just over the river, the sheriff’s department has been having “joint maneuvers” with elite Army units from Fort Bragg. The curriculum includes helicopter insertions and home...

That collecting “the wretched refuse of the earth” was a good thing for the country?  (Certainly, the Founders of the U.S. did not think so.) That some people should receive special rewards and  preferences because of the assumed sufferings  of their ancestors? (Most of our ancestors suffered. And many of the beneficiaries, not surprisingly, are...

Your last three Presidents are liars,  war criminals, and completely lacking in any of the necessary qualities of statesmanship.   The first is a pathological rake; the second a fool (“useful  idiot”);  the third is barely American (foreign father and expatriate mother). Such perspectives as liberalism, conservatism, libertarianism,  Catholicism,   may each have something valuable to contribute...

Writing your Congressperson. An unindicted Illinois governor. The American people ever understanding that government debt does not exist to cover necessary expenditures but to provide risk-free, tax-free income to capitalists. American leaders ever understanding the difference between defense and aggression. American leaders ever understanding the concept of “blowback,” that what goes around comes around. President,...

  For half a century an enlightened, progressive mentality has dominated the information and entertainment media, the educational system at every level, the courts, the clergy, and the corporate elite.  No need to get upset or act surprised that many young people are ignorant, lazy, lack moral standards, love rap music, and vote for Obama. ...

  Presumably like every live being in the U.S. 65 or older, I recently received from the government a 152-page paperback book explaining to me the glories and the ins and outs of Medicare.   Being of a perverse nature, I became interested in the numerous photographs of happy Medicare recipients and caregivers that were spread...

  Previously here I impertinently suggested a revision to Sam Francis’s brilliant and justly famous description of the Republicans as “the stupid party.”  Republicans always abandon their positions and surrender to the enemy.  This behavior is presumably stupid because it damages and weakens the party  by betraying its base.  This happens to some degree but...

  Emperor, directed by Peter Webber, 2012, 98 minutes Hyde Park on Hudson, directed by Roger Mitchell, 2012, 94 minutes   Anything not older than a half century past is not history but current events, a fact often lost on Hollywood.  So perhaps we should be grateful for these two interesting though flawed dramatizations of the World...

Our lamented friend Sam Francis scored big when he labeled the Democrats as “the evil party” and the Republicans as “the stupid party.” These telling characterizations have appealed to many later observers, as have other of Sam’s apt phrases, like “anarchotyranny.” Sam was always in earnest but his comments were often laced with humour. He...

  It is all too easy to get lost in the hurly-burly of contemporary politics, which is mostly about appetite, and miss larger and more fundamental changes that are taking place. Ideas we have long been told were characteristic of the American regime no longer have any place in the body politic.  For instance, the...

  The Sweeney, directed by Nick Love, 2012, 112 minutes. British crime dramas are often well done, but that is not the case with this movie knockoff of a popular 1970s television series about an elite London police squad.  This is one of the most unintentionally (I think) silly films I have seen in a while. ...

  “Liberalism” is the predominant form of snobbery in our time. A child molester is more likely to be a Democrat.  A closeted homosexual is more likely to be a Republican. Nothing fails like success.  But the opposite is not true—unless you have affirmative action. The USPS will discontinue Saturday mail in August.  I can...

  America has a severe educational problem: It is full of people, many of them in prominent positions, who have been educated beyond their intelligence. In fact, such people are more prominent as leaders in most American institutions  than people of knowledge and character. Another educational problem: several million people who have been made unemployable...

  Morally responsible people sacrifice in the present to invest in the future.  Irresponsible people impoverish the future to enjoy more of the present.  Which describes the United States today? Voting decides nothing.  It does not prove that the people rule.  It merely makes a selection of which politicians will get the opportunity to pursue...

  Americans seem to think that they are citizens of a self-governing democracy.  Actually, democratic self-government is not possible in a regime where immense wealth and influence are concentrated in a few hands an unelected, irresponsible, and heavily biased mass media control public discourse the political process is dominated by advertising men the population is...

There has been considerable discussion lately about the  federal government’s potential use of the U.S. Army against American citizen civilians.  It might be worth a moment to pause and remember February 17, 1865.  On that winter day, the U.S. Army, with malice aforethought,  robbed, raped, and burned out the white and black people of the...

Dubious ideas that are taken for granted as true in American public discourse: Government and Big Business are enemies. The U.S. practices a free-trade policy. Wars are bad except those carried out by the U.S. because our intentions are always benevolent. It is good that our daughters now have equality with our sons in the...

  Probably all societies work better with a certain quantity of comfortable delusions, but America seems to operate with nothing but delusions.  Large policies have been and continue to be based on an imaginary view of the world which trumps common sense: • You can have a First World economy and military with a Third...

  Reasons for voting Democrat: More freebies, welfare, government jobs, grants; satisfaction of leftist ideological malice; if you are a minority, the pleasure of sticking it to Whitey. Reasons for voting Republican: Unless you are a big capitalist, a defense contractor, an employer of illegal immigrants, or a politician hoping for the perks of office,...

  Questions for people of my venerable age or even younger, down to about 50. Did you ever think you would see . . . Arrogant or sullen foreigners swarming everywhere you look in your own hometown? Obscenity and vulgarity beamed into every home 24 hours a day? Large numbers of people walking and driving...

  Immigration is enriching our American economy and culture.  The falsity of this proposition has been demonstrated so often and so conclusively that it belongs in the same category as 1) Islam is a religion of peace, 2) politicians don’t lie and steal, and 3) Elvis is alive and well in a monastery in Bolivia.  It...

    ”Fighting does not solve anything.”  A saw made up to persuade people toward pacifism.  In fact, the only potential virtue possessed by fighting is that it sometimes does solve things.  Did the Americans and their allies fighting from D-Day to Berlin not solve the problem of European fascism, at least for the time?  Do...

  For Southerners, the hatred of so many of their “fellow Americans” comes so steadily and predictably that it is usually best simply to ignore it and let the heathen rage. We are an easy-going, non-ideological, and Christian people, so most of us don’t even notice. However, the Washington Times has usefully exposed a particularly egregious example, an...

  The latest scandal among the British royals will doubtless reenergize the long-running argument over the usefulness of monarchy in these times. Surprisingly often, here and in other fora, one encounters Americans so affronted by the manifest defects of “democracy,” that they declare themselves to be “monarchists.”  This has always seemed a little strange to...

Yesterday was not a good day. I got the word about the new birth ratio and realised that the local Chinese restaurants are now advertising in Spanish. Add to Favorites