There can be no justice so long as laws are absolute; even life itself is an exercise in exceptions.
Joined May 2009
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How to raise a high performing student with an ambition to participate in the economy as soon as possible?
It sort of requires a heroic attention to idealism, which their concentration wanes if you ask them to do that.
Books all high school and college students should read... This is my list. It's not in any particular order but it is a list of my favorites. If you're a parent to a tween, figure out how to carve out time for your child to read. Don't *force* them, instead figure out a way to encourage it, by suggesting repeatedly that they do it. Ask them to put the tech device down for one hour the first time they get started. I would start these by age 11. Not all can be read at that age, so go through the list and make wise choices. Obviously you and your child have been reading before age 11 but these are the books to transition to starting around 11.
Buy one of the books below and just give it to them. I suggest Animal Farm as a starting point.
Also here's a suggestion. I created a list of ten questions after each book, printed it out and asked my kids to take the quiz. I gave them a reward just for doing it (like a Texas Roadhouse gift card for example, but anything will do). Didn't matter if they scored 6 out of 10 or 10 for 10. I found my child who embraced these quizzes after each book did better in school than my child who pushed back a little bit. Call me crazy! (but the results are kids that score top of their classes in every subject).
Animal Farm (Orwell)
1984 (Orwell)
Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee)
The Road to Serfdom (Hayek)
Intellectuals and Socialism (Hayek) (this short book is usually attached to the end of The Road to Serfdom but if not, it is public domain and you can search for the PDF).
The Other Wes Moore (Moore)
Socialism Sucks: Two Economists Drink Their Way Through the Unfree World
Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck)
Night (Elie Wiesel)
A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
The Wealth of Nations (Smith)
The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)
Ulysses (Joyce)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Angelou)
The Demon-Haunted World (Carl Sagan)
Economic Facts and Fallacies (Sowell) or
Basic Economics (Thomas Sowell) (need an entire summer!)
Lord Of The Rings (Tolkien)
The Moon is Down (Steinbeck)
The Myth of the Robber Barons (Folsom, Jr.)
Capitalism and Freedom (Friedman)
Doctor Zhivago (Pasternak)
Atlas Shrugged (Rand)
The Constitution of the United States
Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes)
Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky)
Macbeth (Shakespeare)
Hannah Arendt "The Origins of Totalitarianism"
Iliad (Homer)
Odyssey (Homer) (recommend Iliad before Odyssey if possible)
The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer)
Paradise Lost (Milton)
The Inferno (Dante)
Common Sense (Paine)
Cosmos (Sagan)
The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger)
The Old man and the sea (Hemingway)
A Farewell to Arms (Hemingway)
The Outsiders (Hinton)
Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Brave New World (Huxley)
Uncle Tom’s cabin (Stowe)
The Scarlett Letter (Hawthorne)
The Call of the Wild (London)
The Red Badge of Courage (Crane)
The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (Doyle)
The Closing of the American Mind (Bloom)
A conflict of visions (Sowell)
Who Stole Feminism (Christina Hoff Sommers)
Here are four books all young ladies should read… All of life’s experiences, the good and the bad, are described in beautiful and instructive detail:
The Secret Garden
The Little Princess
Little Women
Anne of Green Gables
- Live long and prosper.
Parallel Spock retweeted
When Democrats screech about “affordability,” I laugh then cry.
Why? I laugh because they think we’re all stupid. I cry because everything costs a lot more. Democrats were the ones who DESTROYED affordability in America.
Look at inflation during the Biden years. The cost of homes and rent increased by 40% or more IN JUST FOUR YEARS. We saw the same increases in food costs and gasoline.
A home you could have bought when Biden took office for $300,000, with a 2.75% interest rate and a monthly payment of only $1,000 to $1,100 cost $400,000 to $500,000 when he left office, with a 7%-plus interest rate and a monthly payment of $3,000 per month — or more. America has never seen such a dramatic change in affordability in just four years — the Biden years.
Now, inflation is under control but it’s Trump’s fault prices are still high? Prices don’t decrease after inflation. They just increase a lot less, and they are.
A few of us are paying attention. A few aren’t.
Parallel Spock retweeted
We no longer teach actual history, only revisionist history.
In the financial and housing history that Mayor Parker received, the 2008 housing bubble was a problem of not giving out enough mortgages and homes to those who couldn’t afford it according to the math. Math is therefore racist (or at best, irrelevant).
Give more mortgages, protected by the pocketbook of the city coffers! That’s the ticket!
The idea that a Catholic Cardinal would award a person who strongly supports abortion and has in fact donated approximately $600,000 to expand abortion access, tells you that the diocese is effectively purchased.
Of course the good Cardinal will brush off such accusations as conspiratorial hyperbole yet the Church has a duty to the summum bonum; admiring the destruction of life is the antithesis of the greater good and the love of God and our neighbors. Admiring Sacks because he’s going to donate to seminary is antithetical.
From @FoxNews: Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich is scheduled to recognize pro-abortion billionaire Michael Sacks at the Rerum Novarum Awards Dinner.
Kelsey Reinhardt, president and CEO of CatholicVote, said, "The U.S. bishops have taught that Catholic institutions should not give ‘awards, honors or platforms’ to those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. A little over a year ago, Catholics made clear their disappointment that the Archdiocese of Chicago attempted to honor a public supporter of abortion."
Reinhardt added, "We urge Cardinal Cupich to reconsider this honor. The pre-born babies and the faithful who support them cry out once again."
This idea that a Catholic Cardinal would award a person who strongly supports abortion and has in fact donated approximately $600,000 to expand abortion access, tells you that the dioceses is purchased.
Of course the good Cardinal will brush off such accusations as conspiratorial hyperbole yet the Church has a duty to the summum bonum; admiring the destruction of life is the antithesis of the greater good and the love of God and our neighbors. Admiring Sacks because he’s going to donate to seminary is antithetical.
CV president urges Cardinal Cupich to reconsider award for abortion donor: The pre-born ‘cry out once again’ zeale.co/news/articles/cv-pr…
When your wife writes a birthday tribute to herself and includes the word “selfless” to describe herself.
Quite a logical position.
Islam and Sharia Law are not merely religions, they are anti-Constitutional; they are anti-liberty.
🎯
⚠️No⚠️
Elon has not ever responded to my QTs and he may well not do now - but for anyone wanting to know why I give a resounding NO‼️ Here’s why……..and why it goes to the heart of American Independence, unalienable rights and Constitutional Republican self governance in operation.
The American Founders’ insistence that man ‘must be neither a ‘dog’ nor a ‘horse’…….’ doesn’t simply refer to a commentary on barbarism, collectivism, tribalism, social status or station - but to man’s metaphysical capacity - his ontological rational and moral agency as a bearer of logos (imago Dei) as codified in the first principles of the Declaration of Independence, which is necessary for the preservation of a free republic.
A dog follows commands. A horse may be trained and directed (behaviourist Education Pedagogy and institutional/organizational/managerial procedure, policy etc). But both ‘dog & horse’ are governed externally (tyranny of Hegelian State and the political/ideological warfare of propaganda operations).
The Founders explicitly rejected the illegitimate tyrannical notion that man is to be managed through coercion, impulse conditioning, or elite rule. They understood that liberty demands internal governance; self-rule through Right Reason.
Man is rational, not because he can calculate, but because he can apprehend what is; reality as it is. Man is moral, not because he obeys rules, but because he participates in the discernment of the good, which is objective and knowable.
Therefore, man must be educated not to blindly obey, but necessarily to govern himself; to choose the good because he sees (discerns not projects) it and loves (commits himself to) it. See the Education of the Founding Fathers (Walsh).
A ‘dog or horse’ …….a pack animal……cannot do this. They are subjects to be controlled, domesticated, or broken whereas a citizen is not.
Talk of man as a ‘pack animal’ negates the Constitutional Republic, negates self governance, unalienable rights and man as a human being. It is the talk of Rousseau’s “savages made to live in cities” and Hobbes’ sophist thought experiment ‘State of Nature’ - the propaganda of its own day and like today, serving State power.
The American Constitutional Republic upholds and defends man as a human being in the created order, his created nature with endowed faculties, of right reason oriented under authority and grounded in Faith. This doesn’t serve the political warfare operations does it. There are reasons for that!
“Let a man be neither a dog to be taught by beatings, nor a horse to be managed by a bridle.”
(John Adams, Discourses on Davila, 1790)
Parallel Spock retweeted
NO! The bill is backward. Permanent Daylight Saving Time is worse than clock changes. AMEND it to permanent Standard Time!
🚨 UPDATE: President Trump is LIVID that the US Senate is refusing to vote to make permanent Daylight Saving Time
"The United States Senate is letting the Daylight Saving Bill die, when a vast Majority of the Country want it. Most people are demanding light in the evening, but ALL want not to change their clocks anymore. TAKE A VOTE!"
"As stated in The New York Post, 'Lawmakers in Washington have tried to kill the clock change for good, and this summer the House overwhelmingly passed the Sunshine Protection Act, 308-117, which would make Daylight Saving Time permanent year-round. That bill, however, remains locked in the Senate, meaning Daylight Saving Time will end as regularly scheduled to the disappointment of many Americans.'"
Because the Senate recessed until after the November 3 midterms without acting, Americans will be forced to turn their clocks back an hour yet again this Sunday, November 1!
Put it on the floor and pass it!
Parallel Spock retweeted
A not so subtle reminder--the president of the United States does not represent us. He's not Caesar or the embodiment of a nation. He's the executor of laws drawn up by the Congress and, when called, Commander in Chief of the armed forces. At best, he's the embodiment of the Electoral College.
And, the White House--though it's been called this since the days of John F. Kennedy--is NOT the People's House. That would be the House of Representatives. The idea of the White House as the People's House is wicked and cynical propaganda, completely contrary to the founding and the Constitution.
This is 100% the way: replacing existing colleges’ humanities departments rather than hiring one or two conservative professors in hopes of achieving balance. If administrators, deans, and 90% of the professors remain progressives or socialists, the few conservatives are just going to hide in their shells.
And yes, highly intelligent students grounded in conservative (meaning classical liberal) principles are pursuing the humanities. Yet the effort is difficult because many conservative parents want to prevent their children from attending institutions where 95 percent of faculty aim to instill the need for socialism, and dismantle the U.S. Constitution and capitalism.
Solutions not considered by the author of this dog-bites-man opinion piece. Forget about downsizing and reforming existing departments, which are dying on the vine anyway. The biggest mistake reformers could make would be to allow existing humanities departments to replace themselves.
We need to do a complete reset [aka Renaissance] of the humanities outside union-controlled public high schools and 'progressive' colleges and universities. Fund university-level humanistic study only at civics institutes at public universities, with broad (not micromanaging) state oversight. These would be intended to train future leaders on the Ciceronian / Churchillian model. Also fund sound private institutions like @RalstonCollege and @UATX that care about the traditional humanities. Topline research in the humanities needs to be re-established in private institutes, accountable to the vision of founders via board oversight. This is the direction traditional reformers are going in already but there needs ot be a clear strategy.. @firstthingsmag @RalstonCollege @ufhamilton @UNCSCILL @CivitasInst @UTCivics @LawLiberty @BradleyFdn spectator.com/article/anybod…
My take on Omar is that we are watching a train wreck in slow motion.
A bombshell hedge?
“Not to my knowledge.”
That is how Ilhan Omar answered Chris Hayes when he asked “You were not related to him (her husband) at all?”
How does anyone not know if they are related to their spouse?
I have always said everyone should wait for evidence before deciding if there is truth to the rumor that she might have married a relative. I still don’t know. What this clip shows is that Hayes was not doing journalism. He framed the claim as “unlikely” and said it was “right-wing people who believe it,” and reminded her she had called it “disgusting.” When she answered with the classic lawyer’s hedge instead of a flat denial, he just moved on.
As a lawyer I used to tell clients to say “not to my knowledge” or “not to the best of my recollection” when they were not certain. It keeps the door open and avoids perjury exposure. As a journalist, that is the answer I’d press on. Omar had previously called the insinuation “absurd and offensive.” Here she got a direct question and only gave the hedge.
There’s so much fish in this kitchen that stinks that somebody is going to get food poisoning before it’s over.
“… the NFL’s chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills has publicly defended the Eagles’ handling, stating he has “tremendous confidence” …”
Perhaps the good doctor would be open to liability with the NFL itself if he said anything other than he has tremendous confidence in how Hurts was evaluated? How is anyone supposed to take his statement seriously?
For the NFL not to have immediately asked outside counsel for advice, and said counsel wouldn’t suggest “Don’t release statements on the medical aspects until an outside medical practitioner is hired and evaluates the care that was given and how they would have recommended proceeding given Hurts’ condition” just shows to me the level of deceit in the NFL c-suite.
What this means to me is that Mr. Hurts needs total outside advocacy. Neither the NFL, the Eagles, nor even his own agent, should be speaking on his behalf.
UPDATE - Since posting this, the NFL’s chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills has publicly defended the Eagles’ handling, stating he has “tremendous confidence” in the staff, that care was conservative and vigilant, and that the process was appropriate - with the league indicating no punishment.
The league also clarified that early reports of Hurts being told not to sleep for ~36 hours were inaccurate.
At the same time, the NFLPA issued a statement noting it was not aware of any NFL investigation and that the league had previously told the union it did not plan to review the care. The union called for a full investigation before any conclusions are drawn.
Commissioner Goodell has since said the league “welcomes” such a review as part of the process.
This tracks EXACTLY with the lesson from the Maragos verdict (again, upheld on appeal): team doctors cannot focus solely on “when can he return to play.”
Former NFL linebacker and broadcaster Emmanuel Acho put it bluntly: “It’s negligence. It’s malpractice… I will not credit Jalen Hurts’ toughness. I will indict the medical professionals who allowed Jalen Hurts, even though he had a superficial clot, to play in the game.” He added that Hurts “could do the same thing and win because there is malpractice going on from a medical care perspective.”
A superficial calf clot progressed to DVT + bilateral pulmonary emboli after he played every snap in London and flew home. That sequence is uncommon, but the outcome is serious enough that an independent look at the decision-making (independent of the team and league’s own review) is warranted.
Health first for Jalen. I will stand by this, as both an Eagles fan, an attorney, and a human being.
The next 50 years still matter more than one game, and it’s about time this is taken seriously before it’s too late.
Brilliant. I hope this gives the professor time to reflect on his views, but more importantly others hearing this debate.
College professor left completely stumped after @KaiSchwemmer started talking in Spanish after the professor said he welcomed mass migration.
Schwemmer: Would it be an issue if every city spoke a different language?
Professor: No.
Schwemmer: "Entonces sería bastante difícil si estuviéramos hablando, entendernos, porque nosotros no podemos entender lo que estamos diciendo y no podemos alcanzar tener respeto mutuo."
Brilliant.
“Newlywed Game answer”
Brilliant!
“Not to my knowledge” was the moment @IlhanMN’s lawyers put their head in their hands.
And @MSNOWNews didn’t even follow up. Just glossed right over the strangest “newlywed game” answer ever given.
Parallel Spock retweeted
There are two ways of looking at the midterms, now less than three weeks away.
One is as a simple referendum on the issues and politicians of the day. The other involves a far deeper conflict of visions (as Thomas Sowell puts it): socialism versus capitalism, intrusive versus limited government, and the destruction of time-honored institutions and traditions versus their preservation and renewal.
Rarely in American history have the two parties been so far apart or the choice between them so stark. In brief, Islamist-sympathizing socialism is on the ballot against free-market capitalism and American exceptionalism.
victorhanson.com/the-deep-mi…
Sometimes the Monday morning quarterbacks (aka Outcomes bias) are actually right, Mr. Baldwin.
No competent physician skilled in thrombus diagnosis would have cleared an athlete to play in a football game, as the risk of an embolus is quite serious, more so when the blood is pumping harder.
What happened in London (and the swift press release from the NFL today) is simply a series of mistakes and string of errors; this happens when there is outside pressure (duress) to make a favorable decision for what the majority of those involved are advocating for (i.e., people all associated with pro football want to play a football game). That's the ONLY cognitive bias involved in this situation. Mob rules. Now the mob will protect itself.
Mr. Hurts should get an outside attorney who can arrange for expert physicians, NOT affiliated with the league in any manner, to review his charts, and help him make informed, intelligent decisions to proceed on.
The Jalen Hurts situation is a textbook example of Outcome Bias.
A superficial blood clot before the London game.
Doctors cleared him. He played.
Suddenly, everybody knows the Eagles should’ve never let him play.
Based on what…
Original diagnosis was not a guarantee that playing = worsening.
Doctors evaluated the risk. Made a decision.
Had Hurts played, recovered and never had another issue, nobody would care.
But because the outcome is what it is, people are treating the original decision as obviously wrong.
That’s Outcome Bias. It wasn’t wrong.
Bad result ≠ bad decision.
You judge decisions by the information available when they were made.
Not by information you only gained afterward.
Otherwise, every risk that works is smart.
And every risk that fails was stupid.
That’s not judgment. That’s hindsight.
Good news and bad news:
Good: the ratio of voting in PA has improved for Republicans over the past week. For every Republican mail-in ballot returned, 2.85 (nearly 3) Democrats return their ballots. That’s an improvement from last week where 3.1 Democrat voters turned in ballots for every Republican voter.
Bad:
Nearly 3 Democrat ballots are returned for every Republican in Pennsylvania.
Republicans are NOT voting. And no, they won’t outvote Democrats at the polls on Election Day. The state has a small Democrat majority, and one need just look at the primary earlier this year to see the rates of Democrats voting in person, along with the strong showing democrats made at the polling locations in both 2025 (municipal elections) and the 2024 (presidential election) where Democrats showed strong in-person numbers.
I don’t know what it’s going to take for republicans to get off their sofas in Pennsylvania, but apparently the threat of socialism is not enough?
