Do you think ideas don't matter, that what people believe about themselves and their world has no real consequence? If so, the following will not bug you in the slightest. A new BBC poll finds that only 11 percent of people questioned around the world – and 29,000 people were asked ...read more

Were I an aspiring farmer in search of fertile land to buy and plow, I would seriously consider moving to Detroit. There is open land, fertile soil, ample water, willing labor, and a desperate demand for decent food. And there is plenty of community will behind the idea of turning ...read more

When Alan Greenspan predicted three percent economic growth showing up in the reported figures for the third quarter of 2009, did he mean executive compensation packages? Maybe the lesson here is: don't ask a crackhead to predict the future supply of crack. Greenspan's greatest success may be to drive economics ...read more

Hope you bought your last pack of flavored cigarettes by midnight on Sept. 21…or else you’re out of luck. Thank the newly enacted Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. I’m OK with state-by-state action. In fact, I couldn’t have bought the last pack of cloves in Maryland at 11:55 p.m. ...read more

For most of the life of the United States of America one of the biggest dreams was that the next generation would exceed what their parents had achieved. Horatio Alger, "any boy can grow up to be president," "I want my children to have a better education than I did..." ...read more

Cometh the hour, cometh the man. The Second World War had many dark hours. And in the crucible of desperation, the U.S. found its man to wage war from the air, Gen. Curtis Lemay. Who Was This Man? The hour. The man. But let’s pause, and ask again who was this man? ...read more

This is further proof that both Republicans and Democrats are, to put it kindly, totally ignorant of some of life's basic facts, and even common sense. Both sides want it to be compulsory for insurance companies to be forced to insure people with "pre-existing conditions." Think about that one, with ...read more

By the summer of 1944 the air war was taking shape in Europe. Gen. Curtis Lemay had turned a problematic bombing operation against Germany into a strategic success. No less than the German Minister of Armaments, Albert Speer, would eventually come to credit Lemay’s bombers for speeding along the defeat ...read more

“He never fit the image of the American flyboy – dashing, handsome and suave,” writes author Warren Kozak in the prologue to his remarkable new biography of General Curtis Lemay (1906–1990). “He was, instead, dark, brooding, and forbidding. He rarely smiled, he spoke even less, and when he did, his ...read more

Consider economics and governments as resembling a restaurant. In order for there to be a restaurant at all some entrepreneur has to put his money and vision on the line and open it. He has a thing called "overhead," which is irreducible on-going expenses whether he has any customers at all ...read more