Monthly Archives: October 2026

My Halloween lesson

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My three siblings were sick with the flu. Vomiting, diarrhea, fevers, chills, you name it. It was very messy.

On the other hand, I felt great. Their sicknesses didn’t bother me in the least. In fact, they might have made me feel even greater.

I was about 11 years old. I liked candy, it was Halloween, and the entire opposing team was on injured reserve. Life was good.

Back in those days, your mom didn’t drive you from house to house. No, it was a real test of stamina, especially in a semi-rural neighborhood where there was a lot of ground to cover. And you generally didn’t get a whole handful of candy at each house. You got one piece.

For my night of panhandling, I was naturally costumed as a bum. Oops, it’s the season of euphemisms, where we pretend that good is bad, evil is funny, and elections aren’t rigged. So, I mean I was dressed as an unhoused person. Which I could easily become if I pissed off my dad again.

I started out when it was still dusk, maybe around 6 pm, and I continued till after 10 pm, well past my bedtime. Since I was all alone, I covered a lot of ground, and it’s also possible that one or two houses treated me twice. Neat trick, that. 

Those single pieces of candy added up in the course of four hours of begging, er, threatening the neighbors with vandalism lest they pay me off with candy (this was before they invented bitcoin).

My victims, er, neighbors, filled my entire bag. I must have collected thousands of pieces of bribe candy, or so it seemed. The bag actually became a burden for an 11-year-old to lug from house to house.

But that night, I was strong beyond my years.  I was a Hercules of candy-collecting prowess. The sugar high from opening a piece of candy once in a while helped.

I finally returned home. My mother caring for my sick siblings barely missed me. It was apparent to her, however, that she would save a lot on groceries the next week. My bag was a little high on carbs and low on protein, but it didn’t matter because it was before the invention of either. (My father used to scold me for drinking milk. “Milk’s expensive! If you’re thirsty, drink water!” Of course, this was before the days of bottled water and before they got the lead out of the plumbing systems. I’m glad to report that the leaded plumbing didn’t affect me a bit . . . bit. . . bittt . . .)

The siblings that night were feeling better by the time I got home, and well enough to ask for a few of the treats in my bag. Of course, I told them no — in the most childish and churlish fashion. I’d earned my loot fair and square by hard begging and not-very-vague threats. (“Nice house you get here, be a shame if it got all covered with toilet paper and leaded water . . . “)

Besides, as I learned later in law school, there’s no honor among thieves or beggars or extortionists or lawyers.

But I was worried that the beggars, er, I mean siblings, might steal some of the treats from my bag after I went to sleep. So, I ate as much as I could, and that was a lot, and left the remaining candy, er, nourishment, in the bag right next to my bed. That way, I could have more if I felt the hunger, and I’d guard it against the thieves, er, I mean siblings, er, I mean beggars.

That night, the flu bug that had plagued my siblings caught up with me. Or maybe it was those last dozen boxes of Milk Duds. At about 3 am, I rolled over and hurled. Right into my treasured bag of extortion proceeds.

The next morning, my mother threw out the whole bag of vomit-covered candy. (My father probably would have kept it, but he was at work by the time I finally saw the carnage.) The siblings thought the incident was very amusing.

I wanted to hose off the candy and keep it. I was sick, sick, sick. And my stomach didn’t feel so good, either.

The lesson is obvious: Hide your stuff really well.

Democrats cheat because it feels good

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Bank robber Willie Sutton was once asked why he robbed banks. His famous answer was, “Because that’s where the money is.”

Sutton would be puzzled by today’s Democrats. They cheat, just as many politicians do. But the Democrats cheat in ridiculous ways with little material reward.

The most recent example is cheating in Alaska, as if that’s so far away nobody would notice. Here’s the story.

One of the Alaskan Senators is a Republican named Dan S. Sullivan. If rival Democrats could find another Dan Sullivan and put him on the ballot, they realized they might be able to confuse enough voters into mistakenly voting for the wrong one. That could split the “Dan Sullivan” vote and get their Democrat challenger elected.

Devious, you say? In the minds of the Democrats, that was a feature, not a flaw.

The Democrats scoured the state to find someone with the name Dan Sullivan. They found him. Only his middle initial was wrong. His name was Dan J. Sullivan, rather than Dan S. Sullivan.

He tried to get on the ballot with an “S” in order to heighten the confusion, even though his real middle initial was “J.” The Alaskans ballot regulators didn’t bite, but he did get on the ballot as Dan J. Sullivan. Close enough for some confusion.

The Democrat challenger is one Mary Petola, pictured above. Cute glasses.

Petola and her campaign swore they had nothing to do with “Decoy Dan,” as the impersonator is being dubbed. “Nevah heard of him,” they said. “We’re not involved,” they say.

Then Petola fired her Campaign Manager, apparently just for fun. The Campaign Manager thereupon called up the New York Times, and sang like a bird.

She told the NYT that (1) she plans to sue Petola’s Democrat campaign for wrongful termination (these Democrats are a litigious bunch), (2) Petola and her campaign completely orchestrated the entire Decoy Dan imbroglio (I’m shocked!), and (3) that the Campaign Manager had changed her mind about the facts she just reported to the NYT, and wanted the NYT to forget the whole thing. (I suspect her lawyer was on the other line, warning her about violating her non-disclosure agreement.)

To their credit, the NYT did not forget about the whole thing. They did what newspapers are supposed to do; they reported it. And now, most other media outlets have similarly reported it.

Everybody is asking the Petola campaign for a statement confirming that they lied, or at least another statement containing the same lie. Petola is instead hiding behind a bushel of nothing-burger statements that neither confirm nor deny, whispering to herself, “Just hold out till Tuesday!”

Did the Democrats not realize that their scheme was high-risk? They’ve now discredited their Alaska campaign and also tainted (more) their overall brand. Willie Sutton would have advised against this high-risk, low-reward strategy. So why did they do it?

I have a theory.

Democrats are so wound up in their anti-Western Civilization crusade that they enjoy breaking the rules. They break campaign laws and honesty principles and decorum rules for the same reason they graffiti the subway, mug old ladies, burn Jewish delis, get high, and vandalize Teslas.

It’s not for the money or for any other material gain; it’s because it feels good. They’re psychopaths.

Trump will be impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate. Then what?

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I’m about to say things you don’t want to hear. But I’m a prognosticator, not a cheerleader (even though I voted for Trump three times). So here goes.

The Democrats will retake the House of Representatives in the upcoming midterm elections. They’re ahead by eight points in the generic Democrat/Republican poll.

We can assign numbers to this. Let’s look at the prediction markets rather than the polls, since the polls are wrong so often. The markets say there’s a 92% chance the Democrats will win at least a one-person majority in the House. In fact, the markets say they will gain about 20 seats. They need only a few of those 20 to have a majority.

The House will then commence yet another impeachment of President Trump. Only a bare majority in the House is necessary for an impeachment. With a 20-seat majority – or even with a one-seat majority – the impeachment effort will succeed in the House.

In the course of that House impeachment, the Democrats will have the power to elicit testimony about the matters for which Trump is being impeached. It won’t be pretty. There will be testimony about Trump’s self-enrichment schemes such as bitcoin. There will be testimony about his family-enrichment schemes such as the Russian oligarch paying big money for Trump Jr.’s wedding reception.

There will be testimony about who ordered the slow-down of Starlink over Ukraine, an order that appears to have cost civilian lives. There will be testimony about decisions in the Iran war, and second-guessing of those decisions. There will be testimony about Trump’s decision to fund Russia with sales of diesel fuel.

There will be testimony about issues we don’t even know about yet. Even Trump’s most ardent supporters acknowledge that he impulsively says inflammatory things. Imagine what he’s said in the Oval Office. We won’t have to use our imagination when there’s testimony under oath about it.

The Democrats controlling the hearing will have a field day. Think Watergate, but with all the guardrails removed. Replace Senator Sam Ervin who headed the Watergate Committee with Representative Hakeem Jeffries in the House.

The end result in the House will be an impeachment vote that Trump will lose. All Democrats will vote for impeachment, and 20-30 Republicans will, too, like rats leaping from a drowning ship.

Then the matter gets taken up by the Senate. The Senate has the power to re-hear the damning testimony elicited in the House, and they will. The nation will be mesmerized for months.

Now is when it gets interesting. Unlike the House, the Senate vote to convict must be by more than a bare majority. It must be a two-thirds vote. In a 100-seat Senate, that means 67 votes.

If the Democrats have about 52 seats – which is the most likely outcome of the upcoming midterms – that means they will need about 15 Republican votes along with all 52 of their own votes in order to get to 67.

The Republican lawmakers don’t like President Trump. Call them RINOs if you will. Call them statesmen if you will. But don’t call them afraid of Trump. Not after the midterms when Trump gets hammered and he’s the lamest of lame ducks.

If anything, the Republicans will be eager to show their independence from a man who was always an outsider, and, in the opinion of many, a bully and a lout. And at that time, he will have been tarred with scandal upon scandal in the course of the impeachment proceedings.

There is thus a very real possibility that the 52 Democrats will get those 15 Republican votes, to get a total of 67. Even if they are held to 49 Senate seats in the midterms, there is a real possibility that they will get the 18 Republican votes necessary for a conviction.

If the Democrats get those votes against Trump in the Senate, that constitutes a removal from the Presidency. Trump will undoubtedly say that the removal is invalid for this reason or that, but he probably won’t get many on his side, even within his administration. Trump’s effort to defy the Senate conviction will probably get very little traction (but the Jan. 6 guy with the buffalo hat will be there again).

J.D. Vance will become president for the remaining term. You might think this is great news – we get MAGA but without Trump. It’s a little like the Democrats’ Woke II – all the same Woke I craziness but rebranded.

But no, it won’t be great news. The country will be torn apart, much more so than in Watergate. Moreover, Vance’s reputation will be in tatters along with Trump’s. There will be testimony that Vance was in the room when Trump said whatever, or made some decision, and Vance expressed no objection. Expect the tar to splash on everyone, even Marco Rubio who probably won’t deserve it.

And so, the Democrats will win in 2028. They’ll have the Presidency, the Senate, the House, and, with Court-packing, the Supreme Court, too. It will probably be for at least eight years. God help us.

I wish I were wrong about all this, but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. I’ll trust the prediction markets, not my wishes.

Muslims announce they’re leaving France – “Not worth conquering”

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In truth, the Muslims have not announced they are leaving France. But you couldn’t blame them if they did.

France is rocked by mostly peaceful protests these days. Numerous stores, schools, office buildings, cars, trash cans, and other things that will burn, have been burned.

The culprits, er, I mean the mostly peaceful protestors, are mostly bored college and high school kids, as is typical in France. A requirement for graduation since the 60s has been to burn a trash can. Post-graduate degrees require that you burn a car.

It’s the tame, modern equivalent to that age that France looks back upon fondly: The Reign of Terror. Americans shoot off fireworks to commemorate the War of Independence; the French burn government buildings to commemorate the storming of the Bastille.

The putative reason for the protests is as predictable as the identity of the protestors. As always, they want more money and less work – free stuff.

That’s not the way they say it, of course. The signs they carry don’t say “MORE FREE STUFF.” The signs instead protest the government’s attempt to limit the welfare state.

That limit is long overdue. France has run budget deficits far beyond the 3% allowed by the EU, due largely to a sprawling welfare state and the burden of an extravagant government pension program. They began spending even more during Covid, and never stopped, even after Covid stopped. The government has proposed very modest reductions in the rate of growth of that spending.

In view of the fiscal troubles of France, the market refuses to buy its bond debt unless they continue to raise the interest rates on the bonds, which adds yet more to the debt. It’s a vicious cycle.

Tax rates could be raised, but the rates are already punitive. In any event, there aren’t enough rich people that taxing them even more would make much difference in the fiscal woes of France. “Tax the rich” is more a slogan for the left’s hatred for people who are willing to work, rather than a way to balance the budget.

Printing more money is not the answer. France uses the Euro, not French currency.

Even if it still used the French franc, and could print more of them, the paper money of a society is not its wealth. The paper money is merely a reflector of that wealth so that society can function without a barter system. Printed dollars allow you to go to the grocery store without carrying gold bars or pieces of your house on your back to barter for your food.

Doubling the paper money does not double the wealth. Rather, it halves the value of the paper.

As for the true wealth of France, it’s not increasing fast enough to pay for the never-ending free stuff that the kids demand. It might even be declining. France is a laggard in computer technology, its work ethic stinks (at least in the large cities), it’s not a player in AI, it lacks Switzerland’s pharmaceutical industry, and it’s not the financial powerhouse that London used to be and New York City still is.

Most of this is known to the leftist leaders, apart from these naïve, spoiled college kids indoctrinated by their loony professors.

While they hide behind the promise of more free stuff, what the leftist leaders really want is to destroy nations. They’ve learned that they cannot gain power over a healthy nation – it never happens – but only over a crumbled one. Once in power, they insist that they will fix things (after having destroyed them) but what they really do is to loot what’s left.

We saw that in Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe, Cuba, and, more recently, Venezuela. In fact, we’ve seen that everywhere – everywhere! – that socialism has been tried.

The way to produce prosperity in an economy is to incentivize people to produce prosperity. People produce prosperity in the form of products and services; governments take it away in the form of taxes.

As for the mostly peaceful protests in France, I suspect that the coming cold weather will douse the fires in the heart of the cities and in the bellies of the protestors. The protests will not kill France.

But inflation might.

Back to the Muslims. Some of the protests include Muslims among the college kids and professional agitators. After all, Muslims are not immune to this sport, and many of them have an abundance of grievances against their adopted home.

But Muslims are not more than a fraction of the protestors. There could be zero Muslims in France, and they’d still have these protests. France has always had this streak of violent leftism, and always will.

Some of you have asked about my recent trip to Tuscany, the latest of many months that I’ve spent in Europe over the years. My answer is, it was grand. As always, the Italian countryside was beautiful, the food was great, the people were disorganized, and Rome was chaotic, dirty and magnificent.

Is it OK to hate Muslims?

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Hating people who are different from us is human. We were naturally selected in favor of it. People who didn’t hate people in the other tribe – and kill or run from them – often wound up in their stew pot. Their gene-bearing gametes wound up in the stew pot with them, rather than in their potential offspring who might have continued the lineage.

Those stew pots of human flesh in the stone age have largely been replaced by the “melting pot” of humanity in American immigration. Civilization has corralled our instinctive traits to some degree. Killing or running from new customers is bad for business.

But hating people who are different from us is one of the human traits most resistant to corralling. Until the last one or two generations, it was socially acceptable to wildly and publicly hate Black people. It has also been socially acceptable to publicly hate the Irish or the Italians or the Jews or the East Asians.

I’m glad to report that this is no longer true. If you don’t believe me, see how many cocktail parties you get invited to after having a racial tirade.

However, there seems to be an exception with regard to the Muslims. It’s socially acceptable to hate them, even in the relatively public (but safely anonymous) context of the internet.

 A few days ago, I published a piece suggesting that Europe has a Muslim problem but it’s a mistake to blame the Muslims for everything. The ones to blame for European problems of welfare, poor defense, a decline in manufacturing, and technological lagging is [drum roll] the Europeans.

I got a lot of hate mail suggesting that I should indeed blame the Muslims.

This socially acceptable hatred of Muslims, I’m told, is because their religion is inferior to most others. It is, I’m told, a religion of violence. Islam has always been that way, I’m told. Here are some examples from the Quran:

  • They killed all the woman and children of one town, except about 400 who were abducted and forced to marry their abductors.1
  • They celebrated the rape, murder and 12-part dismemberment of a woman.2
  • They put an entire town to the sword.3
  • Their God instructed them to “utterly destroy” seven nations, leaving “not a single thing that breathes.” 4
  • Another tribe is completely annihilated as an Godly act of vengeance.5

Oops. Those are not from the Quran. They are from the Old Testament. (Cites are given at the end of this article.)

Indeed, as respected scholar (and affirmed atheist with whom I usually disagree on religious matters) Richard Dawkins put it:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

But Christianity has outgrown its terrible twos, you say, and Islam has not. Most of the atrocities of Christianity are long ago (notwithstanding an occasional one or three) while the atrocities of Islam are ongoing.

Fair point. But that does not say that Christianity is a religion of peace while Islam is not. It says that violent Christianity has evolved over the millennia to become relatively peaceful, while Islam has evolved less. (The teaching of Christ undoubtedly has something to do with this, but I would argue that Jews as well are mostly – or especially – nonviolent.)

In short, the real distinction in violence between religions is not due to different foundational doctrines. Both Islam and Judeo-Christianity have plenty of violence in their scripture. The distinction is, rather, that the civilizations of Islam and the civilizations of Christianity are much different. Billions of Muslims exist in relatively primitive civilizations. Billions of Christians, in contrast, exist in relatively advanced civilizations.

Violence tends to be incompatible with civilization. In the advanced civilizations where Christianity is practiced, the violence in scripture is played down, while in primitive Muslim societies it is not.

When Christianity was practiced in impoverished and primitive societies, it, too, was often violent. Remember the Spanish Inquisition and Salem witch trials? How about Joan of Arc?

I’m not a theologian, but it’s worth noting that I’m in the company of some pretty good ones. Before you dismiss me as naive, be aware that on my side are Pope Leo XIV, all his modern predecessors, nearly all the Cardinals and Bishops, and most Protestant leaders.

Now let’s consider what this means for Muslims, the West, Muslim immigration, and how we treat the Muslims who are here.

For one, we’ve gone too far, too fast with Muslim immigration. For that matter, we’ve gone too far, too fast with Latin American immigration. In both cases, they come from civilizations less advanced than our own, and they have a lot to learn about nonviolence and other civilized things. Let’s slow down or even put a hold on this immigration. (That said, I’m in favor of immigration by individuals from more advanced societies. Albert Einstein is a good example.)

As for how we treat the Muslims who are here, it’s important to recognize that the great majority are honest, hard-working and nonviolent. The Muslims are largely following the patterns of other immigrant groups like the Irish, Italians and Jews. Within three generations, they’re like the rest of us. Before then, the second generation (the children of the immigrants) tends to be less law-abiding than the rest of us.

Like anyone else, law-abiding Muslims deserve our respect, our politeness, our tolerance and our love. If you want to party with me, let’s not denigrate them as a group or blame the great majority for the actions of a small minority.

1Judges 21 2Judges 19 3Judges 1:25 4Deuteronomy 20:16 5Samuel 15

Muslims are the least of Europe’s problems

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Europe has problems. The economy is moribund. Taxes are high but insufficient to pay for an addictive and ever-growing welfare state which leaves defense budgets so underfunded and reliant on America that Europe is vulnerable to a military invasion.

Europe’s infrastructure is crumbling. They lag America and East Asia in critical technology, especially computer and AI tech. They made a bad bet on alternative energy. Their birthrate is far below the replacement rate.

Rather than confronting these problems directly, the Europeans blame others, specifically the Muslim immigrants from Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Syria, Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon and Jordan.

The invasion to worry about, goes the typical European narrative, is not from the east, but from the south. It’s not Russian or Chinese armies of millions they should fear, says the narrative, but Muslim families of six.

It’s understandable that the non-Muslim 94% of Europe blames the Muslim 6%. It’s always tempting to blame another person for your problems, especially if that person has another skin color, another religion, another language, and another mode of attire. It’s human nature.

Before they had the Muslims, the Germans blamed the French, the French blamed the English, the English blamed the Scots, the Catholic Irish blamed the Protestant Irish, the Basques blamed the Spanish, Denmark blamed Sweden, and everybody blamed the Jews.

Americans have joined in this anti-Muslim crusade. After all, Europeans are the ancestors of most Americans and look like most Americans. Muslims aren’t and don’t.

Besides, if Americans were to blame Europeans for their self-inflicted problems, that hits too close to home – especially when America itself seems to be on the same road with regard to problems such as the welfare state. It’s easier for Americans to blame Somalian fraud for the malignant welfare budget of America – and Europe – than to blame America itself, even if the actual Somalian fraud is only a tiny fraction of the overall welfare budget.

(By the way, give the Somalians some credit for entrepreneurialism. Can anyone doubt that the Italian, Irish and Jewish immigrants would have done the same thing in their time if given the chance by idiots like Minnesota’s Governor Walz?)

Ah, you say, with an attempt to change the subject, Islam is a religion of war and Judeo-Christianity are religions of peace. Therefore, Europe should be reserved for peaceful Europeans and America should be reserved for peaceful Americans (but not native ones). In other words, America and Europe should be reserved for Christians and a few Jews.

To that I say: Have you read the Old Testament lately to see what this so-called religion of peace says about war? They seemed to be engaged in war all the time.

Indeed, this Judeo-Christian “religion of peace” produced two millennia of war within itself over the narcissism of small differences like whether we should eat meat on Fridays.

War is not a religious thing. It’s a species thing. Humans do it, and always have. Jews, Christians, Muslims, and before that pagans and earth worshipers, commit war. You name it, we’ve fought over it. Don’t tell me that Islam uniquely is a religion of war.

Nor are Muslims less law-abiding than other immigrant groups. The first generation of Muslim immigrants – the immigrants themselves – tend to be very law-abiding, more so than native-born Americans. In part, this is because they fear being deported upon conviction of a crime.

The law-abiding status of Muslims declines in the second generation after immigration. They tend to be much more criminal. It’s theorized that this is because they are as American as you or I, insofar as citizenship goes. Thus, they can be punished for a crime, but the punishment cannot include being deported. Once the deterrent of deportation is removed, they’re more criminal.

In addition, they are ostracized and discriminated against, and therefore live in poor immigrant communities with limited upward mobility. Frustration brews in them in a way that didn’t in their parents, who were just happy to be here, wanted to fit in, and were afraid of being deported.

I was skeptical about this rationale for second-generation crime among immigrants until I read the studies.  It turns out that this was the pattern of the Germans who immigrated to the Midwest in the 19th century. It was the pattern of the Scandinavians who immigrated to the upper Midwest and the pattern of the Irish who immigrated to New England later in that century. It was the pattern of the Italians who came to New York City early in the 20th century and started Little Italy. It was even the pattern of the Jews. In each case, the initial immigrants were very law-abiding, and their children were not.

The only exception was among the East Asians who came in the late 20th century. They tended to be law-abiding in both the first and second generations, due, apparently, to strong community and cultural connections.

By the time of the third generation, all groups of immigrants are essentially assimilated and match the crime rate of Americans at large (except the Asians, who continue to lag in criminality).

Muslims follow the same pattern; the criminality of third-generation Muslims matches the criminality of third-generation Irish, fifth-generation Italians, fourth-generation Greeks, and so on. By the time they reach the third generation, they all cheat, lie and steal, and occasionally rape, assault and murder, to pretty much the same degree as the rest of us.

(Although off the subject a bit, it bears mentioning that the pattern is the same among Latin Americans. The first generation is very law-abiding, the second generation is much less so, and the third generation matches that of the rest of us.)

None of this is intended to suggest that Europe has no Muslim problem. It does. So does America. A good case can be made that in both continents the immigration by Muslims has been too many and too fast. The same is true of Latin Americans.

But the Muslim problem of both continents is typical of the problem of assimilating an immigrant group, and it is likely to resolve over time. As in America many times in the past, the immigrants – this time Muslim – may ultimately be our salvation and resurrection. 

In the meantime, blaming Muslims for the self-inflicted problems of Europe and America has the effect of ignoring the real source of those problems.

The real source of those problems is that the European descendants of the greatest civilization in history, the Roman Empire, now piss on the ruins. Europeans and, increasingly, Americans have been taken in by populist socialism. We need to reject the promises of freebies, and make good on the promises of merit and investment.

Since we’re talking about Muslims, and economics, it’s worth considering what the great religions have to say on the subject of socialism. While casual feel-gooders might have you believe that spirituality is at war with economics, it was David who said, “When you eat the labor of your hands, you shall be happy, and it shall be well with you.”

Jesus proclaimed, “The laborer is worthy of his wages.”

Muhammed said, “No one ever ate a meal better than that which he earned with his own hands.”

The Buddha praised, “by energetic striving, gathered by the strength of their arm, earned by the sweat of their brow, a righteous wealth righteously gained.”

Milton Freidman couldn’t have said it better.