Jim Jones was a socialist cult leader in the 70’s. Harkening back to Karl Marx, he preached that “those who remain drugged with the opiate of religion have to be brought to enlightenment – socialism.”

He hobnobbed with politicians like Walter Mondale, Rosalyn Carter and Jerry Brown. To pursue socialism, he set up a commune in the jungle of a South American banana republic. He was in charge, naturally, and named it “Jonestown.”  Assisted by endorsements from his politician friends, he persuaded some 900 American followers to emigrate to there.

He imported not just his followers to Jonestown, but also drugs. He replaced the opiate of religion with the opiate of socialism and the opiate of opiate. One of those drugs was cyanide.

The residents got high and watched Soviet propaganda films about America. Jones ranted over loudspeakers day and night about imperialism and capitalism. Much of the money for Jones’ anti-Americanism came from American taxpayers. The residents signed their welfare and Social Security checks over to him. Continue reading →

We’re beating it. We’re beating the Coronavirus.

On second thought, let’s call it the Chinese Virus after the place it originated and the communists whose stupidity and mendacity inflicted it upon the world. If the Spanish deserve credit for a virus that didn’t even start in their country, then the Chinese surely deserve credit for one that did.

The virus is well past its peak in Europe, especially in hard-hit Italy and Spain. America is a week or two behind the European infection and death curves due to President Trump’s prescience and courage in imposing travel bans which were widely mocked at the time by TDS sufferers, some of whom later became Chinese Virus sufferers. But in America, too, it’s leveling off and will soon decline.

And now, early results of treatment with a bioengineered drug are very promising. The drug is inconspicuously named Remdesivir and was invented and made by a biotech company improbably named Gilead. Continue reading →

I’m no saint. In fact, I’m a seriously flawed human.

But I’ll say this. In over 20 years of school – that’s K through 12, college and law school, not to mention half a dozen gigs as an adjunct law professor – I never cheated or condoned cheating. Not even once. My parents taught me that cheaters are immoral, and cheaters taught me that cheaters are losers.

Which brings me to Joe Biden. Continue reading →

The Aspen Times is on hard times and wants a bailout.

In case you’re not a gazillionaire, or in case you’re an unwoke one, Aspen is a rich ultra-left resort in the Colorado Rockies. Democrats outnumber Republicans about two or three to one.

Apart from skiing, the main sport in town is to make a show of detesting the money of moneyed visitors, and detesting the moneyed visitors themselves, while inventing ways to separate the detestable moneyed visitors from their detestable money. Such as $965/day ski lessons.

Which brings us to the newspaper, the Aspen Times. They’re woke for sure. Continue reading →

It’s a fair question, given the criticism directed at Trump in this viral election year. The short answer is, we’d have more American coronavirus deaths.

Here’s why.

The infection rate in America is much lower than in most developed countries. In America, it’s currently about 400 cases per million population. In Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Germany and France, it’s 1,500, 1,600, 1600, 700 and 600, respectively.

(Yes, I’m aware that, to Hillary Clinton’s apparent delight, the total number of cases is now highest in America. But that’s because even though the infection rate in America is low, the total population of America is much higher than most other countries. Sorry, Hillary, but America is still doing relatively well.)

It’s not just the infection rate that’s much lower in America. Continue reading →

I’m 64 and have a congenital blood disorder. It causes pulmonary emboli – blood clots, especially in my lungs. Twice, it almost killed me. I have what the docs call “an underlying respiratory condition.”

Since I was diagnosed and began treatment with daily blood thinners years ago, this condition is manageable (so long as I avoid skiing into a tree which would likely cause me to bleed to death). In fact, I’ll probably live another 20 years. I’m not asking for sympathy, and I don’t need it.

Save your sympathy for our country and our world, especially for younger people like my daughters.

You know the story. Continue reading →

The “Rumble in the Jungle” was the 1974 boxing match in Zaire between two of the greats: An aging, slowing Muhammed Ali and the younger, stronger, harder-punching George Foreman.

Ali repeatedly let Foreman back him into the ropes. There, most of Foreman’s blows were deflected or absorbed by Ali’s arms which were bruised black and blue the next day. Ali allowed his body to recoil against the ropes like shock absorbers to absorb much of the rest.

That continued into the seventh round when Foreman landed a knockout punch to Ali. Except it failed knock him out. Ali leaned into Foreman and whispered, “That all you got, George?”

Foreman later said he thought to himself, “Yeah, that’s all I got.” He was exhausted. Continue reading →

Aspen Skiing Company, a certifiable progressive and green company affectionately called “SkiCo” by the local progs of Aspen, boasts of their concern for people over profits, even as they uncannily make lots of the later at the expense of the former.

SkiCo operates the four ski mountains on National Forests around Aspen, where they charge people $175 a day for transporting them up the mountainsides on lifts powered by electricity generated by burning fossil fuels (elsewhere, of course) so that the people can slide back down. They do so while simultaneously decrying the use of fossil fuels by others, in order to buy indulgences from the global warming priests.

SkiCo’s sliding-down-the-mountainsides gig is a feeder for an adjunct hospitality gig. They operate a hodgepodge of restaurants on the mountains where you can get a half-decent hamburger for, well, if you have to ask then you can’t afford it, and also get a bottle of wine to bolster your confidence if not sharpen your skill for the descent on crowded snowy slopes.

The hospitality gig also includes running a Five Star hotel called The Little Nell, conveniently located at the base of a gondola that takes skiers up the mountainside. At the Nell, you can enjoy New Years Eve but it’ll cost you an arm and a leg. Turns out, you can also enjoy a night in early March but it might cost you your life. Continue reading →

That sensational YouTube hit,
“The Coronavirus Blues”

Get it here.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp4KtoErESw&feature=youtu.be

The Coronavirus has infected over 100,000 people worldwide, and a few thousand have died from it. Cruise ships have been quarantined, some nursing homes have become death zones, and people have put down their pets for fear that the pets are infected and might infect their owners.

The stock market is down over 10%, producing a paper loss on the order of the U.S. budget for a year – a loss in the trillions.

That’s bad, especially for the cruise ship passengers, the dead nursing home residents, the pets who’ve been put down, and the shareholders who need to sell before the market recovers.

We’ve been warned of an impending “pandemic” which is something like an epidemic, but worse.

But let’s put it all in context. Continue reading →