Sierra Rayne

Sierra Rayne

  • July 2, 2018

    Texas oil manager becomes chief of staff to Canadian socialist politician

    In what should be a head-turning moment for the oil industry, a Texas oil manager is leaving his position with TransCanada Corporation in Houston, Texas to become the new chief of staff for the far-left provincial New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Ry...

  • October 1, 2016

    Canada’s Iranian-born cabinet minister could have citizenship revoked

    Canada’s ominously titled “minister of democratic institutions,” Maryam Monsef remains embroiled in a scandal over her life in Iran and Afghanistan before emigrating to Canada in 1996. The initial narrative on Monsef soon af...

  • September 30, 2016

    Iran or Afghanistan? Canada still can't sort out where cabinet member was born

    The scandal over Canada's "minister of democratic institutions," Maryam Monsef, continues to deepen.  Originally, her story was that she was born in Afghanistan in 1985.  Now it appears she was born in Iran in 1984. Accordi...

  • September 28, 2016

    Canada discovers its first Muslim refugee to become a cabinet member faked her background

    When Maryam Monsef was installed as Canada’s minister of democratic institutions last November, she was the poster child for refugee advocates. President Barack Obama even spoke of her in favorable terms during his address to the Canadian Ho...

  • September 27, 2016

    Target Corporation’s transgender bathroom pander costing its shareholders billions

    In the wake of its five-month-long bathroom policy, Target (TGT) Corporation continues to implode. Within a month after the misguided policy, the company’s market cap had already declined by $9 billion compared to where it should have been h...

  • July 10, 2016

    Double standard: 'I hate white people'

    In light of the recent violence against whites, especially police officers, in the United States, it is worth taking a detailed look at a recent judgement from the Alberta Provincial Court that has been garnering attention in outlets as politically d...

  • July 7, 2016

    Trump is struggling with social conservatives

    As another election cycle rolls around, yet again are far too many commentators failing to understand the composition of the electorate. If you are the nominee for the party on the right side of the spectrum, social conservatives are your bread an...

  • July 6, 2016

    Le Pen must avoid the LGBT trap

    In recent polls, Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National (F.N.) in France, is holding her own, placing consistently at about 30%, which is at or in the lead for the 2017 French presidential election. But like other nationalist leaders among th...

  • July 4, 2016

    UK Study: All-white juries are biased, against whites

    The social justice warriors (SJWs), like the climate activists, have their tell, and that is psychological projection.  Whatever they accuse normal people of is what they are guilty of, and racism is no exception. We have seen it numerous tim...

  • July 4, 2016

    Poll: Geert Wilders would lead Dutch Party for Freedom to 50% more seats than nearest rival

    A new poll in the Netherlands shows that Geert Wilders would, if an election were held today, lead his Party for Freedom (PVV) to 36 seats, or 50% more than the seats that would be obtained by the nearest rival party. The Brexit results appear to ...

  • July 3, 2016

    Oh, Canada: Whither the conservative movement in the Great White North?

    With the leadership race for the Conservative Party of Canada underway to replace former prime minister Stephen Harper, a selection of less than stellar candidates have entered the race.  Two of the most notable include Harper's former forei...

  • July 3, 2016

    Michael Gove is not the leader the UK needs

    Writing in The Telegraph, James Delingpole argues that U.K. conservative politician Michael Gove is the next Margaret Thatcher.  Hardly.  Or worse yet, if he is, it surely reflects poorly on Thatcher. At times it is difficult to understa...

  • July 3, 2016

    Lesson for the world: Quebexit is dead, and the ethnic vote killed it

    On October 30, 1995, a great man summed up the feelings rapidly spreading within the West about the toxic political influence of mass immigration.  In the era of Brexit, we now take the geographic region of choice, prefix it, and add the "e...

  • July 1, 2016

    Third Way gets it wrong on US-South Korea trade deficit

    Writing for the centrist think-tank Third Way, Jay Chittooran gets it very wrong when he attempts to school Donald Trump over Trump's concerns about the U.S.-South Korea trade deficit: [S]ince KORUS [U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement] was enac...

  • July 1, 2016

    Federal judge goes all in against rule of law, tosses stare decisis

    A couple days ago, I discussed how Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit has advocated that no judge should spend even a few seconds "studying the Constitution, the history of its enactment, its amendments, and it...

  • June 29, 2016

    Has Richard Posner committed an impeachable offence?

      Writing over at Slate (h/t Joel Pollak), Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit states that he no longer desires the application of the United States Constitution within the American legal syste...

  • June 28, 2016

    No, the other polls are not good

    You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. According to Donald Trump on Sunday, "[t]he @ABC poll sample is heavy on Democrats. Very dishonest - why would they do that? Other polls good!" Well, news flash forthcomi...

  • June 27, 2016

    Trump's campaign enters dangerous territory

    Donald Trump's campaign is now nearing the event horizon of a political black hole, or, more crudely, beginning to circle the toilet bowl. If Trump thinks he can win the general election by continuing to go forward with what has gone on over t...

  • June 26, 2016

    Closing the potential loopholes on the Muslim immigration ban

    Reuters, whose polling data is so biased in favor of liberal viewpoints as to be an affront to any real standards in this "profession" -- assuming there are any, has conveniently updated its ongoing survey of whether or not Americans want t...

  • June 25, 2016

    Brexit: Yet another example of biased polling

    For the weak-minded among us who continue to believe in polling data, the Brexit vote shows – yet again – what a biased absurdity the polls have become. But delusions and obfuscation runs deep in the mainstream trenches. Nate Cohn a...

  • June 25, 2016

    Bank of England governor was a major reason the UK voted for Brexit

    As globalists moan over the democratic decision by voters in the United Kingdom to leave the EU, the old dog-whistle claims of racism come spewing forth from the intellectually deprived commentariat. In a Twitter dust-up with Canadian Conservative...

  • June 25, 2016

    The EU needed Britain more than Britain needed the EU

    The economic lesson emerging from the Brexit vote is consistent with what those who favored the Leave campaign long suspected: continental Europe needed the U.K. far more than the U.K. needed Europe. The globalist dominoes will ideally begin to fa...

  • June 24, 2016

    Reuters polling shows overwhelming support for a Muslim entry ban in United States

    The latest polling data from Reuters clearly shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans support a temporarily halt to all Muslims from entering the United States. In its uncorrected form, the poll – made up of a five-day rolling averag...

  • June 23, 2016

    Corrected polls show Trump had large lead over Clinton just before Lewandowski was fired

    In contrast to the "pants on fire" claims by liberal and faux conservative journalists, there hasn't been a single poll in recent weeks before the firing of Corey Lewandowski that, once corrected for known bias, shows anything other tha...

  • June 21, 2016

    Can the Trump campaign reboot and win?

    Perhaps it isn't time to shelve that #NeverTrump movement yet. Rumors abound about why Corey Lewandowski was fired from Donald Trump's campaign, but now that we're focused on the personnel issues in Trump's 2016 run, rather than th...

  • June 20, 2016

    Trump Needs to Ensure He Doesn't Lose the Social Conservative Vote

    As the Milo LGBTQ drama-fest endlessly goes on at Breitbart, supported by many other media outlets, the presidential campaign of Donald Trump must avoid getting caught up in the jet wash of this gong show. The last thing the vast base of Trump...

  • June 20, 2016

    Corrected Gravis poll has Trump well out in front of Clinton at national level

    After an onslaught of highly liberal biased polls against Donald Trump during the past week, it was refreshing to see an only modestly biased poll – in relative terms – released on Saturday by Gravis. In its biased form, the poll shows...

  • June 20, 2016

    David Brooks @NYT: We must let the terrorists in, or they will kill us

    At the New York Times, Canadian-born commentator David Brooks writes one of the most illogical statements made lately by a supposed "conservative" (although, granted, the list of absurdities is long and distinguished this election cycle): ...

  • June 19, 2016

    SCOTUS has unequivocally held that any grounds may be used for immigration bans

    With due respect to my colleague Jonathan Keiler, it appears he may have misunderstood U.S. constitutional law when stating the following: Nobody expects a president to be a constitutional scholar. If our current chief executive is any guide it ...

  • June 19, 2016

    Ryan, McConnell far less popular than Trump among Republicans

    When Paul Ryan threatens to sue Donald Trump over his proposed ban on Muslim immigration, and Mitch McConnell makes public statements that Trump "doesn't know a lot about the issues" and lacks "seriousness of purpose" for the ...

  • June 19, 2016

    Canadian journalist suggests Christianity treats women as poorly as Islam

    After the shootings in Orlando, one of Canada's left-wing national newspapers (in all truth, there are no other kind in the Great White Abyss) -- the National Post -- predictably sent a journalist, Ashley Csanady, down to Florida to write a tablo...

  • June 18, 2016

    The polls were not biased before the 2012 election, but they are now

    It is Donald J. Trump versus the world, and this makes the current round of polling different from previous elections. Trump has certainly attracted the anger of Democrats, but many in the GOP establishment dislike him as much as – if not mo...

  • June 17, 2016

    Evidence for massive liberal bias in Ipsos polling of the Trump vs. Clinton match-up

    Stepping out of reality into the rapidly expanding landfill of polling data biased against Donald Trump reveals what a disaster is taking place when it comes to surveying the public's actual opinion -- rather than the desired liberal narrative --...

  • June 16, 2016

    Uncovering the Biases in State-Level Polling Data

    In addition to clear polling bias against GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump at the national level, we see the same pro-liberal bias within the state data.  It's not just in places like Utah, but all across the nation. The problem is...

  • June 16, 2016

    Shocker: CBS News and ABC/WaPo find that liberal-biased polls disfavor Trump

    Two new polls came out Wednesday claiming to show GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump in trouble.  But given the deep liberal bias built into both polls, the corrected findings are actually a sign that Hillary Clinton's campaign is the o...

  • June 16, 2016

    After correcting for bias, Clinton's national lead in CBS News poll evaporates

    CBS News is now pushing the pro-Hillary Clinton polls in rapid fashion.  Late on Wednesday, this media outlet released the results of a national poll claiming to show that Clinton holds a 6% advantage over Donald Trump in the direct head-to-head...

  • June 14, 2016

    Corrected national polling data shows Trump in the lead

    The Guardian and SurveyUSA have released a new poll on the general election matchup among Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein.  The polling results claim that Trump trails Clinton by 3 percentage points, 39% to 36%, with ...

  • June 13, 2016

    Trump will take Utah in November

    There is a lot of chatter in the #NeverTrump echo chamber that the presidential candidate they love to hate will lose Utah to Hillary Clinton, or – at the least – it will be a nail-biting race. It won't be close.  Utah will ea...

  • June 12, 2016

    Polling fantasies heavily biased against Trump

    At National Review, Dan McLaughlin, formerly of RedState.com, gloats over a recent poll by Reuters/Ipsos purporting to show Hillary Clinton well ahead of Donald Trump: But today's tracker shows Trump deep in the dumps, down 46.0 to 34.8, a d...

  • June 11, 2016

    Vox's fantasies over how Canadians view immigration and multiculturalism

    When Vox.com isn't paying for its editors to promote domestic terrorism, other writers – formerly of Think Progress, where there is little thinking or progress – are trying to convince Americans that "Canada is the least xenophob...

  • June 10, 2016

    San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association appears to have a strong 'pro-Mexico' agenda

    According to FactCheck.org, "it's not accurate to call the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association 'very pro-Mexico' or 'very strongly pro-Mexican.'" The same article claims that Donald Trump's comments that U.S. di...

  • June 10, 2016

    Market cap decline due to Target boycott reaches $11 billion

    As the Queen of Denial, Target's CEO Brian Cornell claims that his company's bathroom policy has nothing to do with the massive loss in market cap experienced by Target since the policy came into force on April 19. Back in late May, Cornel...

  • June 9, 2016

    Justice must be seen to be done

    The dispute between Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and the judiciary is beginning to show more flaws in the latter than the former. Writing in the Washington Post, former Judge Cruz Reynoso called Trump's attacks on Curiel ...

  • June 8, 2016

    Actually, Mexico is very close to a failed state

    Bret Stephens at the Wall Street Journal really, really doesn't like Donald Trump. In an interview with CNN's serial plagiarist Fareed Zakaria, Stephens said it is his goal to "make sure he [Trump] is the biggest loser in presidential...

  • June 8, 2016

    Sufficient evidence exists to require Judge Curiel to recuse himself from any litigation involving Trump

    The most important argument in favor of forcing U.S. district judge Gonzalo Curiel to recuse himself from the Trump University lawsuits was published today by the Conservative Treehouse. The Treehouse linked to a copy of Judge Curiel's "U...

  • June 6, 2016

    Canada's carbon tax Trojan Horses in the conservative movement

    Looks as if, in the wake of the devastating federal election loss last October that brought Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party to majority power, Canadian conservatives are realizing that their Conservative Party under Stephen Harper was not eve...

  • June 6, 2016

    GHG emissions were climbing well before BC stopped raising its carbon tax

    The erroneous claims regarding British Columbia's carbon tax – which has been repeatedly put forward as a prospective model for carbon pricing elsewhere, including the United States – continue to roll out unimpeded. Writing in the ...

  • June 5, 2016

    Free trade not exactly helping the Rust Belt

    As the Republican establishment's policy pillars crumble, the cause is becoming crystal-clear.  The members are simply out of touch with reality. The Guardian's article on Ben Stein, former speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Gerald Fo...

  • June 4, 2016

    The murky politics of autism hysteria

    The days of principled conservatism in mainstream politics are effectively over, if they ever really existed in the first place.  What we see now coming out of the supposedly right-of-center political parties are individuals whose entire existen...

  • June 2, 2016

    Leader of Ontario's Progressive Conservatives linked to controversial Islamic charity

    There is bound to be tension in any political party with the contradictory name "Progressive Conservative," but it appears that in Ontario – Canada's largest province and home of nearly 14 million people having a largely undefende...

  • June 1, 2016

    Austria's Freedom Party: 'The result of the election could change'

    In the aftermath of Austria's deeply flawed presidential election, which was likely stolen from the right-of-center Freedom Party, the problems continue to come to light. According to a report in the Austrian media late Sunday night: ...

  • June 1, 2016

    Colorado prosecutor: Marijuana-related murders are skyrocketing

    According to the latest reports coming out of Colorado, marijuana is a major cause of homicides in the state, and the problem is only getting worse. Regular readers will know that Colorado has seen a massive increase in crime since it legalized po...

  • June 1, 2016

    Former Canadian Prime Minister has epic Twitter meltdown over Trump

    The 19th Prime Minister of Canada, Kim Campbell, is experiencing an ongoing Twitter meltdown of epic proportions over Donald Trump. Usually former leaders of neighboring democracies behave with maturity and class after they have left office when i...

  • May 31, 2016

    Back to 1980: Could Trump put Humpty Dumpty back together again?

    The challenge that awaits Donald Trump, if elected, is immense. In many ways the problems that currently face the American economy are far deeper than those that were staring at Ronald Reagan after he won the 1980 election.  The good news is tha...

  • May 31, 2016

    Australia's supposedly conservative party is not conservative

    Confusion reigns over the true nature of Australia's Liberal Party, now led by Malcolm Turnbull. Those with a narrow, leftward biased, Eurocentric view of the political spectrum argue that the "Liberal" in the party name refers entir...

  • May 31, 2016

    Just who does Urz Heer work for?

    As discussed here yesterday, there is a potential scandal emerging from the Conservative Party of Canada's convention in Vancouver. On May 27 and May 28, all four major online media outlets in Canada (the CBC, National Post, Globe and Mail, an...

  • May 30, 2016

    Canada's federal Conservative Party begins its implosion

    The past few days have been very difficult on traditional conservatives in Canada.  At the Conservative Party of Canada's national convention in Vancouver, delegates voted in favor of same-sex marriage and to progress along the path toward m...

  • May 29, 2016

    Canada's Conservative Party votes to support same-sex marriage

    At their national convention on Saturday, delegates for the Conservative Party of Canada – which was unceremoniously tossed out of office in last October's federal election by a majority win going to Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party ...

  • May 28, 2016

    Health care for illegals: $18.5 billion per year

    Writing in the Huffington Post, Leah Zallman -- a research scientist at the Institute for Community Health, a primary care doctor at Cambridge Health Alliance, and an instructor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School -- and Steffie Woolhandler -- ...

  • May 28, 2016

    Target market cap now down $10.5 billion in wake of boycott

    The American Family Association's pledge to boycott Target because of its policy to allow men into women's bathrooms, and vice versa, has reached 1.3 million signers, and Target's stock (TGT) continues to suffer compared to that of its na...

  • May 28, 2016

    Productivity gains don't explain the demise of US manufacturing jobs

    At the Financial Times, Martin Wolf purports to provide a prescription for "How to defeat rightwing populism."  Beyond the all too typically mindless bashing of Donald Trump (see, e.g., "This is why Mr Trump is so dangerous: he ha...

  • May 27, 2016

    US wages are undoubtedly in stagnation

    Donald Trump certainly has the Democratic Party on the run, especially after recent comments to the media about his concerns over the working class: "Five, ten years from now – different party. You're going to have a worker's...

  • May 26, 2016

    Possible electoral fraud in Austrian presidential election

    As the days go by, the results of the Austrian presidential election get more suspicious.  According to the official results, the far-left candidate Alexander Van der Bellen defeated Norbert Hofer from the Freedom Party of Austria by just 31,000...

  • May 25, 2016

    Target boycott has directly cost company $9.2 billion in market cap to date

    There is some confusion and denial in the mainstream media over the real impacts of the ongoing boycott of Target (TGT) because of its controversial bathroom policies allowing men into women's rooms and vice versa, which came into force April 19....

  • May 16, 2016

    Target's market cap down $6 billion since start of transgender bathroom policy

    After announcing on April 19 that it "welcome[s] transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity," Target faced an instant and broad public backlash that led to a ...

  • May 15, 2016

    So Donald Trump is 'likely' to bring on a recession?

    Writing over at Fortune magazine, Jen Wieczner notes that Donald Trump is likely to bring on a recession, because that's what Republican presidents always do: That's because a recession has happened every single time a Republican has bee...

  • May 15, 2016

    The U.S. manufacturing sector is getting killed

    Thanks to Steve Feinstein for bringing the article about American manufacturing by Michael J. Hicks at Ball State University to our attention, thereby providing an opportunity to debunk some claims made in Hicks's piece. Hicks claims the follo...

  • May 14, 2016

    Don't take economic advice from Larry Summers

    Apparently Larry Summers doesn't think Donald Trump will be a positive force towards getting America's economy back on track. According to Summers, when he thinks of a Trump presidency, he is frightened: It scares me. I don't know of...

  • May 14, 2016

    Far too early to rule out terrorism in the Fort McMurray fire

    In the aftermath of the wildfire that burned through much of Fort McMurray in northern Alberta, rumors have been floating that the fire may have been intentionally started for the specific purpose that it achieved. Writing in the National Post, Tr...

  • May 13, 2016

    Will Mormons go with Clinton or sit this round out, and does it matter?

    In the last few days, the #NeverTrump movement has resurfaced an older poll from Utah suggesting that "[i]f Donald Trump becomes the Republican Party's nominee, Utahns would vote for a Democrat for president in November for the first time in...

  • May 13, 2016

    Poll: GOP supporters back hard line on immigration, trade, Muslims

    New polling data released by the Pew Research Center shows that the majority of all Republican-leaning voters support Donald Trump's hard-line stances on immigration, trade, and Muslims. When asked whether or not free trade agreements have bee...

  • May 13, 2016

    Trump wants to raise the minimum wage? He's not alone among Republicans

    In an attack on Donald Trump, David French at National Review lists a number of reasons why Trump is a flaming liberal. Reason #8 is as follows: Trump has now signaled support for job-destroying minimum-wage increases, in a breathtakingly bra...

  • May 12, 2016

    Russia defeats Poland very quickly in a one-on-one war

    It's not clear where the notion that Poland has an advantage over Russia in its military equipment, as implied in James A. Nollet’s “Why Russia will Never attack Poland”,comes from, but it is incorrect. Regardless of how unli...

  • May 12, 2016

    Salon's mythical white American death wish

    Joining the writers at National Review in their hatred of the white working class is Andrew O'Hehir at Salon.com, who writes the following as part of a raving anti-Trump rant: I have argued on multiple occasions that white Americans, conside...

  • May 11, 2016

    The deeply flawed analyses of Fort McMurray's climate

    As every Tom, Dick, and Harrietta tries to talk about climate change and the massive wildfire that destroyed a good portion of the northern Alberta city of Fort McMurray, in the heart of the oil sands region, there is unscientific nonsense being spew...

  • May 11, 2016

    Clinton's favorability rating trend points to a Trump landslide in November

    While Hillary Clinton supporters try to hype the unfavorability ratings of her general election opponent, getting ignored in the liberal maelstrom of deceit is the skyrocketing unfavorability rating of their own presumptive nominee. The more the g...

  • May 10, 2016

    Voice of America's anti-Trump bias runs deep

    Further to yesterday's article on the anti-Trump bias by the moderators of the Voice of America (VOA) show Issues in the News, a look around some of VOA's other Twitter accounts reveals similar anti-Trump sentiment. Keep in mind that such ...

  • May 9, 2016

    Mother Jones's problems with the Reagan economic boom

    According to Kevin Drum at Mother Jones, here are the "five main drivers of the 80s boom [i]n order of importance": 1. Paul Volcker easing up on interest rates/monetary aggregates in 1982 2. The steep drop in oil prices after 1981 ...

  • May 9, 2016

    The Voice of America's anti-Trump show

    The Voice of America (VOA) is the official broadcaster for the U.S. government, and in 2016, its taxpayer-funded budget request was $207 million. According to its mandate, the VOA "broadcasts accurate, balanced, and comprehensive news and inf...

  • May 8, 2016

    British Columbia premier picked the wrong time to attack Trump on trade

    Not being the brightest corrupt and man-hating light bulb in Canada's provincial leader sockets, British Columbia premier Christy Clark – who failed to graduate from any post-secondary institution she attended – "slams [Donald] T...

  • May 8, 2016

    What's the difference between 'good' and 'bad' trade?

    Thanks to Donald Wilkie for continuing the trade discussion.  A few points are needed in response to Mr. Wilkie's concerns. Regarding "good" and "bad" trade, there are indeed both categories when you look at trade from...

  • May 7, 2016

    Truth and Krugmanism

    For those such as the New York Times' Nobel Prize-winning Paul Krugman and Nate Silver's "Mini-Me" at the CBC, the notion that there is underlying bias in polling data against Donald J. Trump is an inconvenient truth. Writing at ...

  • May 7, 2016

    $2.2 trillion and growing: The post-NAFTA trade deficit with Canada and Mexico

    Donald Trump has certainly got Mexico's attention.  Former Mexican president Vicente Fox is becoming increasingly incoherent – first insulting Trump, then apologizing, and now insulting again, then calling Trump supporters "l...

  • May 6, 2016

    Looking back to 1790 doesn't make the trade picture any prettier

    Continuing on the valuable discussion over trade, I certainly agree with Donald Wilkie that government regulations are stifling economic growth, as I've noted before.  And my previous writings on the explosion in the size of government as a ...

  • May 6, 2016

    Bloomberg's biased polling data

    Since July of last year, the Real Clear Politics tracker shows 64 polls measuring the state of the head-to-head general election match between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. And among all these surveys, the one with the largest purported lead f...

  • May 6, 2016

    The true story behind yet another 'extreme weather event'

    As the capital of Canada's oil sands, Fort McMurray, burns to the ground in a massive forest fire, out come the commentators talking about climate change. At the National Post, Jen Gerson writes the following: All that said, it sure doesn...

  • May 6, 2016

    Feminazis: Talking about peeing now misogyny, too

    Canada's far left New Democratic Party (NDP) has officially reached peak stupid on its countdown to zero support. The leader of the Ontario provincial NDP, Andrea Horwath, has called on the lesbian Liberal premier of the province, Kathleen Wyn...

  • May 5, 2016

    General election head-to-head polls appear biased against Trump

    Dozens of head-to-head general election polls between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have been released over the past several months.  Almost all of them purport to show Clinton ahead of Trump by a significant margin. As noted by Thomas Lif...

  • May 4, 2016

    If trade made the US rich, explain this graph

    At the New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman claims that "[w]e got rich as a country through trade." Undoubtedly all mainstream economists would agree with him.  So would probably most alternative economists. So, if what Friedman sa...

  • May 3, 2016

    Indiana's manufacturing sector is far from healthy

    If only the claims that "Indiana's manufacturing sector is healthy" were true, we might have difficulty explaining Donald Trump's popularity in the state. But it isn't true, at least not if you are an employee – which i...

  • May 2, 2016

    Why would the U.S. want to be like Denmark?

    Writing in New York magazine, Jonathan Chait asks, "If we want to be like Denmark, whom do we tax?" Turning into Denmark would be sheer folly for the United States, or almost any other OECD nation. We'll start with real per capita...

  • May 2, 2016

    Islamic Council of Germany calls for ban on Alternative for Germany party

    Germany is now headed down the road to civil war. In a remarkable interview with the BBC Newshour program on Sunday night, the spokesman for the Islamic Council of Germany (ICG) called for an outright ban on the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party...

  • April 30, 2016

    Majority of educated Muslims abroad still favor imposition of sharia law

    The West is in a major-league mess when it comes to immigration.  Enlightened conservatives have known this for many years.  The ostriches are just coming to their awakening, or else heads remain firmly buried in the sands of political corr...

  • April 30, 2016

    The feminist 'Conservative' Party of Canada? No thanks.

    After the federal election loss last October, the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Stephen Harper, stepped down.  Following years of ranting against those feasting uselessly at the public trough, he now sits as a back-bench member of ...

  • April 29, 2016

    The statistics don't support helicopter parenting

    The story of a mother from the Canadian city of Winnipeg, Manitoba who received an aggressive visit from the provincial Child and Family Services unit because she allowed her three children to play in the family's backyard has received internatio...

  • April 29, 2016

    Survey of Canadian Muslims reveals major concerns

    Far from being benign, or even positive, as some commentators in the liberal media claim, a new survey of Canadian Muslims should give many pause for thought. Keep in mind that there are already more than one million Muslims in Canada, and their r...

  • April 29, 2016

    Crime continues to rise in the pot megalopolis of Denver

    With yet another month's worth of crime data coming in from Denver, crime is continuing to skyrocket in the post-marijuana legalization period. For the month of March, total UCR crime was up 3.7% compared to March 2015. Much of this increase w...

  • April 28, 2016

    Concern over barbaric culture practices 'race-baiting'

    In the weeks before Canada's federal election last October, the Conservative Party promised to crack down on barbaric cultural practices, both at home and abroad: Conservatives continued to focus on controversial issues of identity politics ...

  • April 25, 2016

    Polls clearly show majority of Canadians don't want Senate abolition

    Stupid is as stupid does, and one of the stupidest ideas yet proposed in a modern democracy has been championed by a number of politicians on both the right and left of Canada's political spectrum: the abolition of the Senate. The founders of ...

  • April 24, 2016

    The great lie of a stalled global economy

    Perhaps the greatest deceit peddled on publics across the West is that the global economy is struggling.  It is not. A classic example of the incorrect information being disseminated is the following claim from an article by Doug Saunders in ...

  • April 23, 2016

    Canada more conservative than the US? Not likely.

    In an opinion piece from the National Post, F.H. Buckley – a law professor at George Mason University – appears to argue that Canada is more conservative than its southern neighbor: Canadians reveal their ignorance of their own count...

  • April 23, 2016

    IMF sees Canada's Liberal government tied for worst economic performance among G7 during 2016

    On the campaign trail for the federal election last fall in Canada, the Liberal Party under novice leader Justin Trudeau was relentless in their attacks on the poor economic performance that had taken place under the Conservative Party led by Stephen...

  • April 23, 2016

    And the mischaracterizations of Trump supporters keep on coming

    At the Financial Post, Lawrence Solomon unleashes an attack on Donald Trump supporters: Trump's victim voters are disproportionately males, poorly educated, and poorly remunerated in their employment, if they're employed at all. Many of ...

  • April 22, 2016

    Trump on track to sweep all April 26 primaries and get to 1,237 before convention

    On April 26, primary voters head to the polls in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island – bringing with them another 172 delegates up for grabs. If the polling trends hold up, Donald Trump is set to sweep all five st...

  • April 22, 2016

    The incoherence of the state delegate numbers

    Apparently a previous article calling into question the third-world nature of the GOP nomination process has touched a nerve. The simple fact is that the path is absurd, and this can be picked apart in a series of analyses. As a start, we can b...

  • April 21, 2016

    Texas could secede, and succeed

    Talk of Texas secession is heating up again.  More accurately, the movement is growing and maturing from its rather primitive born-again roots in the 1990s. Support for Texas independence is high.  The latest reliable polling data from l...

  • April 21, 2016

    Time to put the simplistic Trump vote theories to bed

    A flawed theory was circulating in some circles that Donald Trump's support is driven by the so-called "white trash" vote – a bunch of drug- and alcohol-addicted welfare-dependent white working-class families in places like "...

  • April 21, 2016

    Small town in Canadian heartland is poster-child for eco-idiocy

    As in so many regions of the North American heartland, small towns in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan are suffering.  Longtime residents who remember how their municipalities once thrived start looking for solutions, and along come the eco...

  • April 20, 2016

    The real discrimination in Texas

    The former governor of Texas, Rick Perry, says he "is frustrated with political rhetoric that he sees as discriminatory toward Muslims." Coming from the Lone Star State, and with an intimate connection to the oil industry, perhaps Gov. P...

  • April 19, 2016

    If anything, globalization increased the cost of meat in America

    Returning to this quote from Kevin Williamson's well known article from National Review: The manufacturing numbers -- and the entire gloriously complex tale of globalization -- go in fits and starts: a little improvement here, a little impro...

  • April 18, 2016

    About that stick of butter

    With the insanity of the debate among conservatives of late, it was only expected that we would end up arguing about the price of a stick of butter in the ’80s, but here we are. In his National Review piece, Kevin Williamson expounds on the ...

  • April 17, 2016

    The U.S. paid for NATO: $30 trillion and counting

    As the firestorm ignited by Donald Trump regarding the structure and utility of NATO burns on, the freeloaders in the alliance continue to whine and ask for even greater levels of subsidization. Take Lithuania, whose defense minister recently clai...

  • April 17, 2016

    News flash: American manufacturing is not thriving

    About a month ago, Kevin Williamson at National Review wrote an incindiary article attacking Donald Trump and his supporters.  While the title of Williamson's article currently reads, "Chaos in the Family, Chaos in the State: The White ...

  • April 15, 2016

    Polls: Trump with commanding national lead in GOP nomination race

    Despite a concerted effort over the past couple weeks, polling data reliably shows that Donald Trump's opponents have failed to reduce his popularity. At this point, enough polls have been conducted to assess the impacts of the respective GOP ...

  • April 14, 2016

    Latest IMF economic report a disaster for the West

    In case the realists needed yet another reminder of what a disaster the 21st century is shaping up to be for the West, the IMF released its latest World Economic Outlook on Tuesday. Here are the rankings for annual GDP growth by country: We...

  • April 14, 2016

    Throwing the military baby out with the public-sector bathwater

    In an oversimplified article, Jeremy Lott at the Washington Examiner claims that "[i]f GOP won't cut defense, we'll never cut spending." There is indeed a government spending problem in the United States, as the following graph s...

  • April 14, 2016

    Poll: At least 44 million Arab youths potential supporters of ISIS

    The results of the 2016 Arab Youth Survey are being portrayed by media outlets such as The Guardian in a rather flattering light.  But a critical look at the data reveals some major problems for the West. The survey is intended to represent t...

  • April 9, 2016

    Union disputes, mass internet outages, and the demise of the hard left

    It has been a tough week for the hard left in Canada, and the lessons apply throughout the West. Green parties are not going anywhere in the polls. The public has caught on to the toxic individuals that run the parties and the movement in general,...

  • April 8, 2016

    University to build $110,000 solar road that will power just 40 personal computers for 8 hours/day

    Money is certainly tight in the post-secondary system nowadays, which raises the question of why a Canadian university in the province of British Columbia is going to spend $110,000 in up-front costs to construct a solar road that will provide enough...

  • April 2, 2016

    Canada's foreign minister drops the ball on climate change and Islamic revolutions

    In a recent speech on "[t]he security implications of climate change in fragile states," Canada's minister of foreign affairs – Stéphane Dion, who named his dog after the Kyoto Protocol and holds dual citizenship to France ...

  • April 2, 2016

    Canadian police: 'Unnecessary' social media posts may be illegal

    Well, it appears that whatever freedoms of speech remained in Canada's largest province are dead – at least if the provincial police have their way. The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) sent out the following tweet on February 9, 2016: ...

  • April 1, 2016

    Study: Persistent marijuana users experience downward socioeconomic mobility

    An international team of researchers has released a study showing the negative effects of marijuana use on an individual's socioeconomic status: [T]his study provides evidence that many persistent cannabis users experience downward socioecon...

  • April 1, 2016

    Poll: At least one quarter of Americans want to nuke ISIS

    While a new poll released March 31 by Public Policy Polling was focused on general election Republican vs. Democratic presidential candidate match-ups, one piece of information hiding in the survey was most interesting. When asked whether or not t...

  • March 30, 2016

    DC legalizes marijuana, violent crime increases

    The headline screams "DC's legalized weed is one year old, and crime has cratered." Not so fast. Washington, DC, did indeed legalize marijuana on February 26, 2015, and since then, violent crime has increased substantially. ...

  • March 30, 2016

    Poll: Most of GOP base believes Obama is a foreign-born Muslim

    A new poll conducted March 24-26 by Public Policy Polling reports that most of the GOP base believes that President Barack Obama is a foreign-born Muslim. When asked whether or not Obama was born in the United States, 40% of GOP supporters answere...

  • March 30, 2016

    Poll: Majority of American public supports ban on Muslim entry into United States

    A poll conducted March 24-26 by Morning Consult reveals that an outright majority of U.S. voters support Donald Trump's proposed ban on Muslim entry into the country. Among those surveyed, 50% were in favor of such a ban versus just 38% oppose...

  • March 29, 2016

    Annual U.S. trade in good deficit with NATO is $121 billion

    Donald Trump has certainly provoked a useful conversation about NATO's role and relevance – and, most importantly, the financial laggards within the alliance. In a previous article, I showed that the United States is subsidizing all othe...

  • March 28, 2016

    A trillion dollars and counting: The total value of U.S. crude oil imports from Saudi Arabia since 1973

    Donald Trump has said that "if elected, he might halt purchases of oil from Saudi Arabia and other Arab allies unless they commit ground troops to the fight against the Islamic State or 'substantially reimburse' the United States for com...

  • March 28, 2016

    Polls: Cruz leading in Wisconsin, closing in California and Pennsylvania

    A suite of new polls suggest that Ted Cruz may be gaining rapidly on Donald Trump in several key upcoming primary contests. In Wisconsin, an Emerson poll conducted March 20-22 has Cruz leading Trump by 1%, 36% to 35%.  A separate poll taken M...

  • March 28, 2016

    Total unaccompanied alien children apprehensions on pace for record high in FY2016

    Data released by the U.S. Border Patrol shows fiscal year (FY) 2016 on pace for a record number of unaccompanied alien children (UAC) apprehensions, essentially all of which occur on the southwest border. During the first four months of FY2016 bet...

  • March 27, 2016

    Three cheers for the continuing electoral irrelevance of Green Parties throughout the Western world

    In these turbulent times with a myriad of external threats against the West, there is a ray of light for hopefulness that the general population has not yet tumbled off the precipice of sanity into utter depravation -- and that is its overwhelming re...

  • March 27, 2016

    Diet and autism: What the science says

    Autism is a highly controversial subject with a very vocal lobby group, and one expects differing viewpoints.  But when some professionals claim that the available research shows no indication that diet or parenting causes the disorder, this mis...

  • March 26, 2016

    The Autism Racket

    During July 2008, nationally syndicated talk show host Michael Savage ignited a firestorm with his comments about autism, calling it "a fraud, a racket." In follow-up statements, Savage explained his views as being "meant to boldly...

  • March 26, 2016

    Study: Employment rate of illegal immigrant men far higher than for legal immigrants and natives

    A new study by George Borjas from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University reveals what many have long been concerned about when it comes to illegal immigration into the United States. According to Borjas' paper, the ...

  • March 26, 2016

    Race-based incarceration: Trump wisely didn't take the bait

    Continuing to examine Donald Trump's interview with the Washington Post earlier this week reveals a candidate making some wise decisions on-the-fly. The Post asked Trump the following questions regarding purported racial discrimination in the ...

  • March 25, 2016

    Vancouver's supervised injection center is no model for the United States to follow

    Writing in the New York Times, Patricia Daly, the vice president for public health and the chief medical health officer of Vancouver Coastal Health, argues that the United States should follow her city's lead and provide supervised injection cent...

  • March 25, 2016

    Projection: Non-Hispanic whites will be minority of US population by 2025

    In late 2015, the Pew Research Center came out with a population projection that "non-Hispanic whites are projected to become less than half of the US population by 2055." Similarly, during 2014, researchers working with U.S. Census Bure...

  • March 24, 2016

    Trump was right: U.S. subsidizes NATO by hundreds of billions

    In an interview with The Washington Post editorial board, Donald Trump made an accurate statement about the U.S. subsidization of fellow NATO members: TRUMP: Look, I see NATO as a good thing to have -- I look at the Ukraine situation and I say, ...

  • March 24, 2016

    Poll: 10% of American Muslims think Islam should be main source of American law

    A new poll by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding shows that 10% of American Muslims think their religion should be the main source of American law. Another 27% of American Muslims believe that their religion should be a source of Am...

  • March 23, 2016

    Pew's own data shows U.S. on-track for Muslim majority population by 2050

    Back in December, the Pew Research Center released an updated study of their Muslim population projections for the United States. Pew has provided three primary estimates of the Muslim proportion of the U.S. population. In 2007, it was 0.4%, incre...

  • March 22, 2016

    Conversion and mass migration: The oft-overlooked mechanisms of rapid Islamification

    Some muddled thinking is evident among those who think rapid Islamification of a nation cannot occur.  They perhaps look at graphs of exponential growth of the Muslim percentage in the general population and think the rate surely must slow down ...

  • March 22, 2016

    Two new polls put Trump well ahead nationally in GOP race

    A new CNN/ORC national poll conducted March 17-20 puts Donald Trump well out in front at 47% compared to Ted Cruz (31%) and John Kasich (17%) among Republican-leaning voters. When asked "if Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination for Pres...

  • March 22, 2016

    Whites already 'visible minorities' in two of Canada's three largest cities, nationally by 2045

    In 2010, Statistics Canada published a study on the expected increasing proportion of visible minorities in Canada over the next few decades.  The media picked up the story, but the headlines were misleading, and the projections likely underesti...

  • March 21, 2016

    If century-long trends continue, Canada will be a Muslim-majority nation by 2050

    While some claim there is a myth of the so-called “Muslim tide,” and that Western democracies will not become Muslim-majority nations, the data tell a very different story. A lesson in math and the concept of exponential growth is...

  • March 20, 2016

    Violent crime rate rises in aftermath of Alaska's medical marijuana legalization

    In yesterday's blog post, the potential effects of Alaska's full legalization of marijuana on violent crime in Anchorage were examined.  The results mimic what we generally see in other jurisdictions such as Colorado and Washington State...

  • March 20, 2016

    Gallup poll: Voters love Trump's tax plans

    In a poll of Americans across the political spectrum, there is widespread support for the tax proposals suggested by GOP presidential nominee frontrunner Donald Trump. Trump has proposed eliminating most federal income tax deductions and loopholes...

  • March 20, 2016

    Legal American weed is not leading to a major drop in Mexico's violent crime rates

    Last year, the media was touting a consistent narrative: the legalization of marijuana in a few U.S. states was likely leading to large drops in Mexico's violent crime rate. At The Daily Caller from February 2015: Homicides in Mexico have...

  • March 19, 2016

    Major Canadian city wants to ban 'gossiping, ostracizing, excluding another person'

    According to media reports, the largest city in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan wants to enact a bylaw making it illegal to engage in activities such as gossiping, rumor mongering, shunning, and ostracizing: A list of repeated and unprovok...

  • March 19, 2016

    Alaska legalizes pot, crime explodes in Anchorage

    In February of 2015, it became legal to grow and consume marijuana in Alaska.  And, as has happened in Denver and Seattle, crime immediately began to increase after being stable or declining in the pre-legal pot era. According to the FBI'...

  • March 19, 2016

    February data now in: Crime continues to explode in the legal pot metropolis of Denver

    Denver has just released its crime statistics for February of this year, and the city's post-marijuana crime explosion continues. In the first two months of 2016, total reported offenses using the NIBRS definitions are up a further 10.5% over ...

  • March 18, 2016

    Legalization, MDMA, and Aggressive Behavior

    Every couple years, proponents for legalizing MDMA -- the main ingredient in the recreational drug ecstasy -- pop up in the media. During 2012, the chief medical officer for the Canadian province of British Columbia told reporters that MDMA is saf...

  • March 18, 2016

    NYT Kristof: South Sudan shows why USA needs 'big government'

    The intellectual prowess of those regularly writing for the opinion pages of the New York Times always leaves one awestruck. In his latest article, Nicholas Kristof purports to educate readers as to how South Sudan is a model nation for showing wh...

  • March 18, 2016

    Study: Chronic marijuana use leads to psychopathic features and crime

    A new study by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and Rutgers University comes to some troubling conclusions regarding the effects of chronic marijuana use. The findings should give further pause to the push towards legalization in various j...

  • March 17, 2016

    Poll: Confidence in War on Terror at all-time low

    Polling data released by Rasmussen Reports shows that more Americans think the terrorists are winning the War on Terror than are the United States and its allies. Since mid-2015, more than 40% of the public believes the terrorists are winning,...

  • March 17, 2016

    Toronto Police Chief invokes Islamophobia following Attack

    On Monday, a 27-year old man -- born in Montreal to Somalian immigrant parents -- attacked and stabbed several members of the Canadian military in a Toronto recruiting center. The attacker now faces a total of nine charges, including three counts ...

  • March 17, 2016

    Absurdities in the latest UN 'Ranking of Happiness'

    Attempting to quantify "happiness" will inevitably lead to nonsense, but leave it to the United Nations to try anyway (or perhaps because). The U.N. has released its latest "World Happiness Report," and to its credit, the first...

  • March 16, 2016

    Federal debt as percent of GDP reaches post-WWII record high

    New data released Monday by the Federal Reserve shows that U.S. federal debt has reached a post-WWII record high, now at 104.3% of GDP in Q4 of 2015. The previous record was set in Q1 of 2014 at 103.6% of GDP. In Q4 of 2008, the last full q...

  • March 16, 2016

    Professional organizations threatening those who would build a US-Mexico border wall?

    If you are looking for evidence that professional organizations are part of the problem in the United States and elsewhere, look no farther than an article at Defense One discussing some of the practical, economic, and societal implications of buildi...

  • March 16, 2016

    In Seattle, number of crimes way up compared to pre-legal pot era

    The 2015 crime data has been released for Seattle, and the results are not pretty for the legal marijuana advocates. Between 2008 and 2012, the number of total crimes and property crimes in the city was stable or declining, consistent with trends ...

  • March 15, 2016

    Likely Islamic terrorist attack at Canadian Forces recruitment center in Toronto

    Reports are emerging of a likely Islamic terrorism attack on two members of the Canadian military late Monday afternoon. According to the Toronto Sun, the attacker may have uttered the phrase “Praise Allah”: A brazen knife attack ...

  • March 15, 2016

    More scientific evidence that marijuana is a very harmful drug

    A few months ago, I provided a brief summary of some recent peer-reviewed research showing the serious negative health effects of marijuana use.  Since this time, some new and notable studies have been released that further add to the substantia...

  • March 14, 2016

    Trump will need to decide on a third-party run by mid-April

    According to an interesting article on the Volokh Conspiracy blog at the Washington Post, many state ballot access laws will prevent whoever loses the Republican presidential nomination at the July 18 to July 21 convention from effectively running as...

  • March 14, 2016

    Myth busted: Muslims do have a far higher population growth rate than other religions

    In late 2012, Doug Saunders, an international correspondent with the Globe and Mail newspaper in Canada and author of The Myth of the Muslim Tide: Do Immigrants Threaten the West?, wrote an article i n the Huffington Post where he claimed the followi...

  • March 14, 2016

    The defense industry's 'Islam problem' and the allegiance question

    Donald Trump's views on immigration and Islam are not just polarizing public opinion and the media, but also causing waves within the American defense sector. Defense One reports that “if Trump wins, expect thousands of defense jobs to m...

  • March 12, 2016

    Crime continuing to rise in Denver in the legal pot era

    As 2016 starts, crime is up yet again in the post-marijuana legalization metropolis of Denver, Colorado. The latest data shows that reported offenses during January 2016 increased a further 4.5% from the same month in 2015.  This continues a ...

  • March 12, 2016

    Trump right/WaPo wrong on 2015 Q3/Q4 GDP growth

    At the Washington Post, Glenn Kessler and Michelle Ye Hee Lee have attempted – and failed – to rigorously fact-check the 12th GOP debate. Kessler and Lee note that Donald Trump made the following statement in the debate: "[a]s an ...

  • March 11, 2016

    Hello Again, Reagan Democrats

    Starting soon after President Barack Obama's first general election victory in 2008, the American conservative media establishment, some think tanks and various organizations, and a number of GOP politicians began in earnest to construct an elega...

  • March 11, 2016

    Poll: Next to no one interested in Mitt Romney's endorsement

    A new poll by Rasmussen Reports shows that the overwhelming majority of Republican voters in the primary process do not place any positive value on a candidate endorsement by former GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney. Only 15% of "Likely Re...

  • March 10, 2016

    Is it 1976 all over again?

    The possibility of a contested 2016 Republican presidential nominee convention has been inviting comparisons to the contested 1976 convention between Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford. But at this point in the 1976 race, a very different story was sha...

  • March 10, 2016

    Canadian premier: Trump campaign "absolutely terrible"

    The code among politicians from neighboring friendly nations is that they generally do not get involved in commenting on each other's internal politics.  While media pundits and citizens acting in their private capacity are free to offer the...

  • March 9, 2016

    Whites, not blacks, under-represented in Grammy nominations and on the Billboard Top 100

    Easily one of the most intellectually bankrupt social movements in recent times has been the absurd claim that blacks are under-represented in Grammy nominations and on popular music ranking systems, such as the Billboard Top 100. An article at Vo...

  • March 9, 2016

    Poll: Trump would take much of his GOP base with him as third-party candidate

    A new poll by Rasmussen Reports conducted on March 6 and 7 shows that if Donald Trump is denied the GOP nomination for presidential candidate, he could run as a third-party candidate with much of his base intact. Among Republican voters, 36% say t...

  • March 9, 2016

    Blacks over-represented in Oscar wins since 2000

    Near the height of the #OscarsSoWhite hysteria in mid-January, The Economist published an analysis of racial distribution for Oscar nominees and winners since 2000.  Rather than support the mainstream uproar, the data refuted much of it. Betw...

  • March 8, 2016

    Poll: Overwhelming opposition to giving illegal immigrants voting rights

    A new poll by Rasmussen Reports shows that Americans clearly reject proposals, such as the one made in New York City, to give illegal immigrants the right to vote. According to the survey, 71% of respondents oppose letting illegal immigrants vote ...

  • March 7, 2016

    In Michigan, 70% of GOP primary voters support ban on Muslims

    Polling data out of Michigan continues to overwhelmingly support a win by Donald Trump in the state's upcoming primary. A CBS News/YouGov poll conducted March 2-4 shows Trump in the lead among GOP primary voters, with 39% support, well ahead o...

  • March 6, 2016

    Shock poll: Kasich leads in Michigan

    A new poll from American Research Group, Inc. conducted on March 4 and 5 is presenting some surprising results: GOP presidential contender John Kasich is apparently now leading in Michigan with 33% of support among likely Republican voters. Accord...

  • March 5, 2016

    Gallup: Trump leads on all major policy issues among GOP voters

    The latest polling data by Gallup shows Republican presidential nominee frontrunner Donald Trump leading on all major policy issues among GOP voters. On the issue of the economy and jobs, Trump was picked as best for dealing with that issue as pre...

  • March 5, 2016

    Pew: Most Republicans want to deport all illegal aliens

    Polling data released earlier this week by the Pew Research Center shows most Republicans strongly supporting a hard-line immigration stance, such as what presidential candidate Donald Trump promised early in his campaign. According to the surveys...

  • March 5, 2016

    Polls: Trump increases lead in Michigan, poised to win Kansas

    Based on the latest polling data, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump appears certain to win the upcoming March 8 Michigan primary and is likely to also take the corresponding race today in Kansas. A FOX 2 Detroit/Mitchell poll released on Fri...

  • March 5, 2016

    University of New Orleans poll: Louisiana primary will go to Trump

    A new poll released late Friday by the University of New Orleans suggests that Saturday's primary in Louisiana will be won by Donald Trump. Among active  registered Republican voters in the state, 38% say they will vote for Trump, 26% for...

  • March 4, 2016

    Polls: Trump with large leads in Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi

    Despite overwhelming attacks by the GOP establishment over the past week via their proxies in the media, Donald Trump's leads in upcoming primary races remain dominant, according to the latest polling data. A FOX 2 Detroit/Mitchell poll from M...

  • March 3, 2016

    Based on early cross-party head-to-head polling, there wouldn't have been a Reagan presidency

    Whenever articles entitled "A Vote For Trump is a Vote For Hillary Clinton: Why Trump Is A Sure Loser" appear, you know there are going to be problems in the analysis.  Such broad generalizations about a popular candidate within his ow...

  • March 3, 2016

    The incoherence of the head-to-head presidential polls

    On Tuesday, CNN/ORC released a suite of head-to-head presidential polling data.  The results were as follows: - Clinton 52, Trump 44 - Sanders 55, Trump 43 - Cruz 49, Clinton 48 - Sanders 57, Cruz 40 - Rubio 50, Clinton 47 - Sa...

  • March 2, 2016

    Trump's path forward is clearing

    The Super Tuesday results confirmed what was evident in the polls by late Sunday, and what was crystal-clear by Monday evening: the Trump train is unstoppable, and the GOP nomination is his. That is, unless the hysterical scorched-earth policy und...

  • March 1, 2016

    GHG emissions and BC's carbon tax

    As part of the ongoing debate over the impacts of carbon taxation in British Columbia, Christopher Ragan, an associate professor of economics at McGill University, has written an opinion piece in one of Canada's national newspapers, the Globe and...

  • March 1, 2016

    Late polls confirm the Trump landslide victory on Super Tuesday

    A suite of new polls released Monday show Republican supporters rallying to Donald Trump in ever increasing numbers – not just in the Super Tuesday states, but also at the national level. In Massachusetts, a University of Massachusetts-Amher...

  • February 29, 2016

    Foreigners do commit more crime than natives: A dispatch from Europe

    The politically correct mainstream narrative is clear – foreigners do not commit more crime than the native population in Europe. But this storyline is wrong, as shown by the most recent release of crime statistics from the statistical offic...

  • February 29, 2016

    The race is over: Polls show Trump will dominate Super Tuesday

    Unless the latest polls are all wrong, the GOP race is already over.  Donald Trump will win big on Super Tuesday and effectively seal the Republication nomination for the 2016 presidential election. In Tennessee, the latest NBC News/Wall St. ...

  • February 28, 2016

    British Columbia's carbon tax is not ‘working incredibly well’

    In a recent interview with host Paul Kennedy on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio show Ideas, Professor Tim Flannery from the University of Melbourne was discussing some examples of carbon taxation, leading to the following claim (starting ...

  • February 28, 2016

    Half of Republicans see foreign trade as threat to United States

    Newly released polling data from Gallup shows that half of all Republicans see foreign trade as mainly a threat to the United States. This level of skepticism toward international trade has remained high among the GOP base since Gallup started col...

  • February 27, 2016

    Poll: 81% of GOP voters see Trump getting the nomination

    In the run-up to Super Tuesday, a new poll by Rasmussen Reports, conducted over the two nights before the Republican primary debate in Houston, has the vast majority of the GOP base seeing Donald Trump as the ultimate nominee. Among likely Republi...

  • February 26, 2016

    Poll: Most Texans want Muslims banned and illegals deported

    A new poll conducted February 12-19 by the University of Texas and the Texas Tribune indicates that support for stricter immigration policies is hardening among voters in the Lone Star State. Only 18% of respondents strongly agreed with the statem...

  • February 26, 2016

    Free trade disappoints American voters...again

    There is reason why a large majority of Tea Party supporters oppose free trade agreements: far too often, they harm the American economy. Judson Philips, the president of Tea Party Nation, offered the following thoughts in a provocative op-ed...

  • February 26, 2016

    Greenpeace shows its true colors

    When it began, the environmental group Greenpeace, founded in 1971, was arguably an organization focused on environmental protection.  Love them or hate them, the goals were clear: saving the environment for the environment's sake. During...

  • February 25, 2016

    Reagan is still trouncing Obama on economic growth

    By mid-2013, it was already abundantly clear that President Barack Obama's economic growth record was trailing well behind that of former President Ronald Reagan. But in September 2014, some at Forbes were attempting to characterize economic hist...

  • February 25, 2016

    The ongoing shakeup in the right-of-center mediascape

    The continuing lead of non-establishment candidates in the GOP primary race is causing an ever-increasing shakeup among the popularity of right-of-center media websites. Based on website ranking tools, conservative and libertarian sites have great...

  • February 25, 2016

    Money isn't playing a deciding role in the GOP race

    Following the Citizens United decision, many pundits were claiming that from here forward, money would be the deciding factor in the race for the White House -- particularly on the Republican side. How wrong they were. Clearly money still plays...

  • February 25, 2016

    Poll: Border control still top immigration priority for most voters

    A new poll by Rasmussen Reports shows that most Americans prefer stricter border control versus granting legal status to illegal immigrants. Among those surveyed, 59% of respondents believe that "gaining control of the border" should be ...

  • February 24, 2016

    Muslim nations place less value on internet freedom

    The Pew Research Center has released new data from 38 countries around the world.  Residents were asked whether or not it was somewhat or very important that "people can use the internet without state/government censorship in our country....

  • December 19, 2015

    Denver's 2015 post-marijuana legalization crime wave intensifies

    As another month goes by in Colorado's marijuana legalization experiment, Denver's 2015 crime wave cranks up yet another notch. November's crime data is out for the city, and it doesn't tell a pretty story.  There were another...

  • December 14, 2015

    Trump's candidacy is changing the right-of-center media landscape

    Donald Trump's candidacy for POTUS has changed the political discussion – not only in the United States, but in other nations such as Canada and the U.K. as well.  He has repeatedly said what most of the populace was thinking but ...

  • December 13, 2015

    UK Trump ban petition shows evidence of data manipulation

    Firsthand evidence of data manipulation now exists from the U.K. parliamentary petitions site. On Friday, anyone could go to the website of the "UK Government and Parliament" and look at the infamous petition to "Block Donald J Trum...

  • December 12, 2015

    Parliamentary Petition to Close U.K. Borders and Halt Immigration Already at 450,000

    A parliamentary petition to stop all immigration and close the U.K. borders until ISIS is defeated is now at 450,000 signatures and growing. The petition was started by a copywriter, Tina Reeves, who lives in Plymouth. According to the petition...

  • December 11, 2015

    Upwards of 600 million Muslims worldwide support the death penalty for converts

    In April 2013, the Pew Research Center released the findings of a major worldwide survey of Muslims.  The detailed results are startling. We already know from my previous article that there is massive worldwide support for sharia law among th...

  • December 10, 2015

    Poll: At least one quarter of the U.K. agrees with Trump on Muslim immigration

    A new YouGov poll released on Wednesday shows that at least one quarter of the British population agrees with U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump that Muslim immigration into the United States should be halted.  An additional 11 percent of ...

  • December 10, 2015

    Majority of Americans believe U.S. accepts too many Mid-East immigrants

    A new Associated Press poll shows that a significant majority of Americans believe that the United States accepts too many immigrants from the Middle East: The AP-GfK survey found widespread antipathy toward immigration from the Middle East, wit...

  • December 8, 2015

    Massive worldwide support for sharia law among global Muslim community

    In the aftermath of the uproar caused by Donald Trump's press release "calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on," the Pew Res...

  • December 7, 2015

    Europe's economic troubles prove pro-immigration theory is a failure

    As France's anti-immigration National Front stands on the edge of historic gains in the first round of regional elections, it is time to debunk the theory that high rates of immigration improve economic growth. Over the past decade, Europe has...

  • December 5, 2015

    The science is clear: Marijuana is a major public health risk

    Discussions about the impact of legal marijuana on crime rates inevitably lead to substantial debate, although the data from the legalization experiments in Colorado and Washington State give compelling support to opponents of legalization.  The...

  • December 4, 2015

    Report: Between 8,000 and 44,000 Islamists already in Germany

    According to a report by Sputnik News in Russia, the German interior minister for the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, Ralf Jaeger, said there are at least 8,000 Islamists already living in Germany: This group [of Islamists in Germany] is active...

  • December 3, 2015

    Colorado's crime rate was declining...until they legalized marijuana

    Despite what the Big Pot lobbyists claim, the evidence is starting to mount that Colorado's experiment with legalized marijuana has led to increased crime in the state. According to the latest 2014 Crime in Colorado report by the Colorado Bure...

  • December 2, 2015

    Sweden's Anti-Immigration Party Hits 20 Percent in Major Poll

    A new poll released by Statistics Sweden shows the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats (SD) party now up to 20 percent support among the public, placing it just behind the Moderate Party (M; 23.5 percent) and the Social Democrats (S; 27.6 percent). ...

  • November 30, 2015

    The Ukraine-ISIS Alliance

    Back in February, The Intercept was the first media outlet to reveal clear linkages between ISIS and Ukraine. The article by Marcin Mamon begins by recounting how the leader of the Islamic State's underground branch in Istanbul was headed to Ukra...

  • November 27, 2015

    Turkey lied and Russians died

    In the two days since Turkey shot down a Russian warplane, some facts have emerged. From a comparative examination of the evidence produced by both sides, the Russian plane appears to have been in Syrian airspace – contrary to Turkey's c...

  • November 27, 2015

    Confusion over Russian foreign minister's statements about Turkish attack on Russian warplane

    As the propaganda war over the Turkish attack on the Russian warplane in Syrian airspace continues, an article on the Canadian media website The Rebel by Ezra Levant incorrectly characterizes Russian foreign affairs minister Sergei Lavrov's offic...

  • November 25, 2015

    Time to trade Turkey for Russia in NATO

    When Turkey joined NATO in February 1952, there seemed to be a purpose to the expansion into traditionally Islamic territory.  Proponents of Turkey's membership argued that the West needed this country as an ally to prevent Soviet expansion ...

  • November 20, 2015

    Mexico's economic parasitism on the United States

    The United States' relationship with Mexico has undergone a seismic shift over the past several decades.  In 1970, there were fewer than a million Mexican immigrants in the U.S., a number that had remained approximately constant since the ea...

  • November 18, 2015

    Pew poll: Between 63 million and 287 million ISIS supporters in just 11 countries

    A new poll by the Pew Research Center reveals significant levels of support for ISIS within the Muslim world.  In 11 representative nation-states, up to 14 percent of the population has a favorable opinion of ISIS, and upwards of 62 percent ...

  • November 18, 2015

    Texas poll: Illegal immigration is the greatest threat to the United States

    A new poll released by the University of Texas and the Texas Tribune – conducted before the Paris terrorist attacks – reveals that Texas voters overwhelmingly view illegal immigration and foreign terrorist groups as the greatest threats f...

  • November 13, 2015

    Seattle's post-marijuana legalization crime wave

    It turns out that Denver, Colorado may not be the only major American city seeing an increase in crime following marijuana legalization.  Seattle, Washington looks to be experiencing some blowback as well. According to the Drug Policy Allianc...

  • November 12, 2015

    Following opening of retail pot stores in 2014, crime explodes in Denver during 2015

    Throughout 2014 and early 2015, marijuana legalization advocates were trumpeting the supposed reduction in rates of some specific crimes for Denver, Colorado since the first retail marijuana stores officially opened in the state on January 1, 2014. ...

  • November 10, 2015

    Report: On global basis, greater desire for less immigration, not more

    In an article at the Washington Post, Janell Ross tackles the question of global attitudes toward immigration using data from Gallup polling and a report from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Unfortunately, there are some proble...

  • November 9, 2015

    Poll: Voters concerned over country's direction and impact of high immigration rates

    A new poll by the University of Southern California and the Los Angeles Times paints a gloomy picture of how registered voters view the direction of the country and the role of immigrants in their families' financial situations. Among Californ...

  • June 25, 2015

    The Top 40 Conservative Websites: June 25, 2015 Edition

    The weekly top 40 is out. The big movers this week are The Weekly Standard, down 6 spots to #37; Allen West, up 4 spots to #21; and the Washington Examiner, up 4 spots to #28. In the top 20, Infowars and National Review switched spots, with Inf...

  • June 25, 2015

    Poll shows high levels of support for sharia law and violence among American Muslims

    The Center for Security Policy (CSP) has released the results of a poll showing alarmingly high levels of support for sharia law and violence among the American Muslim community. According to the nationwide survey, "significant minorities emb...

  • June 19, 2015

    China's Carbon Dioxide Emissions Increased in 2014

    Back in March, news outlets such as Bloomberg were proclaiming that "China's emissions of carbon dioxide fell last year [2014] for the first time in more than a decade, helping stall global production of climate-warming gases": Tot...

  • June 19, 2015

    All Isn't Well in Costa Rica's Ecotopia

    Costa Rica is often held up as the model for democratic ecological governance that the major Western economies should aspire to. The nation is purportedly running its electrical grid entirely off renewable sources, and its leader is an outspoken clim...

  • June 19, 2015

    Christianity's Demographic Challenge in the United States

    The Pew Research Center's latest report on America's religious landscape highlights the significant demographic challenges that Christianity is facing in the U.S. According to the report, "the percentage of adults who describe themsel...

  • June 18, 2015

    The Top 40 Conservative Websites: June 18, 2015 Edition

    The weekly top 40 is out, including an expanded list and ranking of sites being monitored. The big movers this week are Christian Today, up 4 spots to #34, and the Washington Free Beacon, down 4 spots to #30.  The Conservative Tribune has cra...

  • June 11, 2015

    The Top 40 Conservative Websites: June 11, 2015 Edition

    The weekly top 40 is out. The big movers this week are Mad World News, down six spots to #39; Reason, up three spots to #29; The Federalist Papers Project, up three spots to #31; Twitchy, down three spots to #30; and The Weekly Standard, also down...

  • June 6, 2015

    Polling Data Doesn't Support the Nuclear Abolitionists

    There is no greater threat to the national security of Western nations than the nuclear abolitionist movement.  If you want to talk about radical extremists who live among us, the Global Zero crowd are the most radical, the most extreme, and the...

  • June 5, 2015

    Confidence in public education at abysmally low levels

    It's probably not going to come as a major surprise to conservatives that the American public's confidence in, and satisfaction from, public education is at horrendously low levels – especially given the massive amounts of tax dollars t...

  • June 5, 2015

    Setting the record straight on Canada's defense spending trends

    In the lead-up to this year's federal election in Canada, the major parties are jockeying for position on the defense file. According to a report at iPolitics, some rather unusual claims are being made by Conservative defense minister Jason Ke...

  • June 5, 2015

    Poll: Voters unwilling to pay to fight global warming

    A poll by Rasmussen Reports reveals that "voters still aren't ready to pay much, if anything, to fight global warming." According to the results, "41% of likely U.S. voters say they are willing to pay nothing more in higher taxe...

  • June 4, 2015

    The Top 40 Conservative Websites: June 4, 2015 Edition

    The weekly top 40 is out. The big movers this week are the Gateway Pundit, down 7 spots to #39; CNS News, down 6 spots to #35; and Mad World News, up 6 spots to #33. While still outside the top 40, the Tea Party News Network has been making a r...

  • June 4, 2015

    Gallup: Social+economic conservatives smaller part of GOP base, but still dominant

    The latest polling data from Gallup shows that while the percentage of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who describe themselves as social and economic conservatives has shrunk in recent years, this group still dominates the party. T...

  • June 4, 2015

    The world doesn't have a public-sector debt problem. Only the West does.

    There is a troubling perspective rolling around some components of the conservative media landscape.  It posits that the economic difficulties in the West are shared by the rest of the world.  They are not.  Public-sector debt is a cla...

  • June 3, 2015

    Poll: Only One-Third of Voters Support Obama's Amnesty Plan

    Recent polling by Rasmussen shows low levels of support for President Obama's amnesty plan: A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 34 percent of likely U.S. voters favor the president's plan to allow the illega...

  • June 3, 2015

    Poll: Europeans view Euroskeptic parties as good thing

    The Pew Research Center has released a poll showing Europeans generally have positive views toward the rise of Euroskeptic parties in their respective nations, in large part because residents have major concerns regarding the European economy and its...

  • June 2, 2015

    BC carbon tax damage

    The past several years have seen an ongoing dispute in the media about the economic impacts of British Columbia's carbon tax, which was brought into force on July 1, 2008. The liberal media such as the Washington Post and the Globe and Mail, a...

  • June 1, 2015

    Poll: View that U.N. does good job still near record lows

    Gallup has released a compilation of polling data back to 1954 looking at the public's views of whether or not the U.N. is doing a good job. The results are not favorable for the globalist organization, nor for the reformists. Back in the e...

  • May 31, 2015

    The best movies gross the most

    Many were thrilled when American Sniper became the top-grossing domestic film of 2014, coming in at $350 million.  It sounds like an impressive achievement, but it’s not. Over time, both the inflation in ticket prices and an ever-increa...

  • May 31, 2015

    The Texas Drought Ends

    A year ago Texas was in panic mode over its drought, water reservoirs were running perilously low, and individuals from the center-right through left portions of the political spectrum were hysterically advocating rash policy prescriptions. And I ...

  • May 30, 2015

    Social expenditures are killing the OECD's economies

    The past 35 years have witnessed an extraordinary explosion in the amount of social spending by many OECD countries.  Back in 1980, the OECD members spent 15.4 percent of GDP on public social programs.  In 2014, this reached 21.6 percent. ...

  • May 30, 2015

    CO2 Emissions and Economic Growth: The Post-1990 Annex I Story

    For the financially vested climate alarmists who continue to claim that developed nations can drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions -- perhaps even entirely decarbonize their economies, without seriously harming economic growth and the prosperi...

  • May 29, 2015

    Texas about to set 12-month crude oil production record

    Last June, AT predicted “Texas will hit a monthly production level of 3.45 million barrels per day [MMbpd] by December 2014, meaning that 2015 will set a new annualized production record for the state.” According to the U.S. Energy Inf...

  • May 29, 2015

    Russia's population politics

    A new study by the International Laboratory on Political Demography and Social Macro-Dynamics in Moscow suggests that Russia is experiencing a massive increase in its fertility rate: The demographic situation in Russia has improved markedly in r...

  • May 29, 2015

    Poll: American public still supports drone attacks

    A new poll reveals ongoing high levels of support for U.S. drone strikes against extremists in the Middle East and South Asia. Support for drone strikes is at 58 percent, with opposition at 35 percent.  This remains essentially unchanged from...

  • May 28, 2015

    The Top 40 Conservative Websites: May 28, 2015 Edition

    The weekly top 40 is out: Allen West’s site has rocketed up the charts and is the big mover.  Last week it was #55, this week #28. The Federalist Papers Project and Mad World News have also entered the top 40. Notable declines for...

  • May 28, 2015

    Poll: Majority of Americans very skeptical of free trade

    A new national survey by the Pew Research Center reveals the ongoing concerns Americans have regarding free trade. Despite the sustained lobbying efforts of corporatists over three decades, the public is still not sold on free trade – the is...

  • May 28, 2015

    Did China's Ministry of Defense rip off its webpage from the Serbian Army?

    The release of a military strategy white paper by China’s Ministry of National Defense (MOD) has some concerned – given how the document appears to make war with the United States (and by extension, its treaty allies in the West) inevitab...

  • May 27, 2015

    The decline of Catholicism in America

    The recent Pew Research Center report on America’s religious landscape painted a bleak picture for Christianity in the United States, and an even more desperate image for the Catholic share of the U.S. population, which dropped from 23.9 to jus...

  • May 26, 2015

    Drawing the red lines

    Following yesterday’s column on the Christian-Muslim clash of civilizations, some readers were interested in looking at the data in more detail.  It’s a worthy exercise, as it allows us to draw a few tentative “red lines”...

  • May 25, 2015

    The Christian-Muslim clash of civilizations

    The dominantly Christian nations currently have a net GDP almost four times greater than the predominantly Muslim nations, but the gap is closing fast. If the current rates of increase continue, by sometime in the 2050s, Muslim nations will m...

  • May 24, 2015

    Report: U.S. allies in Asia-Pacific concerned over future capabilities and support

    A new report from the CNA Corporation’s China Studies Division over the future role of the U.S. Army in Asia raises serious concerns about how allies in the region view potential American capabilities and support: [T]here are important con...

  • May 24, 2015

    The Top 20 Christian Media Websites: May 2015 Edition

    Christianity in America is, unfortunately, on the decline. From 2007 to 2014, the Christian share of the population declined from 78.4 to 70.6 percent. Over that time, the Muslim population in the U.S. increased by more than 125 percent. The decli...

  • May 22, 2015

    Poll: Republican voters very displeased with GOP-led Congress

    New polling data by the Pew Research Center shows that Republican voters are most certainly not happy with the progress – or lack thereof – in the GOP-dominated House and Senate. Only 41 percent of Republicans currently approve of thei...

  • May 21, 2015

    The Top 40 Conservative Websites: May 21, 2015 Edition

    The release of an updated list of conservative websites by Right Wing News and Red Flag News requires a corresponding update to the weekly Top 40 – using rankings from Alexa – a day earlier than planned. Six new sites that were not...

  • May 21, 2015

    Poll: Americans have 'exceedingly low' trust in privacy and security of institutional records

    In the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations, new polling data from the Pew Research Center shows high levels of distrust among Americans over privacy, security, and surveillance. As the authors, Mary Madden and Lee Rainie, concluded, “the ...

  • May 20, 2015

    Report: Republicans see fewer opportunities from foreign trade than Democrats

    The American Enterprise Institute has released a new report on the "Polls and Politics of Trade."  Some sharp partisan differences on trade have emerged in recent years. Until 2008, Republicans were the strongest believers within th...

  • May 20, 2015

    Poll: Republicans view current GOP field positively

    The Pew Research Center has released its latest polling data on how Republicans view the current 2016 GOP field. Almost 60 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters “say they have an excellent or good impression of their party...

  • May 19, 2015

    The devil in the crime rate details

    At The Atlantic, David Frum has an article on “Can America Have Fewer Prisoners Without More Crime?” that is receiving some attention within conservative circles. Frum’s article is thoughtful and offers some wise cautionary advic...

  • May 18, 2015

    Admiral: Russia Blackmailed Bill Clinton Over Lewinsky

    At the Iowa National Security Action Summit on Saturday, co-hosted by the Center for Security Policy and the Family Leader Foundation, Admiral James “Ace” Lyons (U.S. Navy, Ret.) -- a four-star admiral and former Commander in Chief o...

  • May 18, 2015

    The GOP <em>Can</em> Rage Against the Dying of the Light

    At Politico, Daniel McGraw has an interesting article on how “The GOP Is Dying Off. Literally”: It turns out that one of the Grand Old Party’s biggest -- and least discussed -- challenges going into 2016 is lying in plain sight...

  • May 17, 2015

    Report: Al-Qaeda's base at MIT

    A new documentary by Americans for Peace & Tolerance showcases a troubling finding: al-Qaeda has a base at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Once again, we learn how the goals of diversity, inclusivity, multiculturalism, and the in...

  • May 17, 2015

    The Best-Performing GOP Governor for Economic Growth in 2016 Presidential Race

    The list of former and current GOP governors who are running or probably running in the 2016 presidential race currently stands at Huckabee, Bush, Walker, Christie, Perry, and Jindal. As to the question about which one of these candidate...

  • May 16, 2015

    The GOP should be worried about its declining share of the male vote

    Other than whites, the other big voting bloc going unnoticed for the 2016 U.S. general election is men. As a study from the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University has shown, substantial gender differences in voter turnout hav...

  • May 15, 2015

    Reagan and Unions: Setting the Record Straight

    While union leaders and agitators repeatedly push the narrative that Ronald Reagan hated unions, and that union members hated Reagan, reality tells a far different story. During a campaign speech in Liberty, New Jersey on Labor Day 1980, Reagan --...

  • May 15, 2015

    The Top 40 Conservative Websites: May 15, 2015 Edition

    The latest edition of the Top 40 is out. Gateway Pundit is the big mover this week, up 7 spots to #31.  Chicks on the Right is also still moving up the charts – up 6 places to #22.  The Federalist and The Weekly Standard took the l...

  • May 14, 2015

    Debate emerging over international norms for drone use

    The RAND Corporation has produced a report and a myth-debunking series of blogs about armed drones. Taking a controversial view, the authors at RAND support the development of international norms surrounding armed drone use: The challenge in est...

  • May 13, 2015

    Pentagon report highlights national security risks from Chinese students and researchers

    The latest Pentagon report to Congress on the “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China” specifically highlights the national security risks to the United States (and other Western nations) from Ch...

  • May 12, 2015

    Race Pandering a Dead End for GOP

    At National Review, Larry Kudlow has an article arguing that the "GOP Will Lose in 2016 without Sensible Immigration Reform."  This narrative has been trotted out repeatedly over the years by the more centrist members of the Republican...

  • May 12, 2015

    Moderates, Independents, and even Democrats Prefer More Conservative GOP Presidential Candidates

    Despite the narrative that many have tried to develop over the past two decades, the voting data is clear: moderates, independents, and even Democrats prefer to vote for more conservative Republican presidential candidates. The Roper Center at the...

  • May 11, 2015

    The End of Ebola in Liberia?

    As the media reports the purported “end of Ebola” in Liberia, some caution may be warranted. Liberia’s Ebola case count statistics are highly unusual: Saturday marks 42 days since Liberia’s last Ebola case -- the benchmar...

  • May 8, 2015

    Cuba's Human Rights Record is Not Improving

    Whereas some claim that "Cuba Slowly Improving Human Rights Record," and misguided politicians from all portions of the political spectrum are arguing that capitulating to the wishes of a communist dictatorship is good foreign policy -- all...

  • May 6, 2015

    The Real Xenophobic Nations

    Few accusations more clearly show the vacuous nature of an individual's intellect than the xenophobia card, which -- as Breitbart reports -- the musician Moby played during a recent epic Twitter meltdown where he complained about "'racis...

  • May 6, 2015

    Expert: U.S. Ebola response lacking

    As various experts and organizations look back at how the international community approached the Ebola crisis in West Africa, serious gaps and errors in the response efforts are coming to light. The Heritage Foundation recently released a report t...

  • May 1, 2015

    The Top 40 Conservative Websites: May 2015 Edition

    The latest edition of the conservative websites top-40 is out, using website rankings from Alexa. Standard disclaimer applies: not all of these websites publish exclusively conservative news and opinion (several are libertarian-oriented or a hybri...

  • April 30, 2015

    The Future of Drone Warfare

    Ben Lerner, the vice president for government relations at the Center for Security Policy, gave a very informative talk on drone proliferation at a recent Center gathering on Capitol Hill.  Those interested in security issues would be well-advis...

  • April 30, 2015

    Euro-denial

    In some quarters, there is an odd aversion toward the explicit acknowledgement that the European Union has been in relative economic freefall compared to the rest of the world over the past several decades. As an example, in his 2011 book The Futu...

  • April 27, 2015

    Ebola still going strong in Liberia

    Back in early March, the mainstream media was excitedly publishing stories about Liberia purportedly discharging its last Ebola patient and awaiting formal "Ebola-free" status.  Of course, back in mid-January, the major outlets were al...

  • April 26, 2015

    Kazakhstan's Nuclear Naivety

    At The Diplomat, Kazakhstan's foreign minister -- Erlan Idrissov -- has authored a piece discussing how his country has been nuclear weapons free for 20 years and that "Kazakhstan's recent history shows you don’t need a nuclear ars...

  • April 24, 2015

    Shifting economic winds in the Asia-Pacific

    A seismic rebalancing of the world's economy has taken place since Ronald Reagan left office. Almost immediately after Reagan's administration ended, the advanced economies -- led by the United States -- began their long, slow slide from glob...

  • April 23, 2015

    Canada's still insufficient defense budget

    The Conservative Party of Stephen Harper has released Canada's 2015 election year federal budget, and the defense minister, Jason Kenney, is promoting the proposed CAD $11.8 billion (USD $9.6 billion) increase in military spending over the next d...

  • April 22, 2015

    The ISIS money trail

    For those interested in where the Islamic State (IS) gets its money, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has produced a report detailing the financial pathways behind this entity. As the report notes: While IS funding streams remain flui...

  • April 20, 2015

    The OIC versus the United States

    While often dismissed as just a troublesome voting bloc in the United Nations, the 57 member-states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) are posing an ever greater threat to the West.  As Leslie Lebl of the Foreign Policy Research In...

  • April 18, 2015

    The Uncertainty Over Adam and Eve's Skin Colors

    Political correctness has infested all aspects of society, and the Bible is no stranger to controversy. As Judi McLeod's recent article at the Canada Free Press highlights, even the U.S. Defense Department -- which is now likely almost over-run b...

  • April 16, 2015

    Bakken oil production peaks

    The North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources has released the latest oil production numbers for the Bakken.  Based on the trend seen since December, it appears the formation's production has peaked – at least for now. In Februar...

  • April 16, 2015

    Health care expenditures still headed upward

    After many promises that Obamacare would bend the cost curve down and begin reducing health spending in the United States, the international health care spending datasets are telling a different story. Following a long wait, the World Bank has fin...

  • April 9, 2015

    Family Values and Fertility Rates

    The attacks on "family values" in the liberal mainstream media seem never-ending.  And yet, when we look rigorously at the data the anti-family value advocates use to support their claims, we often find that the liberal attacks are bui...

  • April 1, 2015

    The Top 40 Conservative Websites: April 2015 Edition

    As April dawns, the latest edition of the Top 40 Conservative Websites reveals some major changes in the rankings. AT is up two places to 31st.  Redstate.com and Bizpac Review have both re-entered the Top 40, while the Tea Party News Netw...

  • March 16, 2015

    China's greenhouse gas data is dubious at best

    Major media outlets are reporting that China's carbon dioxide emissions magically decreased in 2014.  As Bloomberg noted: China's emissions of carbon dioxide fell last year for the first time in more than a decade, helping stall glo...

  • March 15, 2015

    The Baking of Alaska

    Apparently Alaska is "baked" due to climate change. Or, maybe not. According to the story at Slate.com: Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, which Zappa calls home, has been practically tropical this winter. Rick Thoman, a meteorologist wi...

  • March 11, 2015

    Ontario's climate change efforts and lower economic growth

    The Ontario provincial government recently released its "Climate Change Discussion Paper," and – at least in some quarters – there is a discussion. The most obvious omission from the paper is any detailed discussion regarding...

  • March 10, 2015

    Bill Nye's unscientific approach to climate change in Jackson, WY

    The rise of the celebrity "scientist" is undoubtedly the most toxic trend to infect science over the past two decades. On February 6, 2015, Bill Nye sent out the following tweet: As of the date of writing, this had been re-tweeted...

  • March 8, 2015

    Oversimplifying Bob Inglis' Loss

    As Maclean's -- one of Canada's news outlets -- reports on the happenings at the annual Manning Network Conference, which is supposed to be a "gathering of conservatives" but instead looks to be a liberal love-in, there appears to b...

  • March 7, 2015

    The Social Justice Trojan Horse in Progressive Conservatism

    There is a greater problem for real conservatives than the far left: the false narratives woven by the progressive conservatives, who are known in Canada by that name (after their now-defunct party), in the United States as RINOs, in the U.K. as almo...

  • March 6, 2015

    Those Other Diseased Illegal Immigrants

    While concerns are rightly focused on the infectious disease risk to United States citizens via illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America, illegal immigrants from other regions also threaten the health of legal American residents. In add...

  • March 5, 2015

    Rick Perry's Carbon Dioxide Emissions

    Sometimes politicians should just stop talking. A case in point occurred at CPAC involving former Texas Governor Rick Perry -- who is no stranger to gaffes. Perry was touting his state's record on carbon dioxide emission reductions during h...

  • March 4, 2015

    Falling behind in the global arms race

    "If we know anything, it is that weakness is provocative." – Donald Rumsfeld The Pentagon's proposed budget for FY2016 has been released, and over at the Washington Post, they are proposing that "Obama's new defense bu...

  • March 3, 2015

    Finland is no military nor economic powerhouse

    In an opinion piece for the Globe and Mail newspaper in Canada, a prominent academic claimed that "Finland doesn't fear the growling Russian bear next door": Despite their proximity to Russia, most Finns do not actually fear it. Wi...

  • March 2, 2015

    Going Home to the Reagan Years

    As the New Republic hypothesizes that Obama is the left's Reagan (h/t NewsBusters), economic reality and those pesky things called facts continue to weigh on these dreams: The economy's rapid growth in recent quarters has scrambled these...

  • March 1, 2015

    Will the real leader of the free world please stand up?

    Apparently Angela Merkel of Germany is now the real leader of the free world.  Wait – I thought it was supposed to be Stephen Harper of Canada.  No, wait – isn't it David Cameron of the United Kingdom?  Actually, perhap...

  • February 28, 2015

    The Top 40 Conservative Websites: March 2015 Edition

    Although it is a day early, significant movements in the rankings of major conservative websites during the past few weeks allow for an early publication of the March 2015 edition of the monthly Top 40. The large majority of sites moved up in ...

  • February 27, 2015

    Winters in Tahoe ain't getting warmer

    Over at KQED, there is a story about how "Warm, Dry Weather Threatens Way of Life at Lake Tahoe." The narrative is like so many others we have seen before: climate change is damaging the ski industry via warmer winters. Only there is ...

  • February 26, 2015

    Rebutting the Global Zero cult

    One of the most dangerous movements in the West is the drive to rid the world of nuclear weapons, commonly termed Global Zero.  The concept is so utopian as to be laughable, and so potentially self-destructive as to be truly frightening. The ...

  • February 25, 2015

    IMF Economic Projections and Reality: Often Two Very Different Things

    Other than the weather, economic projections are probably the most common prediction seen in the mainstream media. And, like the weather, they are generally wrong. The IMF puts out its World Economic Outlook twice a year -- once in the spring and ...

  • February 25, 2015

    The Mexican and Central American cesspool of infectious diseases

    According to the Washington Post, Mexican border officials and health authorities are worried about the spread of measles out of the United States and into Mexico: As Republican lawmakers suggest that undocumented immigrants crossing the souther...

  • February 24, 2015

    Eurostat database mangles Canada's violent crime statistics

    As the old saying goes, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.  In previous articles, the folly of believing Mexico's official crime data, the World Bank health expenditure datasets, and Russian population estimates has been demonstrat...

  • February 23, 2015

    What is Russia's real population?

    The question in the title seems so simple, and it should be – but it isn't.  The correct answer isn't esoteric, either.  A number of core economic indicators are based on an accurate understanding of population trends – ...

  • February 22, 2015

    The Real Root Cause of the Unaccompanied Children Influx

    Within the past two weeks, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has released a report on "Unaccompanied Children from Central America: Foreign Policy Considerations." The data in this report shows that the 2014 flood of "unaccompan...

  • February 21, 2015

    Reality Check on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Impacts

    As the litigation for the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill lurches through the legal system, the case has become a magnet for those seeking to take advantage of the deep-pockets oil industry defendant. In addition to those looking to prosper directl...

  • February 21, 2015

    The Devil and the Details of National Carbon Tax Experiments

    The Sightline Institute has a useful database on when various countries started pricing carbon, what the price on carbon is, and how much of each region's GHG emissions are covered by the carbon pricing system. A close look at the data reveals...

  • February 20, 2015

    Turkey's Descent into a Crime Epidemic under the Islamist AK Party

    When the AK Party (Justice and Development Party) took office in Turkey during late 2002, the nation was relatively stable. Unemployment stood at 9 percent, higher than it had been during the past few years but at a level within the bounds of the pos...

  • February 19, 2015

    Let the Climate Hammer Fall in New York

    Over at Salon.com, an article describes how "Global warming is going to hammer New York": "The mean annual temperature over Central Park, it finds, has already increased 3.4 degrees Fahrenheit in the period between 1900 and 2013. ...

  • February 18, 2015

    Calm the Climate Alarmism in Dallas

    At The Dallas Morning News, there is an article promoting NASA's latest uber-alarmist study on the impending American megadrought which apparently will wreak climate chaos on the Dallas-Fort Worth region: "North Texas' current droug...

  • February 17, 2015

    Snowfall is Increasing in Vermont

    Over at the Vermont Watchdog, Bruce Parker has an article about how the "Vermont Public Interest Research Group says the Green Mountain State faces a future without snow if lawmakers don't pass a carbon tax on gasoline and heating fuel....

  • February 16, 2015

    The Netherlands Falls Victim to Violent Crime

    With the recent news that the Dutch goverment will be prosecuting Geert Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom, for hate speech once again, even a cursory review of what is happening in the Netherlands reveals why Wilders is so concerned. His n...

  • February 15, 2015

    The Rise of Scandinavia's Anti-Immigration Political Parties

    When acting Sweden Democrat (SD; Sverigedemokraterna) leader Mattias Karlsson recently said that Islamism is "a greater threat than Nazism," he faced criticism from both Muslims and Jews. But Karlsson's views, and those of the party he ...

  • February 13, 2015

    Soybean Hysteria

    The University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) has apparently released a study published in the journal Nature Plants with the following conclusions: "Soybean researchers: Climate change suppressing U.S. yields." According to UNL's press r...

  • February 13, 2015

    Megadrought Hysteria

    A new study is causing shockwaves amongst the climate alarmism community. According to Slate.com, we are about to enter the "The United States of Megadrought." The article shows the following graphs of historical, current, and projected ...

  • February 12, 2015

    Greece's Long-Term Addiction to High Debt Levels

    While some analysts view Germany as a bigger historical debt problem than Greece, a more detailed look at the situation reveals a different perspective. The IMF maintains a historical public debt database for many countries and regions. The data r...

  • February 11, 2015

    John Stuart Mill and the Child License Debate

    An opinion piece at New Jersey On-Line by a psychologist and the president and founder of the New Jersey Violence Prevention Institute has generated some debate. In his article, Dr. Ronald Coughlin has recommended the following: "To prevent...

  • February 10, 2015

    German Cabinet Minister Plays a Phony Numbers Game on Greenhouse Gasses and Economic Growth

    In mid-December, Germany's Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety -- Barbara Hendricks -- published an opinion piece at CNN in which she makes some dubious claims: "Between 1990 and 2012, for exampl...

  • February 10, 2015

    California Did Not Just Have Its Driest January on Record

    According to stories at the Christian Science Monitor, the Wall Street Journal, KQED, and other well-travelled media outlets, California just had its "driest January on record." Wrong. According to the NOAA National Climatic Data Cent...

  • February 9, 2015

    Immigration Rates and Violent Crime in Northwestern Continental Europe

    While some left-of-center media outlets claim that no relationship exists between immigration and crime in specific areas of Europe (or that immigration even reduces crime), the story is certainly more complex when you look at broad areas of the regi...

  • February 6, 2015

    Cold Nights and Shoddy Science Journalism at the <em>Guardian</em>

    Over at the Guardian, whose webpage proclaims it as "Winner of the Pulitzer Prize," we have yet another climate alarmism article on "How winter is losing its cool in US cities." "Climate models project that freezing temp...

  • February 5, 2015

    Maximum one-day snowfalls in the Big Apple are not on the rise

    As the climate realists continue to perform the post-mortem on the failed New York City snowmageddon, we recall the alarmist predictions that such snowstorms are supposed to be gaining in intensity due to climate change.  In other words, the Big...

  • February 4, 2015

    Personal consumption health care spending soaring under Obamacare

    On so many fronts, the promises made about Obamacare are not matching up with reality. With ever increasing amounts of data becoming available, the trajectory is not good.  The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has just released the latest qu...

  • February 3, 2015

    Major climate science reporting fail by Minnesota Public Radio

    In an article at the Grand Forks Herald, Minnesota Public Radio goes all in on climate hysteria – and fails in what is simply terrible science journalism by a public broadcaster. The fact-checking can start with the opening sentences: S...

  • February 2, 2015

    Manufacturing snow alarmism at British Columbia's ski resorts

    The last year has seen the climate alarmists highlight the potential threat of warming temperatures to ski resorts throughout the United States and Canada, with the hysteria being ratcheted up following the NY Times' infamous piece of warmism ent...

  • February 1, 2015

    The top 40 conservative websites: February 2015 edition

    As February begins, it is time again to look at the rankings of conservative websites.  Using Alexa's web analytics and monitoring a suite of over 100 sites, here are the top 40 conservative websites for February 2015 based on their U.S. ran...

  • January 31, 2015

    A Long-Term View of Snowpack in New Mexico

    One of the latest climate change talking points is snow. If it isn't climate change causing too much snow in the Northeast, it is causing too little snow in the West. Whatever the problem -- no matter how internally incoherent and contradictory -...

  • January 28, 2015

    Extreme precipitation during winter in the Northeast is not on the rise

    In the aftermath of New York City's snowpocalypse dud, the climate alarmism continues unabated. Over at Vice.com, Matt Smith has an article titled "Climate Change Is Bringing More Extreme Precipitation Events to the Northeast," which...

  • January 27, 2015

    The Midwest's nonexistent extreme heat apocalypse

    In the latest Risky Business Project report on the projected impacts of climate change for the American Midwest, the predictions are dire indeed.  And they are getting the mainstream media's attention, highlighting – yet again – ...

  • January 26, 2015

    Risky hysteria over summer temperatures in the Midwest

    Another Risky Business report on climate change in the United States has been released – this time focusing on the Midwest.  As regular readers will know, the Risky Business Project is chaired by Michael Bloomberg, Henry (Hank) Paulson, an...

  • January 24, 2015

    Dirty snow and the growing season in North Dakota

    Over at the Grand Forks Herald in North Dakota, dirty snow is apparently affecting the climate: That could have implications for the regional climate, according to Sarah Doherty, a University of Washington scientist whose team conducted the surv...

  • January 23, 2015

    Record warmth in 2014 all across Alaska? Not likely

    In an opinion piece from the Juneau Empire, 2014's warm temperatures in Alaska sound apocalyptic: The National Weather Service reports that 2014 was Alaska's warmest year on record. Even with record-breaking temperatures occurring all acro...

  • January 21, 2015

    Too clever by half on Michigan's climate and infrastructure

    Back in August, Detroit received a lot of rain in one day – August 11, when 4.57 inches fell in a 24-hour period. At the time, Salon.com assigned the event, and the associated flooding, to global warming.  However, the data certainly di...

  • January 20, 2015

    Israel's military is being badly outspent in the Middle East

    Left-of-center media reports often focus on the percentage of GDP that Israel spends on its military.  Just last year, the Haaretz newspaper in Israel trumpeted the following report: Israel shells out almost a fifth of national budget on de...

  • January 19, 2015

    More stringent environmental policies correlate with slower economic growth

    A new study from the OECD is making the media rounds.  As The Economist noted in its coverage: Environmental regulations may not cost as much as governments and businesses fear ... Researchers at the Organisation for Economic Co-operatio...

  • January 18, 2015

    Low gas price-induced roadway Armageddon alarmism

    According to an article at Grist, the lower gas prices of late are leading to mass death and destruction in the United States of America: The Federal Highway Administration confirms that people drive more when gas is cheaper. What's worse: a...

  • January 17, 2015

    Pew poll shows Americans don't really care about global warming

    The latest poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press shows clearly that Americans don't really care about global warming.  Out of 23 public priorities, global warming ranked second to last, just ahead of the vague "gl...

  • January 16, 2015

    Washington State looking to build new dam in Canada...or maybe not?

    A strange article in the Castlegar News from southern British Columbia proclaims that "Cash-strapped Washington State seeks funding to build new dam in British Columbia": Yesterday Sierra Club sent a letter to Gov. Inslee and Departmen...

  • January 15, 2015

    The climate is ruined?

    Back in the '80s and early '90s, CNN appeared to have promise.  Today, not so much. An article at CNN now professes that "the climate is ruined. So can civilization even survive?"  Well, if CNN's current quality is ...

  • January 15, 2015

    80% of Utah residents don't think humans are primary drivers of climate change

    In a poll by UtahPolicy.com, conducted from December 2-10, 2014, with a margin of error of ±4 percent, the following findings were obtained: The correct way to interpret this poll is as follows: only 22 percent of respondents think the ...

  • January 13, 2015

    Putting the bull in climate change threats to bull trout

    According to an article at the Missoulian, bull trout are under seige in Montana due to climate change: Bull trout are listed as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act, and their fate has a big impact on land use, fishing ...

  • January 12, 2015

    Obama's federal debt dwarfs Reagan's

    The Washington Post has an article with the following claim: Obama's term isn't over, but it is hard to believe he could increase the debt by as large a percentage as Ronald Reagan did. To arrive at this spurious conclusion, the Pos...

  • January 12, 2015

    Extreme cold in Chicago and Detroit

    Over at Slate.com, an article claims that extreme cold is becoming less common in certain locations: A recent study by Climate Central showed that, despite its prevalence in recent winters, days with extreme cold are in a long-term decline in th...

  • January 9, 2015

    The loss of climate significance

    The NOAA National Climatic Data Center has released the complete 2014 dataset of state, regional, and national climate data.  This allows us to look for which regions have statistically significant trends in annual temperatures over the past thr...

  • January 8, 2015

    The Top 40 Conservative Websites: January 2015 Edition

    Using previous rankings of the top conservative websites by Right Wing News, The Federalist Papers, and Doug Ross @ Journal as a guide, the Alexa global and U.S. web traffic rankings over the last three months for the top 40 conservative websites are...

  • January 6, 2015

    Substandard MSM Reporting on Climate Change in Alaska

    Over the last few days, three major newspapers have reported on Alaska's climate. Unsurprisingly, there are problems in each article. At the Washington Post, Philip Bump discusses how "Anchorage, Alaska never saw a day below zero in 2014...

  • January 6, 2015

    Climate-truthing in the Palmetto State

    According to an article by Chelsea Harvey at Business Insider, "This Is The Climate Report South Carolina Spent Years Hiding." It sounds ominous, and so I read the report, which left me feeling – unsurprisingly – that Busines...

  • January 4, 2015

    More than three quarters of state capitals are no longer warming

    As climate alarmists and realists both wait for the release of the complete 2014 regional and national temperature dataset by NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, the full year of 2014 city data is available from NOAA's National Weather Serv...

  • January 3, 2015

    Reality check on extreme storms and flooding in the Midwest

    In 2012, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released a study on how "Extreme Rain Storms in Midwest Have Doubled in Last 50 Years, Often Leading to Worsened Flooding."  Some major media outlets – such as Reuters and the...

  • January 2, 2015

    Days Over 100 degrees F Are Not Increasing in Iowa

    In a story at Radio Iowa, the climate alarmism is being raised another notch as "Iowa farmers warned to prep for more wild weather": A new report on climate change offers a warning for farmers across Iowa and the Midwest to prepare for...

  • January 1, 2015

    Austin's Pollen Bomb and Climate Change Bunkum

    At The Atlantic's CityLab, Kriston Capps has an article on how "A 'Pollen Bomb' Drops on Texas Cities." The situation sounds apocalyptic: "No lie: The worst place to spend the holidays is Austin, Texas. You might think t...

  • December 31, 2014

    Reagan Beats Obama on Economic Growth

    In September, an opinion piece at Forbes.com argued that "Obama Outperforms Reagan on Jobs, Growth And Investing": "Economically, President Obama's administration has outperformed President Reagan's in all commonly watched...

  • December 31, 2014

    Droughts aren't increasing in Indiana

    In an editorial at The Journal Gazette from Fort Wayne, Indiana, a physics professor at a local university writes the following: One of the most important effects of climate change on Indiana will be these increased floods and, to a lesser extent,...

  • December 30, 2014

    The Lingering Lake-Effect Snow Questions

    Even while the snow was still falling in Buffalo during November's snowpocalypse, speculation was rampant that climate change was at fault and that it was leading to more lake effect snow.  Except when we looked critically at the data here a...

  • December 29, 2014

    Eleanor Clift goes over a cliff

    During part one of The McLaughlin Group's year-end awards show that aired on December 26, the group was asked what the "Fairest rap" award for 2014 was. Here was Eleanor Clift's answer (starting at 11:30 into the video), followin...

  • December 28, 2014

    Astronomical Climate Projections for the Allegheny Highlands

    At The Daily Athanaeum in Morgantown, West Virginia, there are some serious concerns being expressed about the potential impacts of climate change on the Allegheny Highlands. According to the article: Friends of Blackwater's Allegheny Hig...

  • December 27, 2014

    The Missouri River and Climate Change

    Back in August, the USGS released a study on the "Trends in Annual, Seasonal, and Monthly Streamflow Characteristics at 227 Streamgages in the Missouri River Watershed, Water Years 1960-2011."  The Los Angeles Times wrote a story about...

  • December 26, 2014

    Al Jazeera's attempt at climate alarmism in Queensland

    In mid-November, Al Jazeera released a story on the drought in Queensland, Australia via its 101 East program page. According to the text accompanying the half-hour video, "the Australian state of Queensland is experiencing its worst drought ...

  • December 26, 2014

    The end of white Christmases in southwestern Ontario?

    According to a report from CTV News (a major Canadian network) out of southern Ontario: Climate change making white Christmases a thing of the past: UW [University of Waterloo] prof... The chances of a white Christmas in southwestern Ontario are...

  • December 25, 2014

    The Times Aren't A Changing on Mount Rainier

    The News Tribune in Tacoma, Washington has an epic feature article up on "Losing paradise: Climate change is changing Mount Rainier."  The first few paragraphs of the piece set the alarmist tone: If the scientists are right, the e...

  • December 24, 2014

    Some Cool Logic Required for Climate Change in South Dakota

    At the Capital Journal in Pierre, South Dakota, the newspaper has begun a series on climate change with an article entitled "Cool logic for a heated debate." Some statements in this piece: 'The biggest trend we're seeing is ...

  • December 23, 2014

    Growing Season Length Isn't Increasing in the Lake Michigan Basin

    A recent study by the USGS, which is receiving media attention, predicts the following: One effect of increasing air temperature as a result of the changing climate was the appreciable increase in the length of the growing season in the Lake Mic...

  • December 21, 2014

    Arkansas isn't ready for its unchanging climate

    In an article at NWAOnline (that would be Northwest Arkansas Online, not the other NWA), we learn that "Report: Arkansas not disease-ready." Arkansas is the least prepared state in the nation for an infectious disease outbreak, accordi...

  • December 21, 2014

    The Torrents in Torrance

    At The Guardian, Representative Mike Honda – a seven-term congressman representing the 17th district of California and a member of the House Appropriations Committee, the Safe Climate Caucus, and the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition...

  • December 19, 2014

    Sea levels worldwide have risen by feet?

    Over at the St. Cloud Times in Minnesota, we are told, "Don't deny climate is changing." Perhaps this was the most astonishing statement in the opinion piece: Climate change is happening exponentially ... Extreme facts ... The p...

  • December 18, 2014

    About That Climate Change-Induced Polar Vortex Snowfall in Atlanta Earlier This Year

    Continuing with the fact-checking of the "Southeast State Climate Change Fact Sheets" provided by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), the next state on the list is Georgia. For this state, SACE provides some "Climate Chan...

  • December 16, 2014

    Climate Change Claims for Alabama Fall Short

    The fossil fuels industry is routinely – and wrongly – pilloried in the mainstream media over its purported obfuscations surrounding climate change.  Actually, to many of us climate realists, the fossil fuels industry has ceded too m...

  • December 16, 2014

    The CDC's Ebola Predictions in September Were Reasonable

    There is some talk online and in the conservative media that the predictions made by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention back in September regarding potential Ebola cases by January 2015 were hysterical exaggerations. Actually, they wer...

  • December 15, 2014

    We Will Never Know the Actual Rate of Sexual Assault

    The U.S. Department of Justice has released a report entitled “Rape and Sexual Assault Victimization Among College-Age Females, 1995-2013.”  In light of the Rolling Stone and Lena Dunham controversies, the DOJ report is getting some ...

  • December 14, 2014

    Fact-Checking the Clean Energy and Climate Change Fact Sheet for Tennessee

    The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy has a “fact sheet” asking, "How Will Climate Change Impact Tennessee?" Of course, climate change has impacted Tennessee to such a degree that there has been absolutely no trend in its st...

  • December 13, 2014

    Some Red States Aren't Getting Redder

    Over at Slate.com, Joshua Zaffos has an article about how “Red states are getting a new shade of redder: The people who deny climate change are most likely to suffer from it.” Of course, the piece is partisan and smears Republican clim...

  • December 11, 2014

    Heavy Downpours Not Increasing in Minnesota

    Over at the Daily Globe newspaper in Worthington, Minnesota, an article discusses the utility of cover crops for farming in the state.  This initiative is positive.  As long as they are economically beneficial, cover crops can provide a ran...

  • December 10, 2014

    The Coldest Day in the Pacific Northwest

    In an article for the Idaho Statesman about climate change impacts in the Pacific Northwest, Rocky Barker interviewed Philip Mote – the director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute and Oregon Climate Services, and the lead author of...

  • December 9, 2014

    Reality Check on Nebraska's Climate

    The Associated Press is pushing a story on how “climate change will affect Nebraska ag[riculture],” which is being picked up by a number of outlets (including some that should know better – like the Washington Times). According t...

  • December 9, 2014

    A Closer Look at Extreme Precipitation Events in Michigan

    The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), working with the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization (RMCO), have released a new report on “Extreme Storms in Michigan.” According to the NRDC/RMCO: The report documents an 89 percent ...

  • December 8, 2014

    The Rivers in California Have Not Evaporated from Climate Change

    While the severity of California's current drought is not in dispute, many of the media claims about climate change in the state are overheated.  The Ecologist, whose motto is “setting the environmental agenda since 1970,” has an...

  • December 7, 2014

    China's Per Capita GDP Is Closing In Fast

    The news this year that China's economy is now larger than the United States' continues to reverberate on the conservative side of the political spectrum. Some argue that the only way to arrive at China having the world's largest econo...

  • December 5, 2014

    Mega-Fires on the Climate Alarmism Menu in British Columbia

    According to an article at Canada's state broadcaster – the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation – “B.C. [British Columbia] communities risk going up in flames under the threat of what the forests ministry calls 'mega fires,...

  • December 4, 2014

    The End of Olive Oil Is Also Far Away

    According to a story in The Irish Times, “‘worst ever crop’ down to climate change, say Italy's olive farmers.”  At The Ecologist, we read that “climate turbulence deals costly blow to olive oil yield,” an...

  • December 3, 2014

    Water Policy Shock Doctrine on the Mojave River

    With almost all of California still in a severe drought or worse, talk between various levels of government and the public is heating up over how to manage the state's precious water resources.  At the Desert Dispatch newspaper in Barstow, a...

  • November 30, 2014

    'No one's safe': Climate hysteria in Flagstaff

    Back in October 2012, Grist published an article entitled “Flagstaff sustainability chief Nicole Woodman keeps a cool head as temperatures rise.”  Not sure what is meant by the present-tense use of “as temperatures rise” ...

  • November 28, 2014

    The Mythical Death of Winter in Anchorage

    In an op-ed for the Anchorage Press on November 26, we read the following: “These weeks of hot winter weather have become a recurring nightmare for Alaska skiers and mushers. This month we're enduring a prolonged warm spell, mirro...

  • November 26, 2014

    Rumors of the Demise of Chocolate Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

    Over at Salon.com there is an article titled “Why climate change could mean the end of chocolate: Start hiding your Hershey bars.  Experts predict a cocoa shortage as soon as 2020.” According to the story, we should be living...

  • November 26, 2014

    <em>Scientific American</em> Needs to Do a Better Job at Communicating Science

    A report in Scientific American discusses summer heat in Madison, Wisconsin: To [Jason] Schatz [from the University of Wisconsin in Madison], the summer of 2012 exemplified temperatures Madison and the rest of southern Wisconsin could see more f...

  • November 24, 2014

    Peak Flows in West Virginia's Streams Are Not Increasing

    A couple days ago, Channel 5 (WDTV) from West Virginia published part one of a multi-part series on climate change in the state, which was debunked here at AT.  The station promised part two, and they delivered. Some claims from the latest in...

  • November 23, 2014

    Climate Alarmism and the Snowshoe Hare in Michigan

    A report in the Detroit Free Press cites a study claiming that climate change is reducing the population of Michigan's snowshoe hare – a favorite of hunters in the state: The rabbits have coats that adapt with the seasons to camouflage...

  • November 22, 2014

    Climate Hysteria and the Buffalo Snowpocalypse

    Once the snow started falling in Buffalo this past week, the sound of climate alarmists running to their keyboards in order to blame climate change became deafening.  And, as always, problems abound in their analyses. At Slate, Eric Holthaus ...

  • November 22, 2014

    Channel 5 News Fail on Climate Change in West Virginia

    One can expect a battle over climate change in West Virginia, coal country as the state is.  But when the discussion is taking place in the mainstream media, it needs to be based on a complete set of facts so the public can make an informed opin...

  • November 21, 2014

    WaPo Climate Fail on Missouri

    In a hit job on Representative Vicky Hartzler, a Republican from Missouri's 4th District, Philip Bump at the Washington Post attempts to school Hartzler on the effects of climate change in her state.  Except his lunge at climate science fail...

  • November 19, 2014

    Feverish Times for Climate Change Analyses in Virginia

    A new book with climate predictions for the state of Virginia is being discussed in the media: The book lays out climate projections for Virginia by Texas Tech University Professor Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist. For the first time, ...

  • November 18, 2014

    Peak Water in the Rio Grande Basin?

    According to an article in the Alamogordo News from New Mexico, “people who live in the Rio Grande Basin will have to take dramatic steps if they hope to have a future that involves more than just dust.” Apparently, the “El Paso ...

  • November 17, 2014

    Climate Reporting Chaos in Oregon

    For some reason, I don't find it surprising that Oregon is a hotbed of climate alarmism. Thus, when the Portland Tribune recently published an article describing how Oregon's “warmer climate imperils our health,” it seemed appropr...

  • November 14, 2014

    Saskatchewan Byelection Rejects Climate Alarmism

    In a provincial byelection that served as a key indicator into desired government policies, voters in the Lloydminster constituency of Saskatchewan, Canada, voted clearly on Thursday to affirm the path that Premier Brad Wall and the Saskatchewan Part...

  • November 13, 2014

    Nebulous Climate Claims in Louisiana

    On Monday, Tulane University in New Orleans hosted the French Ameri-Can Climate Talks.  The Times-Picayune newspaper covered the event and published the following: Without a significant reduction in greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxid...

  • November 12, 2014

    Problems with the Iowa Climate Statement

    The 2014 Iowa Climate Statement was recently released, and this provides us with the opportunity to further fact-check many of the claims being made about climate change in the Hawkeye State. According to an article in The Des Moines Register abou...

  • November 11, 2014

    A Dose of Climate Reality for Maine

    A recent article in The Boston Globe describes the impacts of climate change on Maine, where apparently “heat waves, more powerful storms, and rising seas are increasingly transforming” the state. Heat waves?  That's odd, sinc...

  • November 9, 2014

    The Foods We're Not About to Lose

    According to The Guardian, there are some “foods you're about to lose due to climate change.” Among these foods we are collectively about to lose are beans, cherries, cocoa beans, coffee, and corn. Here are the global trends in ...

  • November 8, 2014

    The Inconvenient Truth of Alaska's Climate

    After Tuesday's midterm election, Martin Kaste at NPR published a piece discussing how the “Republican sweep highlights climate change politics in Alaska.”  On election night, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) apparently said that ...

  • November 7, 2014

    Canada's Ebola Ban is Not Xenophobic

    The media fallout from Canada's Ebola-related travel restrictions continues. On October 31, the Canadian government instituted the following measures: “Effective immediately, Canadian visa officers have temporarily paused the processin...

  • November 4, 2014

    Canada and Australia Make the Right Choice on Ebola

    On October 28, Australia became the first developed nation to ban visas for citizens of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea because of concerns over the international spread of Ebola. Canada followed suit with analogous visa bans soon after on October ...

  • November 4, 2014

    The Jersey Downpours - An Update

    A couple days ago, I wrote about the absence of evidence that "heavy downpours are really increasing dramatically" in the most populated regions of New Jersey.  Of course, the impetus for this discussion is that climate change impacts ...

  • November 2, 2014

    The Jersey Downpours

    The news site NJ.com has an article about how “Climate change could put NJ's wastewater infrastructure in the toilet, new report says.”  According to the article: New Jersey is still grappling with an $11 billion problem as ...

  • September 12, 2014

    Decarbonization Equals Lower Economic Growth

    PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has released a report on the 2014 Low Carbon Economy Index and the world's progress towards "decarbonization," which is a measure of the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of GDP (h/t Brad Plumer at V...

  • September 11, 2014

    The Alarmist Rains in Phoenix

    The floods in Phoenix from the severe rainstorm earlier this week, on cue, brought out the climate alarmists. At Mashable, Andrew Freedman writes that "so far today, 3.29 inches of rain has fallen in the desert city [Phoenix], which makes it ...

  • September 11, 2014

    Tag Team for Futuristic Hysteria in Chicago

    Thanks to Salon.com for pointing the way to a forward-looking World Meteorological Organization and Weather Channel weather report on YouTube for September 23, 2050 using "predictions from the IPCC report and the National Climate Assessment....

  • September 9, 2014

    No Trend in UK Rainfall Since Records Began

    The Guardian had an article in mid-August with some interesting statements on the UK's recent climate: "An expert on climate change policy has called for more action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as it emerged the country saw the w...

  • September 7, 2014

    Reports of Hawai'i's Climate Death are Greatly Exaggerated

    Over at the Huffington Post, this headline caught my eye: "Climate Change Will Ruin Hawaii, New Study Suggests." The article is based on a report by the University of Hawaii's Sea Grant program.  Here is a statement from the Uni...

  • September 5, 2014

    Apocalyptic Heat Predictions for Los Angeles Raise Serious Questions

    In the Los Angeles Daily News a couple weeks ago, Susan Abram reported on the release of two new climate change reports from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. The situation provides a textbook example of problematic journalism and s...

  • September 4, 2014

    U.S. Crude Oil Production Increasing at Fastest Rate Ever

    The U.S. Energy Information Administration has released the latest field production of crude oil data, which indicates that American crude oil production has now exceeded 8.5 million barrels per day – the highest level since July 1986, and with...

  • August 30, 2014

    The Real Climate Trends in the City of Angels

    In an interview with Dave Ross, the KIRO Radio Morning news anchor in Seattle, University of Washington Atmospheric Sciences Professor Cliff Mass was quoted with the following gem: "If you're in Southern Canada, climate change is going ...

  • August 27, 2014

    The World Isn't Running Out of Water

    Apparently a quote from environmental activist Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians has made it into the new Mad Max movie.  The Council of Canadians even wonders aloud if Barlow is the inspiration for Mad Max. The quote from Barlow in Ma...

  • August 24, 2014

    The Absurdity of Linking Ferguson and Climate Change

    James Delingpole at Breitbart has exposed the nonsensical linkages some are making between recent events in Ferguson, Missouri and climate change.  The sheer nonsense spouted by many climate activists remains remarkable. For Ferguson – ...

  • August 20, 2014

    No Trend in Year-to-Date U.S. Climate Extremes Index Since Records Start

      Over at Slate.com, Eric Holthaus kindly points us in the direction of the year-to-date U.S. climate extremes index (YTD-CEI).  Then he states the following: The U.S. Climate Extremes Index (which is maintained by NOAA) says Januar...

  • August 19, 2014

    Another Climate Apocalypse Prediction Goes Up In Smoke

    Over the past couple months, academic and government scientists in Canada -- as well as a provincial premier -- have raised the alarm over how climate change is leading to increasing threats from forest fires. This led me to perform a simple task:...

  • August 1, 2014

    The Mythical Drying of Idaho

    According to Channel 7 KTVB out of Boise, Idaho, a "panel says climate changing wildfires." Apparently we also have the following climate crisis in Idaho to go along with the wildfire apocalypse: Idaho is drying out. Charlie Luce, a...

  • July 30, 2014

    On Funding Sources and Free Fuel

    A few days ago Stanford University put out a press release by Rob Jordan of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment on how a “Stanford study shows how to power California with wind, water and sun” (h/t to WUWT and Henri de Carbon...

  • July 29, 2014

    Daily Kos Fail on Linking Washington State Fire to Climate Change

    My column from last week calling Obama to task for incorrectly blaming the wildfires burning in north-central Washington State on anthropogenic climate change caught the attention of the Daily Kos, appearing under this outlet's section on “...

  • July 27, 2014

    Premature Climate Alarmism in Austin

    The New York Times is reporting on a study the city of Austin, Texas commissioned to examine the potential impacts of climate change in the city. According to the article: The study, which was done by the scientific research and consulting fi...

  • July 26, 2014

    Rigorous Climate Science Now Lying?

    On July 15, Katharine Hayhoe – an “Associate Professor in the Public Administration program at Texas Tech University and Director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech,” one of the most well-known climate scientists (her Twitt...

  • July 25, 2014

    The Climate Maggot Problem

    The war on rigorous science is now coming from all directions. Over at National Review, Reihan Salam has a piece regarding Australia's purported repeal of its carbon tax where he argues that “the key to reducing carbon emissions is encou...

  • July 25, 2014

    Arizona Summers in Salt Lake City not on the Horizon

    In the Cache Valley Daily newspaper from Logan, Utah -- just north of Salt Lake City, Troy Wilde has an article predicting that average summer maximum temperatures in this region will undergo a massive increase by the year 2100: Bernadette Woods...

  • July 25, 2014

    The Climate Horse Race is a Statistical Tie

    The past couple weeks have seen the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) release their latest datasets on global temperatures.  Both the JMA and NOAA reported that June 2014 was the hot...

  • July 24, 2014

    National Hockey League Partners with Natural Resources Defense Council on Climate Hysteria

    The National Hockey League (NHL) has announced a partnership with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to promote climate hysteria. The NHL “says it's confronting climate change to help ensure ice hockey’s long-term surviva...

  • July 23, 2014

    Obama Incorrectly Blames Climate Change for Massive Wildfire in Washington State

    While in Washington State speaking at a fundraiser, “President Barack Obama says a wildfire that has burned nearly 400 square miles in the north-central part of Washington state, along with blazes in other Western areas, can be attributed to cl...

  • July 22, 2014

    California Isn't Warming, It's Probably Getting Colder

    For some time, climate realists have been claiming that NOAA has altered or otherwise manipulated U.S. climate data in order to construct warming trends. California may provide a useful exhibit as to the “unique” nature of warming trends ...

  • July 20, 2014

    Practicing Unsupported Climate Alarmism in Portland

    According to the Portland Business Journal, Hank Paulson was in Portland, Oregon on Friday practicing some climate alarmism.  The PBJ did an interview with Paulson, and the questions were all softballs. The obvious and most important question...

  • July 19, 2014

    Australia Still has Carbon Taxation

    As some conservatives celebrate the repeal of Australia's carbon tax, a dose of caution is warranted: Australia still has carbon taxation on its agenda. This repealed legislation is apparently going to be replaced by the multi-billion dollar ...

  • July 19, 2014

    NOAA Thinks No Trend In Global Temperatures for Two Decades is a Steady Increase?

    At The Hill, which bills itself as "a top US political website, read by the White House and more lawmakers than any other site – vital for policy, politics and election campaigns," Laura Barron-Lopez has an article on NOAA's lates...

  • July 18, 2014

    San Diego Wildfires and Climate Alarmism

    Back in May, when wildfires were raging in the San Diego area, a host of mainstream media stories appeared on the subject.  In this current edition of climate science reality, we will examine some of the claims that science journalists published...

  • July 18, 2014

    No Evidence Climate Change Behind Current Dry Period in Los Angeles.

    Late last year, the LA Times banned letters from so-called climate skeptics (actually, it called them "climate-change deniers"). Why? Because this media outlet's management only wants to see accurate factual statements about climate sci...

  • July 18, 2014

    Dry States Aren't Getting Drier

    Over at Salon.com, Lindsay Abrams claims the following: As climate change worsens, wet areas will see more precipitation, while dry areas are just going to get drier. That trend is already playing out for large swaths of the country, most notabl...

  • July 17, 2014

    Toronto Will Feel Like North Miami During the Summer by 2100?

    A Canadian media outlet – Canada.com – has a story by Lauren Strapagiel stating that "Toronto will feel like North Miami by 2100."  The article uses data from Climate Central, whose predictions for summertime temperatures i...

  • July 16, 2014

    Texas Drought on the Decline

    Back in late April and early May, media articles appeared that proposed major changes in water policy for Texas. These policy recommendations were, of course, timed for release at the height of Texas' drought. Back then, I advocated for patience:...

  • July 16, 2014

    First Six Months of 2014 No Warmer Than Historical Average in Contiguous USA

    NOAA has released its June 2014 temperature data for the contiguous United States, and with it we find that the temperature during the first six months of 2014 has been equal to the 20th-century average. Since 1998, we have a statistically sig...

  • July 15, 2014

    Oil Production in the Bakken Reaches New Record

    With the release of the latest oil production data for the Bakken in North Dakota, this tight oil play reached a new record of 975,000 barrels per day in May.  This represents an increase of almost 37,000 barrels per day from the previous month,...

  • July 13, 2014

    NYT Failing to Explain California's Drought Accurately

    At the New York Times, Carrie Halperin and Sean Patrick Farrell have a video from July 5 of this year on "California's Drought, Explained." The problem is that the drought isn't accurately explained. At about 40 seconds into the ...

  • July 12, 2014

    Australia 'Green,' Australia Unemployed

    With news from Australia that the Senate down under voted to block Prime Minister Tony Abbott's bid to repeal the carbon tax, it's time to review Australia's unemployment rate trends over the past four years. The carbon tax started on ...

  • July 11, 2014

    Hot Times in the City?

    Climate Central has an interactive feature at the Huffington Post allowing Americans to determine "How Hot Will Summer Be In Your City In 2100?" Here is how Climate Central came up with their apocalyptic summer heat projections for the e...

  • July 10, 2014

    Among G7, greater CO<sub>2</sub> emissions reductions correlate with lower economic growth

    My last article on how the United Kingdom's real per capita GDP has declined substantially since it brought forward The Climate Change Act 2008 (c 27) has caused some confusion. Specifically, when we look at how each of the G7 economies has pe...

  • July 9, 2014

    Post Climate Change Act 2008, the UK's Economy is Going Backwards

    According to a study by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics that is being covered by the Guardian, "UK climate change policies have not harmed economy." I see. And what ...

  • July 8, 2014

    Arizona's Climate Change Induced Agricultural Crisis?

    In an article from the Arizona Daily Star newspaper, environment reporter Tony Davis discusses the predictions of the Bloomberg, Steyer, and Paulson collaboration on climate change impacts for the United States (aka, the Risky Business Project). Acco...

  • July 5, 2014

    Reagan Was Right on Sulfur Dioxide Emissions from Mount St. Helens

    The Huffington Post has a pop-up feature entitled "Politicians' Science Gaffes" included on a related article about how "GOP Lawmaker Says Climate Change Is 'The Greatest Deception In The History Of Mankind'." Of cours...

  • July 5, 2014

    Reagan's Economic Performance: Best POTUS since WWII

    A recent poll indicates that Americans believe Ronald Reagan was the best president since World War II, and that Barack Obama is the worst. The economic data support these rankings. Shown below are per capita real GDP and disposable personal incom...

  • July 3, 2014

    Problems with Risky Climate Projections

    By now, most readers have heard of the Risky Business Project which describes itself as follows: "Launched in October, 2013, the Risky Business Project focuses on quantifying and publicizing the economic risks from the impacts of a changing...

  • July 3, 2014

    BC's glaciers are melting, but the province isn't warming

    Soon after the release of the National Climate Assessment came stories in the Canadian media about how "unprecedented B.C. glacier melt seeps into U.S. climate change concerns."  Glaciers in British Columbia are melting ("in rapid...

  • July 2, 2014

    The Risky Business of Extreme Heat Hysteria

    The Risky Business Project led by Michael Bloomberg, Henry Paulson, and Tom Steyer recently released its report on "The Economic Risks of Climate Change in the United States." The project's co-chairs have all been out in the media promo...

  • July 1, 2014

    Measles, Skepticism, Science, and Real Conservatism

    In the ongoing debate among conservatives over vaccination programs -- in which case the measles are often used as a case study by both sides -- two distinct issues are getting muddled: (1) whether or not the government should have vaccination progra...

  • June 28, 2014

    Fewer Cold Nights on the Northern Great Plains? A Risky Prediction

    Among the numerous concerns in the Risky Business Project report co-chaired by Michael Bloomberg, Henry Paulson, and Tom Steyer entitled "The Economic Risks of Climate Change in the United States" is the following projection for massive dec...

  • June 27, 2014

    Pessimism and Oil Production

    The end of oil and/or peak oil is always just around the corner.  Whether it be at the global, national, state, or geological formation scales, the lack of long-term optimism is the same.  And yet, time after time, history – more prec...

  • June 26, 2014

    Capturing Carbon Drives up Energy Costs

    Some odd discussions are taking place on the right side of the political spectrum surrounding climate change policies and energy prices. Claims by Roger Meiners -- a Professor of Economics at the University of Texas at Arlington -- that "the ...

  • June 24, 2014

    Clarifying the Debate Over Measles Vaccinations

    Each year the Financial Post holds its junk science week.  This year, the media outlet is on its "16th annual" event, "dedicated to exposing the scientists, NGOs, activists, politicians, journalists, media outlets, cranks and quac...

  • June 24, 2014

    Unsupported Climate Alarmism over Average Summer Temperatures

    In an article from the Huffington Post, the writers at Climate Central – "an independent organization of leading scientists and journalists researching and reporting the facts about our changing climate and its impact on the American publi...

  • June 23, 2014

    Worst Regression in American Health Care

    According to Adrianna McIntyre at Vox.com, the following chart "is the most depressing graph in American health care." The Daily Kos clearly agrees. The chart is from the OECD's "Health at a Glance 2013" report. Ther...

  • June 21, 2014

    Texas On-Pace to Set New Crude Oil Production Record in Late 2014/Early 2015

    We are living through some amazing times in oil production history that are set to rewrite the history books (aka, hysteria-books) of "peak oil" -- provided governments just get out of the way and let the industry do what it does best. T...

  • June 20, 2014

    British Columbia's Carbon Tax Failure

    On July 1, 2008, the Canadian province of British Columbia implemented a supposedly "revenue-neutral" carbon tax. The current tax rate is $30 per tonne of CO2 equivalent emissions. Over the past couple years, a number of carbon tax propo...

  • June 20, 2014

    US Crude Oil Production On-Target for All-Time Record in Early 2016

    Since mid-2011, US monthly field production of crude oil has been consistently rising at an annualized rate of one million barrels/day. At this rate of increase, the United States will surpass the November 1970 all-time monthly record of 10.04...

  • June 19, 2014

    More on the Associated Press Temperature Trend Disaster

    A couple weeks ago, Seth Borenstein from the Associated Press published an astonishingly bad piece of climate science journalism on The Big Story board entitled "US hottest spots of warming: Northeast, Southwest." I debunked this AP stor...

  • June 18, 2014

    Crime Up in Denver Five Months into Legal Pot Sales

    The misinformation continues regarding how Denver's crime rate has changed following Colorado's legalization of recreational marijuana sales in January. Vox.com claims that "5 months into legal pot sales, crime is down in Denver....

  • June 18, 2014

    Peak Oil Production Nowhere in Sight

    Having shown that the end of oil is – as always – still many decades away, and that our discovery of new global oil reserves has consistency outpaced increasing production rates over the past several decades, we can turn our attention tow...

  • June 17, 2014

    End of Oil and Gas Still Many Decades Away

    With the June 16 release of the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2014, there is some continuing good news. The end of oil and natural gas is still at least a half-century or more away. The reserves-to-production (R/P) ratios for both fossil fuel...

  • June 16, 2014

    Abbott Still Unclear on Carbon Taxation Down Under

    Some Australians are getting excited with the news that "Australia's carbon tax has gone for good." The Melbourne Herald Sun is reporting that Tony Abbott now has the required Senate support for abolition. Aussies shouldn't get t...

  • June 15, 2014

    Climate Hysteria in the U.K. Ramps Up Another Notch

    According to The Guardian, the "UK chief scientist [Mark Walport] calls for urgent debate on climate change mitigation."  Apparently, "it's time to move on from the basics of whether global warming is happening to how best to ...

  • June 15, 2014

    Fewer Frigid Nights in the Southeast?

    According to the latest National Climate Assessment, the number of frigid nights (...

  • June 14, 2014

    Climate Change Induced Corn-mageddon?

    According to a new article at the Guardian, corn-mageddon could be just around the corner in the United States because of anthropogenic climate change: "The days of 'king corn' could be numbered as climate change brings higher tempe...

  • June 12, 2014

    Energy-Economy Decoupling and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative

    The Obama administration's latest climate regulations have sent supporters of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission cuts on the prowl for conclusive evidence that making such emission cuts will not substantially damage the economy. Arguments a...

  • June 10, 2014

    The War on Cheap Electricity

    Since taking office, the Obama administration has waged a war on coal.  In 2008, coal made up a little over 48 percent of U.S. electricity generation.  By 2013, this was already down to 39 percent and falling fast. As of the latest data ...

  • June 9, 2014

    Fog Drought in the Central Valley

    At Mother Jones, there is great concern about a future "California Without Fog?" In the Golden State, since 1981 the Central Valley's winter fog from November through February "has been appearing less and less often ... accordin...

  • June 7, 2014

    Canada's Climate Incoherence

    Discussions over climate change in the media and by politicians are ramping up to new levels of incoherence following the release of the National Climate Assessment and the Obama administration's push towards greater regulation of atmospheric car...

  • June 7, 2014

    Ignoring Statistical Significance to Promote Climate Alarmism

    Each day I read new pieces in the mainstream media on climate change, and I continue to be amazed by the poor quality of science journalism and how this is misleading the public on critical policy issues. Seth Borenstein of the the Associated Pres...

  • June 6, 2014

    How Environmental Regulations Hurt the Economy in One Graph

    With the Obama administration's new climate regulations on the table of big government and aiming to further reduce basic freedoms for those not only in the United States, but also in all the other nations that will undoubtedly follow the lead, P...

  • June 5, 2014

    The Norfolk Hysteria

    According to the Washington Post and the Natural Resources Defense Council, Norfolk, VA is going under water due to exponentially increasing rates of sea level rise coupled with more precipitation. Over at Watts Up With That?, Anthony Watts has al...

  • June 2, 2014

    Conflict in Syria and the Climate Change Narrative

    According to Nafeez Ahmed at the Guardian, "the age of climate warfare is here. The military-industrial complex is ready. Are you?" Ah yes, the climate wars are upon us. Ahmed refers to a new research paper by Peter Gleick which ...

  • June 2, 2014

    Dramatic Climate Change on Tuvalu? Doesn't Appear So

    The residents of Tuvalu -- a small island nation in the South Pacific about 700 miles north of Fiji and 860 miles northwest of American Samoa -- continue to plead their case as the victims of anthropogenic climate change. As I have discussed before, ...

  • May 29, 2014

    Climate May Days in Oz

    Some regions of Australia are experiencing a warm month of May. And like clockwork, out pop the climate alarmists, raising concerns over "why Australia's endless summer is bad for trees, fruit, insects -- and shops." According to the...

  • May 28, 2014

    The Climate Moe'uhane in Hawaii

    The National Climate Assessment has some interesting things to say about Hawaii, like this: In Hawai'i, average precipitation, average stream discharge, and stream baseflow have been trending downward for nearly a century, especially in rece...

  • May 27, 2014

    Climate Change in the Northwest: More Problems with the NCA

    Continuing our National Climate Assessment tour of the United States, we arrive in the Northwest – defined in the NCA as Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. The NCA is easily one of the most scientifically problematic documents I've ever read...

  • May 26, 2014

    Heat-Resistant Chickens and Climate Change

    According to the Guardian: "American scientists are racing to develop chickens that can cope with scorching heat as part of a series of government-funded programmes looking to adapt to or mitigate the effects of extreme weather patterns on ...

  • May 25, 2014

    Hot Times in the American Southeast?

    The National Climate Assessment's section on the American Southeast reads like a climate apocalypse.  In this section is likely the most bizarre prediction I've seen yet in reviewing the NCA. There are some oxymoronic statements in th...

  • May 24, 2014

    Fantasizing over Hot Days in the Northeast

    In the National Climate Assessment's section on climate change impacts for the U.S. Northeast region, the following claims are made: Much of the southern portion of the region, including the majority of Maryland and Delaware, and southwester...

  • May 23, 2014

    Australia's Extreme Climate Hysteria

    Now that Tony Abbott's government has slashed government spending on climate change-related programs, the climate hysteria is ramping up in some quarters.  At The Guardian, Alex White writes that "Australia's extreme budget meets ex...

  • May 21, 2014

    Climate Hysteria and Credit Ratings

    As another brick in the wall of climate hysteria, apparently Standard & Poor's Ratings Services is warning that "climate change will hurt nations' credit ratings." Not may, not might, not likely to -- but will: "Poorer...

  • May 20, 2014

    The Sooner State is not Drying Up

    Over at Mother Jones, an article claims that "the Sooner State in [sic] drying up, but its leaders are trying to block climate science education." Perhaps some spelling education is needed. I would guess the piece intended to claim that the...

  • May 20, 2014

    Climate Change Lawsuits and Flooding in Chicago

    Reuters is now reporting the following: A major insurance company is accusing dozens of localities in Illinois of failing to prepare for severe rains and flooding in lawsuits that are the first in what could be a wave of litigation over who shou...

  • May 18, 2014

    Any Way You Want It: Australian Climate Modeling

    When the movie Rock of Ages was released in 2012, it regenerated interest in a classic song by Journey entitled "Any Way You Want It."  The following line from the song applies to climate modeling predictions for precipitation in much ...

  • May 16, 2014

    The Great European Corn Borer

    More prowling through the latest National Climate Assessment has uncovered some additional concerns.  On page 158 of the NCA, the authors for the agriculture section make the following claims: Insects are directly affected by temperature an...

  • May 16, 2014

    Spring Precipitation in the American Midwest: Another NCA Fail

    Well, now that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is ordering 40-caliber submachine guns with 30-round magazines along with ballistic body armor, perhaps we need to keep looking at the agriculture section of the clearly flawed National Climate Assess...

  • May 15, 2014

    The Magical World of Climate Change in Iowa

    The National Climate Assessment (NCA) has focused attention on Iowa, which is probably good, given how it is apparently in the public interest to examine what is being claimed about climate change in the Hawkeye State. On January 1, 2011, the Iowa...

  • May 14, 2014

    Climate Hysteria Down Under

    Being a resident of the Northern Hemisphere, all I seem to hear about climate change Down Under is that (1) Tony Abbott is the Great Satan for his very reasonable skepticism over climate hysteria, and (2) much of Australia is turning into a dustbowl ...

  • May 12, 2014

    Ohio Had a Long Drought in 2007?

    The media fallout from the latest National Climate Assessment is the gift that keeps on giving. Over at the Natural Resources Defense Council, apparently climate change is wreaking havoc on agriculture in Ohio. Just take this claim by the NRDC: ...

  • May 12, 2014

    Climate Change Hysteria and Droughts in Illinois

    And the unsupportable climate hysteria rolls on. On Fox News recently, George Will made the following point that agreed with what some of us have been saying for a number of years: "A moment ago, we had a report here on our crumbling inf...

  • May 11, 2014

    Climate Models Fail

    Back in February, there was a public dust-up between the Obama administration and the climate science community.  Obama blamed the current California drought on climate change – let's be precise: on anthropogenic climate change –...

  • May 11, 2014

    2013 Was Not the Fourth-Hottest Year for the United States

    In the battle-space over accurate climate reporting, the climate alarmists are continuing to spread incorrect information.  For example, over at the New Republic, Rebecca Leber is reporting on the latest National Climate Assessment, and she make...

  • May 9, 2014

    Winters in the United States Are Getting Colder

    The Huffington Post is unhappy about how CNN's Crossfire covered the latest National Climate Assessment (NCA) during a debate between Bill Nye and S.E. Cupp.  Of course, the Post wanted more hysteria, but at least they acknowledged that ...

  • May 8, 2014

    Summers in Texas Ain't Getting Hotter or Dryer

    The release of the latest National Climate Assessment continues to spawn climate hysteria and a whole suite of unwarranted claims regarding the impending climategeddon. Take this article by Chris Mooney -- author of the New York Times bestselling ...

  • May 7, 2014

    The United States Has Not Warmed Since 1991

    With the release of the latest National Climate Assessment, media outlets are filled with incorrect information. At Vox.com, Blad Plumer gives us "nine maps that show how climate change is already affecting the US" and then claims next t...

  • May 7, 2014

    Global Cooling Underway

    With global temperature data now available for the first three months of 2014, an interesting trend has clearly emerged: global cooling. No longer is it just a hypothesis.  For the first quarter of each calendar year since 2002, it is effecti...

  • May 5, 2014

    July 2012 was <em>Not</em> the Hottest Month in U.S. History

    Back in August 2012, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published this gem, which is remarkably still available online: "The average temperature for the contiguous U.S. during July was 77.6°F, 3.3°F above the...

  • May 4, 2014

    Shock Doctrine and Water Shortages in Texas

    Back in 2007, Naomi Klein wrote The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.  In her book – some odd reading, since the writing style for the latter half of the book seemed quite different from the first half – Klein argued t...

  • May 3, 2014

    Lyme Disease and Climate Alarmism

    With the release of the IPCC's latest report on climate change, the media is discussing lyme disease -- a bacterial infection caused by certain ticks. Following a bite by an infected tick, the victim develops a "bullseye" shaped rash th...

  • May 2, 2014

    Extreme Heat Hysteria Fail

    In its latest entry on "health repercussions for Canadians of a changing climate" in the Globe and Mail newspaper, Karen McColl raises the alarm bells on "substantial increases in occurrences of extremely hot seasons" in Canada. ...

  • May 1, 2014

    The Social Contract with Owners of Dangerous Dogs

    The news that a one-year-old girl recently had her nose bitten off by a pit bull attack in Ottawa has rekindled the always simmering debate over banning these dangerous animals. Barbara Kay -- a social conservative commentator in the Canadian media -...

  • May 1, 2014

    A Quantum Fail on Climate Change Communication

    An unfortunate trend has emerged in academia over the past decade or so. There has been a concerted effort to engage the public with "science communication," ostensibly to improve the public's science literacy. In my experience, these e...

  • April 30, 2014

    Canada's National Temperature and Precipitation Farce

    Despite their huffing and puffing over private sector environmental activists since 2006, the one "environmental activist" group the Conservative Party of Canada has entirely failed to correct is its own government agency: Environment Canad...

  • April 26, 2014

    Reagan Performs Best on Domestic Spending Among Presidents Since WWII

    As reported by Mother Jones, Rand Paul has been making some rather unusual statements regarding Reagan's domestic spending record.  Paul went on record with the following quotes in various speeches: Domestic spending went up at a greate...

  • April 26, 2014

    Navy Secretary's Speech Illustrates National Security Threats from Obama's Energy Policies

    In a speech Thursday at Arizona State University, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus discussed the relationship between American national and energy security.  Mabus's remarks highlight, once again, how President Barack Obama is acting contrary...

  • April 25, 2014

    Tough Questions for Canada-US Oil Relations

    With the latest delay in the Keystone XL pipeline saga by the Obama administration, incoherent desperation is setting in among some Canadian oil industry experts. The real incoherence involves these incomplete analyses that distort an honest -- and m...

  • April 23, 2014

    The Effect of Medical Marijuana Laws on Violent Crime

    A recent study in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE examined the effects of medical marijuana legalization (MML) on crime rates. The work has garnered some notable media attention. The authors of the study noted that their "findings run counter...

  • April 22, 2014

    Backdoor Carbon Taxation in Saskatchewan

    In an interview with Theo Caldwell published in the Daily Caller, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall expressed his pride for the carbon capture project at the Boundary Dam coal-fired power station in the southeastern portion of the province. This is most...

  • April 19, 2014

    Costa Rica and the Drug Cartels

    Costa Rica is under threat.  Despite recent claims that “no terrorist groups or drug cartels lurk in the nation’s mountains and rain forests,” the evidence is quite the contrary. Even back in 2011, journalists were warning o...

  • April 16, 2014

    Global Growth is Still Alive

    As Ronald Reagan pointed out as long ago as 1964: “Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.” (October 27, 1964) [A Time for Choosing, The Speech] ...

  • April 16, 2014

    Global Arms Transfer Trends During the Reagan/Bush 41 Administrations

    The data interpretation problems at Vox.com are starting to add up. I've previously noted the incorrect diagnosis at Vox regarding Denver's crime rate trends over the past couple years. Patrick Brennan at National Review Online has an article...

  • April 15, 2014

    U.S. Oil Independence by 2020?

    Forecasts that the USA will achieve zero net oil imports by 2020 appear to be on-track. While the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and a number of media pundits (notably on the left side of the political spectrum) take a more cautious -- ...

  • April 13, 2014

    Caution Warranted on a Mozilla Boycott

    After the recent resignation of former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich, many high-profile conservative commentators (such as Charles Krauthammer and Dennis Prager) have called for a boycott of Mozilla products, especially the Firefox browser.  Twitter ...

  • April 12, 2014

    ObamaCare Fail

    With the latest release of its international health expenditure dataset, the World Bank's 2012 database reveals that total health care spending in the United States under ObamaCare is exploding. Total health expenditures in 2012 increased to 17.9...

  • April 12, 2014

    Interpreting Denver's Crime Rates before and after Pot Legalization

    In a prior article, I discussed the potential relationship between massive increases in the numbers of some criminal offenses in Denver, Colorado, between January and February 2013 and 2014 and the start of state-regulated recreational marijuana sale...

  • April 9, 2014

    Pot Legalization and Crime Rates in Denver, Colorado

    Over at Ezra Klein's new site, Vox.com, German Lopez has an article claiming to show that Colorado's recent marijuana legalization experiment hasn't increased crime rates in Denver. In contrast, when we actually look at the raw data Lopez...

  • April 8, 2014

    How Bad is Crime in Mexico? Don't Ask

    With the latest release of Mexico's supposedly official crime rate statistics, which include full data for 2013 as well as the first couple months of 2014, security experts need to -- once again -- be cautioned in the use of this information for ...

  • November 24, 2013

    The Mess of International Health Care Cost Datasets

    In its attempt to justify the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the White House Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) released a report on November 20 entitled "Trends in Health Care Cost Growth and the Role of the Affordable Care Act."  Similarly, t...

  • November 21, 2013

    Note to Liberals: America's Debt Already Exceeds 100% of GDP

    Over at The Atlantic, Ron Fournier -- the editorial director of National Journal -- argues that the Republicans are "The Party of Zilch."  As part of his rationale for why the GOP "stands for nothing," Fournier states that "[t]he country needs t...

  • November 20, 2013

    Wonkblog's Wonky Claims About American Health Care

    Over at the Washington Post's Wonkblog, there are some apparently wonky claims about the American health care system. In a recent article by Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas, these two authors discuss the results from a limited survey of international heal...

  • November 19, 2013

    Big Government and Lower Economic Growth: An American History

    Between 1800 and 1916, total government expenditures in the United States generally ranged between 2% and 3% of GDP.  There were higher peaks for the War of 1812 (5.1%) and the Civil War (13.8%), but in both cases pre-war government spendin...

  • November 17, 2013

    The Battle Over Mexico's Crime Statistics

    The Mexican drug war has spawned a statistical battle -- whether or not Mexico's official government crime rates are real, and what should be done about the drug war itself in light of the statistical evidence, or lack thereof.  The James A...

  • November 16, 2013

    Labor Force Participation Rates and Conservatism

    Much has made in conservative circles -- probably far too much -- about the falling American labor force participation rate (LFPR) since Obama took office.  In reality, the LFPR (which currently stands at just under 63%; see chart below) has bee...

  • November 15, 2013

    Is the Bear Really Stagnating?

    Over at The Economist, there are claims that "stagnation seems to be the most apt description of the Russian economy" since "year-on-year GDP growth [was] at just 1.2% last quarter."  Despite Russia's migration up the World Bank's "Doing Bu...

  • November 14, 2013

    Replacing Subsidies with Subsidies

    Bjorn Lomborg -- the director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center -- is recommending that "[i]nstead of pouring more money into subsidizing inefficient renewables, we could make much cheaper, but more effective, investments in research and development...

  • November 13, 2013

    Deficit Follies

    In a recent edition of Ezra Klein's WonkBlog over at the Washington Post, Klein claims that "[t]he falling deficit has been a disaster for the GOP," and that "the deficit has fallen dramatically. In fact, it's fallen at a faster rate than at any othe...

  • November 10, 2013

    Peak Per Capita Government Revenues: Real Austerity Is Inevitable

    To those with even basic historical knowledge, the recent increases in government spending are unsustainable.  The rising debt of the USA -- and its fellow nations in the West -- is residing under the illusion of continued low long-term int...

  • November 9, 2013

    An Independent Civil Service Is Anti-Democratic

    Up in Canada, the federal Green Party has some bizarre views on what a democracy actually is.  Given the global coordination of many green parties, some of the ideology being spewed forth by Canadian greens warrants international attention....

  • September 21, 2013

    Party of the Rich? That's the Democrats

    As we continue to knock down individual members from the long list of liberal talking points, another we can add to the scrap heap of history is that Republicans are the "party of the rich." In polling data during the 2012 election campaign, two an...

  • September 19, 2013

    3D Printers and Drug Legalization

    In a recent American Thinker article, I wrote on some of the problems surrounding calls for legalizing the drug ecstasy. In general, my view is that the traditional libertarian perspectives on this topic are naive, and not grounded in a proper analys...

  • September 18, 2013

    Food Security Junk Science

    With the release of the USDA's latest report on household food security in the United States, we get another example of junk science, government largesse, and a social engineering Trojan horse. The report claims that 14.5 percent of American househo...

  • September 17, 2013

    The Myth of Red State Welfare

    During the last few years, a key liberal talking point has been "red state welfare." The argument is that the states that get more from the federal government than they pay in taxes tend to be red states, whereas the states that give more to the fede...

  • September 16, 2013

    Legalizing Ecstasy?

    With the news that two people died from taking the illicit drug molly, a close relative of ecstasy, at the Electric Zoo festival in New York City on Labor Day weekend, it is a good time to take a critical look at calls for ecstasy legalization. ...

  • September 14, 2013

    Discretionary Illegal Immigration is Bad Policy

    During the 2012 Republican presidential primaries, Newt Gingrich stated his position on dealing with illegal immigrants as follows: If you've been here 25 years and you got three kids and two grandkids, you've been paying taxes and obeying the law...

  • September 13, 2013

    Spiritual Values in Environmental Law?

    Over the past couple years, the governing federal Conservative Party in Canada has sought to restore a measure of sanity to Canadian environmental legislation. In particular, some particularly onerous and scientifically indefensible provisions of the...

  • September 12, 2013

    The Carbon Tax-Based Social Engineering Trojan Horse

    Conservatives have long known that one of the major reasons behind a carbon tax was social engineering, as much as the statists tried to deny it.  And so it is satisfying to see some of the carbon tax proponents admitting that -- in reality -- t...

  • September 11, 2013

    Peak Petroleum Follies

    Two primary arguments are put forward as ways of justifying various economic schemes for reducing oil and gas use (e.g., carbon pricing by way of taxes, subsidies for green energy, emissions trading schemes): (1) Anthropogenic catastrophic climate ...

  • September 10, 2013

    The Mythical Public-Sector Collapse

    At The Atlantic, there is a story discussing private- and public-sector job-creation under Obama relative to the other presidents since Reagan.  The Atlantic's coverage of this topic illustrates once again the need to normalize data when makin...

  • September 8, 2013

    Climate Change and Property Rights

    In a thought-provoking article from The Atlantic, Jonathan Adler -- a professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law -- lays out what he sees as "A Conservative's Approach to Combating Climate Change." There are a number of statements...

  • September 7, 2013

    Why do EIAs take so Long and Cost so Much?

    Some jurisdictions (notably, Canada) are attempting -- at least on face -- to streamline the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process for major resource development projects. Not only does the length of time required for such assessments need to...

  • September 7, 2013

    Sharing Asia Is Not an Option

    Since the end of World War II, the United States has been the dominant external military power and economic influence in Asia and the South Pacific.  With the rise of China, some allies -- notably Australia -- are feeling a strengthening tug-of-...

  • September 7, 2013

    An Economic Tale of Three Oil Regions

    Over the past decade, the states of North Dakota and Texas -- as well as the Canadian province of Alberta -- have seen significant increases in oil production. Back in 2006, Alberta's oil sands development was referred to as Canada's "economic miracl...

  • September 7, 2013

    Economic freedom without actual freedom?

    Two major right-of-center think-tanks have economic freedom indices: the Heritage Foundation and the Fraser Institute.  Trying to make sense of these rankings is difficult, as some bizarre results have been achieved. Both indices have Hong Kon...

  • September 5, 2013

    Why Air-Sea Battle is Needed

    Every so often we are clearly reminded why the foreign policy of President Jimmy Carter's administration was an absolute disaster (and an existential threat to the United States), necessitating Reagan's housecleaning and realignment. Writing over at...

  • September 3, 2013

    The Keystone XL Pipeline and the Truth

    The proposed construction of the Keystone XL pipeline has long been polarized on a number of issues. Hysteria abounds, with junk science everywhere we look -- driven in no small measure by the desire to shut down development of northern Alberta's oil...

  • September 2, 2013

    Unbalanced Reporting on Flame Retardants

    In its four-part series entitled "Playing with Fire," the Chicago Tribune reported on the politics and science of flame retardants -- particularly brominated flame retardants. In Part 3 of its series, with the heading "Distorting Science," the Chicag...

  • September 2, 2013

    Keystone XL and Gas Prices

    In the media wars surrounding the Keystone XL pipeline, there is an ongoing debate over whether its construction would raise gasoline prices. Economist Jeff Rubin -- who published an extremely flawed book titled The End of Growth that myself and a c...

  • September 1, 2013

    Unbalanced Reporting on Flame Retardants

    In its four-part series entitled "Playing with Fire," the Chicago Tribune reported on the politics and science of flame retardants -- particularly brominated flame retardants. In Part 3 of its series, with the heading "Distorting Science," the Chicag...

  • September 1, 2013

    Time to Increase U.N. Peacekeeping Contributions from Neighboring States

    The formula for assigning general contributions to the U.N. for each country is ridiculous.  While the U.N. Committee on Contributions does provide "an explanation of its methodology for calculating the scale, it does not provide explicit exampl...

  • August 29, 2013

    American Education: a Lesson in Incoherence

    In a recent American Thinker article, Thomas Lifson made the astute observation that the American higher education system has "got[ten] fat, lazy, inward-focused, and expensive during its decades of monopoly on certification of higher end new labor f...

  • August 27, 2013

    UNCLOS does not apply to the USA

    Over at The Diplomat, Page Wilson -- a senior lecturer in the Department of Defence and International Affairs at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, U.K. -- has written on the inclusion of five new Asian members (Japan, China, India, South Korea...

  • August 26, 2013

    A Third-Party Candidate on the Rise in 2016?

    There are many lessons to be found in studying the American presidential election record. We're currently moving through a period of profound frustration with the Republican Party.  Many were looking and hoping for a Reagan-esque candidate to ...

  • August 25, 2013

    WaPo gets it wrong again on health care costs

    Earlier this week, Sarah Kliff at the Washington Post had an article claiming that American "health costs are growing really slowly" and that "health care costs [are] now growing at the same rate as the rest of the economy."  I debunked Kliff's ...

  • August 24, 2013

    No Evidence That ObamaCare Will Bring Down Health Care Costs

    As the liberal talking points on ObamaCare dictate, once ObamaCare is fully implemented, more people will contribute to the insurance pool and rates will stabilize and perhaps come down. Sounds nice in theory, but does it work in practice?  Is...

  • August 22, 2013

    Health Care Costs are Still Growing Rapidly

    Sarah Kliff from the Washington Post's Wonkblog site has a recent article claiming that American "health costs are growing really slowly." I'm skeptical, especially when Kliff claims that "health care costs now growing at the same rate as the rest ...

  • August 18, 2013

    De-Politicizing the International Energy Agency

    While the International Energy Agency (IEA) has some laudable goals, such as promoting energy security and economic development, it needs to be de-politicized away from environmental activism.  It also needs to improve the rigor in some of ...

  • August 17, 2013

    Friedman's First Law of Petropolitics Is Nonsense

    In 2006, Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times wrote a highly influential and widely cited article in Foreign Policy magazine entitled "The First Law of Petropolitics." In his article, Friedman makes the following statement: The First Law of ...

  • August 16, 2013

    Fantasizing about Austerity

    Those on the left continue to fantasize about what austerity is. There are only two reasonable ways of defining austerity: (1) a reduction in government spending as a percentage of the economy; and/or (2) a reduction in per capita government spending...

  • August 14, 2013

    How a Climate Alarmist Compares Norway and Denmark

    Mark Jaccard is an economist at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia.  Jaccard is also an extreme climate alarmist and activist who apparently likes to claim he has a Nobel Prize -- even though he does not.  In the August ...

  • August 14, 2013

    Obama vs. the Other Presidents since Kennedy: Still an Economic Disaster

    In my previous American Thinker article, I compared the economic (and other) records of Obama versus Reagan.  Reagan came out as the decisive victor. Some readers weren't entirely satisfied.  They wanted to see a comparison of Obama's e...

  • August 12, 2013

    Reagan vs. Obama: It's not even close

    As evidenced by the troubled thoughts of delusional liberals on the American Thinker site, many on the left seem to be confused about history -- and particularly the Reagan years.  A comparison between Reagan and Obama seems in order. We'll ...

  • August 9, 2013

    Electoral Suicide

    Part of the conservative appeal for the 2012 Republican vice-presidential nominee Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) was that he could "do math." He was a "numbers guy." Similarly, former Governor Jeb Bush is from Florida, and should understand very well i...

  • August 8, 2013

    PBS/NYT Hit Jobs on the American Health Care System

    Within the comments on my AT article about how "America's Healthcare System is not Cruel," two interesting stories from the mainstream media came to light that warrant some additional discussion in hopes of straightening out the warped health care de...

  • August 6, 2013

    America's Healthcare System is not Cruel

    America's healthcare system debate attracts international attention. Up in Canada, where socialized medicine is the law of the land, the Canadian media enjoy watching the show south of the border. The problem is that the Canadian characterizations ar...

  • August 4, 2013

    Maddow's Color Confusion

    Over at The Maddow Blog on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow's team took note of my recent American Thinker article on population growth and conservatism -- particularly the following statement I made regarding an electoral map of the 2012 election: Of course,...

  • August 1, 2013

    The gas tax may be the best answer

    Finding ways to fund the construction and maintenance of major infrastructure projects will be a continuing challenge during the 21st century.  But we must ensure, if we decide to pursue alternative funding mechanisms, that they do not have more...

  • August 1, 2013

    Population Growth and Conservatism

    Talk of population growth among conservatives often leads to two basic perspectives: (1) environmental concerns over excessive population growth are largely unfounded (i.e., the rejection of Paul Ehrlich's "Population Bomb" hypothesis); and (2)...

  • July 29, 2013

    Time to Get Tough with Mexico

    Mexico is a failing narco-state and an economic parasite, and the United States and Canada are hitched to the wagon.  The weak foreign policies and welcoming trade agreements toward Mexico by its two democratic and wealthy northern neighbors hav...

  • July 27, 2013

    Full-cost Pricing: an Impractical Solution

    Over the past several years, we have seen a number of proposals put forward by environmentally active academics and think tanks calling for the implementation of concepts such as environmental policymaking with full-cost pricing, which includes polic...

  • July 26, 2013

    Macroeconomic Austerity Works

    It's always surprising to hear an economist argue that macroeconomic austerity doesn't work, particularly when the economist is Canadian and was a recent advisor to the minister and deputy minister of finance of a purportedly conservative governmen...

  • July 25, 2013

    WaPo's Incomplete Coverage of British Columbia's Carbon Tax

    With word that Representative Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) is expected to soon introduce a new version of his cap-and-dividend carbon tax, the pitfalls over carbon pricing need to be brought into focus once again. Over on Ezra Klein's Wonkblog at the Wash...

  • July 24, 2013

    WHO's Delusions on North Korea's Health Care System

    In 2010, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Margaret Chan, praised North Korea's health-care system following her official visit to this totalitarian and rogue nuclear-armed police state. It is of note that Chan has been the...

  • July 21, 2013

    The Conservative Case Against the Long-Form Census

    The mandatory long-form census is -- and needs to continue to be -- a cause for action among conservatives and libertarians, particularly in the United States and Canada. The fight for the long-form census has typically come from the liberals, but la...

  • July 20, 2013

    Adapt to What?

    In the war of dumb ideas, both liberals and some corporatist conservatives have joined forces for a pincer movement on rational citizens by promoting the spending of large amounts of taxpayer dollars to deal with climate change. Mitigation, of course...

  • July 19, 2013

    An Effective American Naval Blockade on Chinese Oil Imports

    In a recent article from the Journal of Strategic Studies, Sean Mirski -- currently a student at Harvard Law School --develops an excellent discussion on "the context, conduct and consequences of an American naval blockade of China." Mirski argues th...

  • July 16, 2013

    The 'Greendex': Another useless eco-indicator?

    National Geographic -- an organization that has gone off the rationality and rigorous science rails over the past two decades -- has developed what it calls the "Greendex," which apparently is "a comprehensive measure of consumer behavior in 65 areas...

  • July 13, 2013

    Solar Roads? Let's not get Excited

    Over the past several years there have been a number of mainstream media reports hyping the potential for solar roads. These roadways are intended to have solar panels embedded within them that can generate electricity to power lighting and heating s...

  • July 12, 2013

    Gun Laws and Gun Crime

    Gun control advocates have long promoted a wide range of policies and laws intended to restrict the "right of the people to keep and bear arms." Their arguments follow the direction that while broad, sweeping laws to eliminate private gun ownership a...

  • July 9, 2013

    Which GDP Metric Should Conservatives Use?

    On May 11, 2013, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) delivered an outstanding commencement address at Hillsdale College. I cannot argue with Cruz's general remarks, which adhere to a solid commitment towards principled conservatism. However, one paragraph from t...

  • July 7, 2013

    More AGW Canards: Drought in Texas and Oklahoma

    During 2011, Texas and Oklahoma experienced a significant drought -- something not unusual in these regions.  But like clockwork, the climate hysteria started to appear in the scientific literature and mainstream media.  Seth Borenstein fro...

  • July 6, 2013

    Arizona's Wildfires and Climate Change

    And so it begins again.  In 2012, while much of the U.S. was experiencing a drought, out came the series of climate alarmism articles in the mainstream media.  Now that the wildfire season is underway in the western states, we see the same ...

  • July 4, 2013

    Climate Change Costs Are Not Hitting the Plate

    As the US was experiencing the 2012 drought, climate alarmists were quick to jump on the bandwagon -- making all sorts of climate change suggestions in the mainstream media absent any hard data.  Now that the 2012 data is in, we can (and should)...

  • July 3, 2013

    Reflections on Dealing with Iran

    In a recent article from Foreign Policy magazine entitled "Eight Ways to Deal With Iran," Stephen Hadley -- a current senior advisor for international affairs at the United States Institute of Peace and former national security advisor to President G...

  • June 30, 2013

    Lessons in basic statistics needed for climate alarmists

    ​During the summer of 2012 in the heat of the climate hysteria over the US drought, Seth Borenstein-- apparently the "Associated Press science writer covering astronomy, climate, & disasters" and an instructor at "NYU's DC camp...

  • June 30, 2013

    A Right to Water?

    In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly voted on a resolution regarding "[t]he human right to water and sanitation." The resolution passed "[b]y a vote of 122 in favour to none against, with 41 abstentions." It is illustrative to note which...

  • June 29, 2013

    Climate Justice Hypocrisy

    Over the last several years, a group of so-called Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have been pressuring the United Nations "for enhanced measures to be taken on combating climate change, especially in speeding up the availability of funds for ...

  • June 26, 2013

    UN attempted end run around US Constitution

    In mid-2012, the World Congress on Justice, Governance and Law for Environmental Sustainability (WCJGLES) was held in Brazil. The goal of the congress was to "contribute to the support of Chief Justices, Attorneys General, Auditors Generals and oth...

  • June 25, 2013

    A Clear Look at China's SOEs

    The past decade has seen a global wave of investments abroad by China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs), particularly in the resource sectors.  These investments have caused much controversy in Western democracies, perhaps most notably with the f...

  • June 22, 2013

    The Happy Planet Index?

    We have entered an era where a variety of organizations -- be they in the private or public sectors, or some combination of both -- attempt to quantify a range of socio-economic and/or environmental factors. In many (if not most) cases, serious conce...

  • June 20, 2013

    Nuclear Weapons and Tyranny

    Despite the clear threats that exist to Israel and other western democracies from a nuclear-weapons-capable Iran, some have argued that parallels between China's development of nuclear weapons during the early through mid-1960s, and Iran's undeniable...

  • June 17, 2013

    The Nuclear Annihilation Threat Index Needs Recalibration

    In a 2012 article from Foreign Policy magazine entitled "Are We Focusing on the Wrong Nuclear Threat?," Victor Asal and Bryan Early from the University at Albany - SUNY utilize a Nuclear Annihilation Threat (NAT) Index to determine the countries that...

  • June 17, 2013

    Global Zero: Naive, Dangerous, and Provocative

    The Global Zero movement is a multinational effort "to eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2030." This movement is surprisingly naive and dangerous, and could result in World War III by the mid-21st century. It is shocking to see the number and stature ...

  • June 12, 2013

    'Pre-Crime': Laws against Cell Phone Use while Driving

    With news that the state of Maryland will start penalizing drivers who use cell phones, the Old Line State joins a long list of jurisdictions around the world which are attempting to crack down on the nebulous concept of distracted driving. There i...

  • April 18, 2013

    The U.N.'s Latest Attempt to Shackle the USA

    On June 14, 2012, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held hearings with senior military leaders and former government officials regarding the United Nations (U.N.) Convention on the Law of the Sea (CLOS). ...

  • April 10, 2013

    Canadian Uranium exports to China

    The Canadian province of Saskatchewan is about to begin exporting uranium to China. Normally, the announcement of new trade agreements with international partners is good news. However, with China, life gets more complicated. China is a communist pol...

  • December 31, 1969

    Apocalyptic Heat Predictions for Los Angeles Raise Serious Questions

    In the Los Angeles Daily News a couple weeks ago, Susan Abram reported on the release of two new climate change reports from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. The situation provides a textbook example of problematic journalism and s...