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February 19, 2025
A Missing Person’s Alert So Identity-Specific It Stops Being UsefulSadly, a few days ago, the news in Denver reported that authorities had identified the remains of Marcie Fairchild, who had been missing for months. Fairchild was found not far from where she lived, and the medical examiner has not yet established a ...
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February 12, 2025
‘We Work for Idiots’Along with many of you, I find myself cheering Elon Musk and his outstanding work with DOGE. Having lived in DC for 5 years, I was aware of USAID. I saw the building on my many walks through the city, but like the rest of us, I am amazed at the exten...
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September 16, 2024
‘Known to the State of California,’ and other idiocyNo question about it: I have a lot of tools. In fact, I am a tool-aholic; I even wrote about it here. When a visitor remarks, “Gee, you have every tool in creation,” I respond, “Well, not quite, but if you see something I don’...
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August 27, 2024
Economic Lies and Presidential PoliticsI am always amazed how many people today confuse inflation with price fluctuations resulting from supply and demand. We heard this a lot at the Democrat’s convention. I don’t know if it is simple ignorance or an intentional diversion to p...
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February 10, 2024
The New Leftist Argument: Illegal Aliens Are Actually Here LegallyEver notice how the left changes the narrative by demanding a shift in language? Abortion becomes pro-choice, but the outcome is unchanged. Vagrants became the homeless, only to become the unhoused, again with the same outcome and common thread of ad...
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December 29, 2023
DEI Matters, But Only If Less, And Inferior, Science Is The GoalI have often written about my experiences as a scientist in a federal research lab and my years leading a group of other scientists. When I began my career 40 years ago, the staffing was mostly (but not all) male and white, and mostly competent....
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December 19, 2023
Don’t Overplay PlagiarismAs a sidelight to the December 5, 2023, House Committee on Education testimony of several presidents of elite universities, the media is currently feasting on a debate over plagiarism. Here, I argue that there is a difference between intentionally st...
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March 5, 2023
How to Cross the Street: What Mom Taught Isn’t EnoughLike most of you, I learned a lot from my mother. Many of these lessons can be filed under the general heading of common sense. That common sense derived from observing my mother’s situational awareness, and, because I grew up in New York City,...
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February 21, 2023
A Tribute to Rev. Dr. George Coyne, S.J.No doubt we can all remember individuals who, while they were not a big part of their lives, have had a profound influence on us nonetheless. For me, one such person was a Jesuit priest and scientist, Prof. George Coyne, S.J. (Society of Jesus)...
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February 13, 2023
Chinese Intellectual Property Theft is Nothing NewAs I have written in these pages before, I spent 40 years as a scientist in a federal research facility. We always had a steady stream of gifted young (and senior-level) scientists and students who came from all over the United States and from around...
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February 12, 2023
The Hidden Overhead Of The Federal Acquisitions RegulationsMy 40-year-long career as a scientist in a federal research laboratory has left me with an almost inexhaustible source of topics. Today I discuss some of the absurdities of the Federal Acquisition Regulations. Put simply, the Federal Acquisition R...
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February 5, 2023
The Benefits Of Free-Market ParentingDiscipline was always hard for me. (My wife claimed that the word “sap” was written in neon letters on my forehead.) But I must credit myself with a few amazingly effective techniques I developed over the years, all of which mesh with con...
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February 2, 2023
Cursive handwriting and other educational anachronismsI don’t get it. This morning I responded to a poll in the online blog of the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC, the conservative answer to AARP) regarding cursive handwriting. Specifically: “Cursive writing (“handwriting...
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January 28, 2023
Run, Don’t Walk, From Solar Energy Co-OpsA harebrained scheme coming out of municipal governments nationwide is the idea of “partnering” (you have to love the language creativity they employ) with solar energy co-operatives. I live in the beautiful (formerly red, then purple, no...
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January 19, 2023
My Name Is Tom, And I’m a Tool-Aholic“My name is Tom, and I’m a tool-aholic.” “Hi Tom.” “Hi Tom.” If only there were a tool-aholics anonymous, or some other support group or foundation, or even a church to help us! Although it was probably al...
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January 16, 2023
It's Wish-Cycling, Not RecyclingIn local municipalities, townships, counties, and districts nationwide, a quiet yet insidious movement is underway to force the idiocy of zero-waste on citizens (and not just in California). Zero-waste is the misconception that everything (and I mean...
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January 5, 2023
What Dr. Fauci Forgot About ScienceIt’s easy for those who disagreed with COVID policies over the last few years to forget that Dr. Anthony Fauci was once both a respected scientist (his work has been cited an astounding 233,830 times at this writing) in his field and an effecti...
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January 1, 2023
Classified Information: A Personal PerspectiveI spent 40 years as a scientist in a federal agency and was one of the few staffers at the facility to possess a security clearance. My clearance level was such that it caused the bosses intense heartburn when they had to pay for the periodic full fi...
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December 21, 2022
The Tragic Case Of Professor Paris SvoronosA few months ago, the news was filled with the narrative of Prof. Maitland Jones’s termination from NYU because his course was “too hard.” Bad as Jones’s experience was, what happened to Professor Paris Svoronos is even worse....
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December 17, 2022
Sam Brinton Lacks The Credibility Essential For A TechnocratDuring my 40 or so years as a scientist in a government laboratory, I saw middle and senior management types come and go. Many of these were in the Senior Executive Service (SES) ranks—high-level policy-making, change-managing, coalition-buildi...