The March for 'Science'

The trouble with the March for Science is that mixing politics and science is thoroughly corruptive for science, and marching is a quintessentially political act. The motivation for a large part of the march was for "climate change," and pushing that deeper into politics is the last thing it needs.

Berkeley's problem: who's in charge?

The university "cancelled" Ann Coulter's speech set for April 27 because "the police had 'very specific intelligence' of threats 'that could pose a grave danger to the speaker' and others..."

In other words, at Berkeley the mob's in charge.

Coulter has declared that she's coming anyway, which will put the university in a tough spot: if they actually physically stop her, it will show their hypocrisy all too clearly that their declarations to honor free speech are so much blather, not to mention the likely lawsuit by Coulter. They need to make arrests and follow through with prosecutions and serious jail time for rioters. Anything less and the anarchists will only grow bolder.

It's time for the authorities in Berkeley to grow a backbone and take charge.

Hillary's message: they heard it alright

The teeth gnashing by Democrats over the question of why they lost the election seems to have centered on the idea that Hillary didn't get her message out to enough people in the right places. This reminds me of the little story about the dog food company that introduced a new product with a lavish advertising campaign but with dismal results. At a board meeting where they were trying to figure out why it failed, the discussion was all about whether they had the right message in the right outlets, etc. Finally, one board member said, "Maybe the dogs don't like it!"

So that's my theory: Voters heard Hillary's message on which they spent over a billion dollars all right. They just didn't like it.

"Hamilton" cast boos Pence

Concerning “Calls for apology after Pence booed,” Nov. 20, 2016: There is no reason to think that the political opinions of the cast of “Hamilton” should carry any more weight than a person you might pick at random from the phone book, yet they took advantage of having an audience there for an entirely different reason to issue an anti-Trump riff. To the Left everything is political, and we can’t even enjoy a play without being subjected to their insufferable sermonizing. Please.

Published in print edition of San Diego Union-Tribune, (about) Nov. 22, 2016

Michelle Obama's hopelessness

In an interview with Opray Winfrey, Michelle Obama said, "We are feeling what not having hope feels like." Really? It depends on what she means by "we." Consumer optimism is up and the stock market is roaring. She's confusing her own situation and that of the Democratic Party with the country as a whole. This is symptomatic about why Democrats are losing everywhere.

Voter fraud is rare? How do they know that?

One of the constant refrains from those who oppose voter id is that voter fraud is very rare. The trouble with that argument is: how do they know that? It is circular logic: Since without checking voter id it is ridiculously easy to vote in someone else's name, it is impossible to know how often it happens.

How did secret info get into Hillary's email?

It has been widely reported that Hillary Clinton's email server was found to have information that was considered top secret. What hasn't been reported is, nor have I seen that anyone has asked, exactly how it got there. Whoever sent it through the server had either to originate the information, which seems extremely unlikely, or to copy or transcribe the info from an existing classified document. Lifting information from a highly classified document and putting it in an unsecure email or other unsecure form is about as gross a violation of security rules as one can get. How this happened and who was responsible must be high on the list of questions the FBI is hot after.
It also seems that they probably know the answers. It should not be too hard to track down the originator of the email, or chain of emails, and the identity of the classified document from which the information was lifted.
When the answers to these questions finally come out, we may well understand all too clearly why Hillary and her staff declined to be interviewed by the IG.