Gongol.com Archives: 2018 Weekly Archives
March 23, 2018
China plans a 25% tariff on US pork
Soybeans could be next. This is exactly the kind of reciprocal trade retaliation that Americans should worry about.
Denmark and Ireland might sanction Russia over attack on British soil
Can it be? Are the free countries of the world starting to get the picture that shows of unity are among our best tools to push back against adversarial efforts to sow discord here?
The Federal budget represented as a $100 restaurant bill
Nebraska doctors turn to state intervention to get 15-year-old into chemotherapy
Even that Original Libertarian, John Stuart Mill, would say that sometimes the state has to step in to protect kids: "Those who are still in a state to require being taken care of by others, must be protected against their own actions as well as against external injury."
Snowstorm forecast comes with tight gradients
Parts of Minnesota and Iowa are going to get about a foot of snow, and neighbors 90 minutes away won't get anything
March 22, 2018
The President of the United States is engaged in a juvenile taunting match with a former Vice President, while Congress is about to pile another $1.3 trillion onto the Federal debt. If the Federal government were sitting on a surplus of $64,000 per person, voters would be losing their minds demanding rebate checks. Instead, we owe $64,000 per person in Federal debt...and rising.
National Security Adviser fired
General HR McMaster is out, and John Bolton is incoming
The sisters rebuilding a university library in Mosul
With ISIS out, they have a chance to rebuild. We could digitize every book ever written and give every child a Kindle as their birthright, and yet we should still consider libraries to be sacred spaces worthy of support and protection. Only barbarians destroy libraries.
The only thing missing is the exaggeration
Teenager puts a car through the front window on her driving test. The problem is that the story misses a kicker element -- something for the comedians to embellish in search of a life.
March 21, 2018
Stop naming and celebritizing the killers
News outlets are naming the Austin package bomber -- a person who has been terrorizing his local community through murder. Would there be any real harm done if news outlets said "As a matter of civic responsibility, we are voluntarily withholding the name of the perpetrator"? A voluntary choice to consign people like this to the black hole of history might help discourage copycats.
Man shoots himself after falling asleep with new gun in his hands
This story ends with the public laughing at the expense of the individual who shot himself. But what if this carelessness had ended with him unintentionally shooting a family member who walked in and startled him awake?