__edited

Pike_Place_Market_Seattle

The “Supermarket Sweep”

When I was a kid, a television show called Supermarket Sweep featured teams of middle Americans bolting through grocery store aisles and filling their carts with food, household products, and pet supplies. The show’s premise was that, for two minutes, the rule of law—in this case, the law against shoplifting—would be suspended. The team with the largest haul could take home their bounty of groceries, win prizes, and compete for the championship. Today, in some West Coast cities, the Supermarket Sweep isn’t a game show—it’s a dark reality, fueled by addiction, crime, and bad public policy. From Seattle to Los Angeles, a “shoplifting boom” is hitting major retailers, which deal with thousands of thefts, drug overdoses, and assaults each year. Since 2010, thefts increased by 22 percent in Portland, 50 percent in San Francisco, and 61 percent in Los Angeles. In total, California, Oregon, and Washington reported 864,326 thefts to the FBI last year. The real figure is likely much higher, as many retailers have stopped reporting most shoplifting incidents to police. Read More ›
Meyer_PragerU

Stephen Meyer Gets Animated in New PragerU Video

Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection has, with some modifications, been embraced as unassailable by the science community over the last century. So much so that evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has famously stated that “If you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane.” But is that right? In a new PragerU video, Stephen Meyer answers that question by presenting two big reasons to doubt the evolutionary account of life’s origins – the Cambrian explosion and the DNA enigma. The animated video is a nice summary of Meyer’s book-length treatments of those two problems. And at under 6 minutes, the video makes a great conversation starter! Read More ›
49720523237_ee42d91678_o
President Donald J. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence participate in a roundtable with CEOs in the Cabinet Room of the White House Monday, March 30, 2020
"President Trump Participates in a Roundtable with CEOs" from The White House via @flickr

Like Him or Not, Trump is Uniquely Suited for Such a Time as This

With the constant drumbeat from the mainstream media, Democrats now hope that the whirlwind in Washington of the so-called impeachment investigation will spread so much smoke that people won’t be able to see what’s going on, except to subliminally conclude that with all that smoke around Donald Trump, there must be a fire, and that it’ll die down with his removal from office. Read More ›
Uber

Raising Taxes on Ride Sharing Harms the Public

Call it a head tax on wheels. The recently announced plan to triple the Seattle city taxes on all ride-share trips — to 75 cents from 24 cents, which would create the highest flat ride-share tax in the U.S. — is out of the same playbook that brought us the 2017-18 tax on jobs. It would hurt working people and Read More ›

Close-up Of Orange Figure Against White Human Figures On Seesaw
Close-up Of Businessperson Showing Orange Figure Against White Human Figures On Seesaw Over Wooden Desk

Right of Reply: Our Response to Jerry Coyne

Jerry Coyne has offered a response in the pages of Quillette to David Gelernter’s provocative article, “Giving Up Darwin.” Gelernter rejected the standard model of neo-Darwinian evolution for a simple reason: he looked at three pieces of scientific evidence that appeared to be incompatible with that model. Read More ›
Mature female in elderly care facility gets help from hospital personnel nurse. Close up of aged wrinkled hands of senior woman. Grand mother everyday life.
Young female hands hugging old woman, closeup

Congress Should Pass the Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act

Unfortunately, the bill is opposed by some opponents of assisted suicide, people who are my friends and whom I respect for their commitment to defending the practice of ethical medicine. This makes no sense to me. The more confidence people have that their loved ones will be cared for properly through palliative and hospice techniques — as my mother was — the less they are likely to turn in desperation to support for assisted suicide. Indeed, euthanasia advocates engage in ubiquitous fearmongering to convince people that their binary choice is allowing assisted suicide or abandoning their loved ones to a potentially agonizing death. In this sense, public support for legalizing assisted suicide can be interpreted as a declaration of no confidence in the ability of doctors to properly care for people. Read More ›
shai-pal-lpQwaLWhw9Q-unsplash
Jaffa Harbor, Israel
Jaffa Harbor, Israel
Photo by Shai Pal at Unsplash

Isolating the Biggest Problems in Israel

We all are beginning to understand what is right about Israel. It is at the pinnacle of human accomplishment in technology, innovation, culture and wealth. Amid a global slump, it is still growing at an annual rate near 5%. In startups, IPOs, and venture capital, it leads the world by any per-capita standard and in some ways by absolute metrics. Read More ›