Archive By Section - Columnists
Careful when you look ahead to 2011 -- Floyd and Mary Beth Brown
Now that it's time to flip the calendar to January, we take stock of the past 52 weeks and look ahead. It is an annual tradition we encourage all to adopt. Why? It helps you to plan and live intentionally.
Party like it's 1999 -- Tom Purcell
Ah, New Year's Eve. What a great night to revisit the past year. Though I'd rather revisit 1999. The unemployment rate was 4.2 percent in 1999. Dot-com stocks were still creating lots of paper millionaires. The U.S. deficit for that year was $1 billion - that's right, "billion" with a "b," a far cry from the $1 trillion to $2 trillion it is nowadays. Things were going so well, we had to make up crises, ...
Eeney meeney chili beaney ... Elijah Friedeman
We're almost at the end of 2010, which means it's time for some new year's predictions.
Baby, it's cold outside, again -- Argus Hamilton
HOLLYWOOD - God bless America, and how's everybody? South Carolina saw its first White Christmas Saturday when blizzards swept the South. Everything's iced over. It was so cold in South Carolina that civil rights demonstrators were demanding that Admiral Byrd's flag be lowered at the state capitol. New York completely shut down Monday after a driving blizzard closed all three airports. The canceled flights stranded everybody. Airline employees went through the terminal with 40,000 blankets ...
No 'juan' left behind
HOLLYWOOD - God bless America, and how's everybody? Obama vowed on Wednesday to fight next year for the passage of the just-rejected bill that gives U.S. citizenship to the children of illegal aliens. They must attend two years of college or serve in the U.S. military. The name of the bill is "No Juan Left Behind." Steven Spielberg was recruited by Nancy Pelosi to help re-brand House Democrats Friday after November's repudiation at the polls. ...
Why christmas has become better every year
I still wish I hadn't peeked in the attic that year. It was Christmas 1972 and I was 10. It was the first year when I no longer believed in Santa Claus. Until that point, Christmas had been a magical time for me. A few weeks after Thanksgiving, I would join with my father to pick out our tree. He'd wear his rattiest coat and work his mastery on the helpless Christmas-tree guy to knock ...
We still seek Peace on Earth
I heard the bells on Christmas day Their old familiar carols play, And wild and sweet the words repeat Of peace on earth, good will to men. You're probably familiar with these words from the Christmas carol "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day." The words for this popular carol actually come from a poem penned by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow during a time of hopelessness for Longfellow and for the United States of America. In ...
We're more like Cratchit than Scrooge
Ever been stuck in holiday traffic fighting to be stuck in a holiday cashier's line so you can purchase low-price presents on your high-balance Visa listening to high-volume holiday music and think, "Why am I doing this to myself? I don't even really like Christmas. It's just a scheme to get me to gain more weight and gain more debt."
Obama is right on schedule
HOLLYWOOD - God bless America, and how's everybody? President Obama signed a bill extending tax cuts for the rich Friday. He hopes to win reelection by governing from the middle as Bush and Clinton did. Now all he needs to do is invade the wrong country or get caught in a sex scandal and he's in for another six years. Barbra Streisand led all movie stars in slamming President Obama for extending tax cuts for ...
It's hard to know which end is up -- Argus Hamilton
HOLLYWOOD - God bless America, and how's everybody? President Obama's health care reform law was ruled unconstitutional on Tuesday, setting back the liberal quest for government-run health care. There's a lot of confusion about ObamaCare. Democrats think it's a pill while Republicans think it's a suppository. Obama's health care reform provisions were deemed unconstitutional by a Virginia judge Tuesday. It's racial discrimination. When a black president slaps a tax on tanning booths it hinders a ...
Baby, it's cold outside -- Argus Hamilton
HOLLYWOOD - God bless America, and how's everybody? The Weather Channel reported a wintry blast of frigid Arctic air swept down into the South Tuesday. The mercury fell to single digits in South Florida. Last night it was so cold in Palm Beach that the fire department was advising residents to set their houses on fire. President Obama lit the White House Christmas tree Friday. He told the story which he said is dear to ...
Terrorist ruins life for comedians, too -- Tom Purcell
Julian Assange, the lead WikiLeaks perpetrator, has ruined my career. I write light, humorous pieces for a living - offbeat perspectives that offer a respite from everyday woes. Humor, says Webster's, is "that quality which appeals to a sense of the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous." It is "designed to be comical or amusing." There is no harder writing than humor writing. The humor writer toils for hours to achieve the perfect turn of phrase, the ...
Health bill is unconstitutional -- Argus Hamilton
HOLLYWOOD - God bless America, and how's everybody? President Obama's health care reform bill was ruled unconstitutional Monday by a U.S. judge in Virginia. It probably is. To the layman's eye it violates the Equal Protection Clause for a black president to impose a 10 percent tax on tanning booths. John Boehner broke down crying again Sunday in a CBS 60 Minutes interview. He's very emotional. Last week Congress voted to make April National Peach ...
Powers that be are sneaking in illegals
To understand Washington DC, you have to first stop listening to the rhetoric, and start watching the behavior.
Our kids may be dumb, but they're also violent
HOLLYWOOD - God bless America, and how's everybody? The Department of Education released a study Friday showing U.S. kids rank 25th in math, 17th in science, and 14th in reading. Our national security is not at risk, however. Our kids remain number one in violent video games by a huge margin. President Obama called in Bill Clinton Friday to make the case for his tax cut deal to angry and defiant House Democrats. They refuse ...
Articles by Section - Columnists
Keep Those Catalogs Comin’
What America needs is a good Productivity Boosting Nap Pod, a device that looks like a dentist chair with a roof. As luck would have it, this 310-pound unit, that "provides optimal ergonomics for napping," is available from Hammacher Schlemmer for $16,000. Dagwood Bumstead take note.
Even the bugs are getting audited
HOLLYWOOD-Happy Wednesday, everybody, and God bless America.
Obama Agenda Undermines Medical Innovation
Alzheimer's Disease costs the U.S. economy over $200 billion per year, about $140 billion of which is a direct federal budgetary cost to Medicare and Medicaid. On our present course, this cost will quintuple to $1 trillion by 2050. It is the major driver up the steeply rising health care cost curve. Given this context, the most important question for health policy is not the green eyeshade question of who-pays-how-much that has come to dominate ...
Welfare on Mars?
HOLLYWOOD-Happy Tuesday, everybody, and God bless America.
Learn from History
History is one of our greatest teachers.
Do We Still Need the Department of Education?
When executives of corporations are caught aiding and abetting criminal behavior of their employees, the executives are prosecuted and the businesses are destroyed.
