Health Watch 

The High Cost of Mediocre Healthcare in America 

The US spends more per capita on healthcare than any other country in the world. And yet, it ranks 59th in the world in terms of life expectancy.

The longest-living populations are from Hong Kong, Macao, Korea, and Japan.

Those Asian countries/ cultures are followed by the Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway) and most of the advanced Western European countries, such as Spain, Portugal, Italy, and even Ireland. Also, interestingly, the populations of many wealthy Arab countries (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE) live relatively long lives.

All of that I can understand. Studies have shown a clear correlation between wealth and health.

However, there is also a handful of countries I didn’t expect to find in the top half of the list, including Estonia, Albania, Guam, and mainland China!

To make matters worse, life expectancy in the US in the last three years has gone down by three years. Which puts us below countries like Iran, Jordan, and Tunisia. (This is likely due to COVID and the COVID vaccines, but the Biden administration says it’s due to global warming!)

Will Dr. Fauci Be Next? 

According to questionable Italian and German news networks, Italy’s former health minister, Roberto Speranza, is being investigated for “omicidio.”

Recently, several emails were “discovered” that indicate that, from the very start of the COVID vaccinations, Speranza knew the shots were “killing people.” And yet, according to one probably unreliable source, he gave orders to local health authorities to conceal deaths and serious side effects in order to reassure Italian citizens of their safety and not jeopardize the vaccination campaign.

Trends in Wokeness

You Can’t Be More Au Courant Than This 

Since Biden was elected, many Republicans have been accusing the Justice Department and the FBI of being out of touch with the common sentiments of average Americans by classifying parents of school age children and conservative Catholics as “domestic terrorists.”

Progressives don’t see things that way. They prefer to think that these federal law enforcement agencies are merely keeping up with the latest trends in social justice, which they support.

One example: A recent email from the bureau to employees announced that “effective immediately… the FBI has officially adopted the LGBTQIA+ acronym in place of LGBT+.

“This change was proposed by Bureau Equality, one of our nine Diversity Advisory Committees, and approved by FBI executive management to help promote a more welcoming workplace for members of our LGBTQIA+ community.

“LGBTQIA+ stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/ Questioning, Intersex, Asexual/ Aromantic, plus,” the email explained. “The ‘+’ represents other gender, sexual, and romantic identities not covered by the letters of the acronym.”

Satan Enters Tennessee Elementary School 

Chimneyrock Elementary School in Cordova, TN, is having its 15 minutes of fame after accepting into its after-school curriculum a chapter of The Satanic Temple.

According to a flyer posted by the group, the Chimneyrock Elementary After-School Satan Club “will not attempt to convert children to any religious ideology.”

On the contrary, a spokesperson said, the Satanic cult will teach children to “think for themselves.”

Meanwhile, in Jolly old England…

A neighborhood council in London decided to cancel its annual “Hanukkah lights installation” because it might upset “some of the newer residents” (i.e., Muslims), according to a leaked memo.

Wins and Losses in the Gender Wars 

Another Biological Boy Shows Girls What Biological Girls Are Capable of. 

A young Irish child recently secured a position in next year’s Irish Dancing World Championship by shrewdly changing his gender at the last possible moment from boy to girl.

After finishing a disappointing 11th place as a boy in a local contest, he entered a subsequent competition as a girl, and easily won first place with a “muscular, animated performance,” according to an unreliable source.

What is known for sure is that the young lass is on her way to competing against other young lasses.

Meanwhile, in DeSantis-land…

A new bylaw has disallowed public schools from allowing “biological” boys from participating “as a female” in female sports.

Policy 16.11.6 states that the “use of an ineligible student… may subject the school to a monetary penalty of a minimum of $100 per contest and/ or other sanctions.”

The first test of the policy was reported on when it was learned that a biological male had played more than 30 games of volleyball for Monarch High School, brilliantly performing by smashing opposing players with “her” powerful slaps.

On the Global Warming Front

UN to US: Eat Plant burgers to Save the Planet 

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) brought a zany idea to COP28, the recent climate change conference in Dubai.

The idea is that “the United States and other wealthy nations” should help ease global warming by “foregoing meat consumption in favor of plant-based diets, including plant-based faux meats.”

This, just months after the University of California, Davis, published a study that concluded that lab-grown or “cultured” meat is up to 25 times worse for the climate than natural beef.

The conclusion: “Results indicate that the environmental impact of near-term animal cell-based meat production is likely to be orders of magnitude higher than median beef production if a highly refined growth medium is utilized.”

The Biden Beat 

Recent Notable Moments from POTUS 

President Biden couldn’t make it to COP28. Apparently, he was too busy holding an auction for 44,000 acres of oil and gas drilling rights.

Then there was the text he sent calling for a cease-fire in the Israel/ Palestinian war, joking about tossing around the old “nuclear football” and referring to Trump as a “former governor.”

And Finally…

California City to Tell Israel What to Do 

In Oakland, CA, officials invited the community to a City Council meeting to talk about whether the city should “call for a cease-fire in the Middle East.”

According to one source, “Speaker after speaker took to the microphone to deny that any atrocities took place on Oct. 7 or to show support for Hamas. “Calling Hamas a terrorist group is racist and plays into the genocidal propaganda… that we should be doing everything possible to combat,” said one person at the meeting.

More Countries Rejecting Leftist Economic Policies 

“First, it was Italy. Then came Finland and Greece. Spain could be next,” says Suzanne Lynch, writing for Politico. “Across Europe, governments are shifting right. In some places, far-right leaders are taking power. In others, more traditional center-right parties are allying with the right-wing fringes once considered untouchable.”

It is hard to deny. In the last year alone, conservatives and even far-right political groups came to power in a surprising number of elections.

Here are two of the most recent upsets…

The Netherlands Swings Back Toward the Center Right 

Geert Wilders 

Geert Wilders has been the victim of numerous death threats and has had to move between safe houses for nearly two decades. In 2009, the British government denied him entry, citing a threat to “community harmony and therefore public security.” And yet, somehow, it looks like he’ll soon be the next Prime Minister of the Netherlands.

Three links to help you better understand him. Click here and here and here.

Javier Milei [

A Big Surprising Win in Argentina for Javier Milei, a Self-Described “Anarcho Capitalist” 

In the last several days, Argentinians have been talking about almost nothing but the surprise victory of president-elect Javier Milei, an outspoken, sort-of Libertarian, on Nov. 19. Click here.

Argentina, as you probably know, has had some severe economic challenges in the past several years, as inflation has skyrocketed, making most Argentinians less able to pay for the necessities of life.

We asked our partner in Argentina for his thoughts:

“Yes, this is… a great ‘revolution’ for Argentina to have a Libertarian president. [Our country was] heading towards Venezuela and, magically, this guy appeared, won the election, and now he wants to redirect the economy towards Singapore! It’s totally crazy. If it were a movie, I wouldn’t believe it….

“The transition is going to be very complicated. We expect more inflation and loss of the value of the peso in the short term. But in the medium term, if things go well, inflation would have to disappear and we would have to either have a strong currency or use the dollar directly. But we need around six months to one year to see results.

“In the meantime, there is a risk that he will not be able to implement the reforms, because politicians and the unions will play against him. And if that happens, we will be back to square one.”

Teaching: Why Experience Matters

Bill Browder in Moscow 

Bill Browder is an extremely successful entrepreneur that made his fortune in Russia and wrote a good book about it – Red Notice. (You can read my review of it here.)

TS sent me this clip of him addressing a class of Russian Studies majors at Oxford. Pay attention to the content of his statements, especially when he is answering questions. These are thoughts that have been developed and defined by experience. They are not the sort of pronouncements made by pundits whose knowledge of their subject matter comes from secondary sources.

Also note the way he responds to some of the comments and questions that could be dismissed as naïve. Note the humility of his phrasing and the generosity of his willingness to respect his students’ preexisting ideas and impressions.

Then ask yourself: How common is this today in academia? How often do college and graduate students have the opportunity to learn from people that have (what they like to call) “lived experience” in the subject matter they teach?

Getting a degree in a good private college in the US will put a student in serious debt. Like $100,000 to $200,000. Wouldn’t you feel better about spending that kind of money if you knew you were getting this level of wisdom?

Click here.

Hamas vs. Israeli Killing: Is There a Moral Equivalence?

I was going to write an argument on the moral equivalency of the Muslim killings versus the Israeli killings in the current conflict, a topic that’s been debated daily on the Internet since Hamas attacked and slaughtered Israeli citizens on Oct. 7.

I was going to say that, whereas I agree with something one of my colleagues wrote (“The grief a Palestine mother feels over the murder of her child is no greater or less than the grief that an Israeli mother feels about the murder of her child”), one cannot reasonably argue that the purposeful beheading of an infant in front of its mother is morally equivalent to the death of a child killed by an Israeli rocket that hits a nearby “military target” of some kind, even if the Israeli commander that gave the go-ahead to bomb that building knew that some number of non-combatants, including children, would be killed as “collateral damage.”

Further, I was going to posit that there is a difference (an important difference) between the morality of an individual’s actions and the morality of the actions of an organized group.

One of the differences is that organized groups often have beliefs, principles, and codes of conduct that are definitively stated in declarations, constitutions, mission statements, and the like. Using this moral compass, I don’t see any moral equivalency between Hamas’s position in this war and that of the State of Israel because Hamas’s stated belief is that Jews are, by the nature of their infidelity, sub-human. And that a good and virtuous Hamas Muslim is one that murders Jews in a holy effort to vanquish Israel and rid the world of Jews.

I was going to say that self-defense is as close as one can get to a “human right” that virtually every state, and even every religion, agrees on. That principle justifies Israeli’s retaliation for the attack, but it doesn’t give Israeli carte blanche to eradicate not just every Hamas soldier but every Palestinian man, woman, and child living in Gaza. And although there have been some reactionaries on social media taking that stance, the State of Israel has not. Quite the contrary. It is making a public effort (if only for its own sake) to try to reduce the “collateral damage” done to Palestinian non-combatants.

And finally, I was going to recount a few things I witnessed when I was living in Africa that made me understand, in a way I will never forget, that there is a great range in terms of human decency between some cultures and others. That at one end of that range there are cultures one could fairly describe as civilized, and at the other end cultures that can be justly described as barbaric.

That was going to be the thrust of my argument. But just before getting to it, I read the following essay in the WSJ about what Dostoevsky might say. It provides yet another layer of ethical complication in trying figure out what is or is not morally justified behavior in war.

Click here.

Where Do You Stand on America’s Involvement in the Israeli/Hamas War?

Republican lawmakers are largely united on aiding Israel, but divided over whether to help Ukraine, while Democrats largely agree on assisting Ukraine but are torn on supporting Israel. In this WSJ report, White House reporter Sabrina Siddiqui reviews the range of opinions on both sides of the aisle, as well as reports on results of polls asking the opinion of US voters. Click here.

More food for thought…

Here are several good essays from The Free Press that shed light on the moral and tactical complications of our involvement.

Here’s a think piece I found on Dan Gardner’s blog that cautions us against the urge to label those whose opinions on Hamas are starkly different from ours.

And here’s yet another view from one of my favorite independently minded Communists, Freddie deBoer.

“Did You Write That?” 

The Mysterious Math of Illegal Immigration

The COVID Pandemic Was Bad? You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet!

Kate Bingham 

Were you freaked out by the COVID-19 warnings and mandates? Did you trust Dr. Fauci? Were you angered by all the “fake news” suggesting that the “facts” issued from the WHO and the CDC were without merit? Did you feel virtuous in doing everything you possibly could to protect yourself, your family, and even the entire nation?

Was all that a great deal of fun for you?

If so, you are going to like what Kate Bingham, the former chair of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, is saying.

According to The Long Shot, a book she wrote about her experience fighting COVID 19, as well as interviews she’s given to promote the book, COVID-19 is small potatoes compared to the next pandemic that will soon be at your doorstep. I’m talking about “Disease X.” (I didn’t make that up.) It’s the name of a virus that she and others of her ilk (including Bill Gates) predict will break out in the near future. A virus 100 times worse than COVID-19.

“Imagine a virus as infectious as measles with the fatality rate of Ebola [67%],” she says. “Somewhere in the world, it’s replicating, and sooner or later, somebody will start feeling sick.”

Read more about it here.