The Plight of the Palestinians

It was 3 years ago this week that Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups carried out its horrific attack on Israel.

1,200 were killed in the attacks and more than 250 Israelis were taken hostage. Many died in captivity. 843 days passed before the last hostage's body was released.

As I have written before in these pages, I was in Israel on the day the war started.

I was on a Mediterranean cruise and we docked in Israel on the morning of October 7, 2023 for what was to be a 3 day stay in the country.

We were called back to the ship barely 6 hours into our visit and sailed from Israel that evening.

We have heard a lot about the "plight of the Palestinians" over the last three years.

Those who are supporters of the so-called Palestinian "cause", or are vehemently anti-Israel, repeat the following catch phrases repeatedly.

Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian lands.

Israel is a colonial oppressor.

Israel is committing genocide on the Palestinian people.

Children in Gaza are being starved to death by Israel.

United States military support of Israel is out of control and should cease.

The U.S. has not provided enough economic and humanitarian aid to Palestine.

These arguments are made so often that they are accepted as facts.

This is especially true for those who spend time in college where Palestine is portrayed as a "cool" cause and Israel is depicted as the evil aggressor.

There is so much that people do not know, or have been given misinformation about, concerning Israel and Palestine.

Without knowledge of the most basic facts it is difficult to have views or opinions that are both principled and credible.

Let's look at the popular narratives listed above in relationship to actual facts.

Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian lands.

First of all, it needs to be understood that Palestine has never been a country or nation state at any time in history.

Jewish people populated what is now Israel dating back to when the area was referred to as Judea.

Judeans or Jews were indigenous to Judea and Arabs were indigenous to Arabia.

The Romans started using the name "Palestine" (more accurately Syria Palestine) in the second century A.D. after an insurrection in the Judea territory as punishment to remove the link between the Jews and the province of Judea.

Further, the Jewish faith dates back to 640 B.C. while Islam did not appear on the scene until some 1,200 years later in the area around Jerusalem.

If there is any claim on the area being their "holy lands" based on the timeline of history, the Jews have the more compelling argument as to who has an indigenous right to the land.

What is even crazier is the same people who claim the United States is illegally occupying the lands of Indian tribes are the same ones that argue that Israel is occupying Palestine. 

How does that make any sense?

Israel is a colonial oppressor.

The modern state of Israel was created in 1948,

After World War II, the United Nations put forth a proposal that would create the Israel state out of the British territory in that area of the Middle East. The UN proposed that Palestine would also be recognized as a country for the first time with territory of its own. A two-state solution was devised for both Jews and Palestinian Arabs.

Israel accepted the plan. The Arabs rejected the plan.

Five Arab nations attacked Israel in 1948 immediately after Israel declared its independence based on the U.N. Resolution granting Israel the land in the proposal.

Despite being a fledgling nation and receiving almost no support from around the world (including the United States which largely remained neutral in not supplying arms to either of the belligerents), Israel prevailed in the war.

As a result, after winning the war Israel actually gained territory beyond what was in the U.N. proposal.

Jordan took control of the West Bank and Egypt took control of Gaza. Both the West Bank and Gaza would have made up a Palestine state based on the U.N. proposal if the Arabs had accepted the proposal. Instead, these areas ended up under the control and occupation of Jordan and Egypt.

It was not until 1964 that the Palestine Liberation Organization was founded to unite various Palestinian people.

However, the PLO in its founding documents did not demand the Palestinians in these areas be liberated from Jordan and Egypt.

Why were the Palestinians not concerned about the occupation of their lands by oppressors Jordan and Egypt?

The PLO was only interested in the elimination of Israel.

Of course, Israel later came to take control of the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights  (and even the Sinai Peninsula) after it was attacked by Egypt, Jordan and Syria in what came to be known as the "Six Day War" in 1967.

In 1979, Israel reached a peace agreement with Egypt and agreed to return the Sinai Peninsula to them as part of the deal. Sinai was returned to Egypt by 1982.

However, the agreement cost Egyptian President Anwar Sadat his life as he was assassinated by people in the Egyptian Army in 1981 unhappy with the peace agreement with Israel.

In 1993, the Oslo Accords saw Israel agree to withdraw most military assets from Gaza and the West Bank and establish a process for self-determination for the Palestinian people with the long-term objective of establishing a Palestinian state.

In 2005, Israel fully withdrew from Gaza and opened the way for the Palestinians in Gaza to elect their own government leaders. As part of the deal, Israel relocated Israeli settlements out of Gaza leaving Gaza completely to the Palestinians. The Palestinian people elected Hamas to govern their affairs in 2006.

Hamas has been on the list of foreign terror organizations of the United States Department of State since 1997.

Therefore, the Palestinian people actually elected what was then (and remains to this day) a listed foreign terror organization to be their government representatives.

The main objective of Hamas has been to terrorize Israel ever since.

Israel is referred to as an "oppressor" or "occupier" but had not occupied Gaza since 2005 before Hamas attacked Israel in 2023 which required Israel to defend itself.

Israel is committing genocide on the Palestinian people in Gaza.

This is what genocide looks like.

Source: https://nolabels.org/the-latest/what-gazas-population-tells-us-about-the-genocide-charge/

This chart shows the population of Gaza from 1997 to 2026.

Does this look like genocide?

In point of fact, since 1960, Palestine's population has increased 4.6x.

Israel's population has only increased 3.9x.

Children in Gaza are being starved to death by Israel.

If that is the case, someone needs to inform UNICEF.

According to its most recent data, children in Gaza have the lowest rates of malnutrition in the Middle East.

This was based on a UNICEF survey in each country in May and June, 2026.

In fact, children in Gaza actually have lower rates of malnutrition than in Germany!

Or Finland! Finland has three times the level of acute childhood malnutrition that Gaza has.

United States military support of Israel is out of control and should cease.

The United States has provided $175 billion in military aid to Israel since 1948.

On the other hand, the United States Congress has approved $195 billion in appropriations for Ukraine since 2022.

However, many of the same people who claim that the U.S. has not provided enough aid to Ukraine over the last four years believe that it has provided too much to Israel over its 78 years of existence,

The U.S has not provided enough economic and humanitarian aid to Palestine.

Beginning with the Oslo Accords in the mid-1990's  the United States has contributed about $15 billion for Palestinian economic and humanitarian causes for the approximate population of 5 million in Palestine today.

This would be equal to at least $20 billion in current dollars.

Let's compare that to the aid given by the United States in the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II.

Total aid was $13.1 billion at the time but would be equivalent to about $175 billion in today's dollars for a population of 300 million in Europe in the post-WWII period.

In current dollars, U.S. aid to Palestine has been about $4,000 per person ($20 billion /5 million people) over the years.

Conversely, in current dollars, U.S. spending on the Marshall Plan to help rebuild Europe and its economy was equal to about $600 per person. ($175 billion/300 million people).

If you look at the money that was given to the Palestinians since the mid-1990's, and compare it to the Marshall Plan, you really have to wonder where all the money went? 

The Marshall Plan dollars allowed Europe to rebuild and create robust economies and lives for its people.

Did we get anything to advance the lives of Palestinians from all of that aid money?

It seems that most of the money went for the tools of terrorism and to enrich the leadership of Hamas and the PLO

What did this aid get us?

A continuing cycle of terror that culminated in the horrific attack on Israel in October, 2023.

More war from Hamas and more misery for the Palestinian people.

Where are the protests about all of this wasted money and lost opportunity?

There is a reason that the Palestinian people are living an oppressed life.

The numbers above say it all.

The sad fact in all of this is that we should all have sympathy for the plight of the Palestinian people.

They are in a tough situation.

However, most of the arguments made on their behalf is pure propaganda as the facts above illustrate.

There have been many, many chances to improve their situation. 

Unfortunately, hatred of Jews and rejection of Israel's right to exist has always gotten in the way of improving the plight of the Palestinians.

Pray for their plight and pray that they finally see the light and learn to coexist with Israel and the Jewish people.

Democrat Socialist Dope---October 7. 2026 Edition

Another edition of Democrat Socialist Dope.

I initiated this feature in July as we saw more and more Democrat Socialists gain favor with the Democrat party faithful.

As we are heading to the midterm elections in less than a month, I thought we should take a deeper dive looking what these people think and believe.

Let's take a look at Abdul El-Sayed who is the Democrat candidate for the U.S. Senate in Michigan.

El-Sayed is the guy who claims he is a physician but never did a medical residency and the clinical hours that are required to receive a medical license in any state.

El-Sayed did graduate from medical school and believes that gives him the right to call himself a physician.

This leaves me thinking as to why I bothered to take the bar exam after graduating from law school if I could have called myself a lawyer anyway?

Even left-leaning Politico calls him out on the misrepresentation.

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/12/abdul-el-sayed-doctor-physician-00916389

From that article.

'The state of Michigan prohibits anyone who is not licensed “to induce the belief” that they have a license or are registered to practice medicine."

El-Sayed was in the headlines last week saying that he would rather have an economy that had 1,000 millionaires than 1 billionaire.

Link: https://x.com/AbdulElSayed/status/2105780390023860463

 

El-Sayed was clearly taking another swipe at Elon Musk and others for having accumulated the wealth they have in our economic system.

However, El-Sayed does not seem to recognize how broadly wealth is already spread across the United States,

There are already almost 24 million millionaires in the United States.

The United States has 5% of the world's population but 40% of the millionaires.

Credit: https://x.com/heresyfinancial/status/2106823397611352187/photo/2

There are 989 billionaires in the United States according to Forbes magazine.

El-Sayed says that he aspires to see an economy that has 1,000 millionaires rather than 1 billionaire.

We already have 24,000 millionaires for every billionaire.

Almost 1 out of every 5 households in the United States has a net worth of at least 1 million!

El-Sayed also seems to miss the point that a lot of those millionaires resulted from the work, effort and innovation of those billionaires.

Elon Musk created 4,400 millionaires alone among his employees when SpaceX went public.

100 of those employees became centi-millionaires ($100+ million).

Source: Google AI

When Microsoft went public it made 3 people billionaires. (Bill Gates, Paul Allen and Steve Ballmer).

An additional 12,000 Microsoft employees also became millionaires with their stock over the years.

El-Sayed also recently said that if you are Black in America, you have not had access to real capitalism.

Source: https://x.com/drapersgulld/status/2106067340022489346

It appears that El-Sayed is not aware of the fact that there are an estimated 2 million Black millionaires in the United States.

The comparable number of millionaires on the entire continent of Africa COMBINED---122,000.

Of this number it should be kept in mind that over half are Arab or White.

Does El-Sayed have any idea what he is talking about?

El-Sayed defends himself by stating that he is a capitalist, not a socialist.

He tells people he understands how it all works and the form of capitalism we have is not good.

Really?

No. 

It is really just an act to get him elected.

Ask his sister.

His sister said the quiet part out loud recently in a video that caught her telling the truth to a supporter.

Many voters will find out too late.

Source: https://x.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2106178745316806852

You see the same thing happening down in Texas with James Talarico who is the Democrat Socialist Senate candidate in Texas.

Talarico has spent the last few months backing away from every radical and crazy thing he said previously.

Hasan Piker, the poster child of the Democrat Socialist movement, told the Socialist faithful that they should not be concerned or dispirited by what Talarico is now saying.

He says the quiet part even louder than the sister of El-Sayed did.

Link: https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/2105667194205925545

What more do you have to know about the agenda of the Democrat Socialists?

They are playing a classic "bait and switch" game with voters.

They believe the voters are dopes.

We will soon find out if that is true or not.

For Our Kids?

I live near the Sycamore Community School District in suburban Cincinnati.

My house is not in the district but I generally follow what is going on in education around me.

Sycamore schools have a great reputation.

They are generally ranked in the Top 5% among Ohio school districts on almost all measures.

Quick Facts--Sycamore Community School District
Source: https://www.publicschoolreview.com/ohio/sycamore-community-city-school-district/3904486-school-district

Its minority enrollment of 39% (17% Asian, 7% Hispanic, 7% Black) makes it one of the most diverse school districts in the state.

17 students at Sycamore High School were recently recognized as National Merit Semifinalists.

Due to its excellent reputation, Sycamore's school district has been a magnet for Asian immigrant families in recent years.

The Asian population in the school district grew from 4% to 17% over the last 30 years.

The one constant for school districts like Sycamore is they seem to never have enough money.

Part of this is due to Ohio state law that prohibits school districts from gaining windfall revenues from increases in real estate values after a new school levy passes.

The Sycamore school district recently put a school levy on the ballot for the November election that, if passed, would increase local property taxes by 6.95 mills.

The tax levy would generate $18 million in new tax revenue for the school district.

5 mills is to be used for operating expenses and 1.95 for capital improvements.

On a $500,000 house (about the median price home in the district) that would increase the property tax bill by about $1,200 per year for the homeowner.

That would mean about a 25% increase in the property taxes on the school portion of the local real estate taxes.

If the tax levy is passed it will generate an additional $13 million over and above the $105 million in current operating revenues for the district. The district is projected to spend $106 million this year in operating expenditures.

$5 million would go to the capital budget.

For those interested in the facts and rationale for the size of that tax levy you can watch a YouTube video by the school district's administration that provides information about Sycamore's financial situation.

It is an accurate recitation of the facts from everything I know. 

However, I can argue it is not all of the facts that a voter should have if trying to decide how to vote on this levy.

Sycamore currently has operating revenues of about $17,500 per student.

The tax levy would increase Sycamore's annual tax revenues by almost $2,200 per pupil to almost  $20,000 per student.

Let's put that in context.

We all hear about the high costs of college today.

However, the Sycamore School District is already bringing in more in revenues per pupil (and spending more) than it costs to pay annual tuition and fees at three of the four state universities that are popular with Sycamore High School graduates.

If the levy passes, Sycamore's revenue will be about 33% higher than tuition costs at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio State and Ohio University. It will be almost 6% higher than Miami University.

Source: Grok

I doubt few in the Sycamore school district know that it currently costs more to educate their students than the tuition and fees are at nearby state universities.

Why is it that we hear so much about high college costs and so little about what we are spending to educate our children in local public schools?

Funding education is always high on the list of important uses of tax dollars.

When a tax levy is put on the ballot in Ohio or elsewhere it is rare that there is ever any organized opposition.

Let's face it, it is not politically correct to raise questions about what we are spending "for out kids."

However, who is the taxpayer's advocate in these cases?

It should be the elected School Board members.

If you consider the makeup of the Sycamore Community School District School Board, there are plenty of advocates on that body for the teachers and administrators, for which 75%-85% of the total annual budget is spent.

Of the 5 Board Members, two received outright endorsements from the local teachers union in their last election. One of those is also a retired teacher from the district.

There is another retired teacher from the district on the Board.

A fourth member teaches at the University of Cincinnati.

Only one board member has a background in business in the private sector.

Is this a board that truly looks at financial issues objectively with equal deference to both teachers and taxpayers?

The composition of the Sycamore school board is not unusual.

There is a natural tendency of those with backgrounds in education to be more interested in serving on school boards.

The problem is that they often see financial issues from a slanted perspective---tax increases are always going to be considered first before spending restraints involving their friends, associates and union members.

That is the natural order of things.

However, the deck is almost always stacked against the taxpayers.

Those who benefit from tax dollars are always more organized and motivated about protecting what they are receiving than the taxpayers are about what they are paying.

Advocates for the Sycamore tax levy will argue that the district is spending about the same as the state average.

That is true but does that say more about the total level of spending on education across the entire state than it does about the financial stewardship at Sycamore?

Look once again at that level of spending compared to tuition and fees at state universities in the state.

It is undoubtedly true that the Sycamore schools need some type of tax increase.

School levies in Ohio effectively limit the tax revenues raised to the total amount of the initial levy.

It has been 10 years since Sycamore passed its last operating tax levy.

It is also true that wealthy districts like Sycamore that enjoy high residential values, and are blessed with a strong commercial tax base, do not get as much state funded support as other school districts.

However, has the Sycamore school board truly looked good and hard at the budget and given adequate respect to the taxpayers paying the bill?

Or is the school board more interested in principally serving the interests of the teachers union?

A 25% increase in the property tax bill for schools is a big number with everything else that is going on right now for households.

Several board members have stated that they believe Sycamore teachers are underpaid and this school levy for allow for teachers to get paid more.

It is true that Sycamore did not have the highest teacher pay in Southwest Ohio but its average pay was well above the statewide average and in the upper half of surrounding districts based on data from 2024-2025.

Source: Grok

However, almost every teacher in the district received a 6%-9% raise last year under the union contract that is based primarily on tenure rather than merit.

Teachers all get an overall general increase (3.75% last year) and a step increase based on tenure under the current union contract.

I am told that this now puts Sycamore right near the top in teacher pay in Southwest Ohio.

When compared to the private sector it also needs to be taken into account that teachers are working only about 185 days per year compared to a private sector employee that might be putting in 230-240 days for their annual pay.

Teachers also have generous health and retirement benefits that are generally much better than the private sector.

There is no denying that Sycamore is one of the top performing school districts in Ohio.

However, how much of that is the result of teaching excellence and how much of that is related to motivated students who have involved and caring parents supporting them?

Will the tax levy in Sycamore pass this year despite all the noise we already hear about high gasoline prices and property taxes?

It would not surprise me if it did as the reality is that the contradictory facts above are rarely shared in an honest debate about school finances.

School tax levies like this usually revolve around a one-sided narrative with two messages.

"We need to do this for our kids".

"You need to do this to protect your home's value." 

Facts and data that don't fit the narrative are rarely heard or discussed.

There is little interest by anyone (most particularly the school board) in sharing a balanced view of the issues involved with voters.

I don't have any skin in this game.

If the tax levy passes or fails it will not affect me one way or the other.

However, I am always interested in exploring both sides of an issue.

And I am especially intrigued by the enlightened self interest that underlies it all.

Is it for our kids?

Or have these tax levies become more about making sure that the teachers union is taken care of and more difficult choices on the budget never have to be confronted?

How Sustainable Are College Athletic Programs?

In 2022 I wrote a blog post about the insanity of West Coast teams UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington joining the Big Ten conference.

In the case of UCLA and USC it also was the height of hypocrisy as well.

Both schools for years had been preaching about the dangers of fossil fuel use to their students.

The climate change agenda was incorporated into almost everything students were taught.

Students are told they have no future unless fossil fuels are eliminated as an energy source.

Almost all universities across the nation have some type of "Sustainability Plan".

I pointed out that was certainly the case at UCLA and USC.

For example, here is a screenshot of UCLA's plan. Of course, UCLA is a state university.

Source: https://www.sustain.ucla.edu/plan/

It includes a "Sustainable Transportation Plan" in which the goal is to have a "fossil-fuel LA County"

This is a screenshot from the University of Southern California (USC) Office of Sustainability web page that links to the 2020 USC Sustainability Plan.  This was supposed to guide the university through 2025.

An important element was "Greenhouse Gas Mitigation".

Source: https://libguides.usc.edu/sustainability#s-lg-box-23243071

A key goal of the program was to increase student, faculty and staff participation in alternative transportation programs.

I was thinking about all of this talk about "Sustainability" in 2022  when I saw that UCLA and USC were applying for membership in the Big Ten athletic conference.

How in the world was flying athletic teams across the country in keeping with the "Sustainability" goals for those universities?

If climate change and sustainability efforts are the most important challenge of our lifetimes, according to these colleges and the state of California, why were they making a decision that would increase carbon emissions that is fundamentally at odds with that narrative?

And for what would be considered an incidental purpose related to the educational purpose of the institution?

In addition, I asked how any of this would be sustainable economically?

It might be one thing if this concerned a couple of football games per year.

However, affiliating with the Big Ten meant that all sports teams at UCLA and USC would travel thousands of miles to play others schools in the conference.

These were the athletic teams at UCLA in 2022 according to its athletics web page.

USC opened the 2026 football season at home versus San Jose State in the LA Coliseum to a sparse crowd.

Some blamed the heat. Some blamed the opponent. Some even suggested that the reason was that USC has admitted so many international students that have no interest in sports like football .

USC's student enrollment is now almost 30% international.

It had almost 12,000 international students in the 2025-2026 school year---5,700 were from China and 2,100 from India.

USC, like many universities, as as have many colleges, prioritized international students for the full price tuition they pay.

Despite the influx of international students, USC reported a total university deficit last year of over $200 million.

Source: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-07-15/usc-budget-deficit-layoffs

Athletics was mentioned as one of the reasons for the budget issues.

Full details on the financial is not available as USC is a private school.

Being a state university, the financials at UCLA are more transparent than at private USC.

UCLA recently fired its Athletic Director Martin Jarmond due to large department deficits.

UCLA reported losing $52 million in athletics in fiscal 2024. 

The red ink must be climbing even higher in 2026.

Source: https://wtam.iheart.com/content/2026-09-01-ucla-fires-athletic-director-amid-budget-deficit/

Jarmond's tenure at UCLA, which began in 2020, included the school's transition to the Big Ten Conference and multiple NCAA championships. However, the athletics department's financial woes overshadowed these achievements. The department ended the 2024 fiscal year with a $51.8 million debt, requiring a university bailout. The rising costs associated with name, image, and likeness (NIL) compensation further strained the budget.

On the other side of the country in the Big Ten sits Rutgers.

Rutgers reported losing $78 million on athletics in fiscal 2025 and an astounding $500 million since joining the Big Ten in 2014.

Source: https://www.nj.com/rutgers/2026/03/rutgers-has-dug-a-500-million-hole-since-joining-the-big-ten-where-did-the-money-go.html

 

How sustainable is college athletics?

As I wrote in 2022, sustainability from a climate change perspective is not even in the conversation when it comes to the size and breadth of today's college conferences.

UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington are in the Big Ten.

Stanford and UC Berkeley are now in the Atlantic Coast Conference. So is Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Sacramento State is now in the Mid American Conference.

Northern Illinois has joined the Mountain West Conference.

More importantly, it is hard to see how all of it is financially sustainable.

The transfer portal has spread chaos across the college athletic landscape.

NIL payments are out of control.

Recruiting, travel and coaching costs have all soared.

A recent report documented just how out of control it is.

 “From 2005 to 2023, schools saw increases of 322 percent in recruiting costs, nearly 300 percent in sports equipment, around 250 percent in both medical and game day expenses, and more than 200 percent in travel. Coaching salaries increased a whopping 370 percent over the same time period. And the problem is accelerating. Two years after a roughly $20 million roster was considered exceptional, industry surveys in 2026 placed several leading programs at $40 million or more.”

A large contributing factor is that there is no effective governance structure overseeing college athletics today. 

Any rules the NCAA attempts to make are immediately challenged in the judicial system.

This was the motivation for the introduction of the "Protect College Sports Act" by Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) that passed the Senate earlier this week by a 77-22 vote.

The bill would provide the NCAA a limited antitrust exemption to establish new rules on athlete eligibility, transfers and compensation so that college athletics would be able to be governed without the constant lawsuits we have been seeing.

For example, eligibility would be limited to 5 years and only one transfer would be permitted without sitting out a year. Schools would be limited to revenue sharing for their athletes up to a maximum of $50 million per year.

The new law would also limit future college conferences to no more than 20 members.

The bill still needs House passage which is uncertain. The House is in recess until after the midterm elections and the bill's prospects are unclear in a lame duck session of Congress.

President Trump favors the legislation so if the House passes the legislation it is likely the bill would be signed into law.

If the bill does not pass in this session of Congress the supporters would have to start over next year with the new Congress.

On top of all of this are colleges and universities that are increasingly unaffordable causing more and more people questioning the value proposition of a college education at the same time that demographic changes will mean there are fewer potential college age students in the United States.  

How sustainable are college athletic programs?

The bigger question is how sustainable is the entire college model going forward in an AI world with  collapsing birth rates?

Many Happy Returns

It is hard to believe that October is almost here.

I have been remiss in not wishing many of my readers "Happy Birthday".

That is because September is the month that I have the best chance of wishing you "Happy Birthday" and being right.

A study of all births in the United States between 1994 and 2014 showed that September was the most popular birth month.

In fact, September has nine of the top ten birthdays for the entire  year. Those nine days are actually all between September 9 and September 20.

Source: https://www.birthdayrank.com/

If you turn back the clock 40 weeks it seems that mid-December is a popular period for conceptions to occur. 

Is it the cold weather or the holiday mood?

Here is a birth frequency date heat map. 

Source: https://www.birthdayrank.com/

The least common days to be born are all holidays: December 25 is the least common followed by January 1, December 24 and July 4. 

Source: https://www.birthdayrank.com/

This suggests to me that nature has been overridden by either a doctor who has other plans for the holiday or a family who does not like the idea of having their child's birthday overshadowed by other events.

Notice in the chart above the spike in births on December 28, 29 and 30? That might suggest some tax planning is also in play as well.

What about the most popular birthdays in other countries?

Let's look at Australia in the Southern Hemisphere.

December is in their summer season. July is in their winter. You might expect a different pattern on births if seasonality is a driving factor.

Curiously, the most popular birthday in Australia is September 17. September 23, 24 and October 1 are also in the top 5. 

It might suggest that the feelings of the holiday season has more influence than climate in conception.

Source: https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2021/06/27/most-least-common-birthdays/

The least popular birthdays in Australia are December 25 and December 26 (Boxing Day which is a holiday in Australia).

Note that there is no surge in births in Australia in the last week of the year. In fact, December is the the least likely month for a birth in Australia.

You can also see that February, March, April do have a fairly high percentage of the most popular birthdays in Australia. Backing up nine months gives us May, June, July which are cooler climes Downunder. In fact, April 8 is the second most popular birthday and the only one in the Top 5 that does not correspond to conception in the holiday season.

In the United Kingdom September is also the most popular birthday month according to a study of all births from 1995-2017.

The five most popular birthday are all in late September in this order.

September 26

September 25

September 24

September 27

September 30

Nine months before? Christmas and Boxing Day (December 26).

Despite the differences in the charts above, the numerical differences between the most popular birthdays and least popular are not as great as you might be led to believe.

For example in the UK, the most popular day, September 26, sees an average of 1,974 births in the average year. There were still 1,422 births on Christmas Day. 

The same is true in the U.S. and Australia. You generally will only see a variation of 20%-25% between the most popular and least common birthdays. Nature still is (mostly) in control.

Happy Birthday and many happy returns no matter when the big day is!

Speaking of happy returns, thanks to all of my readers for consistently returning to read BeeLine's content.

For the second consecutive month, BeeLine will exceed 500,000 views.

Source: Google Analytics
As of 6;00 am 9/30/26

There is still time today to refer BeeLine to a friend as last month's record of 567,000 views is within reach.

Single Life and Its Implications

This is one of the most remarkable factoids that I have come across this year.

There are now twice as many men in the United States between the ages of 20-39 who are single compared to those who are married.

Source: https://ifstudies.org/insights/?id=4483

Since 2000 among men aged 20-39.

Unmarried up 47% : 20.7M (2000) → 30.4M (2025)

Married down 15%: 18.1M (2000) → 15.4M (2025)

Looked at the issue of the unmarried more broadly, 40% (120+ million)  of the adult population is single.

Source: https://x.com/robkhenderson/status/2090811808248422527

We are in uncharted territory.

How have we gotten here and what are the implications?

A big reason is that women have gotten more freedom and independence to choose their ideal mate.

Contraceptives, higher education and incomes, combined with less social stigma about being single, have allowed young women to be more selective in selecting a spouse.

150 years ago a girl living on a farm knew that her prospects might be limited to 3 or 4 farm boys who lived within 5 miles of her.

Even 30 years ago the potential supply of mates for a man or woman would be limited to their immediate vicinity and social circle.

The rise of the internet and dating sites has given everybody what seems like an unlimited potential supply of mates.

One result is that young women have gotten a lot more selective about their life choices.

Those men who have below average looks, education, incomes or height have increasingly been sorted out of the dating and marriage market.

If you doubt that, consider the results of studies of a few social media sites.

Men are open to a much larger percentage of available women than is the case of the opposite sex based on looks alone.

96% of men never get beyond the profile page with women.

On the other hand, 60% of women pass this first test with men.

The height test is also a difficult one for many men to pass.

Credit: https://x.com/JedediahBila/status/1912616134895190442

The problem is that about 40% of the male population in the United States is 5'8' or shorter.

Only 14% of adult male are 6 feet or taller.

This then gets us to the even more difficult questions of education and income.

I have a lot of friends with daughters in their 30's who are not yet married. These are for the most part attractive, college-educated women. They have good jobs and are interested in finding the right guy. The common complaint is there are not enough quality young men.

My wife and I had an older friend a number of years back who had a single daughter in her early 30's who was a successful attorney.

Whenever she talked about her she said, "I don't know what she is looking for?

"She could go out with Jesus Christ himself and he would not meet her standards."

The microscope men are under from women today is true even putting looks and height aside. 

It is not an imaginary concern.

Consider this take from a female dating coach in the NY area if you think I am just looking at this from a male perspective.

Source: https://x.com/livtalley_coach/status/2103639245344657562

I have written before about the worrying imbalance between men and women who are college-educated.

Why is that a problem?

Women have historically tended to date and marry men of with at least equal educational attainment. However, that is becoming an increasingly difficult goal today. Almost 60% of college graduates are now women. Only 40% are men. 

This is true for almost all college degree programs. Doctorate degrees are a little more balanced but women still earn more than half of those degrees.

This translates into the fact that many women below the age of 40 are earning more than their male counterparts because of the educational imbalance. 

You would think that it shouldn't matter but it seems that it is pretty important. 

The problem is that even though the world has changed our basic biology and the way the male and female brains are wired has not changed with it. There are primal emotions deep within us that dictate a lot about what we are looking for in a mate.

Many marriage experts will tell you that the most important factor that a woman is looking for in a husband is security. Women want to feel secure that they will be protected and cared for. Men, on the other hand, are looking most for respect. They want to have the respect of their wife.

Do you see a potential problem when the wife is out-earning the husband in the house considering these underlying factors in marriage involving men and women? How does the wife feel secure? How does the husband feel respected?

The other huge primal factor in women is the need to nurture and care.

This is naturally filled by her children.

However, what if she does not have children?

That primal need does not go away. It  might very well be filled by something else.

We can see a lot of this playing out in politics today.

This is probably the most important chart in order to understand politics today.

This is from a large poll during the 2024 election.

Our political landscape would look totally different if unmarried women were not voting.

Married men----------59%/39% Republican

Single men----------- 52%/45% Republican

Married women------56%-42% Republican

Single women--------68%/31% Democrat

How do I explain it?

Single women have a primal need for security. If they cannot satisfy that need with a husband they look to government to fill the hole.

Unmarried women with no children to nurture also need something else to direct their nurturing and caring spirit to.  They turn to causes---climate change, the homeless, Black Lives Matter. etc.

That becomes the case even when it defies common sense.

For example, how did it make any sense at all for young, single, white women living in big cities to protest and march for BLM and demand defunding the police as they did a few years back?

If anyone needs security and the protection of police in a big city it is a young woman.

I posted these pictures during the BLM and defund the police protests in 2020.

You might see one black person in this picture of a BLM protest if you are lucky

.Almost all are young white women that are probably single.

A young woman "confronting" the police in Portland.

We can try to deny biology and the way our bodies and minds are wired but it does not go away.

The implications for our society are most troubling.

We see it affecting our politics.

We also see it in the behaviors of young men.

Without marriage and a woman in their life they turn to video games, pornography and gambling.

There is nothing about any of this (for men or women)  that is positive for our society.

Several months ago I wrote a blog post on "The Collapse of Connection".

It began with these two slides that showed the extent to which human connections are being lost today.

The number of singles (especially young men) is a function of all of this.

This is the path we are on if trends do not change.

1. Collapse of Connection

                  

2. Collapse of Coupling

3. Collapse of Children

4. Collapse of Civilization

This and That---September 25, 2026

A few random observations, charts and factoids to provide some context on what is going on in the world.

This Is Today's Democrat Party?

The Center for Strategic Politics recently asked Democrat party voters their feelings on various ways that President Trump might be removed from office.

89% would have positive feelings if Trump was impeached and convicted by both Houses of Congress.

84% would feel good about Trump being removed for being unfit for office under the 25th Amendment.

59% would positively react to a military coup removing Trump from office.

55% would be happy if Trump died in his sleep.

32% would be positive about Trump being assassinated at a rally.

Are these the people we want voting for and deciding the future of the United States of America?

Hurricanes

We have been told for years that human-induced climate change was going to create more hurricanes and other catastrophic weather events

We were told that if Donald Trump was elected President to expect the worst for out climate.

We have just reached the latest date in any year since 1914 that not one hurricane has formed in the Atlantic.

Credit: https://x.com/MatthewWielicki/status/2102179720007909588

No, the lack of hurricanes is not proof that climate change is not real.

The climate is ever changing. It has been that way for thousands of years.

There has been an Ice Age. A Medieval Warm Period and everything in between.

However,  how is it that every time we hear about a hurricane, tornado or flood today it is blamed on human-induced climate change?

Humans caused it?  We are at the point that anything that happens with the weather is blamed on climate change.

Another surprising factoid I saw recently is that only a single major hurricane (Cat 3-5) has hit the East Coast of the United States in the last 30 years.

Compare that to other 30 year periods dating back to 1907.

The 1937-1966 period was particularly brutal.

Were there more or less humans and carbon emissions in that era compared to today?

Credit: https://x.com/ChrisMartzWX/status/2101047724539806147/photo/1

You possibly could argue that climate change may actually be benefiting the large population centers in East Coast of the United States based on this data.

Data Center Data

No other country is close to the United States in data center development.

Credit: https://x.com/ernietedeschi/status/2100932919162482871/photo/1

What is interesting is that none of these data centers got any attention until  the last several months.

For example, the Chicago area has had 125 data centers operating for some time without any complaints about noise, water usage, power problems and the like.

Source: https://dcmap.us/markets/chicago/

As has been pointed out, many are like large warehouses without the constant flow of trucks in and out and much less disruptive to surrounding neighbors.

Those data centers have been around for a good number of years already or you would not have been able to use your apps on your phone, shop on Amazon, watch YouTube videos or get your groceries delivered by InstaCart.

Why is it only now that they have become a hot political topic?

Undoubtedly, some of this is due to AI and the large scale of some of the rural data centers.

However, if we are to advance economically, and be in a position to meet our social welfare, military and interest obligations on $40+ trillion of federal debt, we need the economic growth that comes with those data centers.

This is the inconvenient truth that very few are willing to admit.

What Is The Chart Really Showing?

This is a chart I saw recently recently that was clearly attempting to make a point in comparing the deaths from the 9/11 attacks and deaths from Covid in April, 2020.

However, were those really deaths from Covid?

If they were, you would expect that deaths would have stayed at an elevated level for succeeding months as the virus infected more and more people.

However, deaths immediately came down and settled at just slightly elevated levels compared to recent history.

As I analyze it, what does the chart really show? 

It shows deaths in 2020 as a result of failed policies and practices.

Human errors.

Many people died in New York and New Jersey, not directly from the Covid virus, but by being put on a ventilator in those early days of the pandemic.

You may recall the mad rush in late March and early April, 2020 to manufacture more ventilators.

It was then recognized that immediate intubation of Covid patients was causing more harm than good in most cases. Less invasive respiratory support protocols were utilized.

In the end, 200,000 ventilators were delivered to hospitals. Only 15,000 were ever deployed.

Second, many became infected and died due to decisions by public officials in those states to put Covid patients in nursing homes.

Fortunately, the errors in judgment were recognized and corrected.

They stopped putting every hospitalized patient on ventilators.

They stopped putting Covid patients in nursing homes.

However, few have been willing to come forward and admit the enormous number of deaths that were caused by human errors rather than by the virus. 

To err is human, especially when dealing with a novel virus.

However, the total refusal to admit mistakes and culpability in so many of the human errors that were made involving Covid policies and practices continues to be maddening to me.

The Economy Is Horrible?

I have written several times recently about the disconnect between Consumer Sentiment (never been worse) and the actual facts regarding the economy.

You can read my previous observations here (9/21) and here (5/25).

I don't think there has ever been a bigger disconnect between perceptions, emotions and reality.

Further evidence of the disconnect was shown on the report on jobless claims released yesterday.

Initial jobless claims are the lowest they have been since 1968!

Source: https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2026/09/17/jobless-claims-sept-12/

For context, the average weekly jobless claim number since 1968 is 359,120.

The current number is approaching half of that average.

What should be done about this?

I guess the prevailing answer is to punish Trump and give Democrats majority control of Congress.

Yeah, that will make things a lot better.