Monday, September 15, 2025

RIP Charlie Kirk

The assassination of Charlie Kirk last week was shocking.

Even more shocking were the reactions of many on the Left that celebrated his death.

Kirk’s entire career was dedicated to engaging others in honest debate and dialogue.

He was willing to share and defend his views on abortion, immigration, gun control, transgenderism, religion and many other controversial topics rationally and factually.

I understand that many did not share his views.

However, what possesses someone to take joy in the killing of a man over his opinions?

Charlie had a unique ability to frame his arguments and work to influence rather than incite those who he engaged with.

There is little doubt in my mind that Kirk would have been a Presidential candidate at some point in the future. He had the smarts, he had the communication skills and the charisma to be a force in politics for years to come. 

It was all cut short at the age of 31.

Few have reached such a level of influence at such a young age that anyone would have even thought that it was necessary that he be silenced.

Abraham Lincoln was 56 years old when he was killed.

John F. Kennedy was 46.

Robert F. Kennedy was 42.

Martin Luther King, Jr was 39.

I lived through the assassinations of both Kennedys and Dr, King. 

There was almost universal shock and anger at their deaths.

Yes, we did not have social media but I do not remember anyone who was celebrating their deaths and dancing on their graves like we have seen in the last few days.

Or considering the assailant a hero.

It is both shocking and stomach turning to see the number of college professors, teachers, nurses, doctors, pilots and other people that we interact with on a daily basis celebrating the killing of another human being.

Consider for a moment that if the killing of Charlie Kirk can elicit this horrific behavior what would we have seen if that bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania had been a couple centimeters to the right?

Do we have to hold our breath every second that Donald Trump serves his term so as to avoid this reprehensible behavior repeating itself a thousand-fold?

There is true evil among us.

However, it was not Charlie Kirk and it is not Donald J. Trump.

Sadly, Charlie Kirk saw it all unfolding right before his eyes back in April in this post on X.




Think as well as to what the assassination of Charlie Kirk has done to President Trump.

Trump was close to Kirk. 

Consider that as well as the fact that Trump has seen the raw footage of the reality of what a bullet could have done to him in Butler. And the hatred that has followed in the aftermath.

If you were Trump why would you sit back and just continue to take the hatred?

How could he not be justified in doubling down in calling out the hateful and harmful rhetoric of the Left?

Posted below is the reaction that @RobertMSterling had on X to not only the killing of Charlie Kirk but of the cold-blooded murder of 23 year old Ukranian immigrant Iryna Zarutska at the hands of a man who had at least 14 incidents with the criminal justice system since 2007.

It is worth the read and has received a of lot of likes from many high profile names on X.

Sterling suggests it is well past time for Democrats to clean up their house and police their own.

It remains to be seen whether these incidents will be the catalyst for even more voters abandoning the Democrat party as Sterling suggests.

However, I have no doubt his sentiments will be shared by many. 

Rest in peace, Charlie Kirk.

(Warning: long rant) My liberal friends are completely oblivious about how radicalizing the last week has been for tens of millions of normal Americans. Zero clue. I’m not talking about people who are “online”; I mean regular, everyday Americans. “Normies.” People who scroll through Facebook posts and Instagram reels from the Dutch Bros drive thru line. Political moderates who have water cooler chats about Mahomes touchdowns and Bon Jovi concerts, not Twitter threads or Rachel Maddow monologues. Millions of them. Tens of millions. They’re logging on, they’re engaging, and they’re furious. And I’ll be candid: They blame you guys. They blame the left. Regardless of whether you believe it to be justified, they think you’re the bad guys here. And they are reacting accordingly. I can already hear some of you racing toward the comments to start screeching in moral indignation, so I’m going to be blunt: Shut up and listen to what I’m telling you. Your movement will lose any semblance of relevance if you don’t develop some small measure of self-awareness, and—absent someone force-feeding you bitter medicine—you guys collectively lack the humility to do this on your own. Here are the facts: Fact 1. Tens of millions of Americans started the week seeing a 23-year-old blonde woman—a young woman in whom virtually every parent watching pictured their own daughter—stabbed in the neck by a career criminal. These people then found out the murderer had been released from jail 14 times over. Fact 2. Two days later, tens of millions of Americans watched a video of Charlie Kirk get murdered speaking to college students. Millions of these people knew who Charlie was; millions of them didn’t. Upon seeing the video, however, these normal Americans from across the land and across the political spectrum agreed that he was the victim of a terrible, fundamentally unjustifiable crime, and their hearts broke in sympathy for his family. Good people who had never even heard the name Charlie Kirk before wept. Fact 3. Immediately after seeing the footage of a peaceful young man get shot in the neck, these same people logged onto Facebook and Instagram (remember, we are talking about regular Americans, not perpetually online Twitter or Bluesky users) and saw some of their local nurses, school teachers, college administrators, and retail workers celebrating this horrific crime. Not just defending it, but cheering it. These are all facts. You may not like the implications of these facts, and we can certainly debate the underlying causes thereof, but, indisputably, they are nevertheless factual statements. Here’s what it means for you, the Democrats reading this: These normal, middle-of-the-road, non-political citizens just become politically active. They realized that politics cares about them, even if they don’t particularly care about politics. After watching Iryna Zarutska and Charlie Kirk both bleed out from the neck, they think their lives and the physical safety of their families—the bedrock of human society, the foundation of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs—depend on political activation, whether they desire it or not. These people are now sprinting—not jogging, not walking, but racing—to the right. Because they blame you guys for everything that just happened. When they see footage of Decarlos Brown stabbing a Ukrainian refugee to death, they don’t see just one demon-possessed man. They picture every university administrator, HR bureaucrat, and DEI apparatchik that ever lectured them about systemic racism, the “carceral state,” or the need to release violent crime suspects without bail in the name of social justice. They then think back to conversations they’ve had with their cop friends—their buddy from high school who quit the force after getting tired of being called a racist, their friend at the local YMCA who vents about having to release career criminals because Soros-funded prosecutors aren’t willing to file charges—and they realize everything the left has told them over the last five years has been utter bullshit. And they blame you. Because, even if you count yourself as a moderate Democrat, your party supported the district attorneys, city council members, and mayors that let fictitious concerns about mental health and racial justice supersede very real concerns for their family’s safety. When these Americans see blood erupt from the side of Charlie Kirk’s neck, they don’t see just a martyred political activist. They think of every extreme leftist they’ve ever met who (1) calls anyone to the right of Hillary Clinton a fascist and (2) constantly jokes—“jokes”—about punching Nazis and “bashing the fash.” They realize that there really do exist people who wish to see them dead for their moderately conservative political beliefs, their Christian faith, and even the color of their skin. They ask themselves if the violence visited upon Charlie might one day show up on their own doorstep. And they blame you. Because, even if you’re just a center-of-the-road liberal, you lacked the courage to police your own ranks. You let modern-day Maoist red guards run loose across every facet of society, and what started with social-media struggle sessions has now turned to 30-06 bullet holes. When these Americans log onto social media and see their neighbors justifying, celebrating, glorifying murder, they realize that some who walk among them are soulless ghouls at best, literally demon-possessed at worst. These people—whether they faithfully attend church every Sunday or only attend with relatives once a year, on Christmas Eve—start talking about things like spiritual warfare. They implicitly understand that no normal human casually celebrates the mortal demise of a peaceful person. And they blame you. Because, even if you condemned Charlie Kirk’s murder, they probably haven’t seen you condemn those in your own movement who cheered it on. They view you as complicit in allowing heartless fellow travelers to celebrate death, and it repulses them. For all of these situations, what has your response been? Nothing but bullshit. In response to Iryna Zarutska bleeding out on the floor of a train, you post bullshit statistics about reductions in reported crime, when everyone who’s ever been to a major urban center in the last decade knows that actual crime has skyrocketed, only for victims not to waste their time reporting it to cops that don’t have the manpower to respond and prosecutors that seek to downgrade as many felonies as possible to misdemeanor citations. In response to a 31-year-old man taking a bullet to the neck in front of his family, you post nothing but bullshit whataboutism. > “What about January 6th?” (Honest answer: After you let Liz Cheney spend two years operating a star chamber in the House, combined with countless other failed attempts at “lawfare” against Trump, no one cares anymore.) > “What about Mike Lee making a dumb joke on Twitter about some guy in a mask in Minnesota?” (No one outside of Utah, DC, or Twitter knows who Mike Lee even is.) > “What about Paul Pelosi?” (That’s not comparable to Charlie Kirk getting shot, and we all know it. And, again, Paul who?) > “What about regulations on assault rifles?” (That’s not going to get you very far when one of these killers used a knife and the other one used a common hunting rifle.) In response to teachers, healthcare workers, and thousands of other liberals cheering on Charlie’s murder, it’s nothing but more bullshit and misdirection. > “It’s not THAT many people celebrating!” (Yes, it is. Everyone has seen it on their Facebook and Instagram feeds.) > “I thought you guys didn’t support cancel culture.” (We don’t cancel people over their opinions; we’re more than happy to see people lose their jobs—especially their taxpayer-funded jobs—for actively cheering on murder, though. If you can’t see the difference, that’s your own shortcoming.) All bullshit. Not even smart bullshit, but stale, mid-grade, low-IQ bullshit. Ordinary Americans see right through it, and they don’t like how it smells. You probably don’t like hearing this. But you need to hear it. Because I’m right, and, as you reflect on this, you know I’m right. The ranks of my political movement gained millions of righteously angry new members this week. We have a mandate to ensure these crimes never happen again, and that’s exactly what we are now going to do. If you want to keep a seat at the table as we do so, you’d better clean house and start policing your own.


 

Friday, September 12, 2025

The Fine Green Line

A number of years ago I read an interesting book by John Paul Newport.

Newport was a scratch golfer in his mid-thirties who wondered how good he could be at golf if he quit his job and dedicated a full year to the game.

His plan was to get the best lessons, practice a lot and play competitively on some of the pro mini-tours over the course of a year in a bold effort to see if he could make it through the PGA Tour's Q-School.

Newport documented his journey in "The Fine Green Line" which was published in 2001.

Source: https://www.amazon.com/Fine-Green-Line-Adventure-Mini-Tours/dp/0767901177

Newport defines the "fine green line" as the subtle divide between top professional golfers who succeed on the PGA Tour and those who fall just short, despite substantial talent and hard work.

The fine green line represents the razor-thin margin of mental, technical, and emotional precision required to cross from amateur or journeyman status to sustained professional success.

In the book Newport draws parallels to life's broader challenges in realizing potential on other endeavors as well.

It goes without saying that Newport fell short despite all that he put into his year's effort.

Newport was capable of shooting in the 60's with his buddies at home.

He even posted some decent scores in some of the mini-tour events he played in.

However, when he got to the first stage of Q-School he found that the fine green line was an even larger divide than he could have imagined. He shot 91-88-81.

Yes, the game of golf does require mental and emotional precision like no other.

I was reminded of "The Fine Green Line" as I looked over the final statistics for the recently concluded PGA Tour season.

The Fine Green Line does not only exist between PGA Tour golfers and the rest of the world.

It also exists among those who play on the Tour.

I am sure that even those of you who have no interest in golf know the name Scottie Scheffler.




He just completed the recent season ranked #1 in the world, won five times during the year including two major championships and has earned close to $100 million in on-course winnings over the last two years. He also finished in the Top 10 in 16 of the 19 Tour events he played in 2025.

On the other hand, only the most hard core golf fan has heard of Rico Hoey who is the same age as Scheffler.




Hoey just finished the 2025 PGA Tour season ranked 106th in the season long FedEx Cup rankings.

He has never won a PGA Tour event.

He has won less than $4 million in 8 years as a professional golfer.

If Hoey cannot elevate his FedEx ranking into the Top 100 by the end of the Fall Season that begins this week at the Procore Championship in California he will lose his fully exempt status to play on the PGA Tour next year.

However, let's compare the statistics of Hoey with Scheffler during the 2025 PGA Tour season.

In Strokes Gained Off The Tee, Hoey ranked #2 on the Tour just behind Scheffler. Hoey ranked ahead of Rory McIlroy who many consider to be the best driver of the ball on Tour.


On Strokes Gained Tee to Green, Hoey ranked #3 right behind Scheffler and Colin Morikawa who many believe to be the best iron player on Tour.




In Greens In Regulation, Hoey was actually ranked #1 on the PGA Tour.

Scheffler was #6.




On Proximity To The Hole, Hoey ranked #8 with an average proximity of 34'5".

Scheffler ranked #3---just 7 inches better on average than Hoey.

How come Hoey has never won and almost no one has ever heard his name?

It is "The Fine Green Line".

And for Hoey it is his short game---particularly his putting--that is the fine green line.

Hoey's scrambling rank for > 30 yards from the pin was #160.

His sand save rank was #162.

Hoey ranked #163 in putting for the year.

How much worse was Hoey's putting average than Scheffler's for the year?

1 stroke per round.

That is the difference between Scheffler's rank of #6 in putting average and Hoey's #162.

That is The Fine Green Line.

Keep your eye on Hoey for the future.

If he can ever figure out a way to get the ball in the hole he could be a force to reckon with.

However, the fine green line is a very difficult divide to cross over and conquer.


Wednesday, September 10, 2025

Are Diamonds Still A Girl's Best Friend?

Marilyn Monroe sang the song "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" in the film version of "Gentlemen Prefer Blonds" which was released in 1953.


Credit: https://www.diamondsandjewelryunlimited.com/blog/2019/Dec/27/music-friday-marilyn-monroe-is-all-about-the/


Carol Channing sang the song in the original Broadway musical in 1949.

It has long been a marketing tactic of the jewelry business that diamonds were eternal and never lose their value.

It seems that is no longer true.

Diamond prices have recently fallen to their lowest level this century.

A big reason is that lab-made diamonds have gotten better and better.

An article in The Wall Street Journal recently explained how the process to make synthetic diamonds has improved so dramatically in recent years.

“Now diamonds can be made in labs that mimic the earth’s extreme pressure and temperatures, but for a fraction of the price. A decade ago, such man-made gems were novel. Today they are mainstream, and increasingly challenging the perception of diamonds as a luxury accessory.”A majority of engagement rings are now made with lab-grown diamonds.

It has now gotten to the point that lab-grown diamonds make up the majority of engagement rings.



At the same time, gold prices have gone higher and higher as diamonds prices have slumped.



In fact, gold and silver have generally been the best places to invest your money this year.

Gold is up +37% year to date.



Silver is +38% in 2025 so far.



Further, Goldman Sachs recently projected that if just 1% of private owners of U.S treasury bonds were to flow into gold the price of gold would rise to nearly $5,000 per ounce.

The new symbol of endearing love might soon become just a simple gold or silver engagement ring.

No need for a depreciating rock.

Monday, September 8, 2025

This and That---September 8, 2025 Edition

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


Chinese College Students

President Trump is facing backlash from his MAGA base on his announcement that he is going to allow 600,000 Chinese students to enroll in American universities.


Source: https://apnews.com/article/chinese-student-visas-trump-maga-dce4e064ea61a4df090865668ca48cde

This is more than double the number of Chinese students who were recently enrolled at U.S. colleges.


Source: https://www.chinausfocus.com/society-culture/theres-still-hope-for-us-china-student-exchange

Back in 2019 I wrote about the increasing dependence of American colleges and universities on the tuition dollars from Chinese students.

At the time I wrote that blog post I included the graphic below that showed the colleges that had the highest Chinese enrollment,

This data was from the 2015/2016 school year and the numbers were rather shocking.

The University of Illinois and the University of Southern California both had around 8,000 Chinese students. Purdue and Northwestern had over 7,000.



If you want to know a big reason that Trump is willing to welcome so many Chinese students take a look at the following chart.

Within the next four years there will  be 1.5 million fewer 18 year olds annually that are potential college students than there are today. 


Credit: https://x.com/DanielDiMartino/status/1962700981881213275

Add to this the increasing number of students who do not see that a college education is worth the high costs and you have the makings of an enormous financial crisis for many schools.

Scores of colleges are going to be under severe financial pressures in the next few years due to this demographic drop off. Some will undoubtedly have to close their doors.

The financial pain this will cause will disproportionately be centered in the Northeast and Rust Belt states which have seen the largest population shifts and have a greater share of small liberal arts colleges.

My guess is that Trump figures he can get some favors and goodwill from China on trade and other issues for relaxing the student visa rules and save some college towns at the same time.

It may not be popular with MAGA but money talks.


To Death Do Us Part

This is interesting data on the cumulative proportion of unions dissolving based on couple type and duration between formal union and cohabitation.

A male couple in a formal relationship actually have lower breakup rates than married heterosexual couples.

This is true throughout the duration of the relationship.


Credit: https://x.com/StatisticUrban/status/1962678923092992064

Any form of cohabitation (male-female), female-female, male-male) has very little chance of surviving over any length of time.

However, a male-male relationship has a better chance than male-female and female-female.

The bottom line is that marriage or a formal relationship makes all the difference in the world in keeping couples together.

To death do us part does really means something even if it only gets you a third of the way there in the best of circumstances.


Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

Studies shows that about 70% of divorces among heterosexual couples are initiated by the woman.


Credit: https://divorce.com/blog/who-initiates-divorce-more/

Some argue that the primary reason for this is that women do not get the attention or emotional support they need from their husbands.

However, if this is the case, why are divorce rates even higher in lesbian marriages when there is no man involved to mess things up? These unions fail at an even higher rate than traditional marriages.

Despite the rejection in the original marriage, men coming out of a divorce are more likely to get remarried than women.

The National Healthy Marriage Resource Center reports that 55% of men and 44% of women over the age of 25 remarry after a divorce with a median time of 3.5 years between the divorce and a second marriage.

The overall divorce rate in the U.S. is 43% for first marriages, 67% for second marriages and 73% of third marriages. This suggests that if you are unhappy the first time you might also find that you are unhappy a second or third time.


Non Stop Travel

Which airport in the world should you live close to for the greatest opportunity to get on a direct non-stop flight to a destination?

This one was a surprise to me.

Istanbul Airport in Turkiye has direct air service to 310 destinations.


Source: https://brilliantmaps.com/airports-by-number-of-destinations/

Frankfurt, Germany is second with 288 destinations, Paris Charles DeGaulle is third with 279 and Dubai International Airport is fourth with 269.

The best airport to get a direct flight in the United States is Dallas-Ft.Worth with 264 destinations which is 5th in the world rankings.


Source: https://brilliantmaps.com/airports-by-number-of-destinations/

However, note that DFW has 929 daily flights whereas Istanbul only has 583 per day.

The airport with most daily flights in the world is Chicago's O"Hare with 1,004.

O"Hare is 7th in the world for destinations with 256.


I Bet You Have Been To Florida

Which state has been visited by more Americans than any other?

A recent YouGov survey found that more American adults have been to Florida (65%) than any other state.

A majority of Americans have visited New York (58%), D.C. (54%), Texas (54%) and California (53%).

On the other hand, Alaska (12%) is the state that the fewest number of Americans have visited.

North Dakota is the least visited among the 48 contiguous states.


Source: https://today.yougov.com/travel/articles/52307-which-states-have-americans-visited


I found it interesting that 21% of Americans have visited Hawaii which is more than have visited the following states.

Maine 19%

Rhode Island  19%

New Hampshire  19%

Vermont  18%

Idaho   20%

Montana  19%

North Dakota  14%

Alaska 12%

Age does have its advantages.

32% of those age 65+ have visited 30 or more states.

Only 5% of those ages 18-29 have been able to visit that many.

Those in the Midwest have traveled the most. 21% have been to 30 or more states.

Only 7% of those in the Northeast have traveled as much.


Source: https://today.yougov.com/travel/articles/52307-which-states-have-americans-visited


I have visited 49 of the 50 states.

South Dakota has alluded me to this point.

It is on the bucket list.


Friday, September 5, 2025

Off With The Hijabs?

I have been interested for some time as to why Middle Eastern Muslim countries over the last 40-50 years became more conservative and less tolerant and Judeo-Christian Western countries became more liberal and tolerant.

It is a puzzling paradox as conventional thinking suggests that as societies age and mature they tend to become more progressive. For example, they advance from a primitive, barbaric system of justice to a system that recognizes individual rights and equal justice. They become less authoritarian and more flexible.

Why did Islam move towards the 10th century in the last 50 years but in the West we even see Christian institutions "progressing" so far that it is hard to recognize the existence of any traditional or core values at all?

I have written before of the stunning transformation of countries like Iran, Afghanistan and Egypt over my lifetime. In years past, we looked like we were living in the same world. That is certainly not the case today. 

For example, this is a picture of a female soldier in the Iranian Army in 1979.

Credit: Pakistan Defence


These are female soldiers in the Iranian Army in 2011.

Credit: Pakistan Defence



For perspective, consider this image of over 100,000 Iranian women in 1979 protesting a law requiring that they wear a hijab in public.


How did that work out?

Here is a helpful graphic that explains the various headgear that might be worn by Muslim women.


Source: https://guides.library.cornell.edu/IslamWomen/DressCode


Iranian women  have been living under the hijab for almost 50 years now.

However, the last few years have seen increasing defiance of the Iranian regime and wearing of the hijab.

The strict law on wearing the hijab is still in place but more and more women are not complying as a symbol of protest against the state and as a claim for personal freedom.

A new law imposing even harsher penalties was deferred in the face of protests.


Source: https://www.euronews.com/2024/12/18/iran-pauses-implementation-of-stricter-hijab-law-for-women


These are Afghanistan women in the 1950's compared to 2014.




These are Egyptian students at Cairo University in two different eras.

1959


2012


As we approach the anniversary of 9/11 next week a related question is what causes young men to fly aircraft into skyscrapers killing thousands of innocent people or strapping on a suicide vest in a crowded market to kill or maim dozens while shouting "Allahu Akbar"?

A few years ago I came across an interesting paper by Dr. Tawfik Hamid, "The Cause of Jihadist Terrorism and How to Combat It" in a publication by the Air Force Research Laboratory (credit to Viable Opposition for pointing me to this) that attempts to explain this question.

Dr. Hamid knows something about this subject because at one time he was an Islamic extremist himself in his native Egypt.

The radical Islam we see today has its roots in what is called the "Salafi Movement" within Islam. Its followers believe in taking a very fundamental approach to Islam. They believe that Islam has strayed from its roots and has become decadent over the years. 

They reject any religious innovation and support the implementation of sharia law. One of the key signs of spreading Salafism is for the women to wear the hijab, a key part in the imposition of sharia law.

Interestingly, Hamid sees the wearing of the hijab as an important indicator of increased radicalism in a Muslim community. This is how he describes how this takes hold.

The process begins with the propagation of Salafi jihadist ideology within a community. Increasing numbers of women begin to wear the hijab, which is both a symptom of Salafi proliferation and a catalyst for Islamism (see, e.g.,Mahmood, 2005). In turn, the proliferation of militant Salafism and the hijab contribute to the idea of passive terrorism, which occurs when moderate segments of the population decline to speak against or actively resist terrorism. 


The chart below shows the process of radicalization as well as the reinforcing cycle that continues to make the problem worse as times goes on. Hamid makes the point that while only a small percentage of Muslims become active terrorists, there are a very large number of what he calls "passive terrorists" who support the ideals of the cause but will never become violent.

However, it is a numbers game. The more adherents of Islam who follow the fundamentalist view of Salafism, the greater chance that a few more will become violent extremists. The first step in combating jihadist terrorism is to reduce the number of "passive terrorists" as Hamid calls them.




The solution to all of this is exceedingly complex. "No single, magical solution for defeating Islamism" exists according to Hamid.

However, Hamid sees a critical first step that can be taken is to weaken what he calls the "hijab phenomenon" .

Weakening the hijab phenomenon is pivotal to stopping the growth of Islamism at the ideological level. Wearing the hijab is discussed as a cultural phenomenon, rather than an individual choice, as many Muslim women are peaceful people (Hamid, 2007, pp.120-121). I have observed that, over the last few decades, terrorism was preceded by an increase in the prevalence of the hijab. In Sunni Muslim areas such as Kurdistan in Iraq, most women did not wear the hijab; these areas experienced fewer acts of terrorism than areas where the hijab was common, such as Al-Anbar Province.  


If more hijabs start coming off there may be hope in Iran and elsewhere for more tolerance and less terrorism.

We can only hope.

I was in Turkey and Egypt two years ago. 

In Egypt most of the women were wearing hijabs although there is no law mandating it. Burqas and Niqabs were also worn by a number of women.

In the parts of Turkey I was in (principally Istanbul and Kusadasi) almost no women wore hijabs or anything else.

Turkey is actually more Muslim (99% of the population) than Egypt (91%)

A local in Istanbul told me that women do not like to wear the hijab there. He told me that if I see a hijab on a woman she is not from the area. 

Does this suggest that we are likely to see more terrorists come out of Egypt than Turkey based solely on the "hijab factor"?

That remains to be seen but Hamid's theory is worth considering.

I am still looking for an explanation of why Islam has become the retrograde force that it is today at the same time that Christianity has become so liberal and tolerant.

Calling many Christian denominations progressive is using a term that is much too mild.

However, I have a better understanding of why all of the hijabs have appeared over the last 50 years...and what it tells us.

And what it tells us is not encouraging.

As is also the case with taking over the streets to pray.


Link: https://x.com/JakeCan72/status/1954277140612157696


Wednesday, September 3, 2025

RFK, Jr. and the CDC

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is scheduled to testify before a Congressional committee tomorrow regarding the termination of the recently appointed CDC Director and the subsequent resignations of several high ranking CDC officials.

CDC Director Susan Monarez was ousted by President Trump less than one month after being confirmed by the Senate because she was "not aligned with his mission".

What is the mission of Trump and RFK involving the CDC?

They want to refocus the efforts of the CDC on Making America Healthy Again and to eliminate the increased politization of the agency that has taken place over the years.

It has been reported that Monarez was not willing to terminate individuals within the agency that RFK believed were not aligned with that mission.

She also attempted to go behind RFK's back to complain to Senator Bill Cassidy who was the biggest supporter of Monarez in the confirmation process.

The upcoming report that RFK is planning to release later this month on what is causing the shocking increases in autism over the last several decades may also be part of all of this. .


Source: https://x.com/USMortality/status/1912222040129421536/photo/1

The argument that is used most often to explain this is that autism is better identified and diagnosed today than it was 50 years ago.

That may partially explain the increase but how could it be the only reason?

If you are over the age of 50 how many autistic kids did you know growing up?

Today it seems everyone knows someone that has some type of autism.

Is it due to some environmental cause?

Is it possible that the massive increase in childhood vaccines since the 1980's has played a role?


Source: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/vaccine-curriculum/


RFK, Jr. was well known for raising questions about the safety and efficacy of vaccines before he took the HHS position.

The CDC has long claimed that vaccines are absolutely safe and effective and has worked to shut down any dissenting voices on the subject.

They continue to defend giving the Hepatitis B vaccine to all new born babies even though Hep B can only be contracted by sharing drug needles, unprotected sex or a mother who is infected.

Why subject millions of babies to the vaccine universally when it could be limited to those babies with infected mothers which is easy to test for. 

One of the CDC executives who resigned last week was this man, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who oversaw its vaccine section.


This is how the good doctor spends some of his free time.


Source: https://x.com/Oilfield_Rando/status/1962141327090393506/photo/2

In his resignation letter he referred to "pregnant people" and stated his pronouns were (he, his, him) while at the same time making this statement in his letter.

Their desire to please a political base will result in death and disability of vulnerable children and adults.  Their base should be the people they serve not a political voting bloc.

It seems that Dr. Daskalakis has his own agenda and is trying to please his own political base and voting bloc rather than solely being focused on public health.

He also is worried about future deaths and disabilities of vulnerable children and adults due to any changes in vaccine policy but he ignores what has already happened under the CDC's watch over the last five years.

Excess deaths in the United State continued even after the Covid pandemic was over.

One study found that the United States had 1.5 million excess deaths beyond what it should have been  compared to other peer countries in 2022 and 2023.


You also have the shocking data that I wrote about recently in these pages concerning the additional 7 million more people that have been classified as having a disability in the United States over the last five years.



This doctor is worried about future policy changes while ignoring the fact that the CDC made dubious decisions time after time during Covid.

I wrote about many of these at the time.

For example, the CDC  totally ignored a planning guidance and strategy document they had produced as far back as 2007 on what the responses should be if we found ourselves in a pandemic influenza situation. 

That plan did not recommend social distancing, masking or lengthy school closings or business closures.

The CDC had toddlers and others wearing masks even though all studies indicated cloth masks would have no utility against transmission of a respiratory virus like Covid.

They closed schools for two years based on the strong influence of the teacher's unions and set back the education and socialization of millions of children in the process.

The only mitigation measure that was definitely recommended in the CDC plan for a Category 2 or 3 pandemic like Covid was the "voluntary isolation" of the ill at home.

In fact, never in human history has there ever been a pandemic in which the healthy were told to quarantine. Not once.

Why was it done with Covid?

They mandated all adults and children get the Covid vaccine or be fired from their jobs or kicked out of school.

They mandated the vaccine even if someone had previously had Covid and showed natural antibodies against the virus.

It is hard to argue that the CDC and the public health people establishment did not cause greater damage to mankind in its response to Covid than anyone else has ever done in human history short of causing a World War.

Why did any of the senior leadership at CDC  still have a job to begin with before RFK took control at HHS?

Based on the past record of the CDC on its response to Covid alone, RFK is well within his rights to demand changes in how the CDC is managed and its blind faith in all vaccines.

Are vaccines a cause of autism?

I don't know but vaccines certainly deserve more scrutiny than the CDC has been willing to put them under.

The CDC and the medical establishment want to paint RFK as an insane wacko on the subject.

They argue that there is no evidence that vaccines are not safe and effective.

They dismiss any link to autism.

They tell us it is all settled SCIENCE and it is foolish and dangerous to question vaccines.

However, in the history of medicine there are numerous examples where the consensus of the medical establishment was DEAD wrong. And the arrogance of being closed minded caused many deaths.

For centuries the consensus of medical scientists was that blood letting was the best method to cure illness.

In fact, George Washington who had contracted a throat infection may have actually died from anemia in 1799 after doctors performed four blood lettings within 12 hours which reduced his volume of blood by 40%.

Blood letting was generally accepted as the best method for centuries to treat diseases until the late 19th century when is was finally rejected as quackery. 

In the mid-19th century Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis concluded that puerperal fever, that caused as many as 10% of mothers in that era to die shortly after giving birth, was caused by doctors who did not wash their hands before giving delivery.

He instituted strict antiseptic procedures for doctors and nurses during delivery and incidences of what was also referred to as childbed fever dropped to almost nothing.

Despite the evidence, the conclusions of Semmelweis were rejected by the medical community. He lost his job at the hospital he worked at. He continued to try to convince others of the necessity of hand washing but no one would listen to him. A major reason was that other doctors did not want to admit that if Semmelweis was right they were the ones actually killing their patients.

The continuing rejection of his hypothesis eventually made Semmelweis angrier and angrier and he took on strange behaviors. He was admitted to a mental asylum in 1865 and died there at age 47. 

He never lived to see that he was proven right.

As recently as 40 years ago the accepted medical consensus was that peptic ulcers were caused by stress and lifestyle. We now know it is caused by bacteria.

This all resulted from the work of Dr. Barry Marshall who turned centuries of medical consensus on its head through his research at Royal Perth Hospital in Australia. 

Marshall's initial conclusions were also greeted with skepticism but gained traction much quicker than that of Dr. Semmelweis.

Within a decade it was generally accepted that peptic ulcers were caused by the helicobacter pylori bacillus.

Marshall was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology in 2005 for his discovery.

I could go on and on. In fact, in most cases like these, the consensus of scientists was proven wrong by one person who did not believe the consensus and proved it wrong.

Keep all of this in mind as you see reports about RFK and the CDC in the mainstream media.

You can be sure that the medical establishment and Big Pharma are going to doing everything it can to diminish and demonize RFK.

However, in a Harvard-Harris poll last month, RFK actually had the highest favorable rating of any political figure that was tested.

That might be an indication that the American people are interested in someone raising questions about the vaccines and challenging the medical establishment.


Source: Harvard-Harris, August, 2025


RFK may be wrong about his skepticism regarding the vaccines and the CDC.

However, what if he is right?

What is so wrong about increased transparency and scrutiny of the CDC, vaccine policy and Big Pharma?

Sunlight has always been a natural disinfectant.

More light needs to be shined on the CDC and Big Pharma.

What is so threatening about analyzing and following the facts rather than the narrative?

RFK is right to do it.




Monday, September 1, 2025

Bubbles, Bonds and Baskets

Are Nvidia and AI (the artificial intelligence industry) part of one of the largest financial bubbles of all time?

The numbers suggest they are.

Nvidia comprises 8% of the total market cap of the S&P 500.

No stock in history has had a higher weight in the stock index.

Nvidia also haa a market cap that is higher than the entire stock market of China or the UK.

It is just $1 trillion less than Japan's Nikkei 225 index which is the second largest stock market in the world after the U.S. 



In fact, Nvidia's recent valuation ($4.3 trillion) is higher than the entire GDP of India and nearly twice that of Canada.

Only three countries in the world have a larger total economy than the current value of Nvidia.

Largest GDP Countries-2025
Source: https://www.cerityglobal.com/blogs/top-15-countries-by-gdp-in-2025/


Will Nvidia's future profits eventually justify its high stock price?

Anything is possible but that seems extremely unlikely to me based on past history.

I am reminded of the story of the stock price of RCA (Radio Corporation of America) in the 1920's and 1930's.

RCA was the high-flying stock of the Roaring 1920's. It was the leading company in the emerging field of "wireless" communication for the masses era.  The stock appreciated almost 10-fold between 1924 and 1929.  However, an investor who purchased RCA at its 1929 high had to wait 57 years to recoup their investment. That time period also encompassed RCA getting into the television market in the 1940's and 1950's.

57 years is a very long time to wait to see your stock to increase in value.

Investors got a little ahead of reality.

A more familiar name of recent years is Cisco Systems. It has been a great company for a long time.

However, 26 years after its high in the dot.com madness, it still has not exceeded its value from a quarter century ago.

This is despite Cisco increasing revenues by almost five-fold and net income rising from $2 billion in 1999 to over $10 billion in 2025.

It had a market cap of almost $400 billion in early 2000. Today, over 25 years later, Cisco is valued at less than 3/4 of that ($270 billion) total.

Perhaps Nvidia can justify that stock price but history suggests it is unlikely.

All of this would not be of concern to the masses but for the fact that Nvidia has such a large weighting in any 401(k) or other stock portfolio that is invested in the S&P 500---which is almost everyone's.

If we are in a Nvidia and AI bubble your nest egg is most likely at risk even if you never gave investing in Nvidia or AI a thought.

Looking beyond Nvidia, which is just one of 4,200 NYSE and NASDAQ publicly-traded stocks in the United States, there are now 4,300 ETF's (exchange-traded funds).


Credit: https://x.com/SamRo/status/1959971872986013821

In addition, there are over 7,000 mutual funds in the United States.

There have never been more choices in how to invest your money.

And many of those fund managers have Nvidia and other AI names among their fund investments which have been fueling recent gains.

How are those fund managers feeling right now about U.S. market prospects?

They are not real optimistic.


They have a lot more confidence in finding value in emerging market stocks than in U.S. equities.

As stocks become overvalued and carry greater risk to investors the typical investment move is to reallocate assets from stocks to bonds.

Yields on 30 year U.S. treasuries are close to 5% having been as low as 1.32% in 2021.


Source: https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/US30Y


If interest rates decline this could prove to be a wise move as you will not only lock in the 5% income yield but the bonds will also appreciate as rates decline.

However, if rates continue to increase, losses on the bonds will follow.

For example, a holder of 20 year U.S. treasuries is down 38% since 2020 as interest rates rose.


Credit: https://x.com/_Investinq/status/1960346243256733977

Interest rates on long term soverign debt have not just risen in the United States.

Keep in mind that a country's central bank may be able to influence and control short term rates but has little influence on longer term rates which are largely controlled by market forces..

The yield on a 30-year bond in Japan just went over 3.2%.

It has never been higher.

There has never been more risk that something is going to break in Japan than in the current interest rate environment that exists there.


The yield on UK's 30 year bonds have just surpassed 5.6%.

This is the highest interest rate since 1998 in that country.


What is the market telling us with these increases in yields of longer term government securities?

Investors in these bonds are not comfortable with the increasing levels of debt and the accompanying risk and are demanding higher premiums to take the paper.

What does an investor do in times like these?

It has long been said that it is not wise to put all of one's eggs in a single basket.

This is why diversification is a fundamental investment principle.

This has always been the best advice if you do not have the time or inclination to keep a close eye on your investments.

However, what if you have spread your eggs into several baskets and there is still a risk of breakage?

Both Andrew Carnegie and Warren Buffett had excellent advice on what to do if you had all your eggs in one basket.

You better keep a very, very close eye on that basket.

I think the same applies today whether you are invested in Nvidia, stocks, bonds, bitcoin or anything else.

This is especially true as we enter the months of September and October.

These two months have seen some of the largest major market meltdowns in the past.

The Crash of 1929    October, 1929

Black Monday          October, 1987

Post 9/11 Market Decline    September, 2001

Collapse of Lehman Brothers and Global Financial Crisis    September-October, 2008 

Keep in mind that the past is not prologue and this blog post is not intended as financial or investment advice but merely to provide some factual context to the current investment environment. 

However, it is a reminder that it is always a good idea to keep a close eye on whatever baskets you have your money in..

That might be truer now than ever.