The dinosaurs blew me away. Ending our week of drinking whiskey across Kentucky, we waited in line to buy tickets for the Ark Encounter, a giant Noah’s Ark replica halfway between Lexington, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio. My brother grumbled, “I hear there’s a giant ball of string in Iowa, you want to go there next?” …

The dirty secret: Democrats still need it. Flip-flopping usually leads to ridicule; John Kerry’s famous “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it” comment in 2004 still causes chuckles. But when it comes to the filibuster, no one bats an eye at the constantly shifting positions. The U.S. Senate filibuster rule essentially…

Want employees to love you? Love them first, or at least fake it. A teacher friend of mine told me a story. She was giving a tour of her school to new teachers in the district, and one of the new teachers asked for advice on how to connect with the kids. “Tell them you love them and that you’re not going anywhere.” …

Applying a vaccine hesitancy truth table The federal government has “lost patience” with the unvaccinated because adults should only make their own decisions when those decisions align with what big brother thinks is best. Maybe the push springs from well-meaning but misplaced paternalism or maybe it’s just a naked political power play. …

It Really Is A Red-State Problem. At least mostly. Sometimes facts aren’t comfortable, but principled conservatives make decisions on data. The risk to the unvaccinated from Coronavirus is a thousand or more times greater than the risk from a vaccine. Vaccine hesitancy costs lives. One doesn’t even need numbers for the proof. Most Americans know someone who fell gravely…

I’m going to make a gazillion dollars. It was several years ago, I think we were at some sort of sporting event. Sitting in the bleachers, out of the blue, I turned to my college-aged daughters and dropped the bomb. “I think I’m going to get one of those Instagrams so your mother and I can start…

Rule by executive order isn’t as easy as it sounds. It took six days after the inauguration for a judge to issue the first national injunctions against a Biden administration executive order. U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton, a Trump-appointee out of Texas, held up a Biden order pausing deportation. …

And no, I’m not a New-Age nutter. Over twenty years ago, when I first introduced my wife to my parents, my dad asked about her birthday. Then he narrowed his eyes. In his most sage, wise-man voice, he peered at my fiance and gave his verdict. “Ah, an Aquarius. They’re known to be compulsive liars.” My wife…

Cicero, reluctant father figure. I took my new wife and two new young daughters to the Humane Society for a kitten. They played with a cute black fuzzball in the meeting room, but he cried for his brother. Inevitably, we took home two tiny, fuzzy kittens, midnight black with white medallions on their chests…