At this time of year it’s easy to get caught up in the hubbub of friends and family, parties and presents, and forget the real reason for Christmas: we are primitive, superstitious Neanderthals. For millennia any tribe with enough brains to recognize patterns in the night sky has held a...

For years now, environmental lobbyists have been warning us about environmental disasters like the one we just witnessed in the Gulf of Mexico. At first glance, we might see this as proof of their position. In fact, the opposite is true. Their premise has been that, with sufficient political...

This morning, at 1:17 AM, the power failed at my house. I’m a geek, so a power failure at my house might look different than it does at yours. Emergency lighting automatically switched on. The alarm system notified the central monitoring station in Ojai, which sent a text message to my...