If you have to lie and lie and lie, all for your raison d’être, perhaps your reason for living has always been a lie as well.

Philadelphia Inquirer, Building

When my daughters were contemplating where they would go to college, I absolutely vetoed Temple University, not due to the school itself, but because I knew where it was located, in Philadelphia’s combat zone. The city has since cleaned up Broad Street, but go just one block deep off of Broad, and the same badlands that had been cleaned up on the main drag persisted.

Put Dave Ramsey in Charge of the Federal Budget. I’m dead serious.

I have used the envelope system in my own home. Actual paper envelopes. Actual cash. Sitting on my kitchen counter, labeled in Sharpie for groceries, gas, the kids’ activities, all of it. And here is what happened the one time I reached into the grocery envelope and there wasn’t enough left for the steak I wanted: I didn’t buy the steak. I stood there in the meat aisle at Aldi, did the math in my head, and put it back. Bought chicken instead. My daughter still brings it up. “Remember when we didn’t get steak because of the envelope, Dad?” Yes, sweetheart. I remember. Because that’s what happens when the money is gone. It’s gone. There’s no secret second envelope hiding behind the first one. There’s no “we’ll figure it out next month.” The cash in the envelope IS the budget, and when it’s empty, you stop. Full stop. No negotiation with yourself at 9pm in a grocery store.

The Hunt for Ink and Paper

It was a small town. Somewhere in the Southeast. Big shopping complex, off the interstate. Best Buy, Red Lobster, Ulta, Olive Garden, Outback Steakhouse, Target, and all other franchises that transform American towns into carbon copies, from Oil Slick to Shining Oil Slick. 

What If World War III Started in 2016 and We Just Missed the Memo?

What if World War III didn’t begin with missiles, mushroom clouds, or tanks crossing a border? What if it quietly started around 2016, and we were too busy arguing about elections, surviving COVID, watching AI explode, and complaining about gas prices to notice the clouds gathering? Grab the heavy-duty aluminum foil and follow me down the rabbit hole as we connect geopolitics, oil, emerging alliances, artificial intelligence, biblical prophecy, and one wonderfully uncomfortable question: What if history has already changed—and nobody bothered to send us the memo?

If You Were Born Before 1980, The Left Has Killed You With Climate Change At Least 17 Times!

My aunt sent me a graphic last Thanksgiving. You know the kind. Red background, dripping font, a countdown clock, and a caption that said something like “SCIENTISTS AGREE: WE HAVE LESS THAN A DECADE LEFT.” She tagged me because she knows I teach science, and she wanted me to tell everyone at the table how scared to be.

I did not tell anyone how scared I was. I put my fork down and asked her a question instead: how many of these countdown clocks has she personally lived through already. She’s sixty-one. She could not name one. Not one single specific year, name, or quote. Just a general, permanent, floating sense of dread that has apparently been humming in the background of her entire adult life, refreshed every few years with a new deadline, never once checked against the last one.

Where Are the Watchdogs? The Media’s Deafening Silence on Government Fraud

Where are the watchdogs? I have been asking myself that question for months. It is a story every American needs to hear, yet legacy media outlets have decided you don’t need to know.

Shockingly Underreported News and Commentary for the Week of 13 September

This is the seventh post in the ongoing weekly feature that highlights news and commentary on important geopolitical, cultural, and economic issues that the Democrat-media complex buries because they expose the hypocrisies associated with the continuing Marxist-Democrat narrative. Everything is properly sourced and linked for follow-up reading, whether from legacy media, independent sources, or social media.