June 20, 2022 A proposed FDA ban on menthol cigarettes is being hailed as a victory for health and civil rights advocates both. Because methols are particularly favored by Black American smokers (85% use menthols), 40,000 of whom die annually of smoking related illnesses. …

June 17, 2022 As a PSC staff lawyer, I got frustrated when an administrative law judge couldn’t make up his mind on a ruling. “It should be me up there!” I told myself. So I applied for the job and got it. I think I was a pretty good…

June 14, 2022 Trump concocted his big “stolen election” lie because his sick psyche couldn’t face losing — and to help him overthrow democracy and retain office by coup. Any sensible person already knew that, but the January 6 Congressional committee’s hearings, says The Economist, are the most important…

June 12, 2022 Denounce “capitalism” or the market economy all you want — but what’s your alternative? This system was not foisted on us. Rather, it’s the natural paradigm for human economic relationships; everything else is an attempt to impose some artificial one. Stone age people had a market…

June 8, 2022 Hitler, Stalin, Mao. The Big Three. Greatest monsters of the 20th Century. Or GOAT? Well, Genghis Khan; Tamerlane; Ivan the Terrible; and others. But such figures lacked the scope to kill at modern industrial scale. And anyway, they’re too far back to be vivid to us…

June 4, 2022 I’ve always considered myself basically libertarian. Recently I read Libertarianism: A Primer, by David Boaz. Published in 1997 — it might seem an artifact from a distant past. And Boaz starts off saying libertarianism is (was) resonating with more and more people. But lately, it’s mostly…

May 31, 2022 Frank Spath was my one and only client in my legal career. When I came to Albany in 1970 as a young lawyer, working for a state agency, I lived in a room (not apartment!) with no cooking facilities. I started having my dinners, usually, in a…

May 27, 2022 I supported Biden from the start in 2020, strongly, as the candidate best positioned to save the country. I think events bore out that judgment, and I don’t regret it for a minute. President Biden is a decent, honest, conscientious public servant. The antithesis of his…

May 24, 2022 My wife and I visited the Benelux countries — our much anticipated first foreign trip in 2–1/2 years. My biggest takeaway impression: a civilization whose main business is living the good life. What we strove two million years to achieve. The soundtrack playing in my head was…