Installing a mirror in your kitchen or dining room could help you lose weight, according to a study published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research. Food psychologists claim that literally watching what you eat is but one of many small changes that can prevent you from piling on the pounds. And, as we fight to lose the extra weight we gained over the Christmas period, surely every little helps. So what other home hacks could help us get trim for 2016? 1. Turn down your heating It may seem an unattractive prospect – even if we are experiencing an uncharacteristically balmy … Continue reading →

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You would think investors (muppets) would be grateful for the extended topping process of the stock market, as it has given them the opportunity to exit before the inevitable crash. As CNBC and the rest of the mainstream media spin bullish stories to keep the few remaining mom and pop investors sedated and the millions of passive working Americans invested in their 401ks, the Wall Street rigging machine siphons off billions in ill-gotten gains, while absconding with fees for worthless advice. Does the average schmuck know the S&P 500 stood at 2,063 on November 21, 2014 and currently sits at … Continue reading →

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In his brilliant classic, A Disquisition on Government, John C. Calhoun warned that a written constitution would never be sufficient to restrain the governmental leviathan.  The net tax consumers (those who received more in government benefits than they paid in taxes), especially government employees, would relentlessly argue away the effectiveness of constitutional restrictions on government, he predicted.  The net tax payers would inevitably be overwhelmed and defeated.  There was never a truer political prediction. In his new book, 9 Presidents Who Screwed Up America – And Four Who Tried to Save Her, Brion McClanahan presents a masterful and superbly-scholarly discussion … Continue reading →

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On Jan. 1, 2002, the day that euro coins and banknotes entered into circulation, my column, “Say Goodbye to the Mother Continent,” contained this pessimistic prognosis: “This European superstate will not endure, but break apart on the barrier reef of nationalism. For when the hard times come, patriots will recapture control of their national destinies from Brussels bureaucrats to whom no one will ever give loyalty or love.” The column described what was already happening. “Europe is dying. There is not a single nation in all of Europe with a birth rate sufficient to keep its population alive, except Muslim … Continue reading →

The post Is the West Disintegrating? appeared first on LewRockwell.

If it takes more than $126,000 to fund a qualitatively defined middle-class lifestyle, what sense does it even make to call this “middle”? The Pew Research Center’s recent report The American Middle Class Is Losing Ground: No longer the majority and falling behind financially made a media splash, as it reported that less than 50% of adults are members of the Great American Middle Class. My analysis suggests that by more qualitative measures, no more than a third of U.S. households qualify as middle class: claiming 49% of the nation’s households are still middle class is a gross exaggeration. My … Continue reading →

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The all-seeing, all-knowing, all-wise U.S. government is concerned about many things it has no business being concerned about. But there are still many things about which the government remains unconcerned. Here are fifty things the government doesn’t care if you do even though they are dangerous, risky, addictive, immoral, or hazardous to your health. The government doesn’t care if you take aspirin even though hundreds die every year from adverse reactions to aspirin. The government doesn’t care if you are a construction laborer even though it is a hazardous occupation. The government doesn’t care if you take a prescription drug … Continue reading →

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In our first of three parts of this blog entry we discussed  revolvers for self-defense; now it’s semi-automatics. Today’s most popular handgun is the semi-auto (sometimes referred as but technically incorrectly as an automatic). The popularity of the semi-auto began to eclipse the revolver for self-defense in the late 1970s when more models became available and police departments began to adopt them for more fire volume and capacity over revolvers (shots). Semi-autos hold more ammunition than most revolvers and can generally be reloaded faster which is the major reason for the popularity of the gun. As with revolvers there are … Continue reading →

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Nothing speaks more profoundly to the crisis of character than the phrase, ‘I identify as…’. In the past, individuals were. ‘I am a builder.’ ‘I am a mother.’ ‘I am a Jew.’ There was a confidence, a certainty, to their sense of identity, and to their declaration of it. ‘I am.’ Today, individuals identify as something. ‘I identify as working class.’ ‘I identify as non-binary.’ Or, in the notorious case of Rachel Dolezal, the American white woman who effectively blacked-up as she rose up the ranks of the NAACP, ‘I identify as black’. The rise of the i-word in our … Continue reading →

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Etymology is fun! It’s especially fun to learn about the quaint old-fashioned practices that gave rise to some of the words we use. Stereotype comes from printing, hard-up comes from sailing, pipe dream comes from opium dens. Cultural practices change, technology changes, but words stick around—and not just in some long ago, far away place. It’s happening all around us as we speak, a hard truth thatmental_floss editor-in-chief Jason recently had to face up to. That’s right. Kids these days don’t know where hang up comes from, and those of us who remember the pre-cell phone era are already receding into the … Continue reading →

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I wrote Progressivism: A Primer to explain certain anomalies in the behavior of progressives that I had noticed over a number of years.  For example, I found that progressives were rarely amenable to rational persuasion.  Facts, logic and even experience rarely changed their minds.  You couldn’t really argue with a progressive.  You would argue; they would fight.  They would get angry, insult and change the subject.  They never stopped proposing new government programs, spending and laws, though they appeared to lack a grand vision of what they were trying to accomplish. To explain all this and more, I propounded an … Continue reading →

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Paradigm: noun par·a·digm : A theory or a group of ideas about how something should be done, made, or thought about. There are some things about buying a car that people expect every time they go to purchase.  They always expect a big discount from MSRP, a host of rebates, and they expect to be taken advantage of.  As we head into 2016, many consumers have now had one or more extremely pleasant experiences purchasing a car.  This is a paradigm that is changing more and more as car dealers figure out that it is cheaper to have repeat business than to … Continue reading →

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