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Hunger games need to make changes

There are an estimated 42 million people receiving food aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. The figure represents 12.3 percent of the U.S. population, according to the USDA. In the richest nation on Earth that is not something to brag about. It is, or ought to be, a disgrace. SNAP is a casualty of the government “shutdown,” though two federal judges have ordered the Trump administration to restore funds to the program. On Monday, President Trump said he will use a contingency fund to cover only 50 percent of SNAP benefits ...

Cultural, social, fiscal problems go hand in hand

One big word worth learning is “schadenfreude.” Schadenfreude is “pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune.” Nothing better captures the perverse pleasure that Democrats are deriving from the pain inflicted on our country caused by the government shutdown. Democrats precipitated this shutdown to force Republicans to back off efforts to turn around our suicidal growth of government spending and debt. House Republicans passed a continuing resolution ready for the president’s signature to fund the government, but Democrats said no. They refuse to ...

Bill Gates gets mugged by reality

You’ve probably heard by now the blockbuster news that Microsoft founder Bill Gates, one of the richest people to ever walk the planet, has had a change of heart on climate change. For several decades, Gates poured billions of dollars into the climate-industrial complex and was howling that the end is nigh unless we stop using fossil fuels, cars, air conditioning and general anesthesia. Now he says he rejects the “doomsday” predictions of the more extreme global warming prophets. Some conservatives have snuffed that Gates has shifted his position on climate change because he ...

Everyone’s caught in social media web

We know the damage cellphones cause to kids and teenagers in learning and mental health epidemics of anxiety and depression. The research results are in. Private and public schools are banning them. Girls suffer poor self-esteem and body image; boys often themselves isolate indoors playing online video games. They are not enjoying the innocent pleasures of growing up and going outside to play in the neighborhood. Limits and curfews on cellphones are hard to enforce, parents say. Artificial intelligence is accused of writing college papers and even assisting young suicides. But ...

Canada’s warning: Property rights are on chopping block

Think you actually own your so-called “private” property? Better know its history going back to the Ice Age, if a new landmark ruling is any indication. A Native American tribe in Canada has just succeeded in convincing a Canadian superior court that it owns 732 acres of land on which homes, a golf course, roads and other private establishments have been built. Too bad the homeowners didn’t have an archaeological license or a crystal ball when they made their purchases, because the court explained that around 1860 — several years before Canada was even transformed from a ...

We’d better start thinking about future jobs

The big headlines about job losses tend to focus on the big employers. Layoffs at UPS, 48,000 — at Intel, 24,000. Amazon is cutting up to 30,000 workers, and Target, 1,800. These pink slips are being dropped largely on white-collar positions. The thinking is that artificial intelligence will be able to handle much of the work now being done at desks. Dropping heavier workloads on those who remain seems to be another part of the plan. AI is considered “intelligent” automation. In other words, it has cognitive abilities. That is not quite the same thing as robotics, which is ...