FEE’s B.K. Marcus exposes it.

A few days old, but interesting.  Sumitomo Chemical, associated with Monsanto, created a larvicide to combat mosquito eggs in the public drinking water tanks.  An outbreak of microcephaly ensues, so a story that Zika, a mosquito-borne illness, is the culprit is circulated in the mainstream media.  Almost a win-win, had those irritating Argentine doctors not searched for the truth.

Interesting write-up at RealClearPolicy.  Why is anyone opposed to the vaping revolution?  This technology is becoming by far the most effective means for smokers to finally quit, when gum, patches, and shaming on the part of their family, friends, and the public failed.  Former smokers sound like born-again Christians when evangelizing the virtues of vaping.  They can breath again, smell again, and their family isn’t forced to tolerate the stench of combustible tobacco.  Federally-subsidized shame campaigns, paranoia over Big Tobacco, the specter of breathing out of a neck tube and sounding like a robot, all these tactics have failed.  But where they have failed, vaping is succeeding.  But, as with any free market-innovation that has benefited public health to any measurable degree, its become the object of a ludicrous witch hunt.

From the New York Times.  What Bernie is proposing would require at least a 50% increase in the federal government, or a larger government buildup than what happened just before World War 2.  So try to imagine a Deluxe version of what we currently have to put up with.  Does that sound as enticing as all the free stuff Bernie is promising?  Not so much.

From the article:

“By the reckoning of the left-of-center economists, none of whom are working for Mrs. Clinton, the proposals would add $2 trillion to $3 trillion a year on average to federal spending; by comparison, total federal spending is projected to be above $4 trillion in the next president’s first year. “The numbers don’t remotely add up,” said Austan Goolsbee, formerly chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, now at the University of Chicago.

Alluding to one progressive analyst’s criticism of the Sanders agenda as “puppies and rainbows,” Mr. Goolsbee said that after his and others’ further study, “they’ve evolved into magic flying puppies with winning Lotto tickets tied to their collars.””

But hey, free stuff!

From the Washington Post comes this article: “A mini world war rages in the fields of Aleppo”

A slice: “Syria’s civil war long ago mutated into a proxy conflict, with competing world powers backing the rival Syrian factions almost since the earliest days of the armed rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad.”

A better question would be: why is the United States arming murderous rebels against Assad?  The political class is begging for a wider World War, it seems.

A few slices:

“Pardon me while I sit back and enjoy the panic of the Republican – and media – elites as the GOP frontrunner takes up that old left-wing antiwar slogan: “Bush lied – people died!” That’s the essence of what Donald Trump said at Saturday’s South Carolina GOP presidential debate when moderator John Dickerson – who smirked his way through the entire debate – asked Trump if he still thought George W. Bush should be impeached as he supposedly said in a long ago interview:

“George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East.”

DICKERSON: “But so I’m going to – so you still think he should be impeached?”

TRUMP: “You do whatever you want. You call it whatever you want. I want to tell you. They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction.”

The storm of booing from that crowd, which seemed mainly to consist of members of the Lindsey Graham Ladies Home Garden Club, conjured in my memory another signal moment in the history of GOP presidential debates: when Ron Paul said that the 9/11 attacks were “blowback” resulting from half a century of propping up Arab despots in the Middle East. Remember how everyone declared that Paul was finished: that by saying the un-sayable he had forever dashed all hopes of making a political impact on the Republican party and that he was now consigned to the margins? What happened, however, was nothing of the sort: instead, that moment of speaking truth to power catapulted him to national prominence and was instrumental in creating a national movement that lives and grows to this day…

…If Trump continues to win primaries and his ascent in the polls is uninterrupted, this is the end of the War Party’s influence in the GOP. And when even Medea Benjamin can acknowledge Trump’s contribution to the education of the American people on the causes of the Iraq war – although she was singing a far different tune during the debate – can the rest of the politically correct Left be far behind? In a match-up with Hillary Clinton, who fulsomely supported the war, Trump will have the upper hand on this important issue. Indeed, this will be a perfect opportunity for those Sanders supporters who despise Hillary and her coin-tossing super-delegate fixers to exact their revenge and cast their lot with Trumpian populism. And revenge, as libertarians all know, is what politics is all about.”

Indeed.  If Hillary manages to steal the nomination from Sanders, his legion of fanatical supporters are going to be looking for payback.

Marijuana sales brought in $135 million in taxes and fees for the state.

It’s not very toxic to humans at all, and could put an end to mosquito-borne disease.

Ron Paul calls him out.

From Reason.  No amount of spending or surveillance can protect “soft targets”, meaning us, from acts of terrorism.  Only we can protect ourselves, which means the ability to carry a firearm.  So why is the political class so intent on disarming us?