When you see a TV weather personality put up an air quality map for the last 10 years, it might make you believe that pollution is far worse than when you were young.

If you read social media, you might believe we're teetering on the brink of societal collapse due to COVID-19 but one metric tells the real health story; ICU beds.

Deaths have been cut almost in half from this time last year while ICU occupancy is down 40 percent. If you're a positive person, you'll note that this is a win and big thanks go to the health care system that critics demand be replaced by something like VA hospitals, which very few veterans agree is good, or Medicare, which very few old people think is good. You'll also note that vaccines work, and those are the product of Big Pharma that similar critics decry as greedy evil opportunists.

In the 1966 Harry Harrison novel "Make Room! Make Room!" concerns about population control were the driver of the plot and the storytellers were various people in New York City when the world has reached a population of 7 billion. You have probably never heard of the novel, but you likely have heard of the movie version, "Soylent Green", starring the incomparable Charlton Heston.

It's that time of the year, a few days until Christmas and you bought everything on that Amazon wishlist but it doesn't feel all that creative. If you are like me, masks everywhere can be a bit of a downer, so you want things you can order. These are not what I like to call "aspirational" gifts, the kinds of things parents want their children to want in order to feel like better parents. They are all good, I have watched, read, or used them all this year, so they aren't yet another 'how to make a piece of paper turn using flame' experiment science, they are actually enjoyable science. And technology. And science-fiction.

It is common in a polarized political climate to try and blame the other political party when missteps happen but most government employees are not political appointees, they are career bureaucrats, and sometimes care more about protecting their fiefdoms than in helping the public. 

There was a time when politicians worried about a "slippery slope" when it came to political actions. While dirty politics by individuals was always assumed - President Lyndon Johnson set the modern standard for that - overt actions by parties were more thoughtful. The reason was simple; once there was a precedent, the other party could do the same thing when they got into power.

That all changed this century.