The Artful Dilettante is a native of Pittsburgh, PA, and a graduate of Penn State University. He is a lover of liberty and a lifelong and passionate student of the same. He is voracious reader of books on the Enlightenment and the American colonial and revolutionary periods. He is a student of libertarian and Objectivist philosophies. He collects revolutionary war and period currency, books, and newspapers. He is married and the father of one teenage son. He is kind, witty, generous to a fault, and unjustifiably proud of himself. He is the life of the party and an unparalleled raconteur.
In 2021, Zohran Mamdani, now New York City’s mayor, told a Young DSA conference that student debt cancellation and Medicare for All had popular support. Then he named “the end goal of seizing the means of production” as something that didn’t have support “at this very moment.”
How do you “seize” the means of production? That’s the explicit goal of the Democratic Party (now also the Communist Party). Production is created by a complex mixture of brainpower, active thought, risk taking and capital (money) previously created by those very attributes. Nobody can literally “seize” human thought, human creativity and ingenuity in that way, and then redistribute it to favored people. In practice, there is no “seizure” of the means of production as the lethal Democratic Party now advocates. All you can do is SHUT DOWN production by restraining innovation, risk-taking and creativity. I can think of nothing more evil than this. And millions of torpid, brainwashed, ignorant fools now applaud it. They’re applauding and begging for the impoverishment, depression, misery, despair and prison camps coming their way.
Usually, when it’s time to do chores around the house, I turn on Netflix, plop my son in front of the TV, and let Disney babysit for me. He is, after all, four years old, and four-year-olds are not particularly famous for their floor-scrubbing abilities.
I didn’t realize how much this was affecting him until we passed by a toy ship from his favorite show, Jake and The Neverland Pirates.
“It’s The Mighty Colossus,” my son told me, not so much speaking as shrieking. “I need it!”
I said no. He erupted.
He couldn’t understand why we couldn’t afford to buy every toy we saw. Soon he was in tears, thrashing wildly. My wife and I were, for the first time in our lives, one of those parents. We had that naughty, uncontrollable child in the store that made people tsk and think, at least that’s not my child.
The next day, we tried to do things differently. We planned to clean the whole house, and our son was going to help the entire time. It was supposed to be a punishment – but he loved it. It ended up being one of the best days of his life.
I didn’t need to plop him in front of the TV to do chores. He could help. More than that, he wanted to help. And, as it turns out, he’s actually pretty good at scrubbing the floors.
Children, I’m learning, need to do chores. A lot of us don’t ask our kids for contributions like that. In fact, only 28 percent of parents make their kids do chores. But it’s the best thing you can do for your kids, for a lot of reasons.
Children who do chores grow up to be successful
Part of the reason I put my son to work was because of a Ted Talk. Harvard University ran a 75-year-long study that followed people through their entire lives. It tracked their physical and emotional health, trying, in part, to find some kind of insight into what makes people happy and successful.
Chores, it concluded, were the key. When it came to their careers, the one thing that could predict whether a child grew up successful linked back to chores. Kids who had to help out at home were more successful in their careers as adults. The earlier they started the better.
It makes a lot of sense. According to Julie Lythcott-Haims, when kids do chores, they learn that they have to contribute to life to participate in it. When you do all the cooking, your kids grow up thinking that food is provided for them. But when kids help, they understand there’s work involved.
Chores are a chance to learn how things work
When I showed my son how to change the toilet paper when it gets low, I decided to work in a little science lesson. I cracked open the plastic that holds the toilet paper in place and showed him the spring inside.
“When you push it, it gets smaller,” I told him, “and when you let go, it gets big again!”
Usually, when it’s time to do chores around the house, I turn on Netflix, plop my son in front of the TV, and let Disney babysit for me. He is, after all, four years old, and four-year-olds are not particularly famous for their floor-scrubbing abilities.
I didn’t realize how much this was affecting him until we passed by a toy ship from his favorite show, Jake and The Neverland Pirates.
“It’s The Mighty Colossus,” my son told me, not so much speaking as shrieking. “I need it!”
I said no. He erupted.
He couldn’t understand why we couldn’t afford to buy every toy we saw. Soon he was in tears, thrashing wildly. My wife and I were, for the first time in our lives, one of those parents. We had that naughty, uncontrollable child in the store that made people tsk and think, at least that’s not my child.
The next day, we tried to do things differently. We planned to clean the whole house, and our son was going to help the entire time. It was supposed to be a punishment – but he loved it. It ended up being one of the best days of his life.
I didn’t need to plop him in front of the TV to do chores. He could help. More than that, he wanted to help. And, as it turns out, he’s actually pretty good at scrubbing the floors.
Children, I’m learning, need to do chores. A lot of us don’t ask our kids for contributions like that. In fact, only 28 percent of parents make their kids do chores. But it’s the best thing you can do for your kids, for a lot of reasons.
Children who do chores grow up to be successful
Part of the reason I put my son to work was because of a Ted Talk. Harvard University ran a 75-year-long study that followed people through their entire lives. It tracked their physical and emotional health, trying, in part, to find some kind of insight into what makes people happy and successful.
Chores, it concluded, were the key. When it came to their careers, the one thing that could predict whether a child grew up successful linked back to chores. Kids who had to help out at home were more successful in their careers as adults. The earlier they started the better.
It makes a lot of sense. According to Julie Lythcott-Haims, when kids do chores, they learn that they have to contribute to life to participate in it. When you do all the cooking, your kids grow up thinking that food is provided for them. But when kids help, they understand there’s work involved.
Chores are a chance to learn how things work
When I showed my son how to change the toilet paper when it gets low, I decided to work in a little science lesson. I cracked open the plastic that holds the toilet paper in place and showed him the spring inside.
“When you push it, it gets smaller,” I told him, “and when you let go, it gets big again!”
Usually, when it’s time to do chores around the house, I turn on Netflix, plop my son in front of the TV, and let Disney babysit for me. He is, after all, four years old, and four-year-olds are not particularly famous for their floor-scrubbing abilities.
I didn’t realize how much this was affecting him until we passed by a toy ship from his favorite show, Jake and The Neverland Pirates.
“It’s The Mighty Colossus,” my son told me, not so much speaking as shrieking. “I need it!”
I said no. He erupted.
He couldn’t understand why we couldn’t afford to buy every toy we saw. Soon he was in tears, thrashing wildly. My wife and I were, for the first time in our lives, one of those parents. We had that naughty, uncontrollable child in the store that made people tsk and think, at least that’s not my child.
The next day, we tried to do things differently. We planned to clean the whole house, and our son was going to help the entire time. It was supposed to be a punishment – but he loved it. It ended up being one of the best days of his life.
I didn’t need to plop him in front of the TV to do chores. He could help. More than that, he wanted to help. And, as it turns out, he’s actually pretty good at scrubbing the floors.
Children, I’m learning, need to do chores. A lot of us don’t ask our kids for contributions like that. In fact, only 28 percent of parents make their kids do chores. But it’s the best thing you can do for your kids, for a lot of reasons.
Children who do chores grow up to be successful
Part of the reason I put my son to work was because of a Ted Talk. Harvard University ran a 75-year-long study that followed people through their entire lives. It tracked their physical and emotional health, trying, in part, to find some kind of insight into what makes people happy and successful.
Chores, it concluded, were the key. When it came to their careers, the one thing that could predict whether a child grew up successful linked back to chores. Kids who had to help out at home were more successful in their careers as adults. The earlier they started the better.
It makes a lot of sense. According to Julie Lythcott-Haims, when kids do chores, they learn that they have to contribute to life to participate in it. When you do all the cooking, your kids grow up thinking that food is provided for them. But when kids help, they understand there’s work involved.
Chores are a chance to learn how things work
When I showed my son how to change the toilet paper when it gets low, I decided to work in a little science lesson. I cracked open the plastic that holds the toilet paper in place and showed him the spring inside.
“When you push it, it gets smaller,” I told him, “and when you let go, it gets big again!”
Usually, when it’s time to do chores around the house, I turn on Netflix, plop my son in front of the TV, and let Disney babysit for me. He is, after all, four years old, and four-year-olds are not particularly famous for their floor-scrubbing abilities.
I didn’t realize how much this was affecting him until we passed by a toy ship from his favorite show, Jake and The Neverland Pirates.
“It’s The Mighty Colossus,” my son told me, not so much speaking as shrieking. “I need it!”
I said no. He erupted.
He couldn’t understand why we couldn’t afford to buy every toy we saw. Soon he was in tears, thrashing wildly. My wife and I were, for the first time in our lives, one of those parents. We had that naughty, uncontrollable child in the store that made people tsk and think, at least that’s not my child.
The next day, we tried to do things differently. We planned to clean the whole house, and our son was going to help the entire time. It was supposed to be a punishment – but he loved it. It ended up being one of the best days of his life.
I didn’t need to plop him in front of the TV to do chores. He could help. More than that, he wanted to help. And, as it turns out, he’s actually pretty good at scrubbing the floors.
Children, I’m learning, need to do chores. A lot of us don’t ask our kids for contributions like that. In fact, only 28 percent of parents make their kids do chores. But it’s the best thing you can do for your kids, for a lot of reasons.
Children who do chores grow up to be successful
Part of the reason I put my son to work was because of a Ted Talk. Harvard University ran a 75-year-long study that followed people through their entire lives. It tracked their physical and emotional health, trying, in part, to find some kind of insight into what makes people happy and successful.
Chores, it concluded, were the key. When it came to their careers, the one thing that could predict whether a child grew up successful linked back to chores. Kids who had to help out at home were more successful in their careers as adults. The earlier they started the better.
It makes a lot of sense. According to Julie Lythcott-Haims, when kids do chores, they learn that they have to contribute to life to participate in it. When you do all the cooking, your kids grow up thinking that food is provided for them. But when kids help, they understand there’s work involved.
Chores are a chance to learn how things work
When I showed my son how to change the toilet paper when it gets low, I decided to work in a little science lesson. I cracked open the plastic that holds the toilet paper in place and showed him the spring inside.
“When you push it, it gets smaller,” I told him, “and when you let go, it gets big again!”
Usually, when it’s time to do chores around the house, I turn on Netflix, plop my son in front of the TV, and let Disney babysit for me. He is, after all, four years old, and four-year-olds are not particularly famous for their floor-scrubbing abilities.
I didn’t realize how much this was affecting him until we passed by a toy ship from his favorite show, Jake and The Neverland Pirates.
“It’s The Mighty Colossus,” my son told me, not so much speaking as shrieking. “I need it!”
I said no. He erupted.
He couldn’t understand why we couldn’t afford to buy every toy we saw. Soon he was in tears, thrashing wildly. My wife and I were, for the first time in our lives, one of those parents. We had that naughty, uncontrollable child in the store that made people tsk and think, at least that’s not my child.
The next day, we tried to do things differently. We planned to clean the whole house, and our son was going to help the entire time. It was supposed to be a punishment – but he loved it. It ended up being one of the best days of his life.
I didn’t need to plop him in front of the TV to do chores. He could help. More than that, he wanted to help. And, as it turns out, he’s actually pretty good at scrubbing the floors.
Children, I’m learning, need to do chores. A lot of us don’t ask our kids for contributions like that. In fact, only 28 percent of parents make their kids do chores. But it’s the best thing you can do for your kids, for a lot of reasons.
Children who do chores grow up to be successful
Part of the reason I put my son to work was because of a Ted Talk. Harvard University ran a 75-year-long study that followed people through their entire lives. It tracked their physical and emotional health, trying, in part, to find some kind of insight into what makes people happy and successful.
Chores, it concluded, were the key. When it came to their careers, the one thing that could predict whether a child grew up successful linked back to chores. Kids who had to help out at home were more successful in their careers as adults. The earlier they started the better.
It makes a lot of sense. According to Julie Lythcott-Haims, when kids do chores, they learn that they have to contribute to life to participate in it. When you do all the cooking, your kids grow up thinking that food is provided for them. But when kids help, they understand there’s work involved.
Chores are a chance to learn how things work
When I showed my son how to change the toilet paper when it gets low, I decided to work in a little science lesson. I cracked open the plastic that holds the toilet paper in place and showed him the spring inside.
“When you push it, it gets smaller,” I told him, “and when you let go, it gets big again!”
Usually, when it’s time to do chores around the house, I turn on Netflix, plop my son in front of the TV, and let Disney babysit for me. He is, after all, four years old, and four-year-olds are not particularly famous for their floor-scrubbing abilities.
I didn’t realize how much this was affecting him until we passed by a toy ship from his favorite show, Jake and The Neverland Pirates.
“It’s The Mighty Colossus,” my son told me, not so much speaking as shrieking. “I need it!”
I said no. He erupted.
He couldn’t understand why we couldn’t afford to buy every toy we saw. Soon he was in tears, thrashing wildly. My wife and I were, for the first time in our lives, one of those parents. We had that naughty, uncontrollable child in the store that made people tsk and think, at least that’s not my child.
The next day, we tried to do things differently. We planned to clean the whole house, and our son was going to help the entire time. It was supposed to be a punishment – but he loved it. It ended up being one of the best days of his life.
I didn’t need to plop him in front of the TV to do chores. He could help. More than that, he wanted to help. And, as it turns out, he’s actually pretty good at scrubbing the floors.
Children, I’m learning, need to do chores. A lot of us don’t ask our kids for contributions like that. In fact, only 28 percent of parents make their kids do chores. But it’s the best thing you can do for your kids, for a lot of reasons.
Children who do chores grow up to be successful
Part of the reason I put my son to work was because of a Ted Talk. Harvard University ran a 75-year-long study that followed people through their entire lives. It tracked their physical and emotional health, trying, in part, to find some kind of insight into what makes people happy and successful.
Chores, it concluded, were the key. When it came to their careers, the one thing that could predict whether a child grew up successful linked back to chores. Kids who had to help out at home were more successful in their careers as adults. The earlier they started the better.
It makes a lot of sense. According to Julie Lythcott-Haims, when kids do chores, they learn that they have to contribute to life to participate in it. When you do all the cooking, your kids grow up thinking that food is provided for them. But when kids help, they understand there’s work involved.
Chores are a chance to learn how things work
When I showed my son how to change the toilet paper when it gets low, I decided to work in a little science lesson. I cracked open the plastic that holds the toilet paper in place and showed him the spring inside.
“When you push it, it gets smaller,” I told him, “and when you let go, it gets big again!”
Democrat nominee for the Senate in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, in a nationally televised news program, described ‘Medicare for All’ as “…guaranteed health insurance from cradle to the moment you pass away. It comes without premiums or co-pays or deductibles. It guarantees you care when you need it. This is a level of security we have never known in the United States.”
This is a slick snake oil salesman trying to convince you that there is a good fairy bringing you utopia for nothing.
El-Sayed and many others ignore key important issues. What does it cost, and how do we pay for it? If they would examine the countries that have national health insurance in various forms, they would know not one works as he described. All have rationing of services and long waits for procedures needed. In every case, there is more demand for services than supply of doctors, hospitals, nurses, etc. to fulfill the demand. And they all have some kind of fee for services.
The Cato Institute has done an analysis of what all the ‘free’ services might cost; ‘Medicare for All’ is just one of the programs. There is ‘free’ tuition, child care, senior care, reparations, etc. – a long wish list of benefits. Their estimate for a 10-year period ranges from a low of $71 trillion to a high of $222 trillion. The assumptions vary widely, but the least expensive alternative is almost double what the U.S. spends now on everything. The total expenditures for 2026 fiscal year were $7.4 trillion.
So, how do we pay for it?
Tax the rich? Cato also studied that option. They found the only problem with that is there isn’t nearly enough money among the wealthy on any reasonable tax increase to come close to paying for it. Wealth Taxes? Sorry, that has been tried in a dozen countries and repealed because it doesn’t work either. In France, for example, they repealed it after 75,000 of their wealthiest left, and they discovered that they lost more in regular taxes than they gained in the wealth tax.
Some countries offer many of the social programs often held up as models for the United States. Sweden, a Scandinavian country frequently cited as an example, is one of them. But how does Sweden pay for these programs? The answer is through significantly higher taxes on income, retirement, consumption, and gasoline.
Sweden’s income tax starts at 32 percent, with the rate rising to 52 percent on income above $62,000. By comparison, the U.S. federal income tax rate tops out at 22 percent for income up to $103,000, although higher federal tax brackets apply to income above that level, but none get close to 52 percent.
Retirement taxes are another major difference. In Sweden, employers pay a pension contribution of 32 percent on the full amount of wages. In the United States, Social Security taxes total 12.4 percent, split equally between employers and employees, and apply only up to an annual earnings cap, which was $184,500 in 2025.
Sweden also relies heavily on a value-added tax, or VAT, which functions much like a national sales tax on goods and services. The standard rate is 25 percent, although certain items, including food, are taxed at lower rates. The overall effective rate averages 19 percent. The United States, by contrast, has no national sales tax. However, most states have a sales tax, which averages roughly six to seven percent.
Gasoline provides another example of the difference. On a given date, a gallon of gasoline in Sweden costs approximately $7.19, compared with $4.47 in the United States. The difference reflects Sweden’s higher fuel taxes.
Generous public programs do not pay for themselves. Sweden funds its many social benefits through a substantially higher tax burden on everyone — workers, employers, and consumers. Americans considering whether to adopt similar programs should weigh not only the benefits they promise, but also the taxes required to sustain them. Our snake oil salesmen conveniently ignore this issue.
The national health service doesn’t work quite like the snake oil salesman from Michigan suggests. In Sweden and most countries that have some form of universal medical care, there is rationing of medical services and long waits for many procedures. And there are fees required for all visits, typically from $20 to $40 for routine visits. And there is a growing reliance on private health insurance (13 percent have this), because that is the way you can get your needs fulfilled on a timely basis. Many of their companies offer private insurance as an inducement to employment.
If you want all those ‘free’ programs, just understand you will be paying a lot for them. There is no free lunch, so quit looking for it.
Les Rubin is the founder and president of Main Street Economics.
Friday on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) spoke optimistically about Republicans’ chances in the November 3 midterm elections, declaring that the GOP nominee for his state’s open U.S. Senate seat was going to win.
In a joint appearance with Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Cruz said a “hostile takeover” of the Democratic Party by communists and Islamists was underway.
“Senator Cruz, I want to turn real quickly to Texas,” guest host Charlie Hurt said. “You know, we’ve seen a lot of these polls showing Talarico and Ken Paxton within the margin of error. In the past, you have been underestimated in the polls. What do you make of the polling in Texas right now?”
Cruz replied, “Look, in Texas, it’s a real fight, just like Alaska, it’s a real fight. Both races, I think, are tied right now. Now, here’s the good news, Charlie, we’re going to win Texas, and we’re going to win Alaska. Both of these races, we’re going to win, but we’re 18 days out. It’s all about turnout. The crazies, the radicals, look, we’re witnessing a hostile takeover of the Democrat Party by communists and Islamists. They’re going to show up. We’ve got to make sure commonsense conservatives show up.”
Imtiaz Mohammad is running as a Republican – but he calls Pakistan his “motherland” and says anything he does will be “related to Pakistan.”
After losing as a Democrat, he switched parties. His real goal: elect as many Muslims as possible – commissioners, congressmen, everything – until politicians must come begging the Muslim voting bloc.
He wants all Muslims “on one page.” He is not running for Americans. He is running for Islam and Pakistan.
Why is the Florida GOP still featuring him?
Florida, do better.
Mohammad, a Pakistani immigrant and former Democrat (Bernie/Squad supporter, ICE abolitionist, sanctuary-state advocate), switched parties in 2022 and became the uncontested Republican nominee for Florida House District 103. The piece highlights his past anti-America remarks, ties to WhyIslam/ICNA, campaigning at Darul Uloom (linked to terror figures), criticism of DeSantis on CAIR, and the Florida GOP’s promotion of him despite earlier local party concerns.
Short follow-up alert noting that the same former Democrat is now the Republican nominee for Florida House District 103 after an unopposed primary and appeared on a GOP flyer. It recaps his anti-America statements, progressive past, ICNA/Darul Uloom ties, CAIR criticism, and urges the Florida GOP to drop him from materials, calling the party switch insufficient.
Some Americans are crying poverty with a $1,500 iPhone in one hand and an $8 Starbucks latte in the other. They say groceries are unaffordable, but somehow the restaurants are packed, airports are crowded, and the neighbor just pulled into his driveway with a brand-new $90,000 SUV.
Apparently, we’re one bad economic report away from bankruptcy and one Instagram post away from booking another trip to Cabo.
Consumer confidence is in the basement. Consumer spending apparently didn’t get the memo.
In September, the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index fell to 81.9. Yet it has been reported that consumer credit and debit card spending per household increased 6.2% from a year earlier.
As a financial advisor, I think the answer involves something more powerful than inflation or interest rates. Human psychology.
And there are five reasons our spending habits aren’t matching our economic anxiety.
1. Keeping up with the Joneses has gone digital
Thirty years ago, you compared your lifestyle with the neighbor who bought a new Cadillac.
Today, you’re comparing yourself with 5,000 people on Instagram. There are even college degrees on how to become a social media influencer. None of them get lots of likes by telling you to eat ramen noodles and skip third-row seats for the latest rock concert.
Someone’s vacationing in Italy. Someone remodeled their kitchen. Someone bought a new Porsche. Face it. Someone is always doing better than you are. Or, it seems that way.
2. We’ve become a nation of monthly payments
3. There are two different American consumers
4. If tomorrow looks bad, why not enjoy today?
5. We’ve confused looking wealthy with being wealthy
You may have come across this recent story of Agatha Christie in the 21st century.
A University of Wyoming student was arrested after police say she tried to poison a colleague, then attempted to flee to China when officers questioned her.
Aili Wang, 32, was questioned by campus police after surveillance cameras set up by a coworker experiencing medical symptoms allegedly caught her rinsing his mug with liquid from her own cup on Oct. 1, according to a University of Wyoming police affidavit, which added that she was seen on camera “taking photos and manipulating notebooks.”
Wang didn’t get along with the coworker, who wasn’t named in court documents. Surveillance footage allegedly showed Wang searching through the victim’s desk; the victim specialized in disease treatment technology, work similar to what she had done in China.
The liquid was identified as acrylamide, a chemical that can “cause a number of health problems, including cancer,” according to the American Cancer Society. According to authorities, Wang purchased the chemical through eBay. It was discovered after the victim’s wife ran a test on water taken from the coffee maker he used to brew tea.
Now you may think this is just some sort of bizarre thing that one crazy person did. But there’s been a pattern of such incidents all involving foreign researchers and students involved in the sciences on college campuses.
Meanwhile, David Xu is back in the news after a pro-crime justice system chose to expunge his conviction.
A Berkeley engineer whose co-worker was convicted of poisoning her is speaking publicly about the case for the first time after a court agreed to expunge his felony conviction despite objections from prosecutors.
Rong Yuan said she spent years trying to understand a series of unexplained health problems starting in 2017, including vomiting and hair loss, before discovering what she says was happening at her workplace.
For more than two years, she sought answers from countless doctors, but her condition continued to worsen.
The breakthrough came after her mother noticed an unusual smell coming from her water bottle. When cleaning it did not solve the problem, Yuan decided to install a small camera at her desk.
The camera captured a co-worker, David Xu, pouring a substance into her water bottle.
Testing later identified the substance as cadmium, a toxic chemical.
Xu is a chemical engineer at Berkeley Engineering and Research.
Here’s one from this April. Unlike the others, the perpetrator here is Japanese, not Chinese.
A University of Wisconsin lab worker allegedly confessed to using ChatGPT to help plot the poisoning of his rival colleague over a longstanding grudge, according to authorities.
Makoto Kuroda, a 41-year-old staff scientist at the university’s Influenza Research Institute in the School of Veterinary Medicine in Madison, was charged with recklessly endangering safety and tampering with a household product, according to a criminal complaint obtained by The Post.
University police officers arrived at the lab on April 6 after receiving a report of possible chemicals discovered in an employee’s water bottle, the criminal complaint detailed.
That employee, identified in court documents by the initials TM, grew suspicious after taking a sip from a Trader Joe’s water bottle and spitting it out when he noticed “a strange taste,” the complaint said.
Two days later, he “observed this strange odor from his shoes” and believed it to be chloroform, court documents added.
Kuroda then allegedly told police that he had developed a longstanding grudge against TM over his behavior at work, including not following the “lab rule of wearing a lab coat and goggles.”
Here’s a story from 2023 involving a U of F PhD Chemistry student
A Florida man is facing charges after police say he may have been attempting to poison his neighbors by injecting chemicals under the front door of their apartment.
Police say undercover video shows 36-year-old Xuming Li allegedly sticking a syringe under his neighbors’ front door and injecting a liquid into the Tampa Bay apartment.
Umar Abdullah, 36, lives inside that apartment with his wife and 1-year-old daughter. He says for more than a month, a chemical smell in their home was making his family sick. The symptoms included a headache worse than a migraine, nausea, shortness of breath, drowsiness and hair loss.
Here’s a similar story from 2018.
A Lehigh University student has been arrested after authorities say he had been trying to kill his roommate for months.
Prosecutors announced Thursday that 22-year-old Yukai Yang will be charged with attempted homicide and related offenses.
It was inside his Lehigh University dorm where police say the student from China developed a murder plot, and carried it out trying to discreetly and slowly kill his roommate.
Authorities say Yang, a chemistry major, sickened his roommate with thallium and possibly other chemicals last spring. Juwan Royal experienced symptoms that included dizziness, shaking and vomiting, and his blood tested positive for thallium.
And another story from 2018 in Canada.
A graduate student who pleaded guilty to poisoning a fellow chemist at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada has received a seven-year prison sentence for ‘administering a noxious substance’, and ‘aggravated assault’. The court deducted time already served, meaning that Zijie Wang, a chemistry PhD candidate, will spend just under six years in prison for repeatedly smuggling the carcinogen N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) into the food and drink of the victim, a postdoctoral fellow at the university.
And 2015 in Stanford.
Xiangyu Duyang, 26, a graduate student from Singapore, was captured by a security camera during the time she allegedly poisoned four of her labmates by contaminating their drinking water bottles with the cancer-causing chemical paraformaldehyde.
“I’ve never heard of something as extreme as this,” said student Jamie Blundell.
Most Stanford students are just starting to hear about the case, even though it happened late last year. Court documents say graduate students doing stem cell research in the Lorry Lokey Building near the Stanford Medical Center began smelling paraformadehyde when they drank from their water bottles during September and October of last year.
Some students ingested enough to give them burning sensations in their mouths and throats. All of the victims are women. They began to suspect Duyang when she was spotted and photographed in stem cell incubators where she didn’t belong. And at the same time, the students tell investigators their stem cells began mysteriously dying.
There’s some obvious patterns here.
1. The perpetrators are grad students or professors in the sciences who have access to noxious chemicals and the expertise to use them.
2. Their targets are generally fellow Asians or third worlders. That’s interesting. But it may also be that these cultures are predisposed to suspect someone of poisoning them whereas most westerners wouldn’t even think of such things outside a Poirot yarn.
3. Professional rivalry likely plays a role. China is very academically competitive and while the vast majority of students aren’t poisoning people, clearly some are, while others understand that such behaviors exist.Call it ‘cultural differences’. Or something else to be aware of.
“You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
— Marcus Aurelius
It’s true, in the following sense: You survive and flourish in life with the use of your mind. Anything you DO control is because of the thinking and focusing you employ in bringing about the desired result.
It’s probably true that we do not control most things. But of the things we do control, we do so with our chief tool of survival: our own reasoning, thinking minds.
I was just reading how Jerry Seinfeld, who has never been political, has been harassed into taking a pro-Israel stand after being heckled at his shows. Mind you, he’s not being heckled for his political views, because he is not political. He’s being heckled for being Jewish. If you cannot see how we’re recreating Nazi Germany, you are part of the problem.
America isn’t just going batshit crazy. America is becoming a bad country. Not evil–just bad. The evil people are the minority, the beheading and stealing sociopaths disrupting and destroying (in a drip, drip, drip kind of way) all of Western civilization going back to the Magna Carta or earlier. You call them Muslims–I call them homicidal cultists. You call them Democrats. I call them totalitarians. Those are the evil people.
The bad people, on the other hand, are the average Americans who stand by and say nothing. And do nothing, even in their own private sphere. The country is FULL of fearful conservatives, but you will not find a fearful leftist anywhere. The bad people make the evil people stronger. This is how you got Nazi Germany. A majority became fearful, so the evil minority gained a foothold and created the greatest destruction in human history to date.
On our present course, the next wave of destruction will be far worse: Islam, Marxism, fascism and Nazism (the original “democratic socialism”) all rolled up into one. The merger of these psychopathic ideologies! Do you realize how inconceivable the magnitude of destruction at our doorstep? These are the times that decent people of the future will marvel about, about how good people did nothing. If we don’t wake up like RIGHT NOW, the coming monstrosities will completely eclipse the last ones.
Leaving aside Donald Trump (for now) and a Republican or two, our country is, on the whole, run by criminals and even sociopaths. Objectively speaking, they have no moral standing. Gradually, they will lose their legal standing as their increasingly open corruption erodes any hope in our present system’s sustainability. If all or most of the horrific creatures running on the Democratic side in the upcoming election win, the crisis will escalate dramatically. It will be some form of civil war, or dictatorship. Sobering, but unavoidably true. Trump’s inspiring 2024 victory bought us some time, but the Republican Party is still quite corrupt and weak; and the psychopathic left is destructive beyond imagination.
The phenomenon started as a practical way to get places, then it became cool.
It was once all too common to drive down a two-lane highway and spot a stranger on the side of the road, thumb out, a bag slung over their shoulder or resting by their side.
During the Great Depression, jobless Americans thumbed rides from strangers as they traveled far and wide in search of opportunity. Amid World War II, picking up a hitchhiking soldier became a patriotic duty. The practice later became associated with the hippie lifestyle of the counterculture movement—a chance to break free from the status quo.
“For quite a number of decades, it was not considered a particularly dangerous thing to do,” says Ginger Strand, author of Killer on the Road: Violence and the American Interstate. “It was simply a way of sharing resources.”
In the 1960s and ’70s, enforcement of stricter state laws and local ordinances sought to regulate or limit hitchhiking, and federal law enforcement agencies began actively warning about its dangers. One FBI poster depicted a well-dressed hitchhiker and informed motorists that a stranger could be a “friendly traveler or a vicious murderer.” In reality, Reid says, “It was less about hitchhiking and more about, how do we get rid of this countercultural presence?”
By the mid-1970s, hitchhiking began to decline in the United States, …Stopping and pulling over was suddenly more dangerous. All the while, the counterculture movement was dying down.
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It didn’t help hitchhiking’s cause that a few high-profile murder cases involving hitchhikers became media sensations, and the warnings proliferated. At the same time, the high way killer quickly became a common trope in American culture, Strand says.
“It becomes a theme in movies,” Strand says. “Before that, hitchhiking was typically only used in Hollywood movies as a meet-cute. Then it becomes a way of introducing mayhem.”
Great Depression: Hitchhiking Out of Necessity
In the 1920s, the automobile industry was starting to take off. Between 1919 and 1929, the number of passenger cars in the United States surged from 6.5 million to 23 million. At that time, hitchhiking was frowned upon and viewed as a fad among affluent youth seeking a thrill.
Then the stock market crashed in October 1929, and the United States spiraled into the Great Depression. New automobile sales plummeted, and teens and adults alike rode the rails or hitchhiked out of necessity as they hunted for jobs. For the employed, hitchhiking became a low-cost way to get to work. In dire times, picking up someone in need was an act of compassion.
“It was this happy medium, where there are people driving cars, [and] there are plenty of people who didn’t have them,” says Jack Reid, author of Roadside Americans: The Rise and Fall of Hitchhiking in a Changing Nation. “And because of the situation in the Great Depression, there was a sense of urgency, there was a sense of desperation among some people.”
A 1938 poll by the Institute of Public Opinion found that 43 percent of Americans said they stop “occasionally” or “once in a while” for hitchhikers, with particularly high rates in New England. At the time, 17 states and Washington, D.C., had statutes to limit hitchhiking, but enforcement was minimal, according to the poll. Though hitchhiking was common, some critics expressed safety concerns or believed hitchhiking undermined traditional family and community values.
World War II: Hitchhiking as a Patriotic Duty
Hitchhiking became more normalized, even commended, after the United States entered World War II in December 1941. People viewed picking up a soldier as a patriotic deed. The U.S. government also launched an unprecedented campaign urging the public to conserve resources due to wartime rations on gasoline and rubber. One 1943 government poster encourages car-sharing and reads, “When you ride ALONE you ride with Hitler.”
What Led to Hitchhiking’s Decline?
In the 1960s and ’70s, enforcement of stricter state laws and local ordinances sought to regulate or limit hitchhiking, and federal law enforcement agencies began actively warning about its dangers. One FBI poster depicted a well-dressed hitchhiker and informed motorists that a stranger could be a “friendly traveler or a vicious murderer.” In reality, Reid says, “It was less about hitchhiking and more about, how do we get rid of this countercultural presence?”
Some warnings also highlighted the specific risks to women at a time when they were gaining new freedoms, Strand says.
“Their hitchhiking was one of the things that was used against women really to say, you’re putting yourself in danger; you’re asking for trouble,” Strand says.
According to Strand, the link between hitchhiking and crime wasn’t so clear. One of the few studies on the issue—published by the California Highway Patrol in 1974—revealed that hitchhikers were involved in less than 1 percent of crimes in the state.
By the mid-1970s, hitchhiking began to decline in the United States, Reid says. It became less of a necessity as cars began lasting longer and ownership numbers continued rising. On the modernized Interstate Highway System, hitching a ride became more difficult as drivers traveled at higher speeds. Stopping and pulling over was suddenly more dangerous. All the while, the counterculture movement was dying down.
Fewer middle-class people who could figure out other ways to travel wanted to hitchhike,” Reid says. “So it became associated with more marginalized populations.”
It didn’t help hitchhiking’s cause that a few high-profile murder cases involving hitchhikers became media sensations, and the warnings proliferated. At the same time, the highway killer quickly became a common trope in American culture, Strand says.
“It becomes a theme in movies,” Strand says. “Before that, hitchhiking was typically only used in Hollywood movies as a meet-cute. Then it becomes a way of introducing mayhem.”
As of June 2025, hitchhiking is fully illegal in six U.S. states. While most states permit it, a vast majority have laws against standing directly in the road or obstructing the flow of traffic.
Jordan Friedman
Jordan Friedman is a Chicago-based writer specializing in history and true crime. Jordan was previously an editor at U.S. News & World Report, and his work has also appeared in publications including National Geographic, Fortune Magazine and USA TODAY.
