How to Fight Terrorism: Bush vs. Clinton
Like three blind mice, Dick Gephardt, Hillary Clinton and James Carville are running around saying they want their eyes opened about what’s going on in this country about terrorism. House Minority Leader Gebhardt wants an investigation into “what the White...Making Gray Davis Accountable
California’s Governor Gray Davis is in hot water over his acceptance of $25,000 from Oracle Corporation following the state’s no-bid $95 million dollar e-government deal with the company. And while the governor probably wishes he had never heard of...The Inversion Aversion: How Congress Robs Shareholders of American Corporations
Today, the Senate Committee on Finance will vote on a bill introduced by Sen, Charles Grassley of Iowa that would make it illegal for a US firms to re-incorporate overseas to avoid the tax bias against corporate overseas income. CMDC considers this and similar...Patterns of Untruthfulness: U.S. State Department “Patterns of Global Terrorism”
Each spring, the State Department issues “Patterns of Global Terrorism,” its major report on the problem it defines as “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents,...The Virtue of “Playing God”
Thanks to infighting in the Senate, it appears that voting on legislation that would destroy the lives of life-saving heroes will be delayed until next year. Americans cannot afford to leave the fate of these individuals to legislative chance, however; in the name of...The Post-Colonialist Famine
Today, more than a million people in Zimbabwe are starving, and up to three million face the imminent prospect of starvation. This has not yet excited much attention in the West. Zimbabwe, after all, is far away from the centers of American interest; all of our top...
Why Economists Are Not Popular
One of the many reasons why economists are unpopular is that they keep reminding people that things have costs, that there is no free lunch. People already know that — but they like to forget it when there is something they have their hearts set on. Economists...“I am an American”?
Remember those public-service ads with the politically correct cast of actors staring into the camera and stating, “I am an American”? Something always bothered me about that campaign. It was the snarly attitude that many of the cast members had while...Strange Times at Santa Monica High
What causes poverty? A Santa Monica, Calif., high school teacher required his class to write an essay to address this question. Steve Miller, one of his students, attributed three things to poverty — violent crime, government programs and irresponsible breeding....The Bono/O’Neill Magical Third World Tour
“He is the man in charge of America’s wallet, and I am looking to open it.” So pronounced rock star Bono as he and Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill embarked on a four-nation African “poverty tour.” Bono, a longtime activist for...
Homeland Security and the Enemies Within
One of the problems that urgently needs some serious thought by President Bush’s proposed new Homeland Security Department is the problem of what to do about enemies already living within this country. Our legal system has not yet faced the grim implications of...Solutions to the Bureaucratic Vision of Anti-Terrorism
Imagine you’re a munitions manufacturer, and you manufacture hand grenades for the military. Your contract requires a guarantee that 99 percent of the hand grenades delivered are not duds. What do you do? If you assumed there was an equal probability of every...The Geography of Palestine According to Arafat
The next time you see a picture of Yasser Arafat, take a look at his keffiyeh, the black-and-white headdress he never appears without. He wears it in an unusual style, carefully folded so that it comes to a peak at the top, drapes down over his left shoulder, then...