Navigation

Daring to Question the Welfare State

(2001.07.31 )

Did Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill commit a “gaffe” of epic proportions? Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich certainly thinks so. In an interview with Financial Times, O’Neill said, “Able-bodied adults should save enough on a regular basis so that they can provide for their own retirement and, for that matter, health and medical needs.” […]

Racial Double Standards

(2001.07.30 )

A measure of accommodation is accorded children because they are not adults and thus not to be held to the same accountability standards. But should that same accommodation be accorded to a race of people? In the March 2001 edition of The American Enterprise magazine, there’s an article titled “The Soft Bigotry of Double Standards.” […]

How to Lie with Non-Statistics

(2001.07.29 )

“Every year since 1950, the number of American children gunned down has doubled.” Did you know that? It is just as well if you did not, because it is not true. It takes no research to prove that it is not true. If there had been just two children in America gunned down in 1950, […]

Public Education: The Department of Embezzlement

(2001.07.28 )

President Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” school reform proposal passed in the House last week. Considering what a colossal black hole the U.S. Department of Education has become, the $24 billion plan would be more appropriately dubbed: No Dime Left Behind. If Beltway pols were truly interested in educational accountability, they wouldn’t be funneling billions […]

Timid Old World

(2001.07.27 )

The clones are coming! Lock your doors, hide your wives and children — or, better yet, hold congressional hearings and pass a law. Angry villagers in academia and on Capitol Hill are crusading for a ban on human cloning — a ban potentially so sweeping that it would wipe out whole areas of genetic research. […]

Death Among Children: Tragedy at Tommy Lee’s

(2001.07.26 )

A 4-year-old boy died last weekend at the Malibu home of rock star Tommy Lee. How any right-thinking parents could entrust their child to a drug-addled celebrity who pled no contest to kicking his ex-wife (actress Pamela Anderson) while she held their newborn baby is beyond me. But that’s a column for another day. Daniel […]

Liberty for Cuba

(2001.07.25 )

“Our goal is not to have an embargo against Cuba; it is freedom in Cuba.” Thus spake President Bush last month, at a White House ceremony marking the 99th anniversary of Cuban independence. “The sanctions our Government enforces against the Castro regime are not just a policy tool; they are a moral statement. My administration […]

Price Controls: Bad Idea Whether Temporary or Permanent

(2001.07.24 )

Don’t say price controls. Call it price mitigation. Call it price-hike avoidance mechanisms. Anything but price controls. In announcing a complex plan to avoid price hikes, the Bush administration, in retreat mode, now backs the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s policy to “mitigate any severe price spikes.” Under the old rule, FERC possessed the power to […]

Global Hot Air

(2001.07.23 )

A new political dogma is being spun in the media. “Science,” they say, has now “proved” that global warming is a real danger and that human beings are responsible for it, so that we need to take drastic steps to reduce greenhouse gases. This has been the widespread response to a recent publication by the […]

Bill & Hil & Bob & Ted’s Fugitive Pal

(2001.07.22 )

Who is Mark Jimenez? More importantly: Where is Mark Jimenez? And why doesn’t anyone in Washington care that this fugitive businessman — indicted in 1998 on 17 counts of illegal campaign contributions to Democrats — remains at large, defiantly thumbing his nose at American law and order? Jimenez is a Philippines-born hustler who came to […]

“Trade Imbalances”: The Seen and Unseen

(2001.07.21 )

I buy more from my grocer than he buys from me. I buy more from my auto dealer than he buys from me. The trade imbalance doesn’t stop there. My grocer and auto dealer both buy more from their wholesaler than the wholesaler buys from them. These are examples of trade deficits. What should President […]

Straw Men vs. Capital Punishment

(2001.07.20 )

Two days after Timothy McVeigh’s execution, The New York Times published eight letters to the editor discussing the event and expressing an opinion on the death penalty. Six of the eight were against executing murderers, one was in favor, and one was in favor in a case of mass atrocity like McVeigh’s. Four days earlier, […]

Once Upon a Rhyme

(2001.07.19 )

Limp Bizkit lyrics. Beeper numbers. TV jingles. Carson Daly’s vital statistics. Such is the stuff that clutters the minds of American boys and girls. It wasn’t always this way. Once upon a time, students had their heads crammed full with poetry by great old writers — the “Dead White Men” so reviled by today’s multiculturalists. […]

McVeigh and the Death Penalty

(2001.07.18 )

The execution of Timothy McVeigh has again raised the issue of capital punishment. Much of the case against capital punishment does not rise above the level of opaque pronouncements that it is “barbaric,” by which those who say this presumably mean that it makes them unhappy to think of killing another human being. It should. […]

Moral Compromise: Why There is No Peace in Palestine

(2001.07.17 )

The Palestinians, you may have noticed, have changed their tune. When the current orgy of violence against Israelis began last fall, the explanation out of Gaza City — faithfully echoed by most of the Western media — was that it was all Ariel Sharon’s fault. His visit to the Temple Mount on September 28, it […]

The Legacy of Slavery Hustle

(2001.07.16 )

Today, there are increasing numbers of black professionals and scholars advocating reparations for slavery. New York Times staff writer Tamar Lewin, in her June 3 article “Calls for Slavery Reparations Getting Louder,” says that a team of black lawyers have announced that they plan to sue the federal government and companies that have profited from […]

Gary Davis’ Political Masterpiece in California

(2001.07.15 )

Some people were surprised when California’s Governor Gray Davis hired two Democratic Party operatives at $30,000 a month to serve as spinmeisters during the current electricity crisis. But all indications are that they are well worth their money. Think about it: Here is a state that has already had rolling blackouts and is facing more […]

In Search of…an Energy Crisis

(2001.07.15 )

I had this column all figured out. “Good news,” I was going to begin. “Gasoline prices are up. And why is that good news? Because it means more gasoline is on the way — and more gas means cheaper gas.” I intended to explain that prices were high because supplies of fuel were tight. But […]