The Safety Zealots

by | Oct 16, 2004 | POLITICS

Nowhere is the tyranny of visions more absolute than with issues involving safety. Attempts to talk about costs, trade-offs or diminishing returns are only likely to provoke safety zealots to respond with something like, “If it saves just one human life, it is...

The Busybody Commissions of California

by | Oct 15, 2004 | POLITICS

Some people think of California as a place where many kooky ideas originate. It is that but there is more to it than that. California has long had more than its fair share of busybodies with a vision of the world in which it is necessary for them to force other people...

The Tyranny of Visions

by | Oct 14, 2004 | POLITICS

At long last there is some reconsideration of the child molestation hysteria that has sent innocent people to jail for long terms behind bars, often with zero evidence and with testimony from children who have been heavily pressured or manipulated by...

Blame America

by | Oct 14, 2004 | POLITICS

The War on Terror involves more than military or intelligence, it involves winning the ideological struggle. Not there, but here. I once wrote about the way an elementary school teacher in Afghanistan discusses political science and history. The teacher holds up a...

The Erosion of Property Rights

by | Oct 13, 2004 | POLITICS

Imagine you’ve been enjoying your backyard picnic table and chairs for the past 10 years when suddenly, for no apparent reason, you are served notice from a government agency that you will be fined $6,000 a day unless you remove them. Or, imagine you would like...

School Violence Toleration

by | Oct 13, 2004 | Education, POLITICS

I’m wondering just when parents, especially poor minorities, will refuse to tolerate day-to-day school conditions that most parents wouldn’t dream of tolerating. Lisa Snell, director of the Education and Child Welfare Program at the Los Angles-based Reason...

The Intellectual Motor Behind SpaceShipOne

by | Oct 12, 2004 | POLITICS, Space

Burt Rutan may be famous for coming up with the ideas for his aircraft literally on paper napkins, but he meticulously assigns them a number. Hence the tiny plaque on SpaceShipOne, lost among the sponsors’ logos, which after interpretation reads “Mark 314,...