Of Halloween Spoilsports and Spiders

This will be my 16-month-old daughter’s first Halloween on foot. Last year, she was a baby bunny who toured the neighborhood in Daddy’s arms. This year, she’ll be a kitten — clambering up porch steps, clutching her goody bag, and marveling at...

Social Security “Trust Fund”

According to the unanimous preliminary report of the special commission appointed to look into Social Security, the amount of money coming into the system will be insufficient to pay out what was promised by 2016. By 2030, the choice will be to reduce Social Security...

“Ignorance” Pays in a Mixed Economy

While people might be motivated by non-economic factors, from a strictly economic point of view it simply doesn’t pay individual voters to learn about and take action against the myriad assaults emanating from the political area. That’s what my colleagues...

Privacy for Government, But Not For Private Citizens

It began three years ago in an ugly encounter between a motorist and the police. It ended earlier this summer in a dreadful opinion by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. And as the noted civil-liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate observes in a characteristically...

The Ultimate (Surprise) Broadband Killer Application

The other day, a colleague of mind was bemoaning the lack of killer internet applications to drive the demand for bandwidth. He noted that the only killer internet application was e-mail, and that it was a low bandwidth application. Well, I have a different...

The UN’s International Kangaroo Court

America’s court system — the most fair, free and transparent in all the world — isn’t perfect. But that doesn’t mean its power should be usurped by jurists 8,000 miles away who are not elected, selected or directed by anyone responsible...

Social Security’s No Accounts

Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, the saying goes. It’s exactly what we’re getting from opponents of Social Security reform, who have staged sign-wielding protests in more than 40 cities to convince Americans that the premier New Deal program is...

Emasculation of American Intelligence Services

Aren’t you a bit perplexed at how rapidly our FBI and CIA identified, arrested or detained so many people involved in the terrorist attack? The answer’s easy. The FBI and CIA had a lot of information about terrorists and their organizations before the...

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