On August 6, 1945 the American Air Force incinerated Hiroshima, Japan with an atomic bomb. On August 9 Nagasaki was obliterated. The fireballs killed some 175,000 people. They followed months of horror, when American airplanes firebombed civilians and reduced cities...
POLITICS
Oily Politicians II: Politicians Play on Consumer Ignorance of Economics
One of the beauties of an economy coordinated by price movements is that nobody has to understand it in order for it to work. If vast new iron ore deposits are discovered tomorrow in Timbuktu, 99 percent of the people on this planet may be wholly unaware of it -- and...
Oily Politicians I: Oil Prices Rise as Oil Drilling is Restricted By Politicians
If there is anything worse than partisan demagoguery, it is bipartisan demagoguery. Republican leaders have now joined the Democrats in blaming the oil companies for the fact that prices rise when demand expands more than supply. Prices have been rising under these...
Minimum Wage, Maximum Folly
About a fortnight ago, Mrs. Williams alerted me to an episode of Oprah Winfrey's show titled "Inside the Lives of People Living on Minimum Wage." After a few minutes of watching, I turned it off, not because of the heartrending tales but because most of what was being...
Rape Accusations Against Duke Lacrosse Players: Law or Lynch Law?
People who were not within 1,000 miles of Duke University have already taken sides in the case of a stripper who has accused Duke lacrosse players of rape. One TV talk show hostess went ballistic when a guest on her program raised questions about the stripper's...
The Only Cure for Racism
If diversity is the cure for racism, why, instead of promoting racial harmony, has it brought racial division and conflict? It is now taken as a virtual axiom that the way to cure racism is through the promulgation of racial and ethnic diversity within corporations,...
Why Can’t We Fix The Tax Code?
While Americans struggle to comply with one of the world's most complicated tax codes, it's worth noting that about one-dozen nations have adopted simple and fair flat-tax systems.Hong Kong has had a flat tax for nearly 60 years, and has gone from being one of the...
Letters to the Editor: April 2006
Re: Pay Less, Drive More Dear Editor: The Bush Administration's new light truck fuel economy standards save record amounts of fuel, reform an outdated system, preserve vehicle choice, and increase safety. The fact is that in less than three years, this Administration...
How Israel Can Win
Since I argued in an earlier column that Israel can and must defeat the Palestinian Arabs, a barrage of responses have contested this thesis. Some were trivial (Ha'aretz published an article challenging my right to opine on such matters because I do not live in...
From Small to Big Forebodings
This morning I heard that President Bush should not fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld because when one member of the cabinet goes there is a "blood in the water" effect in Washington that will demand that more heads role. This is not a reason for keeping...
Is There a Federal Deficit?
Let's push back the frontiers of ignorance about the federal deficit. To simplify things, I'll use round numbers that are fairly close to the actual numbers. The nation's 2005 gross domestic product (GDP), what the American people produced, totaled $13 trillion. The...
Fidel Castro is a Communist
For fifty years the American left has promoted the image of Fidel Castro as a great humanitarian who has saved his people in a workers' paradise. Here's a fact: Fidel Castro is a communist. Period. Communists are not humanitarians. They are vile, brutal thugs who use...
Time to Fight the Real War
Four and a half years after September 11--which was supposed to awaken us to the threat of devastating attacks by state-sponsored terrorists--America is finally beginning to confront the world's largest and most dangerous state sponsor of terrorism: the Islamic...
Health Care on Tax Day: How Government Spending Damages Your Health
When you file your tax return on April 15, know that even more of your taxes will be eaten up by government spending on health care. You should also ask why so much of the income you have left is spent on health care and health insurance. The two questions are...
South Park Sissies
So the reacted airing of "South Park" on Wednesday was no joke; Comedy Central did in fact refuse to broadcast Trey Parker and Matt Stone's representation of Mohammad "in light of recent world events." At the same time Comedy Central was reveling in South Park's...
How Washington will spend your taxes in 2006
As the April 15 tax deadline edges closer, taxpayers frantically completing their 1040s may be wondering just what their hard-earned federal tax dollars pay for, anyway.Washington will spend $23,760 per household in 2006 -- the highest inflation-adjusted total since...
A Morality of Reason
Does morality depend upon religion? Most people believe it does, which is a major reason behind the appeal of the religious right. People believe that without faith in a supernatural authority, we can have no moral values--no moral absolutes, no black-and-white...
South Park Speaks
OK, so "Cartoon Wars Part II" of Comedy Central's "South Park" aired last night and I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out what was what. The broadcast seemingly never shows Muhammad, claiming that the scene that featured him was redacted by Comedy Central,...
Universal Healthcare Boondoggle
The Massachusetts law for universal healthcare is a boondoggle. Rather than admit that the problems with healthcare in America are the caused by the government's interference with the personal choices of its citizens, the Massachusetts proposal mandates that every...
Anaheim, a Free-Market Laboratory
The massive cost overruns on the aerial tram have been a source of much embarrassment to the Portland city council recently, but problems with the South Waterfront project go far beyond the tram. The city also has a major funding shortfall for other infrastructure...
Immigration Plus Welfare State Equal Police State
The implementation of the rights both of the immigrants and of the taxpayers requires the abolition of the Welfare State.
Pay Less, Drive More
Last Wednesday the Bush administration announced new fuel economy standards for light trucks and SUVs. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta asserted that the new regulations, which will affect vehicles sold from 2008 to 2011, will save 10.7 billion gallons of fuel...
The Islamist Threat To Civilization
In reacting to the Islamists’ ongoing cartoon Jihad, most commentators have focused on the issue of free speech. This is natural, and necessary, since eradication of free speech is the most immediate risk; and certainly without free speech there can be no defending...
Why Are CEOs Paid So Much?
The Coca Cola Co. has instituted a significant new plan for compensating its directors: they will not receive payment unless the company meets its financial targets. But even if other corporations adopted similar arrangements, it would do nothing to dispel the rampant...
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