There is no honest question that Saddam is evil. Saddam is a dictator in the classic Stalinist model and Iraq is the antithesis of a free republic. Rather than make reason, persuasion and individual freedom the hallmark of its regime, Iraq relies upon the systematic...
POLITICS
Would-Be Intellectual Vandals Get Their Day in the Supreme Court
In 1998 Congress, pursuant to its Constitutional power to determine the duration of federal copyright protection, passed a law extending the term of that protection by 20 years. This law brought United States copyright protection in line with that already afforded in...
Permission to Speak: The End of Free Speech
Two recent events show the real meaning of two popular ideas: “hate speech” regulations and campaign finance controls. The real meaning of both is the end of free speech. The first story comes from Canada, where “hate speech” laws are already...
The Rise of Religious Radio
NPR liberals are horrified. Across the country, thousands of radio listeners are tuning out conservative-basher Nina Totenberg, and tuning in conservative heroine Phyllis Schlafly. The growing Christian radio audience is bidding “adieu” to “Morning...
Race and IQ
Years ago, while doing research on education and IQ, I happened to be in the principal’s office at a black school in Cincinnati, as he was preparing to open a large brown envelope containing the results of IQ tests that his students had taken. Before he opened...
Solar Power Statists: Blinded by the Light
For the past week, the National Mall in Washington has been host to the Department of Energy’s “Solar Decathlon,” a collegiate competition and demonstration project to build a 500 square foot home powered only by the sun. Despite generous government...
A Spring-loaded Bull Market
U.S. corporate profits rose 56% in the first half of 2002, yet stock prices have plunged. The problem is not corporate governance, it’s political governance Contrary to popular opinion, most of America’s CEOs are doing a fabulous job. On the heels of a 50%...
How Today Show’s Matt Lauer Patronized Charlton Heston
Is it me, or does “Today Show’s” Matt Lauer condescendingly give Republicans/conservatives the old “look-me-in-the-eye” treatment when asking questions? In an interview with President George W. Bush, for example, Lauer questioned the...
Can’t Pin Fiscal Woes on W.
Facts often are the first casualty of any political battle, and never more so than during an election year. But sometimes the debate shifts from routine exaggeration and distortion and becomes flagrantly misleading. As with Al Gore’s recent fusillade, including...
The Republicans Impotence and the Future of Our Freedom
According to an article in the Washington Post, the Bush administration has decided to distance itself from the term “privatization” at the request of the National Republican Congressional Committee, claming the word never accurately reflected the White...
Apply the Bush Doctrine to Saudi Arabia
Recent intelligence reports indicate that our desultory efforts abroad so far–and our fortress “homeland defense” mentality–will fail to prevent further horrendous attacks on the US. We’re losing because Bush has defaulted on the...
Read Our Lips: No Tax Increase
At a time when more than 8 million Americans are unemployed, business investment has stalled and the recovery is still tentative, Congress is considering a tax hike. Even more surprising, the misguided proposal is sponsored by Republican Rep. Bill Thomas of...
Hollywood Actors: False American Idols
The singer. The actor. The empty vessel. Many pundits believe celebrities are frivolously easy targets unworthy of our scorn. They must realize, however, that a single voice of a celebrity reaches more common Americans than a busload of think tank intellectuals. The...
Guns for Rapists, But Not For Potential Victims
A picture on the front of The Boston Globe’s metro section last month showed a group of women waiting to apply for firearm identification cards at the District 14 police station in Brighton. They were in a line, the accompanying story noted, that stretched the...
Terrorism: The Second-Biggest Threat to America
Throughout the “war on terrorism,” we have all heard our nation’s leaders pay extensive lip service to “protecting America.” But if “America” is just a collection of people on a slab of land somewhere, then there’s no...
Investing: One to Grow On
Now in his 12th year, Will Danoff is running Fidelity Contrafund, and, as usual, he is running it brilliantly. In 1996, I conducted one of those exercises to which idle minds are often prone, attempting to find the best core mutual fund – that is, a fund that...
Mad Dogs of War
My dog Clancy was an oversized Irish Setter with a blockhead and big paws and strong jaws who our son had rescued from the Humane Society after his friend’s mom got rid of him because he had, as they say, some issues. One of Clancy’s issues was that he had...
Open Source Socialism
At a recent Stanford University lecture, open source proselytizer Bruce Perens encouraged students to get involved in the open source political movement. A few folks were enthused, but many seemed confused by how a method of software production and distribution can...
Iowa Electronic Markets: Vote Early and Often
In the good old bad old days of corrupt Chicago politics, the voters were urged by city bosses to “vote early and often.” Now that’s exactly what you can do — and you might even make some money at the same time. If nothing else, you’ll be...
Bilingual Education’s Voluminous Failure
If I were a Hispanic American, I would feel humiliated every time an automated telephone-answering system prompted me to press 1 for English, or 2 for Spanish. I would wince every time an ATM machine invited me to conduct my transaction en Espanol. It would mortify me...
Snoop Dogg, Miss Piggy, and Macy’s
Close call, “Middle America.” The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Calvin Broadus, AKA Snoop Doggy Dogg, now sees himself as a mainstream commercial entity. That’s right, according to the rapper, who says he no longer uses drugs —...
Depression and Learned Helplessness
Depression has been defined as a persistent feeling of learned helplessness. For those who are depressed, this raises the questions: what do you feel helpless about, and why? What needs to change in order for you to feel less helpless? One area to work on is your...
Politicians Ignore Militant Islam–As It Keeps On Killing
Militant Islam keeps on killing, but politicians and journalists still avert their eyes. One terrible example comes from Pakistan, where a sequence of assaults on Christians, both local and foreign, has taken place over the past year: Oct. 28: an attack on St....
The Canadian Government vs. Free Speech
There are two principles that taken together are the cornerstone of freedom. One is that an individual has a right to his life. The other is that an individual has the right to speak uncoerced. Today, the 2nd right is under threat in Canada. According to Ray Girn,...
Who Do Democrats Hate More: Saddam or Bush?
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Surely most Republicans observed in giddy delight as Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle did his best imitation of Jack Palance on the Senate floor, accusing President Bush of “politicizing” the debate over national...
Investing: High Price Ratios and Cheap Stocks?
At the top of the late great bull market in 2000 investors kept coming up with reasons why stocks weren’t really overpriced. I came up with a few juicy theories myself that will live forever in the Rationalizations Hall of Fame. But now, in the bowels of the...
Anti-Capitalist Demonstrators and Freedom of Speech
Last weekend’s anti-capitalist demonstrations in Washington were every bit what most observers expected them to be: sessions in idiocy, lunacy and general mayhem. As expected, portions of the city were significantly impacted by the demonstrations and despite...
The Bear Market Makes the Case for Privatizing Social Security
The market is in another slump, and investors’ savings have once again shrunk. So now is the perfect time to make the case for privatizing Social Security. This is not the conventional view on the subject. In the run-up to next month’s elections,...
Crusading to Keep Kids Clueless: Public Education Monopoly Cracks Down on Home Schooling
The public education monopoly can’t stand the thought of “unqualified” parents teaching their own children. That is why they are cracking down on home schooling, even as a new study shows that thousands of public school teachers themselves are...
Does waging war on a tyrant make one a tyrant?
Agitated reader: I just can’t stomach your narrow minded opinions anymore. What gives the United States moral authority to wage a war against not just a tyrant, but innocent people? Dr. Hurd: What exactly would broad minded opinions consist of? Treating the...
The Anti-Capitalist Mentality
Consider the following statement issued on September 27, 2002 at a press conference by the leaders of last weekend’s “anti-capitalist convergence” in Washington, DC after hundreds of protestors were arrested for acts of violence and disorder,...
Q & A on Going to war with Iraq
A reader from a major news network writes in: Reader: Going to war with Iraq is so stupid for so many reasons that I can’t take the time to address them all. Needless to say, there is NO evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Dr. Hurd: So it doesn’t...
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