On April 2, 2002, Palestinian gunmen/militants/terrorists shot their way into the Church of the Nativity, taking as hostage some civilian citizens and members of the clergy. One month into the siege, Los Angeles Times photographer Carolyn Cole sneaked past Israeli...
It is not clear whether the newly proposed Department of Homeland Security will have jurisdiction over terrorists who have been captured. But somewhere those in high authority need to confront the great dangers inherent in trying members of international terrorist...
Imagine it’s June 1942 – just a few months after Adolf Hitler declared war on the United States. At Harvard University, a faculty committee has chosen a German-American to give one of three student orations at the festive commencement ceremony. He titles...
When North American stock markets raced upward from 1995 to 1999, their rise was ridiculed — by people like Yale’s Robert Shiller and the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Alan Greenspan — as a mere “irrational exuberance.” No facts, they...
“That has nothing to do with intelligence,” said former President Bill Clinton. “It basically says he’s a dangerous guy that might do a lot of things.” Clinton refers to a 1999 CIA report about the possibility of terrorist attacks against...
The War on Terrorism is over. It ended when President Bush pushed to the top of his agenda the creation of a Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security. This is the climax of a trend that has been building for the past month: the only action the U.S. government is...
Unidentified bandits stole 10 tons of sodium cyanide briquettes last month during a roadside robbery in Mexico. The lethal chemical, combined with sulfuric acid, is used in gas chamber executions; a single whiff can kill in minutes. The hijacked truck was found May 16...
Next week in Toronto, the annual meeting of the Biotechnology Industry Organization will take place, amid protests by environmentalists who want to prohibit genetic engineering. This is a conflict between the creators of a technology that has saved countless lives and...
“ What’s So Great About America ” That is the provocative title of a new book by Dinesh D’Souza, a best-selling author who was born in India and who has now become an American citizen. Although many among the intelligentsia would have meant...
If George W. Bush learned only one thing from his father’s presidency, it was that high marks in the opinion polls are no guarantee of future triumph in the other kind of poll. During the Gulf War in early 1991, the first President Bush’s approval ratings...
Move out of the way, Ozzy Osbourne. There’s another foul-mouthed celebrity who’s vying for the bleeding-heart pop critics’ Father of the Year award. Eminem, the Detroit rapper whose third album skyrocketed to the top of the charts, wants everyone to...
The Bush administration seems to be twisting itself into a knot of confusion over the nuclear standoff between India and Pakistan, dispatching an array of diplomats to try to “ease the tensions” between the two countries — without doing anything to...
President Bush signed an immigration reform bill last month that will supposedly make our borders “more secure” and “smart.” But “smart” technology can’t cure corrupted borders. This new law won’t do much good if our own...
Last month, in a heartfelt address, President Bush spoke out in support of a nation suffering under tyranny. He declared that its people are entitled to liberty, democracy, and dignity, and he condemned the dictator “who jails and tortures and exiles his...
Some thought that racial preferences and quotas — “affirmative action” — in university admissions decisions were on their way out after they were banned by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in Texas and by Proposition 209 in California. However,...
Speaking in Los Angeles recently, on the eve of his Likud Party victory in opposing a Palestinian state, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered his now-familiar approach to the Middle East: moral clarity. Coming as Newsweek reports that the GOP is...
Accused pipe bomber Lucas John Helder had barely been taken into custody before people began saying that he was crazy. Apparently no one is responsible for doing wrong things any more. Some of young Mr. Helder’s comments may sound illogical to many of us. But...
The Second Amendment is back. Rejecting six decades of the government’s head-in-sand approach to the Second Amendment, Attorney General John Ashcroft now says the Founding Fathers meant what they said and said what they meant. The Second Amendment confers an...
There are six-person and there are three-person families. So is it fair that a six-person family live crowded in a 1,500 square foot house, while that three-person family enjoys 5,000 square feet? It’s the same thing with cars. I’ve seen five-person...
[Some months ago] the Democrats and the New York Times were making hay with a Department of Energy document which revealed that Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham met with top executives of energy-producing companies while preparing an energy report that was released...
When Fidel Castro dies, will Cuba’s communist dictatorship die too? Absolutely, says a prominent Western diplomat in Havana. “I believe the whole system will be gone within two or three years after Castro dies.” Absolutely not, says Ricardo Alarcon,...
You don’t have to be an economist to know that when tax collectors from the European Union complain about “certain distortions of competition” and announce a need to “correct” it, a blueprint for higher taxes can’t be far behind....
If an individual, and a fictional one at that, can be a microcosm of a state, then Israel and Howard Roark, the legendary architect of Ayn Rand’s classic “The Fountainhead,” may have a lot in common. Sound far-fetched? Not according to the Ayn Rand...
How often do we hear politicians, labor bosses, business leaders and other Americans expressing concern about the nation’s children and their children? I generally dismiss such concern as disgusting hypocrisy because their actions don’t begin to match...
Currently on the agenda of the US Senate is legislation that would outlaw a scientist’s right to clone human tissue. This “Human Cloning Prohibition Act” was introduced last year by Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas. In what would be the greatest...
MICHAEL MOORE ISN’T YOUR AVERAGE MILLIONAIRE CELEBRITY. His oafish, disheveled appearance is both physically and intellectually disengaging, so much so that you might not take him very seriously. You should. Ostensibly, Moore exposes the hypocrisy and misconduct...
The first time I had to fire someone, nearly 30 years ago, I lay awake the night before. There was no question that she had to be fired. Her irresponsible behavior was jeopardizing the whole research project that I was running. But she was just 19 years old and a nice...
In December, the governor of Arkansas created the “Tax Me More Fund,” so people who consider themselves undertaxed can donate more to the state government. Even with the economic recovery underway, state lawmakers nationwide are finding it tough to balance...
Don’t bother telling the plaintiffs who sued earlier this year to collect reparations for slavery from three US corporations that they don’t have a legal leg to stand on. They already know it. After all, you don’t need a law degree to recognize that...
Memorial Day is always a solemn occasion, but especially so this year, because we have so recently experienced this day’s meaning first-hand. We have seen it in two different ways: we have seen the courage of our troops on the battlefields of Afghanistan —...
Simple is usually better, right? So it’s not surprising to hear some members of Congress agreeing with syndicated columnist Molly Ivins on how to reduce the number of Americans without health insurance. “The answer is universal health insurance, a...
There are serious reasons for criticizing President Bush’s war against terrorism. One reason involves his refusal to support Israel’s self-defense against the openly terrorist organization, the P.L.O. What’s good for the Taliban should be good for...
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