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...
POLITICS
The basic and crucial political issue of our age is: capitalism versus socialism, or freedom versus statism. For decades, this issue has been silenced, suppressed, evaded, and hidden under the foggy, undefined rubber-terms of “conservatism” and “liberalism” which had lost their original meaning and could be stretched to mean all things to all men. – AYN RAND
What’s So Great About America?
"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 that question to be...
A Lesson for George W. Bush: Principles vs. Popularity Polls
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 soared to...
Dysfunctional Dad of the Year
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 know that he spews...
Time’s Up for Pakistan: America Must Side with India
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 eliminate the...
A Mexican VISA-Vending Scandal
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 State Department officials are willing to sell...
Castro’s Reign is an Abomination
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 political...
“Affirmative Action” and College Graduation Rates
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, the 6th Circuit Court...
Liberal Jews are finding common ground with the right
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...
What Adults Cannot Learn from Children
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 they are...
The Second Amendment Strikes Back
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...
Who Should Decide?
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 families squeezed...
Charismatic Ignoramuses
[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...
Lift America’s Embargo on Cuba?
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, the powerful...
The European Union Wants to Tax You!
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. This normally wouldn't concern most...
Israel Morals Match Rand Ideology
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 Institute, which...
Caring About Future Generations
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 their words. If...
We Must Protect Science
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 injustice against...
Michael Moore: A Real “Stupid White Man”
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 of...
A World without Adversity
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...
Tax Me More Fund
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 their...
The Slavery Reparations Hustle
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 FleetBoston, CSX,...
Freedom’s Defenders
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 -- and we...
“Universal” Health Insurance Will Only Enlarge the Medicare Problem
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 single-payer...
In Washington, Hindsight is 20/400
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 Arafat and his...
The “Peace Process” Myth: Negotiations End Wars
Wars usually end with both sides sitting down at a table and signing a peace agreement. From this, some people seem to think that the way to get peace is to start sitting down at a table and beginning negotiations. In other words, start "the peace process" -- whether...
The Purpose of a Palestinian State
The April 1 edition of Newsweek carried the ominous headline: How will Israel survive? Most of us thought we'd never have to hear the question again. But with psychopaths cashing in on Iraqi-sponsored life insurance policies at the expense of innocent Israeli...
Options as Expenses
Standard & Poor's announced this week that it's taking the revolutionary step of including the expense of employee stock options when it calculates companies' operating earnings. This is revolutionary because current accounting rules don't require that options...
The Arab-Israeli Impasse: Winning by Retreating?
How to break the Arab-Israeli impasse? Increasingly, one hears, not just from Palestinians, but from the universities and from media commentators, that things would improve markedly if only Israeli forces immediately left the West Bank and Gaza. Would such a move help...
From Flanders Fields to Roberts Ridge
To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields. -- John McCrae, "In Flanders Fields," 1915 We cherish, too, the poppy red That grows on fields where...
Foreign “AID” at Taxpayer Expense: What is Seen and Unseen
Now that the International Monetary Fund and its political and media allies are in a full-court press for more money from the American taxpayer, expect to see more stories about the supposedly good things the IMF and other international donor agencies have done and...
The Strange Phenomenon of Black Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism in America, according to a survey commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League, stands at an all-time low. But alarmingly, the survey found blacks three to four times more likely than non-blacks to be anti-Semitic.
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