Since the 1960s, academic achievement scores have plummeted, but student grade point averages (GPAs) have skyrocketed. The Academy of Arts and Sciences reports that at Harvard, for instance, A’s were awarded to 46 percent of students in 1996 (versus 22 percent...
POLITICS
“Campaign Finance Reform” Regulates Free Speech
The Enron scandal was welcomed like an unexpected Christmas present by Democrats who, together with much of the media, have tried to tie the scandal to the Bush administration. However, as more and more information has come out about Enron, it has become clear that...
Just Wondering
The six-month anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is upon us. Here are a half-dozen unsolved mysteries still on my mind: What really happened on United Airlines Flight 93? As the Philadelphia Daily News reported back in November, many folks in Shanksville,...
The Prophets of Defeatism
The American press seems to have contracted Black Hawk Down Syndrome, a malady in which reporters and editorialists, whose military experience consists largely of watching Hollywood war movies, project a hand-wringing fear of American military failure. These reactions...
Inside the Lives of America’s Politicians: Battle of the Beltway Buttinskis
There’s a word for people like Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, who got caught last week cutting in line at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. The word is buttinski. Beltway buttinskis can’t wait around like everybody else. Long...
Back Up Blues Revisited
I can’t seem to get away from this subject. And it’s so darn important, I’m not sure I want to. My earlier column, Back Up Blues, triggered some interesting responses. One reader inquired as to whether I had considered or tried another drive imaging...
Steel Tariffs: President Bush Put Politics Above Principle
President Bush last week showed Clintonesque skill in the art of political triangulation. An alleged champion of free markets and free trade, the Bush White House last week announced plans to impose tariffs as high as 30% on steel imports to the U.S. next year. The...
Back Up Blues
In a previous article, I discussed the importance of backing up your entire hard drive (not just your data) periodically as protection against computer viruses. Of course, there are other equally important reasons to back up your entire hard drive. You can have a hard...
Why New Campaign Finance Laws Will Punish Free Speech, But Not Corruption
Newsflash: The woman who helped launder Al Gore’s Buddhist temple money has not served a single day in jail. And she probably never will. The hidden story of how funny money honey Maria Hsia escaped any meaningful punishment for corrupting our election system...
Why Imports Are Good
It was Ronald Reagan who said that “economists are people who see something work in practice and wonder if it would work in theory.” I think this is a wonderful quote. And what is working in practice — or has been working for the last two decades...
Stifling Black Students
Racial preferences, quotas and affirmative action in university admission practices have lost political and, increasingly, legal support. As a result, states such as California, Texas and Florida have implemented a substitute practice called “percentage...
“Battered Truth Syndrome” or Battered Truth Syndrome?
“Battered woman syndrome” — the politically correct legal rationalization for letting cold-blooded female killers off the hook — is now an issue in the California governor’s race. Are both Democrats and Republicans really so desperate to...
You Can’t Win a War without Going to War
The spirits are up at the White House these days: everybody’s busy congratulating themselves for a war well fought and deservedly won. That we deserve to win the War on Terror is beyond respectable dispute (although, evidently, not beyond dispute altogether)....
Making Better Decisions
How to make better decisions — big and small? Here are some tips. 1. Assume certainty is possible. You’re certain the sky is blue. You’re certain where you’re standing or sitting right now is where you’re standing or sitting. You can...
Nobel Prize for Economics Rewards Voodoo and Not Science, Part 2
In The New York Times of October 11th , right next to the article on the latest Nobel Prize winners in economics, is another titled Expansive Role for Greenspan Brings Out Critics of Fed’s Chief. The article recounts how Alan Greenspan has been called upon (and...
Why The Insanity Defense Is Insane, Part II
A reader writes in: I respectfully disagree with your “shooting-from-the-hip” and “un-objective-like” quick analysis of the Yates killings (see Daily Dose column 2/28/02–“Why the Insanity Defense is Insane” ). I haven’t...
Nobel Prize for Economics Rewards Voodoo and Not Science, Part 1
The economic and foreign policies of governments — for good or ill — exert a dramatic influence on investors’ portfolios. If that isn’t obvious by now, given the policies of the past two years, it will never be so. In economic policy...
Who Are We? We’ve Abandoned our Heritage of Individual Rights for Religion
One of the conditions associated with neurosis is a weakened sense of personal identity. Nations, too, sometimes suffer from not knowing the values they live for and defend. Our rallying cry is “freedom,” but what exactly does that mean? If we turn back to...
A Broadband Customer Service Update
My readers know that customer service (or customer no-service) is a running theme throughout my articles. I am constantly aghast at the number of companies who don’t understand that their real business is to provide customer service. You may gain a few customers...
Memo: Spit on the U.S. Diplomats and Sue the Saudis
To: 9/11 victims and their families From: Daniel Pipes Subject: Compensation You have been engaged in an unfortunate spat with the U.S. government over the money you deserve for your losses on 9/11, prompting anger all around. Here’s a solution: Forget...
Dissecting the Principles Underlying Campaign Finance Reform
The unacknowledged principle behind the recently passed House of Representatives “campaign finance reform” bill: Established media giants (CBS, ABC, New York Times) have a constitutional right to be free of restrictions on what they air or publish. (This...
Israel’s Suicide
With unremitting ferocity, Arab terrorists this weekend again attacked Israelis through suicide bombing and sniper fire–brutally killing 22. Despite such carnage, despite Yasser Arafat’s hollow promises to quell such violence, despite his record of...
Why The Insanity Defense Is Insane
Andrea Yates, charged with killing her five young children, is attempting to prove that she was insane at the time and is therefore not responsible. “Insane” in this context is defined by our legal theorists simply as “not knowing right from...
A New “History” Book in the Spirit of Multiculturalism
Could it be that an important textbook is proselytizing American 12-year-olds to convert to Islam? The book in question is “Across the Centuries” (Houghton Mifflin, 2nd edition, 1999), a 558-page history that covers the millennium and a half between the...
Return of the Death Tax: How Tax Rate “Reductions” Will Turn Into Tax Rate Increases
Some conservatives may be grumbling about the fact that Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle single-handedly killed President Bush’s plan to “stimulate” the flagging economy shortly before the Christmas recess. But they shouldn’t. The president...
Alan Greenspan and Gold: Lingering Doubts?
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Books: Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties by Peter Collier and David Horowitz
It is hard for those who did not witness it to grasp the depths of irrationalism and violence to which our culture—-or at least its leaders—descended in the late ’60s.
Black on White Crime Doesn’t Matter
Where violent crime takes place between blacks and whites, the cases overwhelmingly involve a black perpetrator and a white victim.
Little Caesars in the Senate
A “little Caesar,” before it referred to a pizza delivery mascot, used to refer to a petty official — or gangster — with delusions of grandeur, the type who seeks power for the pleasure of abusing it. The Enron investigation is making it clear...
Patriots Taxed by Taxes
American companies are incorporating into Bermuda to lower their taxes. Some people suggest that this growing trend is unpatriotic. In reality, these companies are acting in the spirit of America’s original patriots. The New York Times reported1 that these...
Understanding “Skategate”
Skategate, international scandal! Frankly, some of us expected a few eyebrows to raise when, during a retrospective piece on the 1972 Munich Olympics, NBC referred to the terrorists who killed 11 Israeli athletes as “commandos.” But we digress. Try and...
In Search of…the Right Motivation?
Many people assume that they can’t accomplish their goals until they have “the right motivation.” They will even seek psychological help in order to establish “the right motivation” before taking any steps towards a goal. This is a...
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