When I served in the Army, the sergeant would say, "Smoke'm if you have'm." Most of us would, too. I am still a cigar smoker. The question is---how long before some storm trooper busts in the front door to tell me I can't smoke any more? Among the many freedoms the...
POLITICS
Weapons of Political Destruction
The Vietnam War showed how dangerous it is to allow a President of the United States to lie us into armed conflict, as Lyndon Johnson did by inflating a minor incident in the Gulf of Tonkin into a means of stampeding Congress into authorizing an escalation of military...
How Did We Ever Make It Before Nanny Government?
Whenever someone says that this or that government program is absolutely necessary, I always wonder, "What did people do and how did they survive before the program?" If someone says food stamps are absolutely necessary for poor people's survival, I wonder how...
Fortney “Pete” Stark: Poster Boy for Democrat Double Standards
Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark, D-Calif., is the foul-mouthed poster boy for Liberal Double Standards. There he was on Capitol Hill last week, sounding more like Eminem than an eminent lawmaker, hurling epithets such as "fruitcake" and "c--ks----r" at Republicans during a...
Bush Drug Program = Republican Left
In the old days, miners brought canaries down into the tunnels to detect methane. The birds were more sensitive to the deadly gas and worked as an early warning system. When they died, it was time to get out. For conservatives, Sen. Edward Kennedy, Massachusetts...
Economics Lesson in a Kit
Who'd have thought an inanimate object could teach a lesson in economics? Yet that's exactly what a first-aid kit did. Several kits, actually, wall-mounted cabinets in the buildings where I work. Now we're not just talking Band-Aids and iodine here. No, these babies...
Lies My Mother Never Told Me About Single-Payer Health Care
The nature of a lie is such that if you repeat it often enough it takes on a life of its own, always at the expense of truth. While some lies--"your hair looks great"--are harmless enough, and lies like "I never had sex with that woman" are laughable, others can be...
Review of the Prime Movers: Traits of the Great Wealth Creators
We've all heard about the alleged "robber barons." For decades the world's successful wealth creators - from Rockefeller to Gates - have been brushed with that smear. But Dr. Locke shows that the smear just can't stick. The wealth creators aren't the dishonest,...
Is High Tech Really Back?
Is high tech really back, or are we headed for Dubble Bubble? Whitney Tilson, venerable and circumspect columnist for the Motley Fool, has no doubts: "Times like these make me sigh, hold my head in my hands, and groan, 'How is it possible that, in less than three...
The NY Time’s 9-11 Scam
The New York Times -- unrelenting champion of the underprivileged, mighty battler against all corporate evils, and vehement opponent of Republican tax cuts for the "rich and powerful" -- lives by a far more self-serving motto: All the corporate welfare that's fit to...
Deficits, Fiscal Policy, Tax Cuts, and Inflation
Last week's announcement that the federal budget deficit will reach $455 billion this fiscal year (which ends on Sept. 30) brought predictable denunciations from the Democratic side of the aisle. It's not so much that Democrats care about deficits -- after all, they...
Foreign Policy and Self-Interest: Liberia Campaign Would Be a Moral Crime
Those who claim that the United States has a moral obligation to send troops on a "humanitarian" mission to Liberia have it exactly backward: our government has a moral obligation *not* to send its forces into areas that pose no threats to America's well- being. It is...
Seven Years Later: Was TWA Flight 800 a First Strike By Jihad Terrorists?
It's been seven years since the July 17, 1996, crash of TWA Flight 800 near Long Island, New York, and the cause remains unknown; the lingering mystery of one of the nation's worst aviation disasters is now a forgotten media spectacle. The $ 40 million federal...
Pass a Law! The Evils of Toy Guns
What would you do if a seven-year-old kid walked into a store where you were working or shopping and brandished a gun and said he was robbing the place? I'd slap his rear and take him home to his mother. Liberals shake in their shoes and misplace their backbones with...
Why U.S. Troops Should Not Be Sent to Liberia
President Bush should not commit any United States troops to an international peacekeeping force in Liberia. At some point in the future an international peacekeeping force could help stabilize Liberia. However, refusing United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan's...
Who’s Rich, Part 2
Someone once pointed out that there are at least 50 colleges that claim to be among the top 25 colleges in the country. There is a similar congestion among the 400 "richest" Americans, as shown in data recently released by the Internal Revenue Service. While much of...
Vile 9-11 Vultures
The fraud trial of Cyril Kendall begins this week in New York City. Kendall is a 52-year-old Guyanese national who has apparently used every chance he has had in America, including the September 11 attacks, to scheme and scam. He faces felony grand larceny and forgery...
A Balanced Budget Amendment: A Bad Idea
With federal budget deficits rising, pressure is on once again to enact a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. On June 25, a discharge petition was initiated to force a vote in the House on H.J. Res. 22, the latest in a long line of legislative efforts to...
Insider Trading and Asymmetric Information
Some of us know more about some things than others, and we often exploit that advantage. I know more about my driving habits than my auto insurance company. Borrowers know more about their repayment prospects than lenders. The seller of a car knows more about the...
Who’s Rich?
Congressman Patrick Kennedy, a Rhode Island Democrat, recently declared to fellow party members at a Washington night spot, "I don't need Bush's tax cut" and added that he had never worked a day in his life. A number of other rich people have at various times likewise...
Stocks Can Mean Cash
The stock market has been rising impressively, but practically all I hear these days are complaints about low interest rates. Readers lament that they can make only three-quarters of a point in a money-market fund such as Merrill Lynch Ready Assets, or just 1.3...
Numbers Can Be Deceiving
Let's dig deeper into the bull-versus-bear debate that has dominated my last few columns. I've taken the bullish position -- but I'm not rabid about it, and I've discussed the things that worry me, too. I've gotten tons of email from readers along the way -- mostly...
Principles for Peace in the Middle East
In our quest for peace with the Palestinians, three imperatives unite Israelis: Terror must end, our borders must be secure, and the Palestinians must abandon the goal of destroying Israel. That is why we insist that the terror organizations be dismantled, that we not...
WSJ Out of the Money on Microsoft’s Stock Options
The financial press is grave-dancing on Microsoft's decision to no longer award stock options to employees -- and instead to award shares of stock itself. A Wall Street Journal column by Jessie Eisenger crows "Microsoft, once the bullying monopolist, is trying to...
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