A 4-year-old boy died last weekend at the Malibu home of rock star Tommy Lee. How any right-thinking parents could entrust their child to a drug-addled celebrity who pled no contest to kicking his ex-wife (actress Pamela Anderson) while she held their newborn baby is...
POLITICS
Liberty for Cuba
“Our goal is not to have an embargo against Cuba; it is freedom in Cuba.” Thus spake President Bush last month, at a White House ceremony marking the 99th anniversary of Cuban independence. “The sanctions our Government enforces against the Castro...
Bill & Hil & Bob & Ted’s Fugitive Pal
Who is Mark Jimenez? More importantly: Where is Mark Jimenez? And why doesn’t anyone in Washington care that this fugitive businessman — indicted in 1998 on 17 counts of illegal campaign contributions to Democrats — remains at large, defiantly...
“Trade Imbalances”: The Seen and Unseen
I buy more from my grocer than he buys from me. I buy more from my auto dealer than he buys from me. The trade imbalance doesn’t stop there. My grocer and auto dealer both buy more from their wholesaler than the wholesaler buys from them. These are examples of...
Straw Men vs. Capital Punishment
Two days after Timothy McVeigh’s execution, The New York Times published eight letters to the editor discussing the event and expressing an opinion on the death penalty. Six of the eight were against executing murderers, one was in favor, and one was in favor in...
Once Upon a Rhyme
Limp Bizkit lyrics. Beeper numbers. TV jingles. Carson Daly’s vital statistics. Such is the stuff that clutters the minds of American boys and girls. It wasn’t always this way. Once upon a time, students had their heads crammed full with poetry by great...
McVeigh and the Death Penalty
The execution of Timothy McVeigh has again raised the issue of capital punishment. Much of the case against capital punishment does not rise above the level of opaque pronouncements that it is “barbaric,” by which those who say this presumably mean that it...
Moral Compromise: Why There is No Peace in Palestine
The Palestinians, you may have noticed, have changed their tune. When the current orgy of violence against Israelis began last fall, the explanation out of Gaza City — faithfully echoed by most of the Western media — was that it was all Ariel...
The Legacy of Slavery Hustle
Today, there are increasing numbers of black professionals and scholars advocating reparations for slavery. New York Times staff writer Tamar Lewin, in her June 3 article “Calls for Slavery Reparations Getting Louder,” says that a team of black lawyers...
In Search of…an Energy Crisis
I had this column all figured out. “Good news,” I was going to begin. “Gasoline prices are up. And why is that good news? Because it means more gasoline is on the way — and more gas means cheaper gas.” I intended to explain that prices...
Gary Davis’ Political Masterpiece in California
Some people were surprised when California’s Governor Gray Davis hired two Democratic Party operatives at $30,000 a month to serve as spinmeisters during the current electricity crisis. But all indications are that they are well worth their money. Think about...
Inept Teacher Training
American education will never be improved until we address a problem seen as too delicate to discuss. That problem is teacher philosophy and incompetency. If we were serious about efforts to improve public education, we’d shut down schools of education. Why?...
EPA Games
What doesn’t Carol Browner want us to know about her zealously activist reign at the Environmental Protection Agency? Six months ago, on her last day in office, Bill Clinton’s former eco-chief oversaw the destruction of her computer files — in clear...
How CNN Creates The News
How many families do you know that live in a “compound”? My dictionary defines a compound as “an enclosed area used for confining prisoners of war.” But in the liberal media handbook, “compound” means any dwelling where God and guns...
The Mail Monopoly
The U.S. Postal Service has raised its rates twice this year and is already talking about raising rates again next year. It has also made noises about eliminating Saturday mail deliveries. But the big problem with the Postal Service is not any of these particular...
In Defense of Ballot Initiatives
In the two-year political cycle that culminated on Election Day 2000, some 350 initiative petitions were submitted to election officials in the 24 states that permit laws to be passed at the ballot box. Of those 350, only 76 made it onto the ballot. And of those 76,...
Why Was Elian Gonzalez Less Worthy Than Giselle Cordova?
Fidel Castro’s recent collapse was caught on television, where the 74-year-old dictator’s security guards could be heard exclaiming: “Aguantalo, rapido!” The phrase, which means “Hold him up, quickly!” captures the essence of the...
In Praise of Hard Work
Why don’t they preach what they practice? Non-conservatives dominate the mainstream media. In the media magazine Content, a poll showed that nearly 75 percent of Republicans found a liberal bias in the media, while nearly 50 percent of Democrats found the press...
Intended Consequences
Over the years, the phrase “unintended consequences” has come up with increasing frequency, as more and more wonderful-sounding ideas have led to disastrous results. By now, you might think that people with wonderful-sounding ideas would start to question...
China’s Olympic Sized Victory
Picture this: Beneath a towering portrait of Chairman Mao, brutal Chinese dictators bask in the warm glow of international good will as the world’s top volleyball players romp across imported sand spread over Tiananmen Square — the same bloodied site where...
The Child Manipulators
On Friday (June 29, 2001), ABC news correspondent John Stossel aired a hard-hitting report challenging the environmentalist movement and suggesting that “tampering with nature” makes human life better — that such “unnatural” phenomena as...
Charting the Market: The Past 25 Years
Ever since I started trading and investing in the 1970s I have looked at stock charts every day. I am entirely aware of — and respectful of — the empirical and theoretical arguments against the predictive value of charting. And yet, at the same time, I...
Guns, Kids, and Condoms
Let us, for a moment, take the sex-education pushers at their word: If you teach a child how to use a condom, you’re promoting safety — not usage. That’s what a new review of sex-ed curricula claims. “The overwhelming weight of evidence shows...
Kissing and Coddling China’s Dictators
Our ruined EP-3 surveillance plane is still parked on that Chinese runway, months after it was forced down and its crew taken hostage. At least six Chinese-American scholars have been jailed in China on groundless spying charges; their families have not been allowed...
Are Energy Suppliers Ripping of California?
Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence? California Attorney General Bill Lockyer apparently missed that lesson in law school. As Californians face rolling blackouts in the grip of their so-called energy crisis, the state’s top politicians busy...
Economic Liberty 101: A Crash Course for California’s Governor Gary Davis
Now that President George W. Bush and California Governor Gray Davis have had their meeting over the electricity crisis in the golden state, how much closer are they to producing a solution? Not one millimeter closer. Nor was there any reason to expect that they would...
July 4th: Love it or Lose It
We have belatedly come to appreciate “the greatest generation” that fought and died in World War II to preserve the freedom that Americans enjoy today. But the disappearance of history from our schools, and its virtual disappearance as a requirement for...
The Rule of Law in America
What should be the characteristics of laws in a free society? Let’s think about baseball rules (laws) as a means to approach this question. Some players, through no fault of their own, hit fewer home runs than others. In order to create baseball justice, how...
Ignorance or Contempt of the U.S. Constitution
Congressmen, presidents and Supreme Court justices take an oath of office swearing to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution. As if the Constitution itself isn’t clear about what they must do, in Federalist Paper No. 45, James Madison, the acknowledged father...
California’s Philosophical Blackout
With the arrival of summer’s sweltering heat, California’s electricity demand will rise as people engage in the perfectly natural act of manipulating the environment, as through air-conditioning, to make life better. But electricity supply will not be able...
Point of Disorder
What to make of this completely crazed market? It’s simple (but that doesn’t make it any more bearable): we’re right on a major cusp. Four critical indices — the NASDAQ Composite, the Russell 2000, the Wilshire Total Market Value Index, and the...
Housing and Overpopulation: Shocked by the Obvious
The obvious makes headlines in California. Maybe this shows that a sense of reality or common sense is not something that can be taken for granted among Californians. A recent headline stretching across the top of the front page announced that “Population dwarfs...
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