The election coming up in Iraq may turn out, in the long view of history, to be even more important than our own recent election. Both elections represent a country at a crossroads, with a choice of very different paths to take — for many years to come —...
In The New York Sun’s editorial of December 10, 2004, you correctly note that universities like Columbia will take no action against professors whose outrageous positions are deemed a matter of “scholarly belief” [“The Bollinger...
Rep. John Linder (R-Ga.) has authored H.R. 25 “To promote freedom, fairness, and economic opportunity by repealing the income tax and other taxes, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, and enacting a national sales tax to be administered primarily by the...
First they destroyed the gasoline station, so that you have to drive miles out of your way to get gas. Then they destroyed a parking lot. Now they want to destroy a dam and a reservoir that supplies more than 2 million people with water. No, these are not al-Qaeda...
The Scott Peterson murder trial is more than a single criminal case. It is a painful reflection on the media, on the law, and on where our society has gone. The 24/7 coverage of this case, which seems to have been going on forever, has been inescapable for anyone who...
December 15, 2004 The Real World of Child Placement Dear Editor, Thomas Sowell argues the case against the return (or reunification) of abused/neglected children to their parents (see The “Family Re-Unfication” Gamble: Angelo Marinda All Over Again?). As a...
On Capitol Hill next month it’ll be out with the old and in with the new, as the 109th Congress takes the oath of office. Of course, neither house will look much different. More than 95 percent of incumbents who ran this year were re-elected. Still, the...
Kofi Annan is in deep trouble. The aura of invincibility that has surrounded Annan in his six-year tenure as United Nations secretary general has been shattered, and it is increasingly likely that he will go in the next six to 12 months. The man who undeservedly won...
If you’re reading this column, you’re probably an investor in the stock market. That makes you a member of the approximately 60% of American households that own stocks, either directly or indirectly. That also makes you part of what President Bush likes to...
Two apparently unrelated stories that appeared in newspapers on the same day are in reality not nearly as unrelated as they might seem. One story appeared under the headline, “High School Students Debate Steroid Ethics.” The other story had the headline:...
Good teaching takes hard work. A professor must be an expert on his or her subject, understand the what the audience already knows about it, and be able to present new knowledge in a compelling and informative manner. That might explain why so few professors are good...
The most painful episode ever reported in this column — for me and for many readers — was the killing of little eight-month-old Angelo Marinda by his own father, two years ago. Little Angelo first came to the attention of the authorities when he was...
College costs have risen dramatically over the last several decades. In many cases, it’s difficult to find a college where per-student costs are under $20,000 each year. Most often, tuition doesn’t measure the true cost because taxpayer and donor subsidies...
Fear is an investor’s best friend. Fear makes stocks cheap, so that you can buy them at great prices. But, of course, to dare to do that, you have to be unafraid. It’s a bit of a paradox. Stocks have soared since the climax of fear this summer — a...
I don’t mean to minimize the concern over intelligence reform in this country. However, the kind of intelligence most desperately needed is the philosophical kind. For our government officials in the Pentagon, the CIA, and elsewhere, philosophical intelligence...
Of all the works written about Christmas, perhaps the most influential, save Clement Moore’s poem, The Night Before Christmas, is Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Published in 1843, the story of the curmudgeon Ebenezer Scrooge has entertained millions...
Random thoughts on the passing scene: The very people who were telling us to “get over it” and “move on” during the Clinton scandals of the 1990s have been completely unable to get over the 2004 elections — and some of them haven’t...
There are many ways to steal an election. On Nov. 21, the government of Ukraine tried them all. Busloads of hoodlums — armed with permission slips allowing them to vote away from home — cast ballots in successive polling places. Known supporters of the...
Q: Dr. Hurd, how can I handle my problems with excessive doubt? A: Doubt is sometimes logical — even helpful. For example, you might believe that somebody did something wrong to you, but the belief is based more on emotion than evidence. Your doubt about whether...
You cannot fight a war without many brave men taking risks with their lives in order to try to accomplish their mission. Yet can you name a single American hero in either of the two wars going on today in Afghanistan and Iraq? Chances are you can’t — not...
Last week, US Marines in Iraq stormed the hornet’s nest of Fallujah and dealt the anti-American insurgency a crushing blow, pacifying the mosques, murder dens and sniper holes used by the enemy to kill Americans and pro-US Iraqi policemen. They also found the...
When liberals in the media or in politics start being alarmed about the national debt, it means just one thing: They want higher taxes. The thought of reducing spending would never cross their minds. As we are endlessly reminded, the federal government’s debt...
Former president Bill Clinton — during his last term in office — urged Americans to have “a candid conversation on the state of race relations.” OK. ABC’s “Monday Night Football,” in a silly attempt at cross-promotion, opened...
Dr. Condoleezza Rice, President Bush’s national security adviser and now his secretary of state nominee, has been the subject of nasty, demeaning and disrespectful cartoons and commentary. Some of the worst has come from people like Julian Bond, chairman of the...
Here’s and investment that’s such a rip-off that Eliot Spitzer ought to be investigating it. It ties up your money for five years and produces almost no profits. And then you have to pay taxes on the profits you didn’t make in the first place. Who...
Cats are supposed to have nine lives but fallacies must have at least ninety. Some notions will be believed, no matter how many times they have been refuted by facts. One of these seemingly immortal fallacies is the implicit assumption that our enemies have unlimited...
During the recent election campaign, it has been a liberal mantra that they “support the troops” while opposing the war in Iraq. Just what does supporting the troops mean — other than just a throwaway line to escape the political consequences of a...
” . . . There have been suicide bombings, targeted assassinations, mortar attacks,” said PBS’s Gwen Ifill about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when she hosted the vice-presidential debate, “all of this continuing at a time when the United...
If a group of people lined up to board the Titanic as it were sinking, you would say they were irrational. If these people were denied admission to the sinking Titanic because of race, creed, or sexual orientation, and then became angry over this discrimination, you...
“Education by murder” describes the slow and painful way people wake up to the problem of radical Islam. It took 3,000 deaths to wake up Americans, or at least to wake up the half of them who are conservative. Likewise, it took hundreds of deaths in the...
Here are a couple of newspaper headlines following Florida’s bout with hurricane disasters: “Storms create lucrative times,” St. Petersburg Times (Sept. 30, 2004), and “Economic growth from hurricanes could outweigh costs,” USA Today...
Last Thursday was Veterans Day, a holiday dedicated to honoring the valor of those American men and woman who defended the freedoms of the nation though their service in the armed forces. Not unlike Thanksgiving Day, Veterans Day also aims to give thanks, but unlike...
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