Articles

On “public” radio Wednesday, yet another financial guru was advising Europe to follow the lead of the United States: Bail out troubled banks (such as those of Spain) and forcibly transfer more wealth to cover high debt (as persists in Italy). Coincidentally, the same evening I read a passage by…

First came Arnold Kling’s shocking proposal for forcibly “breaking up the big banks,” a plan reminiscent of Teddy Roosevelt’s “progressive” trust-busting. Now Kling calls for so-called “principles-based regulations,” complete with “random management audits” by the government and prison sentences for noncompliant executives. Who is this new progressive? A student of…

A new study has announced a major advance in the battle against cancer. Seth Augenstein reports: In a study published [May 14, 2012] in the journal Cancer Cell, four scientists from the Cancer Institute of New Jersey and the Institute for Advanced Study laid out their work involving a compound…

How many times has Barack Obama taken credit for the U.S. raid in Pakistan that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden? But now that the man who provided essential intelligence for the raid has been tortured, caged, and effectively sentenced to prison for the rest of his life…

Cathy Hutchinson, who has been paralyzed for more than 15 years due to a stroke, recently directed “a robotic arm to pick up a bottle of coffee and bring it to her lips,” using only her mind—and some mind-bending new technology, the Associated Press reports. “The device, called BrainGate, bypasses…

Many New Jersey parents were recently shocked to learn that their state’s standardized student test contained a question asking students “to reveal a secret about their lives [and] explain why it was hard to keep.” Child psychologist Dr. Steven Tobias said: A question like this is really fraught with problems –…

Here’s a beautiful story about what a curious and creative mind can accomplish—even at a very young age. Excerpt from Popular Science: Late one night two years ago, Adam Munich found himself talking with two new acquaintances in a chatroom. One, a Pakistani guy, was complaining about rolling electricity blackouts…

Dharun Ravi, the defendant in the “Hate Crime” case I wrote about in March, has been sentenced to 30 days in county jail, plus probation, community service, and various fines. Many were shocked and disappointed by this “lenient” sentence, including the prosecution, who vowed to appeal. But, as the New…

Neil Gaiman, author of The Sandman comics and novels such as Stardust and Coraline, recently delivered the commencement address to The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Though he tailored his advice for students of the arts, much of what he had to say applies to any field: If you have…

[caption id="attachment_4133" align="alignright" width="300"] Image: SpaceX[/caption] “There is so much hope riding on that rocket.” That’s what Elon Musk, cofounder and CEO of SpaceX, said this morning after his company successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket, now carrying supplies to the International Space Station. Musk was talking about the hopes…

The Library of Economics and Liberty offers an insightful study by Linda Gorman on the history and causes of the declining quality of education in America. The report covers a lot of ground and demonstrates, among other things, the wasteful destructiveness of tax-funded education. At the K-12 level in America, for…

When Staff Sgt. Jeremy Cooney, a Marine deployed in Afghanistan, returned home, he was greeted with a great surprise. Doctors originally said that his son, Michael, who is afflicted with cerebral palsy, “would never walk or do much of anything,” explains Jeremy's wife. “While daddy was away, he learned to…

Hannah Krening reviews The Godless Constitution: A Moral Defense of the Secular State, by Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore.

Daniel Wahl reviews Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric, by Ward Farnsworth.

Andrew Bernstein reviews Act of Valor, directed by Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh.