Articles

It’s only March, and statistics show that by now many people have abandoned their New Year’s resolutions. If you haven’t lived up to yours, you may be able to get back on track. Alex Epstein (of the Center for Industrial Progress) has a short video course which, if followed, can…

In his article “No to Keystone, Yes to Crazy,” New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman damns the Keystone oil pipeline but says he’s willing to accept its existence in exchange for “systemic responses to climate change.” How might environmentalists facilitate such a deal? Friedman encourages the likes of “Bill McKibben…

Need to diagnose an intestinal worm infection? Yeah, there’s an app for that. In fact, it’s the built-in camera app in the iPhone 4S! Dr. Isaac Bogoch, a physician specializing in infectious diseases at Toronto General Hospital, and his associates have managed to transform the iPhone 4S into a basic…

In his recent New York Times article "On Questioning the Jewish State," University of Massachusetts philosophy professor Joseph Levine attempts to make the case that we should question whether Israel has a right to exist. Levine’s main argument is that only certain kinds of groups of people have the right…

It’s been a little over a year since BP, once one of the world’s leading solar power companies, announced that it was exiting the solar power market. According to the company’s website, “BP Alternative Energy is focusing on those sectors of the energy industry where we can profitably grow our…

As a slew of intrusive gun bills wind their way through the Colorado legislature, some of the discussion about those bills raises fundamental questions about the proper function of government. Last week, a woman who was the victim of a rape testified against a bill banning the concealed carry of…

Today New York Supreme Court Judge Milton Tingling blocked the New York City soda ban, pointing out that it is “arbitrary and capricious.” The ruling significantly restricted the ability of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, acting through the city’s Board of Health, to regulate people’s consumption of foods. Kudos to Judge Tingling…

Nuclear fusion has long been the holy grail as a source for energy. Consider that one kilogram of natural gas will light a hundred-watt light bulb for six days, but one kilogram of nuclear fuel will light it for 140 years. Unfortunately, there is some truth to the old joke…

Here is the introduction to Richard Salsman’s article “The End of Central Banking, Part I,” from the forthcoming (Spring 2013) issue of The Objective Standard: This year marks the centenary of the law establishing the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve (Fed), so it’s an appropriate time to assess the…

Here's a taste of the full transcript of the debate between Dinesh D'Souza and Andrew Bernstein, “Christianity: Good or Bad for Mankind?” which will be published in the forthcoming (Spring) issue of The Objective Standard. “If Mr. D’Souza’s argument is, ‘Well, the Communists and the Nazis murdered more people than…

In his TOS article “The New Abolitionism: Why Education Emancipation is the Moral Imperative of our Time,” C. Bradley Thompson argues that the “‘public’ [i.e., government] school system is the most immoral and corrupt institution in the United States of America today, and it should be abolished.” Those not yet…

Free market economists and conservative activists point out that minimum wage laws harm the very people they are supposedly intended to help: unskilled workers. A recent article from the conservative Heritage Foundation, for example, makes this point. The economics is straightforward: Employers are not willing to pay people more than…

Michelle Rhee—a former Baltimore teacher who gained national attention as Washington DC’s first public schools chancellor, and founder of StudentsFirst—has acquired a reputation as an aggressive education reformer unafraid to challenge entrenched ideas, including those of her own Democrat Party and its constituents. In describing “My Break With the Democrats,”…

Fred Deluca, founder of Subway restaurants, recently noted that “If I started Subway today, Subway would not exist.” Recalling the early days of Subway, he said, “I had an easy time of it in the ’60s when I started,” but today “I just see a continuous increase in regulation.” CNBC…

These are shocking statistics: Among Americans ages 18–29, people tend to have a negative view of capitalism and a positive view of socialism. As Pew reported in 2011, people in this age group saw capitalism negatively by a margin of 47 to 46 percent, and they saw socialism positively by…