Kudos to Jessica Chastain and Jason Clarke, actors in the Oscar-winning film Zero Dark Thirty, for bringing attention to the plight of Shakil Afridi, the doctor imprisoned in Pakistan for helping the United States locate and kill the terrorist Osama Bin Laden. As Fox News reports, Clarke said, “It’s wrong…

Congratulations to Anne Hathaway for taking home the Oscar for best supporting actress for her performance in the film Les Misérables. Congratulations to her also for correctly understanding the nature of sacrifice—and for refusing to describe her value-achieving actions with the term. Although many people describe hard work as a…

Starting in Scotland and England in the late 1700s and quickly expanding to America and beyond, the Industrial Revolution opened the floodgates of innovation and wealth creation, leading to rapidly improving living standard and increased life expectancy among the general population. But, as economist Charles Robertson writes for CNN, “Africa…

How do we maximize the likelihood of achieving our values and minimize little risks that can become big problems? In a recent article for the New York Times, anthropologist Jared Diamond points out that, as a 75-year-old man, one of the major risks in his life is falling in the…

Ari Armstrong reviews Beyond Politics: The Roots of Government Failure, by Randy Simmons.

Mr. Natelson discusses state-driven amendments to restrain federal spending, the processes of proposing and passing or rejecting such amendments, the safeguards in place for preventing a “runaway convention” that might fundamentally alter the U.S. Constitution, and more.

Various opponents of abortion like to pretend that, if a woman has a right to seek an abortion, the law can do nothing to protect a fetus that a woman wishes to carry to term. But that pretense is nonsense. As Diana Hsieh and I have argued, an embryo or…

Barack Obama’s State of the Union address last night didn’t tell us much about the state of the union. It merely told us what we already knew about the state of Obama: that he wants to control the economy and “spread the wealth around.” True, in a few minor ways…

With her husband, Quent, Linda Cordair operates the Quent Cordair Fine Art gallery, which aspires to help create “a rebirth of comprehensibility, beauty, romanticism and stylization to contemporary subject matter.” In addition to selling works of art, Linda also consults with businesses on placing artworks in office buildings and other…

Writing for PJ Media, Walter Hudson, a Christian, offers a good summary of key differences between Christianity and Objectivism, the secular philosophy of Ayn Rand. Hudson previews topics likely to be debated tonight in Austin, Texas, when Christian Dinesh D’Souza and Objectivist Andrew Bernstein square off over the question, “Christianity:…

Fans of Star Trek will recall Captain Picard placing an order for “tea, Earl Grey, hot”—and seeing a replicator instantly produce the tea, cup and all, on demand. Although such sophisticated means of replication remain beyond our reach (for now), today’s innovators are moving in that direction with 3D “printers.”…

“A curse on machines! Every year their increasing power condemns to pauperism millions of workers, taking their jobs away from them, and with their jobs their wages, and with their wages their bread! A curse on machines!” That is the cry rising from ignorant prejudice, and whose echo resounds in…

Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein argues that Barack Obama, like Franklin Roosevelt, supports “free enterprise, while also insisting on . . . fair opportunity and security for all.” Leave aside for now the obvious fact that programs such as FDR’s National Industrial Recovery Act—which imposed nationwide controls on wages, prices,…

Forget the murderers, rapists, gangsters, kidnappers, child molesters, and slave traders. Some of Europe’s top bureaucrats and prosecutors are hot on the trail of . . . garlic smugglers. So why would people smuggle garlic, of all things? The BBC reports that, starting in 2001, the European Union imposed “a…

The basic argument for restricting the manufacture, purchase, and possession of firearms runs as follows: Because some gun owners use their guns to commit crimes or suicide, or they use their guns irresponsibly, the rights of all gun manufacturers, sellers, and owners must be restricted. Thus, the case for restricting…