John Walker Lindh has pleaded not guilty to the charge that he conspired to kill Americans. It does seem like this religious pilgrim was caught at the wrong place, on the wrong side, at the wrong time. He was drawn to Islamic fundamentalism. For him it was the radical alternative to what he came to regard as the corrupt materialism of the West. He was there when the U.S. troops came, and now he faces life in prison.
Americans are discussing whether the president can just take on the powers of a Caesar, claiming more and more power because of the demands of war. But for those advocates of an imperial presidency, there are the words of Justice Davis: "No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government."
Ludwig von Mises was correct to observe that "the great creative genius who perpetuates himself in immortal works and deeds does not when working distinguish the pain from the pleasure. For such men creation is at once the greatest joy and the bitterest torment, an inner necessity." It is also true that intellectual promise can degenerate into arrogance, narcissism, and paranoia, such that genius becomes drivel, as is the case with Nobel Prize-winning economist and mathematician John Nash.
It occurred me last weekend that children should not grow up without a thorough exposure to the great cartoon from 1962, "The Jetsons." Its celebration of technology and commerce, its retro-style optimism, its hilarious dovetailing of bourgeois normalcy with gizmo-crazed futurism, its complete absence of political correctness (excluding, of course, the atrocious 1990 movie by the same name) – all combine to make this one of the great cartoon achievements of any time.
The 1922 baseball antitrust exemption ruling is one of the few remaining precedents adhering to the earlier, limited-government understanding of the commerce clause. So while some local sports fans may support further limiting baseball's antitrust exemption as a way to keep their teams from moving to another town, it comes at a constitutional price that is too high.
Watchdog groups are correct to monitor the disbursement of the Red Cross's September 11 donations. And the issue of appropriate uses of charitable funds promoted for a particular purpose must be addressed. But the same issue should be raised about innumerable government initiatives whose claimed goals are also undermined by the same diversion of resources.
Successful people who earn their wealth through free and peaceful exchange may choose to give some of it away, but they'd be no less moral and no less debt-free if they gave away nothing. It cheapens the powerful charitable impulse that all but a few people possess to suggest that charity is equivalent to debt service or that it should be motivated by any degree of guilt or self-flagellation.
Athletics, like economics, is an endeavor of human action. While we can see scores and statistics, there is no true way to quantify how good or bad a team may be. Indeed, if the computer polls with their mathematical formulas were so accurate and useful, then one would hardly see the need for a championship game after all.
In the weeks immediately following the World Trade Center and Pentagon disasters, commentators were quick to predict in apocalyptic terms that television and movies would never be the same again. It is still too early, however, to tell whether there really has been a sea-change in the American psyche. Paul Cantor explains.
Last year, Salon.com announced that it was very fashionable to fry your Thanksgiving turkey, a tip which the truly fashionable regarded as at least 12 months out of date. For those out of the loop — not that it matters now — frying involves injecting the turkey with hot sauce and submerging it in 6 gallons of lard heated to 450 degrees.
