Blogs for 2006 - Road to the Middle Class

IF YOU WERE national Democratic politician and a bribed apologist for the teachers’ unions, what would be an easy way to take a cheap shot at school choice in the post 9/11 world?

Well, of course, you’d raise fears that if parents had the right to send their children to the school of their choice, pretty soon people would be spending taxpayers’ money on Jihad Academies.

That’s the argument that Senator Hillary Clinton was making in the Bronx the other day, according to unfold

Islamists Don't Do Patents

by Christopher Chantrill

IT’S ALL VERY well to worry about the Islamists taking over the world, and resetting the culture with sharia law and various 8th century concepts thoughtfully set forth by the Prophet in the Qu’ran through direct divine revelation.

But just think about the Islamic world and intellectual property, you know, inventions and stuff, as Thomas Lifson does.

Actually, the Islamic world hasn’t been doing much of anything in the intellectual property unfold

McCain Flip-flops on Taxes. So Far So Good

by Christopher Chantrill

GOOD. JOHN McCain has voted to extend the president’s key investment tax cuts, the 15 percent rate on dividends and long-term capital gains. So he’s started a veer back towards the Republican base, back from the comical position he took in 2000 when he was campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination by running against the Republican base.

Will it be enough? Has he really converted and seen the light on supply-side economics? Donald Lambro assembles the unfold

Babies, Houses, and Babies

by Christopher Chantrill

ON SATURDAY I went to a fringe theater on the last day of the run of DOB, a play by John Kaufmann about birthing. Yes, he went down to California just as his sister was having a baby, and the whole thing turned into a play.

Most of the play takes place in the hospital operating room during his sister’s labor.

The play was a delight, and a real shock.

Here were your young starving actors and your avant-garde types dressed in artistical black and they were putting on a light-hearted, nicely crafted play about having babies. unfold

Supply Side Economics Drives Brazilians into Formal Sector

by Christopher Chantrill

A BIG PROBLEM in emerging economies is the informal employment sector, the people camping out in the city working as peddlers and running illegal roadside stalls that don’t pay taxes. In Brazil, according to William W. Lewis in The Power of Productivity, the huge informal sector has severely damaged the economy.

To understand how bad things have been in Brazil, get this. Taxes have been so high on the formal sector that large, efficient supermarkets couldn’t compete on price with informal food vendors and corner stores.

In the unfold

Is This Iraq's Tipping Point?

by Christopher Chantrill

LET US ASSUME, for a moment, that the bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra was the work of terrorist leader Zarqawi. Let us assume that the purpose of the attack was to ignite a general civil/religious war between Sunni and Shiite.

That is the US line, as reported by The Washington Post.

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalizad, speaking at a news conference held on the telephone because of the driving ban, said it was unfold

Happiness is a Serious Business

by Christopher Chantrill

CONSERVATIVE columnist George Will recently resported on the latest Pew Research Center study on happiness. But he failed to give us a link to the report Are We Happy Yet? So I just did.

Yes, the main finding of the report is that Republicans are happier than Democrats, and have been every year without exception since 1972 when Pew started the report. You can imagine that on KTTH unfold

Dueling Marriage Quizzes

by Christopher Chantrill

IN SUNDAY’S The New York Times non-traditional relationships advocate Stephanie Coontz ran a pop quiz on relationships that, not surprisingly for the author of The Way We Never Were, repeated the argument of her book that the 50’s ideal of Father Knows Best has never been the norm in human families. And anyway, “Born-again Christians are just as unfold

Harriet Miers Goes to Sea

by Christopher Chantrill

SOME MONTHS ago Peggy Noonan warned that, at this stage of an administration, the White House staff are suffering from extreme exhaustion. That’s why they produce boners like the Harriet Miers nomination and the east coast port deal. So this morning we get the report from the Associated Press that the president didn’t even know about the decision by an administration committee to allow operation of six US east unfold

Harvard Faculty to Larry Summers: You're Outta Here!

by Christopher Chantrill

SO THAT’S IT. Lawrence Summers is to step down at the end of the academic year as president of Harvard University, as reported in Reuters and The Washington unfold

What If..."Catholics Riot over Da Vinci Code"

by Christopher Chantrill

WE ALL SEEM to take for granted that millions of Muslims all over the world naturally take to the streets when a couple of obscure Danish cartoonists insult their faith by depicting the prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his hair.

But imagine if Catholics were rioting all over the world about Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code the best-selling thriller that depicts Opus Dei as a dangerous and ruthless force, condoned by the pope, bent on supressing the real truth about Jesus. Imagine no more. unfold

National Savings Down, But National Wealth Up. Explain

by Christopher Chantrill

LAST YEAR THE US savings rate was the lowest since the Great Depression, according to the Associated Press. And that was on top of the huge balance of payments deficit and the Federal government deficit.

How long can this go on? As long as you like, according to supply-side economist Alan Reynolds. That’s because even though people didn’t put more cash in the bank, national wealth went up. Writes Reynolds:

In last year’s third quarter, the Fed’s unfold

WSJ Sneers at Newt

by Christopher Chantrill

FIRST NEWT Gingrich was a dangerous “bombthrower.” Then he was the bombastic Speaker of the House of Representatives. Then he was a guy who just talked too much.

Now apparently, the former Speaker is just a figure of fun, as Brian M. Carney sneers at Newt’s office, Newt’s chairs, and Newt’s proposals for this year’s elections.

So what is Newt proposing? He wants the Republicans to cut “down on earmarks and pork-barrel spending” by publishing conference unfold

Islamic World Choosing Segregation from West

by Christopher Chantrill

WHEN AFRICAN Americans first started entering selective colleges in significant numbers after the civil rights revolution of the 1960s they found that they were ill-prepared for the challenge of life at the top and they were ashamed. They were ashamed because they were confronted, as Shelby Steele writes in The Content of Our Character, with overcoming in their own lives, right then and there, the centuries-old myth of racial inferiority. Were they good enough, could they make it in competition with the white kids? So they adopted unfold

After Cheney Tantrum Is MSM Still Relevant?

by Christopher Chantrill

WILL THE BUSH Administration get away with stiff-arming the Mainstream Media over the Cheney shooting incident?

Obviously, the tactics after the hunting accident, in which Vice President Cheney shot lawyer Harry Whittington Saturday afternoon, were intended to keep the whole thing low key. But the Vice President and the White House miscalculated over one thing. They did not forsee that the MSM White House corps would go ballistic over the insult to their customary right to be the first to report on White House matters.

Or did they? unfold

A Small Step for Dynamic Tax Analysis

by Christopher Chantrill

PRESIDENT BUSH has budgeted “an additional $513,000 for the Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Analysis to create a new division of dynamic analysis,” according to Bruce Bartlett. Ho hum.

Actually, this is a big deal. It goes to the heart of the supply-side theory of marginal tax rates that has been the intellectual foundation of the Reagan and the Bush tax cuts. And let us be clear about this.

The reason that the Reagan tax cuts of 1983 and the Bush tax unfold

Hugh Hewitt Demolishes Jonathan Chait

by Christopher Chantrill

ON MONDAY, talk show host Hugh Hewitt (perm) did another of his in-depth interviews of an MSM chappie, this time Jonathan Chait, who had run a piece in the LA Times denying that Hillary Clinton was angry. (He’s probably right. She isn’t angry; she just sounds angry.)

But Hewitt did another forensic unfold

What Do Muslims Really Think?

by Christopher Chantrill

PRESIDENT BUSH has implemented a policy of bringing democracy to the Middle East. But, even if his policy succeeds in its immediate aim, what will be the outcome? What will the Muslim peoples choose, and who will they choose to lead them?

Two articles bring an interesting answer to this question. Amir Taheri identifies the Islamists as descended from the Salafi movement, which he describes as a faux-religious movement, Neo-Islam, that is not religious but political unfold

A Moderate Muslim Speaks. And How

by Christopher Chantrill

HAVE YOU BEEN waiting for a moderate Muslim to speak out on the Cartoon Wars? Look no further. She has spoken and she is, appropriately, the daughter of a “martyr.”

Writer Nonie Darwish is daughter of a man who was

sent by Egypt’s President, Gamal Abdel Nasser, to head the Egyptian military intelligence in Gaza and the Sinai where he founded the Palestinian Fedayeen, or "armed resistance". unfold

Can Compassionate Conservatism Win in Britain?

by Christopher Chantrill

GEORGE W. BUSH ran for president in 2000 as a “compassionate conservative.” Annoying to conservatives, his campaign was an attempt to tackle the reality that most people do not think of the welfare state as a bureaucratic government monopoly but as society’s compassionate attempt to help the less fortunate.

Now David Cameron, new leader of Britain’s Conservative Party, is trying the same approach. He is dealing with the reality that, however clumsy and bureaucratic and monopolistic Britain’s government health service and government unfold

Low Fat is Out -- Government Study

by Christopher Chantrill

IN THE LARGEST study ever conducted into the efficacy of low-fat dieting the result is finally out. No difference. As Gina Kolata writes in The New York Times:

The largest study ever to ask whether a low-fat diet reduces the risk of getting cancer or heart disease has found that the diet has no effect.

The unfold

Go Ahead Democrats. Insult the President Why Don't You

by Christopher Chantrill

HERE’S HOW the Washington Post covered the insults to President Bush at the Coretta Scott King funeral.

At one point, the Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, a former head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the group Martin Luther King Jr. helped found, made a reference to not finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The well-heeled, mostly black crowd erupted in a standing ovation.

But at the conservative unfold

Global Cooling on the Way

by Christopher Chantrill

RUSSIAN SCIENTIST Khabibullo Abdusamatov says forget about global warming. He predicts global cooling by the middle of the 21st century.

Khabibullo Abdusamatov of the Pulkovo Astronomic Observatory said temperatures would begin falling six or seven years from now, when global warming caused by increased solar activity in the 20th century reached its peak, and that the coldest period would occur 15-20 years after a major solar output decline in 2035-2045.

Yes, I unfold

Ask a Tough Question of a Senator...

by Christopher Chantrill

AS WE ALL KNOW, it is the objective news journalists who ask the tough questions. We know that because the journalists keep telling us that the whole point of the First Amendment and the special position given to the press is to allow them to ask the tough questions that others may not have the courage to put to powerful politicians and officeholders.

So when blogger Paul Mirengoff asked Senator Dick Durbin a searching question about the constitutionality of the president’s unfold

Don't Be Victims, Muslims!

by Christopher Chantrill

IT IS DISPIRITING to see how weak-kneed the liberals are about the Muslim rioting. Let a Christian conservative complain about the anti-Christian work of a gay artist and the 16-inch editorial guns of the MSM thunder with booming retorts. But apparently it is different when Muslims riot in the streets about blasphemy againt the prophet.

Instapundit Glenn Reynolds has a telling post from a Muslim emailer:

Coming from an all Muslim family, I’m forced to listen to the unfold

Why The Economy is Doing Better Than You Think

by Christopher Chantrill

WONDER WHY the US dollar manages to defy gravity with the twin deficits, the federal budget deficit and the merchandises trade deficit?

Maybe it’s because we aren’t counting our gross domestic product properly, according to staid Business Week.

Everyone knows the U.S. is well down the road to becoming a knowledge economy, one driven by ideas and innovation. What you may not realize is that the government’s decades-old system of number collection unfold

Ready for Polyamory Yet?

by Christopher Chantrill

SAME SEX MARRIAGE, polygamy, polyamory. What are the liberals up to? For some time Stanley Kurtz has been following the movement to break up the traditional heterosexual monogamous marriage. In his latest article he focuses on a feminist activist law professor in Canada who is leading the fight to abolish marriage and replace it with

a modern, secular, “non-patriarchal” relationship system that would allow for marriage-like unions in any combination of unfold

What About The Democrats?

by Christopher Chantrill

EVERYONE IS counting out the Democrats this week after their defeat in the Battle of the Court. Talk show hosts are delightedly signing up for their funeral.

For Tony Blankley the liberal party has become the nihilist party. For him the defining moment of that transformation was the Democrats cheering that nothing had been done to fix Social Security.

Their collective decision to cheer the failure of the body politic to provide for sufficient revenues unfold

Twas a Famous Victory

by Christopher Chantrill

REPUBLICANS enjoyed a well-earned victory lap last night, giving President Bush a manly cheer as he addressed the Congress and the nation. “It was a grand night for celebrating,” wrote Stephanie Mansfield.

For all the quagmire talk coming out of the MSM the President has had an astonishing year, winning at the important things while stumbling on the unimportant things.

He achieved three elections in Iraq (think of that!), continued robust economic growth unfold