AnchorageDailyPlanet.com

mon col 9/6/10

2010-09-03T18:25:40Z

Wrong about human rights

By ROGER PILON

When we think of human-rights problems, most of us imagine arbitrary arrests, political repression, religious persecution, torture, show trials, censorship, and the like. In America, we don't often have those kinds of problems. Even the current controversy over an Islamic center near ground zero isn't about the right to build there; it's about the wisdom of doing so.

All of which made it surprising to learn from the Obama State Department that America does indeed have human-rights problems.

The news came last week in the form of our first report on U.S. human-rights conditions to the U.N. Human Rights Council, submitted pursuant to a U.N. mandate that members conduct self-assessments every four years. According to the State Department, we fall short on "fairness, equality, and dignity" in areas such as education, health, and housing, especially when it comes to women, blacks, Latinos, Muslims, South Asians, American Indians, and gay people.

Sun. col 9/5/10

2010-09-02T19:33:54Z

Dismantling America: Part IV

By THOMAS SOWELL

How did we get to the point where many people feel that the America they have known is being replaced by a very different kind of country, with not only different kinds of policies but very different values and ways of governing?

Something of this magnitude does not happen all at once or in just one administration in Washington. What we are seeing is the culmination of many trends in many aspects of American life that go back for years.

Neither the Constitution of the United States nor the institutions set up by that Constitution are enough to ensure the continuance of a free, self-governing nation. When Benjamin Franklin was asked what members of the Constitution Convention were creating, he replied, "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."

col. sat. 9/4/10

2010-09-02T19:20:12Z

Nursing a hangover from a 'tea party'

By WESLEY PRUDEN

Knocking the 'tea party' is getting to be a full-time job that not even the president of the United States can manage. Glenn Beck, the resident theologian at Fox, and critics who question his American birth are clearly getting Barack Obama's goat.

The pundits and pols on the left first tried the slander that all the tea sippers were not-so-secret racists, or "nativists," or bigots of one category or another, and were given to showing up at rallies with ugly signs demanding that Mr. Obama shut up and leave town before the sheriff arrives with an impeachment indictment. Certain pundits, editorialists, bloviators and bloggers even accused the tea partiers of attacking blacks in their midst.

When that accusation couldn't be proved — rewards were offered to anyone with the proof — the accusations of racism quieted to tolerable decibels. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, the right reverends of the high church of racial scammery, retreated for a time to their drawing boards to plot new schemes.

friday col. 9/3/10

2010-09-02T19:06:49Z

Bad climate bill belongs in limbo

By PATRICK J. MICHAELS

Will a lame duck Congress pass cap-and-trade? Judging from recent news, it might try. But, more likely, all the sound and fury will end up signifying its usual nothing. And it leaves the preferred option, where Congress punts the problem to the EPA, very much alive.

On Aug. 10, the House of Representatives blocked a resolution from Tom Price, R-Ga., that would have prohibited the House from convening a lame duck session after November's election unless there was a national emergency.

Climate Czarina Carol Browner recently suggested that such a bill could "potentially" be passed before the 112th Congress opens for business in January. In the new Congress, the House may very well be under Republican control. Hence the need for a lame duck climate bill.

sowell 9/2/10

2010-09-02T14:40:19Z

The passing of E-6

By THOMAS SOWELL

Most people have no idea what "E-6" is. To avid baseball fans, E-6 is the way to record an error by a shortstop on your scorecard. But there is another E-6, in photography. This E-6 is the developer in which color slides are processed.

Recently, I received an e-mail from Chromatics, a photo lab used by professional photographers in Nashville, that they will be discontinuing the developing of color slides and color transparencies in general, after Sept. 9. This was sent to me as an old customer of theirs.

The passing of E-6 is the passing of an era, because it means that so few professional photographers are using color slides and transparencies these days, in this era of digital photography, that a major photo lab does not get enough of this kind of film to develop to make it worthwhile to stock the chemical that is used.

medal 9/1/10

2010-09-01T16:55:34Z

w. williams 9/1/10

2010-09-01T16:48:58Z

Something for nothing

By WALTER E. WILLIAMS

Perhaps the most difficult economic lesson is that we live in a world of scarcity and everything has a cost. Scarcity exists whenever human wants exceed the means to satisfy those wants.

For example, Rolls-Royce produces less than 4,000 cars a year but it's a safe bet that more than 4,000 of the Earth's 6.5 billion people want a Rolls-Royce. That means Rolls-Royces are scarce. But it's not just Rolls-Royces that are scarce. It's clothing, food, land and most anything a human would want. There's not enough to meet every, single want.

Scarcity means there's no free lunch. Having more of one thing requires having less of another. You might say, "Williams, that's where you're wrong. Someone gave me this newspaper and I'm reading your column for free!" Not true. If you weren't spending time reading my column, you might have spent the time reading something else, chatting with your wife or children, or going out for a jog. You're reading my column for a zero price but you're not doing so at zero cost. You have to sacrifice something. There are zero-price services such as "free libraries," "free public schools," "free transportation" and free whatever. It doesn't mean that costs are not being borne by somebody.

Miller 8/31/10

2010-08-30T20:42:51Z

Joe Miller not paranoid; just crazy

By PAUL JENKINS

Joe Miller is not paranoid, no matter what anybody says. Honest. He is the victim of a terrible plot.

It is time to come clean. I confess to being a National Republican Senatorial Committee elections plant sent here as a mole to steal an election; this one, it turns out. There are a host of GOP lawyers working for me and the goal is to ensure Joe Miller becomes Joe Who?

I didn’t want any part of this, but they have pictures of my dog mating outside her breed. They said they would put them on the Internet. They said nobody would sell me dog food. So, I went to work. Slanting this; lying about that. Pocketing fat envelops stuffed with cash and stashing boxes of Krispy Kreme jelly-filled doughnuts. Just waiting for instructions.

mosquetoon 8/27/10

2010-08-30T17:11:45Z

sowelll 8/27/10

2010-08-30T17:06:44Z

'Moral hazard' in politics

By THOMAS SOWELL

One of the things that makes it tough to figure out how much has to be charged for insurance is that people behave differently when they are insured from the way they behave when they are not insured.

In other words, if one person out of 10,000 has his car set on fire, and it costs an average of $10,000 to restore the car to its previous condition, then it might seem as if charging one dollar to all 10,000 people would be enough to cover the cost of paying $10,000 to the one person whose car that will need to be repaired. But the joker in this deal is that people whose cars are insured may not be as cautious as other people are about what kinds of neighborhoods they park their car in.

The same principle applies to government policies. When taxpayer-subsidized government insurance policies protect people against flood damage, more people are willing to live in places where there are greater dangers of flooding. Often these are luxury beach front homes with great views of the ocean. So what if they suffer flood damage once every decade or so, if Uncle Sam is picking up the tab for restoring everything?

AnchorageDailyPlanet.com

mon col 9/6/10

Wrong about human rights

By ROGER PILON

Sun. col 9/5/10

Dismantling America: Part IVBy THOMAS SOWELL

col. sat. 9/4/10

Nursing a hangover from a 'tea party'

By WESLEY PRUDEN

friday col. 9/3/10

Bad climate bill belongs in limbo

By PATRICK J. MICHAELS

sowell 9/2/10

The passing of E-6

By THOMAS SOWELL

medal 9/1/10

w. williams 9/1/10

Something for nothing

By WALTER E. WILLIAMS

Miller 8/31/10

Joe Miller not paranoid; just crazy

By PAUL JENKINS

mosquetoon 8/27/10

sowelll 8/27/10

'Moral hazard' in politics

By THOMAS SOWELL

Dismantling America: Part IV

By THOMAS SOWELL