Feb 2, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From NY Sun:
Mary Robinson, an architect of the U.N. Durban human rights conference in 2001 that was boycotted by Secretary of State Powell because the Bush administration deemed it too hostile to Israel, has been hired as a professor by Columbia University. [January 29, 2004]
Feb 2, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Colin Powell had an op-ed published in Russian newspaper Izvestia:
While he praised the two countries' cooperation on issues ranging from the war on terror to the fight against AIDS, Mr. Powell also warned that the U.S.-Russia relationship "will not achieve its potential" unless the two countries share "basic principles. ..." "Russia's democratic system seems not yet to have found the essential balance among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. Political power is not yet fully tethered to law," Mr. Powell wrote. "Key aspects of civil society--free media and political party development, for example--have not yet sustained an independent presence."
Just in case you were worried:
"As far as I was concerned, it wasn't in any way an attempt on my part to interfere in the internal dynamic of Russian political life," he told reporters. "It was in the spirit of friendship that I discussed all these issues. ..." Mr. Powell made no mention of concrete consequences for Russia's actions, and political analysts said it was unlikely the Bush administration would take matters that far.
Feb 2, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
News from Iran:
More than a third of the Iranian parliament resigned Sunday and the speaker delivered a stinging rebuke to the hard-line Guardian Council for its disqualification of hundreds of liberal candidates in upcoming elections....On Saturday, ["reformist" President] Khatami suggested his government would call off the vote, which he called undemocratic because hard-line Islamic clerics have disqualified more than 2,400 liberal candidates. "My government will only hold competitive and free elections ... the parliament must represent the views of the majority and include all (political) tendencies," Khatami said, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency. Hours later, doctors confined Khatami to his home for treatment of what a senior presidential aide told The Associated Press was a longtime back problem exacerbated by stress.
Feb 2, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From coverage of the opening arguments:
[Martha Stewart's lawyer, Robert] Morvillo said Ms. Stewart had sold 51,000 shares of ImClone in the fall, leaving her with fewer than 4,000, which Mr. Bacanovic had been urging her to get rid of for about a month. He said the two had agreed about a week before, when Mr. Faneuil was away on vacation, that Ms. Stewart would consider selling the stock if it fell to $60 a share. On December 27, the stock fell below $60 for the first time since their discussion.
The defense argued that given the falling stock price and the agreement to talk about selling when the stock hit $60, it was only responsible for Mr. Bacanovic to reach out to Ms. Stewart. "How did she know Sam Waksal had decided to do the dumbest, worst, most offensive thing in the world on December 27?" Mr. Morvillo said. [NY Sun]
The whole opening argument is here.
So let's get this straight. Martha Stewart, who is worth a billion dollars, had sold 92% of her shares in ImClone months before. Now if she had lost the entire value of the remaining 4,000 shares she would have lost about a quarter of a million dollars. But instead, she supposedly sells on inside information and allegedly lies to the Feds to cover it up. This costs her a $400 million loss in the value of her company.
Furthermore, we have to believe that the broker who tipped her off was not smart enough to do it in such a way that Martha Stewart would have an airtight case against any accusationa of insider trading. And we have to believe that he's not just saying what prosecutors want to hear, to save his own skin by giving them a "big fish."
Why on Earth should anyone believe him instead of Martha Stewart?
Now we learn this:
A federal judge put Martha Stewart's trial on hold yesterday after learning that prosecutors withheld a key document from the defense until the last minute.
The document was an FBI report of a January 15, 2003, interview with the lawyer who originally represented the star prosecution witness, Douglas Faneuil,who was the assistant to Ms.Stewart's co-defendant, Peter Bacanovic....
The multipage document says Mr. Faneuil's former lawyer, Jeremiah Gutman, told investigators his client said he could not remember if it was Mr. Bacanovic or Samuel Waksal, the chief executive officer of ImClone Systems, who told him to inform Ms. Stewart that Waksal was trying to sell his Im-Clone shares the day before his company announced bad news. [NY Sun]
The following day prosecutors provided 10 more never-before-seen documents to the defense. The government deserves to lose this case, in as humiliating a way as possible. The good thing is, looks like it's happening. For more, see: http://www.marthatalks.com and http://www.savemartha.comFeb 1, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
This cartoon was created the day of the Columbia Shuttle disaster. Last year, Capitalism Magazine posted two op-eds about Columbia. The Spirit of the Space Shuttle Columbia: The Essence of the American Soul by Robert Garmong.The ground of east Texas trembled with the horror overhead. The shock waves spread as the worst fears were confirmed: space shuttle Columbia had turned from a high-precision machine into a lifeless meteor, its crew lost. Americans were hit with a degree of shock not equaled since September 11. [...] Only something that struck uniquely close to the American soul could have caused the degree of shock and horror with which we have responded to the Columbia disaster.
And Hail Columbia by Nicholas Provenzo.Those of us who remember the loss of the Challenger and the Apollo fire before then, are reminded that great leaps often entail great risks. Yet we should be loath to say that the heroes of Columbia died for space flight. They lived for it, and that included the real risk that they might die. They turned space into a new frontier; a frontier that speaks to our every potential as a species.
Jan 30, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
Fox News reported yesterday: Dean Machine Tries to Work Out Kinks.Howard Dean needs to win at least one primary in the next two weeks to keep from becoming political toast, political experts said Thursday. The former Vermont governor is trying to get his floundering campaign back on track after twin losses in Iowa and New Hampshire -- races he was expected to win handily only a few weeks ago. [...]
Dean named longtime Al Gore associate Roy Neel as his new campaign CEO on Wednesday and veteran campaign manager Joe Trippi resigned.
Capitalism Magazine features a good Larry Elder op-ed (along with a collection of our Dean cartoons): When Did The Howard Dean Meltdown Really Begin?Only a little over one month ago, national polls gave Dean a commanding 20 percentage-point lead over his closest Democratic rival, yet he staggered to a third-place finish in Iowa. Talk about a meltdown. If Dean continues to under-perform, his campaign ends, and the blame game begins. Expect his supporters to say the overreaction of the media and the pundits to Dean's, uh, rallying cry, brought him down.
Really? Maybe it began when Dean, on National Public Radio, mentioned a "theory" that President George W. Bush possessed prior knowledge of 9/11, yet took no steps to halt it. Two days later, he said that no, he didn't believe the theory. And a couple of days later, he called the theory "crazy."
Or maybe the meltdown began when Dean called himself an anti-war candidate, yet supported a resolution called Biden-Lugar, which authorized military action in Iraq without the need for the president to seek another resolution. Or maybe...
Jan 29, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From David Holcberg of the Ayn Rand Institute:
President Bush is wrong in proposing to increase the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts. Why?
Because art is a form of expressing ideas, and using taxpayers' money to promote ideas they may disagree with is immoral and violates their rights. Such misuse of taxpayers' money is a violation--not a promotion--of freedom of speech. As Thomas Jefferson explained, "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical."
The Bush administration should stop demonstrating its "commitment to the arts" and focus instead on protecting individual rights. Getting rid of the National Endowment for the Arts would be a small step in the right direction.
Jan 28, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
ABC News reported Monday: Forget the South?.Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., is discounting notions that any Democratic candidate would have to appeal to Southern voters in order to win the presidency, calling such thinking a "mistake" during a speech at Dartmouth College. [...]
"Everybody always makes the mistake of looking South," Kerry said, in response to a question about winning the region. "Al Gore proved he could have been president of the United States without winning one Southern state, including his own."
As Glenn Reynolds noted: "Um, no. Al Gore proved that he couldn't win the United States without carrying one Southern state, including his own."
The ABC News article concludes with a brief history of Democratic candidates and Southern states:Whether or not Democrats should cede the South for the November 2004 election and focus resources elsewhere has been fiercely debated privately in many Democratic circles. History is not on the side of those who would argue in favor of doing so.
The last three Democratic presidents -- Bill Clinton from Arkansas, Jimmy Carter from Georgia, and Lyndon Johnson from Texas -- were from the South. The last four Democratic presidential nominees to not win one Southern state -- Sen. George McGovern in 1972; former Vice President Walter Mondale in 1984; Gov. Mike Dukakis in 1988; and Gore in 2000 -- lost. Former Vice President Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and Carter in 1980 were able to win one Southern state apiece, though in the end they lost to Republicans nationwide. Of the victorious Democrats, Carter won 10 Southern states in 1976, and Clinton won four in both 1992 and 1996.
Jan 28, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From the New York Sun:
One questioner in a college auditorium in Keene, who identified himself as a war veteran, told Mr.Kerry that he was "horrified" that the senator supported the war, and questioned how he could be "conned by the administration. ..."
"I believe I voted correctly to protect the security of our nation," responded Mr.Kerry, who then criticized the Clinton administration for failing to act against the former dictator sooner.
...Mr. Kerry said that in 1998, he and two Republicans, Senator McCain of Arizona and Senator Hagel of Nebraska, suggested to President Clinton, "that he should have gone to the U.N. That he should have had the capacity to have the threat, the force, to get inspectors back in there to make Saddam Hussein to live up to the only thing that had left him in power--his obligation to disarm. "So, George Bush brings a legitimate security issue before the Congress in 2002. Am I supposed to turn away and ignore what I said in 1998, what I thought Clinton should have done? Do we ignore the fact that the last time we had inspectors there we had weapons that had not yet been destroyed? And our intelligence is telling us there are weapons?" he asked the audience.
Just in case you were worried:
Mr. Kerry then made his standard stump speech statement that he voted not in favor of a war, but in favor of a "process promised by the president." He said Mr. Bush should have taken more time to allow inspectors to search for weapons in Iraq, and should have built a broader international coalition through the U.N.
Jan 27, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
FoxNews reported this week Federal Judge Dismisses Slave Reparations Case:
A federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit brought by descendants of slaves against corporations they say profited from slavery, saying the plaintiffs had established no clear link to the companies they targeted.
Comments Edwin A. Locke of the Ayn Rand Institute:
A Chicago federal judge was right to dismiss a lawsuit brought by descendants of slaves against corporations that profited from slavery in the 19th century, but the decision did not go far enough. The judge left the door open for further litigation, by implying that it might be legitimate if the plaintiffs could show actual links to the companies in question. No such door should have been left open, because such lawsuits are without merit in principle.
Slavery was abolished in the United States nearly 140 years ago. Those who were slaves are long dead. If claims could be made by anyone who had long-dead relatives who were harmed by someone, then everyone in the entire world could claim compensation for such victimization. But people who were not themselves the object of harm have no right to make any such claim.
And who would be responsible for such unjust compensatory payments?
People who are now living who had no role in causing the harm. If people who were not themselves harmed can force people who were not responsible for any harm to pay them "compensation" for the suffering endured by others, then the result is not justice but a double injustice.
From Cox and Forkum:
Jan 26, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
The lead editorial in the Jan. 26 New York Sun recounts some stories from Lydia Segal's book Battling Corruption in America's Public Schools:
[There's] the custodian who used his school basement to raise chickens for cockfighting, telling inspectors that the hundreds of labeled eggs he was incubating there were to feed students. Another custodian "let his boiler operator store his gun collection near the lunchroom and live in the basement, where he slept, entertained women, and kept a dog," the book says.
The harshest portraits come from transcripts of undercover investigations of community school board members. "I'm a political leader, that's why I'm here.... I make sure my people get [expletive] jobs," one said. Another laughingly admitted, "I've never heard the word 'children' or 'education' enter into our discussions in the last few years... with anybody." Another board member recounted, "If we recommend somebody," the district had to hire that person so long as "they're not illiterate or deformed or something the matter with them."
Jan 26, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Most Iranian ministers and vice presidents have submitted resignations in protest of "reformist" candidates being barred from upcoming elections. But at least some Iranians are not expecting the officials to follow through.
Pakistan is beginning to detain nuclear scientists suspected of selling its nuclear secrets to countries such as Iran and Libya.
French journalist Michel Gurfinkiel writes an extensive report on just how bad antisemitism has become in France.
Conservatives feel uncomfortable fighting to uphold self-interest, so they are always looking for ways to cast their policies as altruistic. The latest is their realization that environmentalism harms the Third World (which it does) and their resulting crusade against "eco-imperialism."
Amity Shlaes recounts the history of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Balanced Budget Act of 1985--"a sort of crude chastity belt for Congress"--and why today's Democrats are waving its banner.Jan 25, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From the AP:
Secretary of State Colin Powell held out the possibility Saturday that prewar Iraq may not have possessed weapons of mass destruction. Powell was asked about comments last week by David Kay, the outgoing leader of a U.S. weapons search team in Iraq, that he did not believe Iraq had large quantities of chemical or biological weapons. "The answer to that question is, we don't know yet," Powell told reporters... "We had questions that needed to be answered. "What was it?" he asked. "One hundred tons, 500 tons or zero tons? Was it so many liters of anthrax, 10 times that amount or nothing?"
But the article also says:
The Sunday Telegraph in London reported that Kay said elements of Saddam's weapons program were sent to Syria. "We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons but we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD (weapons of mass destruction) program," the paper quoted Kay as saying. "Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved." Kay told reporters in Washington in October that "senior Iraqi officials, both military and scientific," had moved to Jordan and Syria, "both pre-conflict and some during the conflict, and some immediately after the conflict."
Jan 25, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Hundreds of religious hard-liners rallied Sunday in support of Pakistani nuclear scientists, hailing them as "national heroes" and denouncing their detentions over allegations they profited from selling nuclear technology to Iran. [Yahoo News]
Jan 23, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
The New York Sun has this dispatch from London's Daily Telegraph:
North Korea could have up to eight nuclear weapons in the coming months and might produce a dozen atomic bombs every year by the end of the decade, a London think tank predicted yesterday....The IISS recognizes that it is even harder to obtain reliable information about North Korea.In particular,the institute says there is no firm evidence that the country has developed nuclear weapons, despite its bombastic claims to have a nuclear "deterrent." This view was reinforced by Siegfried Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos nuclear research laboratory, who visited Korea in an unofficial American delegation earlier this month. He told a Senate committee that North Korea appeared to have enough expertise to extract plutonium from 8,000 spent fuel rods from its reactor at Yongbyon but he saw no evidence that the plutonium had been turned into workable nuclear weapons.
... and what do we do when one of those bombs gets sold to some Middle Eastern terrorist group who puts it into a shipping container and detonates it in an American harbor?Jan 23, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Andrew Sullivan notes that the kind of policies now being recommended for the US to lower drug prices--having government bargain through Medicare or allowing reimportation of drugs from Canada--carry a cost. He quotes Dow Jones on a report from Bain & Co.:
"Europe has lost out in four ways: The number of new drug targets launched in Europe has almost halved to 44 between 1998-2002 from 81 between 1993-97, top R&D jobs have flooded to America, European drug companies have moved research centers abroad, and Europeans now have to wait 33% longer to get new treatments than patients in America. For example, Bain claims Germany saved $19 billion by spending less than America on healthcare in 2002, but lost $22 billion in reduced R&D investment and drug innovations, lost wages from high added-value jobs, disappearing R&D centers, and poor health."
Self-interest is the reason drug companies exist in the first place; there would be no drugs at all were it not for their pursuit of their self-interest, and freedom means recognizing the right of producers to what they produce. It's no surprise that trying to sacrifice producers on the altar of need will have such destructive effects.Jan 23, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Here is a clear example of supporting our enemies and keeping them alive, even a purported member of the "Axis of Evil" such as North Korea:
The State Department on Wednesday announced 60,000 metric tons of American food will be sent to North Korea to help avert hunger and starvation. Spokesman Richard Boucher said the decision was based on reports from the World Food Program's executive director, James Morris, that some 4 million North Koreans were vulnerable and in need of contributions....The donation of 60,000 tons brings the total of U.S. contributions for the year to 100,000. The Bush administration has said it keeps consideration of North Korea's humanitarian needs separate from differences with the reclusive regime on its weapons programs.
We'll never win against any of these countries if we keep them alive with 100,000 metric tons of food. They wanted Communism, let their workers paradise produce their own food.Jan 22, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Classicist William Mullen has a column on how the critics of the Iraq war misuse Thucydides to support their case. He ends with this interesting quote from the ancient Greek historian:
In those dark times, "the blunter wits, for the most part, did the best. Concerned about their own weak points and their enemies' cunning, and that they would be worsted verbally and surprised by their enemies' versatile wits, they framed preemptive measures and boldly put them into action. Their adversaries, on the other hand, contemptuously figured that they could detect everything beforehand and would not need to take action when it was possible to get by on their wits. And so, more often than not, they were caught off guard and undone."
