Jefferson Review

"Your Liberty is Our Interest"

Home /  Archives / Links / Quotes / Book Reviews / Advertise /Contact us / Subscribe / Calendar

Thomas Sowell:

Ethics and Education Out of 29 countries whose teenagers took a recent international math test, American teenagers ranked 24th. Americans also scored near the bottom on tests of general problem-solving. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20041210.shtml;

Little Angelo All Over Again? The sad fact is that so much of what is called "expertise" is little more than political cover protecting decision-makers from accountability for their own actions. … What all this means is that everyone is protected -- except the children. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20041208.shtml

Supreme Court Choices Senate Democrats have dug in and refused to allow some judicial nominees even to be voted on by the full Senate because these were judges who believe in applying the written law, not imposing judges' personal notions as the law of the land. … Filibusters, like judicial activism, make a mockery of the voter's right to self-governance. Both are ways for a willful minority to block the majority. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20041207.shtml

Random Thoughts It is fascinating to watch politicians come up with "solutions" to problems that are a direct result of their previous solutions. In many cases, the most efficient thing to do would be to repeal their previous solution and stop being so gung-ho for creating new solutions in the future. But, politically, that is the last thing they will do.  … If people are free to do as they wish, they are almost certain not to do as we wish. That is why Utopian planners end up as despots, whether at the national level or at the level of the local "redevelopment" agency. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20041206.shtml

Walter Williams:

Higher Education in decline http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20041208.shtml

Attacking Condi I called my 81-year-old friend Chuck Stone, former writer for the Philadelphia Daily News and now professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. I asked him whether he recalled instances of today's demeaning, insulting attacks. He said no, and we recalled how black people came to the defense of people like Reps. Robert Nix and Adam Clayton Powell, for whom Stone served as chief administrative assistant. Professor Stone also reminded me that the differences between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois didn't produce today's virulence. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/walterwilliams/ww20041124.shtml

Why Mfume was booted out of the NAACP Mfume rightly reasoned that by reaching out to the Republican Party on issues that they already agree with -- like empowering faith based charities, supporting school vouchers, etc. -- the black voting populace can send the message that they’re no longer willing to blindly support the Democrats. Faced with the prospect of fleeing voters, the Democrats would be forced to make new overtures. This competition, in turn, would instill both parties with a sense of urgency for addressing those issues that black Americans routinely rate as their chief concerns.http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=5954

How many of the ten points of the Communist Manifesto have already been achieved in the U.S.? http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/com-man.html

Useless resources - There was a plot of land next to his home that he needed $400 to purchase. His plan was to use this good soil to teach his children how to grow crops and sell them in their local market…. The first crops were in and his produce was selling well in the local market. His young children were getting an up close and personal look at the simple math that labor and planning are powerful tools in creating a steady stream of income. He soon had enough money to repay the loan…. I received an enthusiastic e-mail telling me that he had discovered emeralds on the land he had purchased. … The land he bought was “informal.” It did not have a government deed. It is technically under a kind of local system that is similar to squatters’ rights. The presence of precious stones on his land was actually a threat to his life. If his neighbors learned what he had, there was a very real possibility that he and his family would be killed.  … Officials in the governments of developed countries need to take a serious look at tying all future aid programs to the establishment of formal property rights that can be clearly designated and protected in courts of law. Only in this way can we achieve what God intended: that the goods of the earth be made beneficial to all people.  http://www.acton.org/ppolicy/comment/article.php?id=232

Fair Tax - http://www.suntimes.com/savage/fairtax.html

Canada warned to get ready for anal sex education in grade school http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/dec/04120802.html

Weather (Louisville) / Mapquest /  White Pages / Business Search / CNN / Dictionary / E-card / MSN