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A Happy Thought: Electronic Cash could Kill the Income Tax

Death and taxes are known as life’s certainties. Far less common, but much more enjoyable to contemplate, is the death of a tax.  In fact, a little-known technology may be about to accomplish what generations of Americans have joked and dreamed about — and both the new Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer and his predecessor, Chairman Sam Gibbons, Read More ›

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Fast internet connection with the optical fiber

Gilder Meets His Critics

This article was first published in Forbes ASAP, February 27, 1995. The article contains letters from various correspondents commenting upon a wide variety of issues raised in the series of George Gilder’s “Telecosm” articles which will be published in 1996 by Simon & Schuster, as a sequel to Microcosm, published in 1989 and Life After Television published by Norton in Read More ›

The Missing Link that Wasn’t:

When National Geographic published the first pictures of a fossil creature that looked for all the world like a bird-dinosaur, it was hailed as a stunning coup. But now the creature has been exposed as a hoax–the latest in a series of embarrassing reversals in evidence for evolutionary theory. The fossil, dubbed Archaeoraptor liaoningensis, was picked up at a fossil Read More ›

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Echoes of the Past: Cold War-Era Soviet Propaganda Poster
Image Credit: 대연 김 - Adobe Stock

Let’s get it straight: The empire was evil

LET'S be blunt: It is necessary to make it clear who was right about the Cold War. The reason is not to glorify the aging Republicans and Henry Jackson Democrats who were derided as "Cold Warriors" during the four decades between Stalin and Gorbachev, nor to kick those on the left who led peace marches and befriended Havana, Hanoi and Managua. The purposes, rather, are, first, to get the history straight, before the regnant revisionists in academia succeed in distorting it, and, secondly, to reflect on the lessons for our current foreign policy. Under the revisionist interpretation, American sacrifices of blood and treasure during the Cold War were largely a waste of both. The West's actions in the Cold War are seen as more or less morally equivalent to those of the Soviets. These remarkable programs should attract heightened interest in Washington state, home of the late Sen. Henry Jackson, a leader of Cold War "hawks," and also home to some of the most militant opponents of U.S. policy during the Cold War. But of greatest immediate interest, Seattle is home to the chief consultant and inspiration of the project, Dr. Herbert Ellison of the University of Washington. (The series was written and directed by an Englishman, Daniel Wolf, with project management provided by the National Bureau of Asian Research in Seattle.) Read More ›

Reason in the Balance

In his earlier book, Darwin on Trial, UC Berkeley law professor and former U.S. Supreme Court clerk Phillip Johnson took on the scientific establishment. In Reason in the Balance, Johnson spars with those of his own kind, and exposes how the legal establishment has adopted naturalistic assumptions in its thinking to exclude any mention of a creative intelligence.  Johnson, who is also Read More ›

Darwinism: Science or Philosophy?

Link to book chapters by Phillip E. Johnson, Michael Ruse, Stephen C. Meyer, William A. Dembski, Michael J. Behe, Arthur Shapiro, Peter van Inwagen and others at Leadership University. Read More ›
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Glowing fiber optic cable. Information flows by wire. The concept of technology and information transfer. Modern blue purple color spectrum 3d illustration
Image Credit: flashmovie - Adobe Stock

The Bandwidth Tidal Wave

Craig Mundie of Microsoft thinks that Tiger, his video-on-demand operating system, signals a fundamental shift in the computer industry. Ruling the new era will be bandwidth measured in billions of bits per second rather than in the millions of instructions per second of current computers. “We’ll have infinite bandwidth in a decade’s time.” Bill Gates, PC Magazine, Oct. 11, 1994. Read More ›

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Human Rights: Blessed by God or Begrudged by Government

Even as the double-helix discovery, the quantum theory and the development of a polio vaccine have manifested some of man's most ennobling capabilities, the gulags and gas chambers have demonstrated with equal force that scientific prowess alone does not confirm the existence of civilization — if civilization is to be measured by a commitment to protecting human rights. Read More ›
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The US Capitol building dome in Washington DC isolated.
Image Credit: trekandphoto - Adobe Stock

Don’t kid yourself, this was a biggie

Anti-Democratic feeling was really only anti-incumbent feeling, they declared. In fact, not one Republican incumbent governor or member of Congress lost, only Democrats. A big turnout, if it could be accomplished, would save the Democrats, we were told. But the 39 percent national turnout was two points over average mid-term elections. And in higher turnout states Republicans seem to have made their greatest gains. During the campaign, the actual contents of the "contract" were barely covered by the major media (an oversight now corrected after the election) and were subjected to a negative spin in Democratic television spots. But the "contract" was described in detail over talk radio, computer on-line services and new conservative cable TV programs. Another old political assumption that was dealt a blow is the old Depression-era knock that the Republicans are the party of Wall Street while the Democrats are the party of the little guy. GOP candidates won majorities among working-class voters as well as middle- and upper-economic groups. Big business PAC money, as usual, went overwhelmingly to incumbents and this year that meant Democrats. The first target for a shake-up will be Congress itself, where one of the leaders of reform is Rep. Jennifer Dunn of Bellevue. The House Republican Contract pledged to cut congressional staff by a third, and it should not be hard to do. The Democratic majority typically afforded Republicans only a small share of staff positions. In the House Energy and Commerce Committee, for example, Democrats currently have 180 staff posts and Republicans 17. After a well-deserved one-third cut, there will still be plenty of positions open for Republicans to fill, even permitting them to be more generous to the Democrats than the Democrats were to them. Read More ›