Discovery Institute | Page 792 | Public policy think tank advancing a culture of purpose, creativity, and innovation.

cars-on-road-highway-in-traffic-jam-stockpack-adobe-stock-110292817-stockpack-adobestock
Cars on road highway in traffic jam
Image Credit: disq - Adobe Stock

Federal failings may worsen border woes

This time next year, when you think of taking the family up to Canada for a visit, or go on your own trip for business, you could find yourself waiting in lines of seven or eight hours duration at Blaine while totally superfluous paperwork is handled by Immigration and Naturalization (INS) officials. Something nearly as grim could await you at Read More ›

close-up-us-one-hundred-dollars-bills-money-business-and-fin-319242348-stockpack-adobestock
close up US one hundred dollars bills money, business and finance concept
Image Credit: tatomm - Adobe Stock

Jailing Tom Stewart won’t help clean up politics

Americans have decided, if the polls are right, that the most important issue facing this country is campaign finance reform. But the polls probably are not right, reflecting, as they do, the media’s priorities and the lack of any military or economic bad news. This may be a case where the survey respondents are trying to guess the answer that Read More ›

basilica-columns-at-ephesus-stockpack-adobe-stock-132071930-stockpack-adobestock
Basilica Columns at Ephesus
Image Credit: Mark - Adobe Stock

Triumph in Cold War deserves its own monument

We are enjoying–maybe even wallowing–in the increasing “peace dividends” from the ending of the Cold War. Yet few in the media or academia are reflecting on what caused the war or how the peace was achieved. In an age that synthesizes victimhood in many ways, it is curious how little attention is paid the hundreds of millions of genuine victims, Read More ›

a-copper-wire-coil-with-a-shiny-surface-and-a-dark-backgroun-648674620-stockpack-adobestock
A copper wire coil with a shiny surface and a dark background, creating a contrast of light and shadow
Image Credit: Suplim - Adobe Stock

Don’t Crush Wireless Innovation

In the next few weeks the Federal Communications Commission will decide whether the U.S. telephone industry unleashes a new birth of competition, entrepreneurship and innovation. When Congress completed last year’s comprehensive revision of telecommunications legislation–the first in 60 years–pundits foresaw a flowering of new services in the telecommunications marketplace. The Baby Bells were to take on the long distance companies, Read More ›

kerry-park-seattle-stockpack-unsplash
Kerry Park, Seattle

I hope that ‘visionary’ hasn’t suddenly become a bad word in Seattle

He was a restless young attorney who was also a frustrated architect and planner. On Sunday afternoons in the late 60’s he used to recruit his wife and a friend (me, on some occasions) to drive around Seattle looking at any new buildings going up. He would complain about the lack of good planning in town and sketch in the Read More ›

pile-of-old-and-obsolete-mobile-phone-or-cell-phone-on-old-w-431483950-stockpack-adobestock
Pile of old and obsolete mobile phone or cell phone on old wood background
Image Credit: reshoot - Adobe Stock

Regulating the Telecosm

The general theme of my argument is, Don’t solve problems. When you solve problems, you end up subsidizing your weaknesses, starving your strengths, and achieving expensive mediocrity, and in a competitive global economy expensive mediocrity goes out of business. Washington has a compulsion to solve problems, and that is really the basic flaw of the Washington approach to problems-it tries Read More ›

deep blue water.jpg
Abstract dark blue digital background with sparkling blue light particles and areas with deep depths Particles form into lines, surfaces and grids
Image Credit: kokotewan - Adobe Stock

Rethinking Deep Blue

The recent hysteria over the defeat of world chess champion Gary Kasparov by IBM computer Deep Blue has provided fresh fuel for the debate over whether computers can be intelligent and, yes, even exhibit the other qualities of mind — consciousness, sensation, emotion and the like. Read More ›

Light rail offers communities once-in-lifetime chance

Sound Transit is the most comprehensive and expensive public project ever undertaken in the Puget Sound region. Tax dollars spent on rail and bus investments should be used as an opportunity to leverage complementary growth patterns, redevelopment, economic revitalization and infill, as we make the transition from a primarily personal auto and all-bus system to a reduced-auto and regional bus, commuter-rail and (LINK) light rail transit system.....In the vicinity of light rail, commuter rail and bus stations, thoughtful preparation and design by transportation and community interests could shape specific sites to have more people-oriented, transit-friendly development. Citizens willing, the light-rail project can provide the opportunity to improve Seattle neighborhoods. Read More ›

EPA’s not tracking with rail goals

The appeal of commuter rail linking Everett to Tacoma was one of the primary reasons voters gave Sound Transit the $3.9 billion go-ahead (finally) in 1996. After all, Amtrak runs intercity passenger trains on the tracks with freight trains. Why not add commuter trains on the existing track and let passengers connect with ferries and local transit at new multimodal centers in Edmonds, Mukilteo and Everett? Commuter rail will be a fraction of the cost of light rail and will be used most heavily when I-5 can use some relief -- namely, during rush hours. Riders will be offered an energy-efficient, fast and friendly alternative to the nightly parade of red lights. Makes sense, right? Well, not to the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA apparently fears wetland destruction and loss of eelgrass between Seattle and Everett if Sound Transit has to add 1.6 miles to the 82-mile corridor of passing track along Puget Sound. Read More ›

The Title and Epigraphs of Surprised by Joy

by John Bremer Authors give their works titles, or, at least, propose titles, which sometimes get accepted and sometimes not. The proposed titles of C.S. Lewis’s works had a mixed reception. His first book of poems Spirits in Bondage was originally to have been Spirits in Prison but was changed when Albert Lewis pointed out that there was already a Read More ›