Reader advisory: the following is rated PG-13 Today is the anniversary of Singapore’s independence, and they’re celebrating by urging citizens to make a baby. With headlines like “Thursday’s the Day to Go All the Way for Civic Duty in Singapore,” and a new commercial rap video produced by Mentos to “Get Your National Night...
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In the continuing battle between Malthusians who view humans as “useless eaters” whose populations must be centrally controlled, and those of us who see creatures uniquely endowed with brains and talent, Chinese scholars have fired what one hopes is the opening salvo to bring an end to China’s brutal and repressive practice of forced...
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Today President Obama was advocating the renewal of wind energy tax credits to promote green energy. Meanwhile, last week the Obama administration placed a 31% tariff on the importation of solar panels from China. So, is he for green energy, as the wind energy tax credit would suggest, or against it, as his raising...
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The blind Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng’s hopefully being able to take refuge (with his family) as a visiting scholar at NYU would indeed be a happy outcome of his ordeal. His documentation of forced late-term abortions and sterilizations has led to more than four years in prison; followed by his, his wife’s, and children’s...
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The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) earlier this week released a little-noticed new report warning that “the education crisis is a national security crisis.” The report notes that American students perform poorly on international tests compared to other countries that are making far better progress, and cites results of the 2009 Program for International...
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We are delighted to announce the publication of the Spring 2012 issue of the Independent Institute’s peer-reviewed journal, The Independent Review. This issue’s articles and book reviews deal with the following questions: What does evidence from hunter-gatherer societies suggest about whether human beings are better adapted for individualism or collectivism? Read the article. What...
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Kim Jong-il, the ruler of perhaps the most totalitarian dictatorship in the world, is dead. In watching the footage of North Korean citizens weeping hysterically, as if their own children had died, we can see the great wickedness at the heart of hyper-statism. Communism, fascism, and the total state represent a form of worship,...
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A troubling agreement among divergent ideological strains in America has emerged over the years: China’s growing wealth is a problem worthy of a political solution. It is a focus of anger and frustration that unifies much of the left—unionists, opponents of free trade and corporations, agitators for regulatory harmonization, consumer “advocates” demonizing the Yellow...
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Dr. Brendan Brown, Head of Economic Research at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities International (London), recently cited Senior Fellow Robert Higgs‘s work on regime uncertainty—both as the cause of the prolongation of the Great Depression as well as today’s economic malaise—suggesting that his premise could well be expanded to explain today’s global economy. In his Economic...
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Professor Brad Birzer, a man of unbounded energy, asked several of us to contribute a “top ten” list of books that make us human. Quite a challenge: limited to ten books, what would you (dear reader) choose and why? See my list at The Imaginative Conservative web site. It starts with a book by...
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