http://givemeliberty.blogivists.com Just another Blogivists weblog Sun, 07 Sep 2008 16:16:21 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Here's a simple quiz that might be a real eye-opener for those of us who don't often consider the question. 1. Do you believe that education is extremely important, both for our children and for "society"? I certainly do (and in the interest of full disclosure, I attended government schools exclusively, ... http://givemeliberty.blogivists.com/2008/09/07/why-public-schools/ Dennis Byrne had a column in the Chicago Tribune this morning entitled "Keep Kids in School". (Read it here) He was challenging the protest being waged by Rev. James Meeks against supposed disparities in the funding between Chicago Public Schools and suburban school districts. While I agree with ... http://givemeliberty.blogivists.com/2008/08/12/keep-kids-in-school-really/ This is not a book review, because I wouldn't want to spoil the ending. Michael Crichton is, after all, a master story teller (The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, etc.), and this one is just as exciting. But it's the factual background research worked into the story that makes ... http://givemeliberty.blogivists.com/2008/06/13/state-of-fear-by-michael-crichton/ “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” -1st line of the 1st Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America “Religious beliefs and practices must be respected, but only so far as they abide by state and federal laws.” -The Washington Post, ... http://givemeliberty.blogivists.com/2008/06/06/protecting-our-children-at-what-price/ In an excellent column on global warming, Charles Krauthammer puts the "cap and trade" debate into much better perspective than we usually get from the mainstream media. Environmental activists would have us accept that "the debate is over", but as Krauthammer points out, Newton's Laws of Motion stood up ... http://givemeliberty.blogivists.com/2008/06/02/global-warming-for-agnostics/ Following Earth Day last month, we were reminded of some of the outrageous predictions of the environmental crowd back in the late 1960s. I wrote about some of them here. Walter Williams' article in The Charlotte Observer Saturday, False Prophets of Doom, points out a few more. ... http://givemeliberty.blogivists.com/2008/05/14/global-warming-perspective/ We have now celebrated our 39th Earth Day, and we're still waiting for the environmental disaster. What happened? Most of us were supposed to have starved to death by now, died from air pollution, or frozen in the Ice Age. As predicted, the population has increased, and ... http://givemeliberty.blogivists.com/2008/04/23/earth-day-2008-still-waiting-for-disaster/ The global warming hysteria is truly amazing to anyone who steps back and views the issue objectively. We all learned in childhood that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure", but when did it become mandatory that the government "do something" about every issue that comes ... http://givemeliberty.blogivists.com/2008/04/22/a-ton-of-prevention-is-not-worth-a-pound-of-cure/ Yesterday Robert Crandall, former chairman of American Airlines, appeared on CNBC (see it here) to advocate federal regulation of the airline industry. He also wrote an Op-Ed for the New York Times on the subject. Mr. Crandall is old enough to remember when airlines were regulated before, and ... http://givemeliberty.blogivists.com/2008/04/22/regulate-the-airlines-i-dont-think-so/ Some interesting points came out of the Clintons' recently released tax returns. For example, they deducted over $10 million in charitable contributions. Sounds philanthropic, except that most of the money went to the Clinton Family Foundation. The Foundation has apparently disbursed only half of the money, and ... http://givemeliberty.blogivists.com/2008/04/07/charity-begins-at-home/