In a natural disaster like Hurricane Sandy, the only thing people should fear more than the storm is the government’s response. Let us count the ways. Mandatory evacuations presume that politicians know the risks better than property owners themselves. That can’t possibly be true. In an information age, we all have access to the same …
It occurs to every kid of a certain age. Let’s say the kid has a hamster, and then two, and they make babies. New value, new commodities. This is fantastic! Maybe the kid can breed hamsters, sell them, and make a few bucks. The capital investment is low and the returns are potentially very high …
I was strolling along the wharf in Bodrum, Turkey, and I was intrigued to see some natural sea sponges on a table with a merchant behind the table telling me something about them in Turkish. I vaguely recall seeing an item like this when I was a kid but I long ago dismissed them as …
It’s happened yet again: I found another movie presumably made for kids that easily beats many of this season’s predictable box-office yawners. The movie this time is The Pirates! Band of Misfits. It is the story of a socially complex group of failed pirates — people doing their best to make a life for themselves …
My neighborhood is filling up with political yard signs. Vote for this guy! Vote for that guy! I can’t understand why people are willing to give up precious real estate on their front lawns, make friends mad at them, and put their own credibility on the line to back some politico who will certainly betray …
Let’s say that a thief demands $100 and lets you keep $10 because he likes your suit. He calls that a deduction. The next day, he demands the whole $110. He says that he is not stealing more. He is only eliminating deductions and closing loopholes. That’s the GOP’s tax plan in a nutshell. They …
What is the world’s smallest country? Monaco? Nope. Malta? Too big. Even Vatican City with a mere population of 770 is huge in comparison. It’s called Sealand, founded and ruled by Paddy Roy Bates, a remarkable man who died this week at the age of 91. He was the original pirate radio operator and the …
Ayn Rand’s novella Anthem, the ebook of the week in the Spy Briefing Club, is a story about a government that hates, fears, and bans technology precisely because it wants to keep the people enslaved in a primitive state of being. Preposterous right? Wrong: this is going on every day right in the United States, …
In large parts of the oldest civilized region of the world, you will find in nearly every room a pretty blue charm that looks like an eye. It’s in the front entrance of homes, somewhere in every room, on boats, in airports, in restaurants, and built into the designs of everything from wallpaper to grocery …
I’ve found it: the organizing cell of what must be the world’s most dangerous intellectuals. It is right in this room where 100 people now sit, listening and discussing. But instead of heated and sweaty plotting, what we find instead is the atmosphere is of a 19th-century salon: polite, smart, fun. It’s the ambition and …