John's Recommended Articles

The U.N. misses it, but Mugabe's regime is Zimbabwe's problem.:
"...this U.N. initiative will only compound the suffering in Zimbabwe--where the government's latest atrocity has been to "clean up" the cities by evicting hundreds of thousands of poor people, destroying their dwellings and leaving them jobless, homeless and hungry.

Atrocities under Mugabe are nothing new. Since Zimbabwe gained independence from Britain in 1980, Mugabe has ruled with what is apparently the prime directive of remaining in power, whatever the cost. The U.N. report, in its brief history of the country's struggles, fails to mention that one of Mugabe's first moves after coming to power was to invite in North Korean advisers, to train the shock troops known in Zimbabwe as the 'Fifth Brigade.' In the 1980s, Mugabe dispatched this Fifth Brigade to massacre an estimated 18,000 Zimbabweans opposed to his rule--far more than the number of people slaughtered, say, at Srebenica, and more than six times the number murdered in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. The world paid no notice."

Ever enter a strange hallway or an unfamiliar street after being inside and have trouble getting your bearings?

The finding suggests that if you experience orientation problems, then perhaps you've been cooped up too long.

"This discovery points to the fact that our early experiences influence how we solve such problems and could mean that by varying the environments that we encounter early in life, we could broaden and hone our spatial navigation abilities," Sturdy's team writes.

It's time for term limits for Supreme Court justices.: "Do we really want lifetime tenure for Supreme Court justices? The Framers of the Constitution, of course, gave us this judicial sinecure for the express purpose of insulating the courts from political pressures of the moment. But then again, 220 years ago life expectancy wasn't what it is today and the courts had yet to claim the power of 'judicial review,' the power to determine which laws meet constitutional muster. For the Founders, the courts did not exercise the sweeping, unaccountable power they do now. That's one reason why many people are now coming around to the notion of instituting an 18-year term limit on Supreme Court justices. "
"A major reason for justices doggedly hanging on to their seats is, simply put, power. The Framers of the Constitution never envisioned a judiciary as powerful as today's courts. But with that unaccountable power has come an erosion of the court's legitimacy.

The killers always allege particular gripes -- Australian troops in Iraq, Christian proselytizing, Hindu intolerance, occupation of the West Bank, theft of Arab petroleum, the Jews, attacks on the Taliban, the 15th-century reconquest of Spain, and, of course, the Crusades.
But in most cases -- from Mohamed Atta, who crashed into the World Trade Center, to Ahmed Sheik, the former London School of Economics student who planned the beheading of Daniel Pearl, to Magdy Mahmoud Mustafa el-Nashar, the suspected American-educated bomb-maker in London -- the common bond is not poverty, a lack of education or legitimate grievance. Instead it is blind hatred instilled by militant Islam.

A review of the House and Senate Energy Bills
"In this case, the Senate proposes to subsidize investments that have been unable to attract as much private capital as proponents would like. But what are the chances that 100 senators using other peoples' (taxpayers) money will make better investment decisions than investors using their own money? It's possible that some of the Senate's choices are sound, but in those cases, all that is accomplished is the unnecessary transfer of resources from taxpayers to investors. In short, the Senate isn't subsidizing energy as much as it's subsidizing dubious investments and/or particular investors."

Give Choice a Chance: "Incremental reforms in America's school system will do nothing -- or worse than nothing -- unless reformers attack the problem at the root, which is the bureaucratic and political control of schools. The solution is to open the schools up to consumer choice and competition with private schools, allowing parents to choose the schools that they think are best for their children."

"The fundamental nature of American childhood has changed in a single generation. The unstructured outdoor childhood - days of pick-up baseball games, treehouses and 'be home for dinner' - has all but vanished.

Today, childhood is spent mostly indoors, watching television, playing video games and working the Internet. When children do go outside, it tends to be for scheduled events - soccer camp or a fishing derby - held under the watch of adults. "

I use this blog to track articles that I read that I find interesting and also would recommend for others to read. I don't necessarily agree with all the views expressed in the articles I choose, but I do find the information compelling and worth thinking about.

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