News and Perspectives ...
Canada's Health Care System - Poor Value for Your Tax Dollars
"Canada's taxpayers are not receiving the same sort of value that their counterparts in other nations are when it comes to universally accessible health care insurance, says Nadeem Esmail, of the Fraser Institute. Canada has the world's third most-expensive universal access health care insurance system ... [and in] 2007, waiting lists for access to health care reached a new all-time high of 18.3 weeks.
Canadian Health Care We So Envy Lies in Ruins, Its Architect Admits
"We thought we could resolve the system's problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it," says [Claude] Castonguay ["the father of Quebec medicare"]. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: "We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice."
The Real Cost of Immigration
A new study by Edwin S. Rubenstein (Manhattan Institute) looks at the myriad ways immigration increases the cost of government and how goverment policies increase immigration. For example, Rubenstein found that each immigrant costs taxpayers more than $9,000, while every immigrant household of four costs $36,000 in taxes. And the total cost of providing English Language Learning instruction to the 3.8 million students in public schools is about $3.9 billion.
VIDEO: Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Fox News Sunday
(YouTube) Ayaan Hirsi Ali discusses radical Islam's war on human rights with Fox News Sunday's Chris Wallace.
The Risky Business of Islamic Finance
(Investor's Business Daily) Shariah banking has come into vogue in the West, as even cash-strapped U.S. banks try to attract free-flowing Arab petrodollars. But it poses major risks. Wall Street beware.
Bio-Foolish Behavior
(Investor's Business Daily) Environment: In 2005, America used 15 percent of its corn crop to replace just 2 percent of its gasoline. Two new studies say use of biofuels will leave the world a warmer and hungrier place.
Lights Out in Georgia
A state judge has blocked construction of a power plant on grounds that its emissions permit does not set a cap on carbon dioxide. Global warming alarmism wins another round.
Climate Confusion
In this new book released March 2008, Dr. Roy Spencer, author of Global Warming: What You Haven't Been Told, combines impeccable scientific authority with great wit to expose the hysteria surrounding the myths of global warming and climate change. Spencer shows that the earth is far more resilient than we think.
Energy & the Environment: Myths and Facts(Max Schulz, Manhattan Institute) ... a primer for educators, journalists, and public officials - for concerned citizens generally - as we seek twin goals: an energy supply sufficient to fuel continued economic growth; and environmental policies that will protect the public health and the quality of our lives.Report includes an ENERGY LITERACY QUIZ to test readers' knowledge of energy sources, extent of oil reserves, rate of global warming, Kyoto treaty, and more ...
from the Luce Institute ...
No Guarantees: Rating the Cost-Efficiency of Virginia School Districts
(Luce Institute Education Director Lil Tuttle) ... Are school districts putting tax dollars to the best use? This report finds that fewer than half of the state's school districts operate cost-efficiently. Absent a state assessment of efficiency, state lawmakers can make no guarantees to Virginia taxpayers.
Focus Standards of Quality on Children
(Luce Institute Education Director Lil Tuttle, Richmond Times-Dispatch) ... When Virginia Governor Tim Kaine announced a more than $600-million state revenue shortfall, he advised legislative finance committees that the state would "need to look for new ways of doing business that are more efficient." The best place to begin such a quest is the state's antiquated K-12 education Standards of Quality (SOQs), which control one-third of state government's budget, and more than half of local governments' budgets.
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by Nonie Darwish, author of Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror.
 Most Americans think of Islam as just a religion. Islam is much more; it is a one party state with a very elaborate legal system, called Sharia law, that can put you to death if you leave it. The lives of women living under Sharia law and those living under democratic law are a world - and centuries - apart.
Ms. Darwish describes the danger America faces from Sharia advocates who claim that Sharia Islamic law is a religious right compatible with democracy and suggests that American women can stand together against the spread of radical Islam and its discrimination against women in the Western world.
by Barry R. Chiswick, Ph.D., Department of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago
 Current immigration laws and policies are not serving the best economic interests of the United States. What changes in border and interior enforcement policies would help stem the flow of illegal immigrants? What reforms in U.S. immigration law would encourage more highly-skilled legal immigrants and increase the economic benefits of immigration for the American public?
Professor Chiswick addresses these questions and suggests how the tide in immigration can be turned.
by Elizabeth Kantor, Ph.D., author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature.
 Classic Western literature has traditionally played a large role in sustaining "Western culture." If Western culture has, on balance, been a benefactor of the human race, then the abandonment of its great literature by college literature professors is a very great loss, both to students and to the long-term health of Western civilization.
Dr. Kantor argues that universities today should be teaching the classic literature of our culture to their students.
by Miriam Grossman, MD, UCLA psychiatrist and author of Unprotected
 A college freshman - I call her Heather - came to me for help with her mood: every so often she had episodes of feeling down, crying easily, and hating herself. Normally, she was social and outgoing; these days she was spending hours alone in her room. Heather didn't know where this was coming from. Everything seemed to be going so well: she liked school, had plenty of friends, and got along well with her family.
She paused at one question: did you recently begin or end any relationship? Well, yes ... I can think of one thing. I recently got a "friend with benefits," and actually ... I'm confused, because it seems to me like he's getting the benefits, but I'm not getting the friendship. ...
by Ryan Lynch, Deputy Director of Students for Saving Social Security.
 Social Security is the largest investment most of us will make in our entire lives, and it will likely be one of our worst. Some working women are particularly hard hit, and today's young workers can expect a one to two percent rate or return on investment - a deal worse than the local bank.
At what cost will we continue paying into a system that has repeatedly raised taxes and cut benefits since its inception? At what point will we demand that Social Security stop undermining the retirement security of future generations?
by Roy W. Spencer, PhD, Principal Research Scientist at the University of Alabama's Earth System Science Center.
 Global warming is in the news nearly every day now. Calls for action to reduce mankind's greenhouse gas emissions are being made by scientists, environmentalists, politicians, movie stars, and op-ed columnists. Some view the threat to be greater than that from terrorism. But just how real is the threat? And even if global warming becomes dangerous, what can be done about it?
You might have heard that "all reputable scientists" agree on global warming -- that there is a "consensus," and that the science is "settled." But there is only one aspect of the problem that scientists agree on: that global warming has occurred in the last century. What is not agreed upon is the degree to which mankind is responsible for that warming ...
by Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute
 American health care stands at a critical crossroad. National policymakers are debating two very different courses: one toward expanded government-directed health care; the other toward free-market, consumer-directed health care.
Americans of all ages have a stake in this public debate, for the policy outcome will shape the cost, care, coverage, and control of their health care services for decades to come.
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