Column

Mike Elgan of PC World magazine is predicting that the Christmas season will prove his contention that Apple’s iPad is the “Children’s Toy of the Year.” “Have you ever seen a 4-year-old play with an iPhone? It's actually kind of shocking,” he reported. “Kids take to the iPhone's multi-touch user interface like they do trucks or dolls. They instinctively know that the iPhone is a toy, and they…

If the definition of insanity is repeating the same mistake over and over again, then U.S. policymakers over several administrations should be institutionalized and relegated to padded cells. The latest, but certainly not the last example of this craziness, is the pressure the Obama administration is exerting on Israel to stop building settlements in the West Bank. A Nov. 14 New York Times…

"If only we had sold our stocks a few weeks ago." "If only I'd had the brakes checked before she drove up to the mountains." There are few sadder words than those of regret at letting time pass until the catastrophe hits. Neither individuals, nor armies, nor nations are exempt from the human tendency to wait too long before acting — and paying a terrible price for the delay. These thoughts…

Nobody expected that George W. Bush’s book “Decision Points” was going to compare to the memoirs of Ulysses Grant. As expected, book reviewers found it wanting as a literary work. But still, every book by an ex-president is seen as an opportunity for legacy-polishing and the press is most accommodating.   In the summer of 2004, the networks celebrated Bill Clinton’s memoir as a momentous…

President Obama's fiercest obstacles as chief executive are neither recalcitrant Republicans nor the increasing complexity and demands of the job; they are his ideology and his political allegiances. Newsweek sees it differently. In its latest issue, it laments: "The presidency has grown, and grown and grown, into the most powerful, most impossible job in the world. ... The issue is not Obama…

Every week, we receive more bad news about the American economy. Last week was no exception. The Fed began monetizing the national debt, while China's gross domestic product for the third quarter expanded 8.9 percent from the previous quarter, Dagong (the Chinese quasi-government ratings agency) downgraded the credit rating of the United States, and billionaire George Soros expanded his…

The election is over. If you're one of those odd people whose lives are totally consumed in politics, you can try re-engaging in real life again. Which means that I've caught up on the important things I missed during the election season. I'm watching Reba. Country queen Reba McEntire released a video with rural crooner Kenny Chesney this summer, which I got to see only in the wake of the…

Energy czar Carol Browner needs to go the way of disgraced green jobs czar Van Jones: under the bus and stripped of her unbridled power to destroy jobs and lives in the name of saving the planet. ASAP. One of the Beltway's most influential, entrenched and unaccountable left-wing radicals, Browner has now been called out twice by President Obama's own federal BP oil spill commission and…

If preliminary rumblings from the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform's upcoming report are accurate, I'm afraid the conservative agenda — though overwhelmingly victorious in last week's elections — might be against the ropes again, especially with GOP congressmen praising the report. Our astronomical deficits are the result not of low taxes, but of profligate spending. So…

At the recent Group of 20 (G 20) meeting, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner called upon the largest industrialized economies to get their current account balance — whether a surplus or a deficit — below 4 percent of their gross domestic product by 2015. Four countries have current account surpluses exceeding 4 percent: Saudi Arabia (6.7 percent), Germany (6.1 percent), China (4.7…

When it comes to the increasing sex, violence, and profanity in entertainment media, the social libertines are indifferent. They insist that children will hardly be warped or ruined by the media they consume. They chortle at the paranoia of Hollywood critics. Their mantra: If you don't like it, just turn the channel. But if the issue isn’t indecency, but instead, say, obesity – so many of…

The other day, I sat down to breakfast. It was a normal day. Five daily newspapers were laid out before me. As I went over the front pages, I downed orange juice and a bowl of oatmeal powdered with brown sugar and flaxseed. Then I went off to my library with the newspapers and a cup of coffee. By then, incidentally, I was revolted. The New York Times carried on its front page a perfectly…

Last weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., tried his hand at dissecting GOP foreign policy attitudes. I commend the senator for trying to come to grips with this vital question that is getting so little, if any, national discussion. As foreign events grow ever more threatening, the view of the now both culturally and congressionally dominant party — the GOP — becomes central to the range of…

Chalk up another Code Red Elmo moment for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. While Islamic terrorists groom suicide bombers starting in kindergarten, the grownups in charge of protecting America can't seem to reach an elementary level of competence. The "good" news: Hindsight-driven bureaucrats at DHS moved to ban high-risk cargo from Yemen and Somalia this week after a global air…