Latest Articles

'Clunkers' was a classic government folly

September 1, 2010  •  The Boston Globe

IN THE MARKET for a used car? Good luck finding a bargain: The price of "pre-owned" vehicles has climbed considerably over the past year. According to Edmunds.com, a website for car-buyers, a 3-year-old automobile today will set you back, on average, close to $20,000 -- a spike of more than 10 percent since last summer. For some popular models, the increase has been much steeper. In July, a used Cadillac Escalade was going for around $35,000, or nearly 36 percent over last July's price.

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Let the private sector fund stem-cell research

August 29, 2010  •  The Boston Globe

JAMES THOMSON, an embryologist at the University of Wisconsin, cultivated the first embryonic stem cell lines in 1998. By then the prohibition on using federal funds for scientific research in which human embryos are destroyed was already on the books: President Bill Clinton had signed it into law nearly three years earlier. So how did Thomson secure a government grant to finance his landmark achievement?

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Lifting the embargo would entrench Cuba's rulers

August 25, 2010  •  The Boston Globe

The New York Times reported last week that the Obama administration intends to expand opportunities for Americans to visit Cuba, loosening the rules under which academic, religious, and cultural groups are allowed to travel there. The new regulations are seen as a signal of presidential support for legislation sponsored by US Representative Collin Peterson of Minnesota that would repeal the travel limitations altogether.

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Lighten up, Mr. President

August 22, 2010  •  The Boston Globe

DEAR PRESIDENT OBAMA,

Welcome back to Massachusetts. Your press secretary said last week that that you were returning to Martha's Vineyard, where you vacationed last year, for "some hiking, some time at the beach, some time at the ice cream store -- all the sort of things you do when you're at Martha's Vineyard." Sounds idyllic. I hope you and your family are having fun.

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The 'disengagement' disaster, five years on

August 18, 2010  •  The Boston Globe

FIVE YEARS AGO THIS WEEK, the Gaza Strip was forcibly purged of its Jews. In the largest non-combat operation in the history of the Israeli Defense Forces, 50,000 troops were deployed to expel some 9,000 residents and destroy the 21 pioneering communities in which some of them had lived for nearly four decades. (Four communities in northern Samaria on the West Bank were also evacuated.)

The name given to this expulsion by Israel's government, then headed by Ariel Sharon, was "disengagement." The name implied, and a majority of Israelis appeared to believe, that by totally withdrawing from Gaza they would no longer be trapped in a dysfunctional relationship with Gaza's hostile and sometimes violent Arabs.

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