Archive for the 'Big Brother' Category

They Became Responsive

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

Nevada’s university regents jumped at the chance when millionaire TV station owner Jim Rogers said he was willing to serve as chancellor of the state university system on an interim basis, a few years back, for little or not pay. After all, Mr. Rogers has proven more than capable of helping colleges and universities in […]

How They Make It Disappear

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

April 15 is not “tax day.” It’s “tax filing” day. It’s not a new observation that, If this were a day when Americans were required to hand over in one lump sum a personal income tax applied to their wages and other gains of the previous calendar year, some form of revolution would not be […]

To serve mankind

Monday, April 14th, 2008

Over the past six years, Nevada’s U.S. senators, Harry Reid and John Ensign, have successfully pushed public lands bills which facilitated the sale of tens of thousands of acres formerly managed by the federal government in Clark, Lincoln and White Pine counties — basically, southeastern Nevada. Although the federal government could show no title for […]

Time To Revisit The Endangered Species Act

Monday, March 31st, 2008

By altering procedures and policies over the past several years, Bush administration officials have made it substantially more difficult to designate domestic animals and plants for protection under the Endangered Species Act. President Bush’s appointees have “rejected or moved slowly on petitions to list imperiled plants and animals under the 35-year-old law,” The Washington Post […]

When is money too clean to be laundered?

Monday, March 17th, 2008

It’s a long-established tradition of meddlesome governments, seeking to outlaw behaviors which — unlike robbery and assault — produce no “victim” anxious to cooperate with authorities: When the first unenforceable law doesn’t work, ban another activity, previously considered innocuous, to help enforce the first. When authorities developed radar guns to enhance “speeding ticket” revenues from […]

When they turn off the last non-cable will there still be an FCC?

Thursday, March 6th, 2008

NOTE: This is a column about naughty words. A local Las Vegas eatery called Paymon’s Cafe, specializing in Middle Eastern cuisine, serves its own version of the popular peach-flavored concoction generally known as the Fuzzy Navel, but dubbing it the “Genie’s Navel” — a reference that may soar over the heads of younger diners. From […]

Another workers’ paradise, ready for the dumpster

Monday, February 25th, 2008

Word that ailing Cuban dictator, “president” Fidel Castro, has decided to step aside and turn over the reins of power to his younger brother (how democratic!) appears to be evoking some predictable nostalgia from America’s political left, which holds that Cuba is an economic basket case only because the United States viciously allows the island […]

Light Up, Get Fat – It’s The Patriotic Thing To Do

Friday, February 8th, 2008

In their private lives — what today we would call “lifestyle choices” — there’s a tradition in America and particularly here in the West to let our neighbors alone, in hopes of being let alone, ourselves. An imperfect tradition, but one in which we continue to make progress. One of the great exceptions is in […]

Governing on Shoestrings

Sunday, January 27th, 2008

A reader writes in: In response to a recent editorial, entitled ‘Higher gasoline taxes?’ that stated that because ‘family paychecks barely cover basics, the money [needed to repair our country’s crumbing infrastructure should come from] somewhere else.’ What could this ‘somewhere else’ be? … Is the Review-Journal advocating higher Federal income taxes, or a new […]

The crime? Entrepreneurship without a license

Thursday, January 24th, 2008

Three years ago, Mary Jo Pletz of Walnutport, Pennsylvania — about 70 miles north of Philadelphia — learned her 6-month-old daughter had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. To care for her child, Mrs. Pletz, 33, had to give up her job as a dental hygienist and look for some kind of home-based employment that […]