A few odds and ends on the education front: **As difficult as it might sometimes be to come to the defense of the Texas State Board of Education, I must do so in the case of the recent revision of the social studies standards, particularly as it pertains to the history textbooks. Yes, some of […]
Archives for April 2010
Patenting Life?
Recently a fairly obscure court decision caught my attention. A Federal judge in Manhattan struck down some of a company’s patents on genes linked to breast and ovarian cancers. This decision will no doubt revive the debate as to whether human genes, or any living thing for that matter, should be subject to patent protection. […]
A Regensburg Moment
The recent release of the book, Son of Hamas, by Mosab Hassan Yousef has caused quite a stir across the Middle East. Yousef is the son of the founder and leader of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, and in his book he discloses that he has served as one of the top spies for Israel’s […]
Fixing the Global Finance System
Every pundit, regardless of their qualifications, has an opinion on who is responsible for the worldwide financial meltdown of 2008 and how to fix the problem. The majority of these fixes involve two elements–more government regulation and the early detection and prevention of “systemic risk”. Each of these assume that there exists a mechanism by […]
The Tipping Point
At the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in September 1787, a Mrs. Powell anxiously awaited the results, and as Benjamin Franklin emerged from the convention, she asked him directly: “Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin responded, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it”. Well, after all […]