Think Tank West

Scott Holleran at Box Office Mojo is all over the Atlas Shrugged movie project. A few days ago he talked to Michael Burns, vice chairman of Lionsgate, the studio that is planning to make the film. He confirmed that Angelina Jolie will star as Dagny Taggart. Burns says John Galt should not be played by [...]

Filed under: American Domestic Policy, American Foreign Policy by
No Comments »

The Ugandan government has arrested Andrew Mwenda, a member of the 2008 International Selection Committee for the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, along with his fellow journalists Odobo Bichachi and John Njoroge. Andrew Mwenda is a brave journalist who tells it like he sees it. He is well known for standing up for the [...]

Filed under: American Domestic Policy, American Foreign Policy by
No Comments »

What do they have in common? Apparently, buying and selling indulgences. A piece in Slate, How To Spot a Persian Prostitute: Streetwalkers in chadors, by Juliet Lapidos, informs us: The penalties for prostitution [in Iran] are severe—ranging from whipping to execution. But there’s a loophole in Islamic law called sigheh, or temporary marriage. According to [...]

Filed under: American Domestic Policy, American Foreign Policy by
No Comments »

Matt Yglesias points to an article in Sunday’s Washington Post by economist Robert Frank that makes a strong case for school choice. Well, OK, he doesn’t explicitly talk about school choice, but he certainly does a good job explaining the problems caused by the absence of choice: In the 1950s, as now, families tried to [...]

Filed under: American Domestic Policy, American Foreign Policy by
No Comments »

The 2008 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty has been awarded to Yon Goicoechea. Goicoechea was a key leader of the Venezuelan student movement that ralled the country to vote down Hugo Chavez’s referendum on a constitutional change that would have turned Venezuela into a socialist dictatorship. More on Yon here, as well as information [...]

Filed under: American Domestic Policy, American Foreign Policy by
No Comments »

I’m sorry to bring bad tidings so close to the weekend, but apparently House and Senate conferees have reached agreement [$] on the broad outlines of a Farm Bill. We will have to wait until Monday to get the full, disgusting details but broadly, we know this about the proposed bill: it will raise the [...]

Filed under: American Domestic Policy, American Foreign Policy by
No Comments »

A National Conference of State Legislatures report released today is sparking gloom-and-doom headlines about states in fiscal crises. Conspicuously absent from the news stories is any mention of the root cause of the “shortfalls” supposedly wrecking havoc in state capitols.  Over the last few years, state lawmakers forgot the lessons of the 1990s, and decided [...]

Filed under: American Domestic Policy, American Foreign Policy by
No Comments »

Peggy Noonan has a column in today’s WSJ in which she reports having given a speech in Lubbock, Texas that was tough on the current president and of the attendees at the talk “no one–not one–defended or disagreed.” She closes this way: I finally understand the party nostalgia for Reagan. Everyone speaks of him now, [...]

Filed under: American Domestic Policy, American Foreign Policy by
No Comments »

Dana Milbank, who reports on Washington as a visitor might report on the monkey house at a zoo, attended Doug Feith’s talk about his new book at CSIS last night and reports on the results. His title? “Iraq War Is Everyone Else’s Fault, Feith Explains.” I’m no Milbank partisan, but when he’s on, he’s on.

Filed under: American Domestic Policy, American Foreign Policy by
No Comments »

Bill Dunkelberg, a professor of economics at Temple University and former dean of the Fox school of business there, periodically issues random thoughts on public policy as it relates to his arena of academic interest. His April 24 “Notes on the Economy” includes this gem regarding that Great Economic Satan, Exxon Mobil: Some presidential candidates [...]

Filed under: American Domestic Policy, American Foreign Policy by
No Comments »