The New American articles from April 2005

The New American archives from April 2005

No Oscar for The Passion.(Letters To The Editor)(Letter to the Editor)
April 4, 2005... In your recent issue on the "Culture War in Hollywood" (March 21), you rightly deplore the fact that The Passion of The Christ did not get an Oscar, not even a nomination for a major Oscar award. You write, "The hostility of the cultural elites...

Law of the Sea.(Letters To The Editor)(Letter to the Editor)
April 4, 2005... I could not agree more with your article, "Sink the Law of the Sea Treaty!" (March 7), except for one glaring error. In the article, William Norman Grigg wrote, "When LOST was completed in 1982, the Reagan administration, confronted with...

Asian Central bankers meet as dollar swoons.(Insider Report)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... In late February, South Korea's central bank announced that it would diversify its foreign exchange reserves by moving out of the U.S. dollar and boosting its holdings in currencies like the Australian and Canadian dollar. The result, noted BBC...

Should U.S. recruit non-citizens?(Insider Report)
April 4, 2005... As the Roman Empire went into terminal decline, and fewer Roman citizens enlisted to fight the endless imperial wars, Roman rulers turned increasingly to the services of foreign mercenaries--ultimately, with disastrous results. Max Boot, a...

Bush caves in to World Court on death penalty.(Insider Report)(George W. Bush)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... Continuing a trend of caving in to international tribunals. President Bush issued an executive order on March 8 directing state courts to review dozens of death row cases involving Mexican nationals. The president's order came in response to a...

Singapore displaces U.S. as world hi-tech leader.(Insider Report)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... According to the "Network Readiness Index 2005," a report compiled by the Davos-based World Economic Forum, "Singapore has displaced the United States as the top economy in information technology competitiveness," reported Forbes on March 9....

Russia organizes "Putin youth".(Insider Report)(Nashi - new youth organization)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... "With President Putin's popularity in sharp decline, the Kremlin has set up a new Russian youth movement to ensure its control of the streets in the event of mass anti-government protests," reported the March 1 Daily Telegraph of London....

Attorney General thanks La Raza militants.(Insider Report)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... Alberto R. Gonzales, President Bush's newly confirmed replacement for John Ashcroft as U.S. attorney general, was partying with some comrades on March 8. "I... have this organization to thank for support of my nomination for attorney general,"...

Another portent of draft revival.(Insider Report)
April 4, 2005... "America's all-volunteer military simply cannot deploy and sustain enough troops to succeed in places like Iraq while still deterring threats elsewhere in the world," write Captain Philip Carter, U.S. Army (Ret.), and Paul Grastris in "The Case...

Lebanon's "liberator"?.(governance of Lebabon)
April 4, 2005... Walid Jumblatt is head of Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), a post he inherited from his father Kamal, who was awarded the Soviet Union's Lenin Peace Prize in 1972. Despite the fact that his father was assassinated in 1977 on orders...

Vermont town meetings debate the merits of the Iraq war.(snapshots)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... "My feeling about the Army National Guard is that I would expect them to stay here and guard us." While his 18-year-old son is serving with the National Guard in Iraq, Bill Gates of Bethel, Vermont, took part in his town's annual meeting....

Red Sox teased at White House.(snapshots)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... "So, what took you so long?" Recalling that it was 1918 when Boston last won the World Series, President George W. Bush hosted a March 2 victory celebration at the White House for the 2004 champions.

Spanish official applauds European Union takeover.(snapshots)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... "The member states have already relinquished control of... justice, liberty and security. Now the difficult part is approaching: the giving up of sovereignty in the dual areas of foreign affairs and defence.... We are witnessing the last...

Dutch Parliament member forced to live in hiding.(snapshots)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... "The people who threaten us are walking around free and we are the captives." Geert Wilders, who strongly criticized militant Muslim immigrants in the Netherlands in the wake of the murder of a famous filmmaker by a Moroccan, has received...

Evangelical leaders decide to combat global warming.(snapshots)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... "So why, if we're social tinkering to protect the sanctity of human life, ought we not be for a little tinkering to protect the environment?" Likening his own "conversion" to an "altar call," Rev. Rich Cizik, vice president of governmental...

Pro-life clout grows in Congress.(snapshots)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... "It shows that the Congress is getting more in sync with the American people, who are less and less enamored with abortion on demand." After the Senate defeated a measure designed to punish abortion-clinic protestors, Senator Jeff Sessions...

Lawmaker notes that free trade pacts attack state powers.(snapshots)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... "It's not just gambling. The states are losing their authority in a lot of areas." After the WTO ruled that Utah could not ban Internet gambling because it impeded the rights of the small nation of Antigua and Barbados, Utah state Rep. Sheryl...

Environmental scientist attacks global warming hype.(snapshots)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... "Environmental organizations are doing their predictable routine, and garnering megabucks from gullible foundations, [aided by] the amen chorus of the New York Times, Washington Post, and even National Geographic and Scientific American. They...

Energy's future: the world need never run out of energy. In fact, technology and private enterprise are poised to bring us an abundance of energy--if government will just get out of the way.(Energy)(Cover Story)
April 4, 2005... It's hard to escape the conclusion that America faces a new, and perhaps serious, energy crisis. Home heating costs have risen dramatically, the price of gasoline at the pump is rising rapidly, and the price of crude oil is on the increase. The...

Behind the environmental lobby: it may seem stranger than fiction, but it's a documentable fact: the eco-socialist movement is financed by the super-rich as part of a comprehensive agenda for global control.(Environment)(Interview)
April 4, 2005... Homer Hickam was a 14-year-old living in a tiny West Virginia mining village called Coalwood when he learned that the Soviet Union had placed the Sputnik satellite into orbit. Like tens of millions of Americans, Hickam was at once inspired by...

Behind the green curtain.(Foundation Funding)
April 4, 2005... Just prior to the establishment of the federal income tax in 1913, a powerful network of tax-exempt foundations was established. While sold to the public as a way to "soak the rich," this arrangement actually uses the tax system to soak the...

Facing our fears: after much research, bestselling author Michael Crichton concluded that global warming is a fraud. His persuasive conclusions form the basis of his new novel, State of Fear.(State of Fear)(Book Review)
April 4, 2005... State of Fear, by Michael Crichton, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2004, 603 pages, hardcover. Michael Crichton is no stranger to the bestseller list. The father of the techno-thriller novel, he has scored numerous hits with such...

Court-ordered euthanasia: euthanasia advocates claim it is not a crime to kill as long as the victims cannot speak for themselves.(Right To Life)
April 4, 2005... Michael Schiavo married his wife, Terri, "until death do us part." Unfortunately, Michael wants to hurry that moment along. Normally, there would be outrage, not to mention criminal charges, against a husband who wanted to kill his wife. But...

Supreme arrogance: in one of its rulings, the Supreme Court has once again stepped beyond its legal bounds, ending capital punishment for people under 18 years old. Adding insult to injury, the court explicitly cited foreign sources in the main text of its decision.(Constitution Corner)
April 4, 2005... Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia is known for using some acerbic terms in his opinions, but his dissent in the 5-4 decision Roper v. Simmons, which purported to declare that the death penalty for anyone under 18 years of age is...

Students help teacher; community helps students.(The Goodness Of America)(Lima High School)(Operation Seaside)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... By late last year, the senior class at Montana's Lima High School had accumulated $5,000 in the class trip fund. They had been working and saving since eighth grade to travel to the beautiful coastal community of Seaside, Oregon. Since most of...

British tourist discovers goodness of Americans.(The Goodness OF America)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... Carol Birmingham is a native of Great Britain who visited America's most popular tourist destination, Orlando, Florida, last February. Deciding the Orlando area would be an ideal place for a vacation home, the 62-year-old woman brought along...

High school girl thwarts bicycle robbers.(The Goodness Of America)
April 4, 2005... Late last year, Alise Aurigemma, a 16year-old high school junior from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, missed her ride home from school and decided to walk to the nearby home of a friend. While walking along, she saw two boys she recognized from Fort...

Curing the Continental Army's IIIs: Declaration of Independence signer, noted physician, teacher, and political writer Benjamin Rush led the reform of many medical problems in the Continental Army.(History--Greatness Of The Founders)
April 4, 2005... Wartime hospitals are rarely the epitome of cleanliness and organization. The popular TV show M.A.S.H. fairly accurately depicted a Korean War field hospital where a group of doctors never got enough sleep, never had enough supplies, and never...

He got what's coming.(James Rosebush)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... Just after 1 a.m. on February 16, 84-year-old Robert Birthwhistle of Mishawaka, Indiana, heard what sounded like someone kicking his front door. Retrieving his revolver, he went to investigate. When he saw a thug battering his door, he warned...

Once is enough.(elders victimized)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... When a man tried to victimize a Harrison, Michigan, couple who were in their 60s for a second time, one victim fought back. On Friday, February 4 at about 7 p.m., a man showed up at the victims' house and asked to use the couple's phone....

Carnival cahoots.(teenage armed robbers)
April 4, 2005... During Carnival in New Orleans, a celebration that lasts from January 6 until "Fat Tuesday" (also called Mardi Gras), the day before Ash Wednesday, two teenagers went on an armed robbery spree until they were stopped by one intended victim. ...

Wrong house.(Exercising The Right)(Malika Leverette resort to a gun for defense)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... According to the Chronicle of Houston, a Missouri City, Texas, woman named Malika Leverette needed to resort to a gun for defense. At 3 a.m. on December 30, two men in their 20s pushed inside Leverette's house and wanted to know where...

The Fed & Alan Greenspan.(Correction, Please!)(Correction Notice)
April 4, 2005... ITEM: Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, say Charles Zwick and Peter Lewis in the Miami Herald for February 28, is "conflicted." The writers, the director and assistant director of the Bureau of the Budget in the Johnson administration,...

Obstructionists at work.(Correction, Please!)(appointment of William G. Myers III)(Brief Article)(Correction Notice)
April 4, 2005... ITEM: "Judicial Picks Remain Divisive in Senate," said the Washington Post subhead to a March 1 wire-service account. That Associated Press lead began: "President Bush's decision to recycle the name of a previously rejected federal judgeship...

China's textile tsunami & the WTO.(The Last Word)(World Trade Organization)
April 4, 2005... America's economy is coming apart at the seams. Our "twin deficits"--budget and trade--are unraveling the fabric of the economic miracle that was the American free enterprise system. They are also destroying critical defense industries that are...

Nanothechnology.(LETTERS TO THE EDITOR)(Letter to the Editor)
April 18, 2005... Although I appreciated Mr. Dennis Behreandt's article, "Energy's Future" (THE NEW AMERICAN, April 4), he missed perhaps the most significant technological hope--nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is about creating wondrous materials at the...

Meaning of "conservative".(LETTERS TO THE EDITOR)(Letter to the Editor)
April 18, 2005... In "10 Fallacies and Rebuttals" (re: FTAA) by William Norman Grigg in the February 7 issue of THE NEW AMERICAN, Mr. Grigg makes the same mistake most people do when they use the word "conservative" by itself to describe the group of people with...

Social Security.(LETTERS TO THE EDITOR)(Letter to the Editor)
April 18, 2005... Regarding Thomas R. Eddlem's February 21 article "Weighing Benefits," even if we ignore the success of other countries that have privatized this remnant of paternalist government, we need look no further than the Texas coast for an example of...

Campaign finance reform conspiracy.(INSIDER REPORT)
April 18, 2005... "I'm going to tell you a story that I've never told any reporter," stated Sean Treglia, a former program officer of the Pew Charitable Trusts, during a March 2004 conference at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of...

Petro-Marxism in Venezuela.(INSIDER REPORT)(appointments)(Petroleos De Venezuela SA)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... In early March, Felix Rodriguez was appointed president of Citgo, the largest subsidiary of Petroleos De Venezuela SA, Venezuela's state-owned oil corporation. Rodriguez, a left-wing "populist," is a close ally of the country's Marxist ruler,...

Time to go for the WTO.(INSIDER REPORT)(World Trade Organization)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... As we have shown in the past, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is an entity that was created under the guise of promoting free trade internationally, but which in actuality is a group of foreign bureaucrats who regulate trade. (See "The WTO...

No Gun? Use a spear.(INSIDER REPORT)
April 18, 2005... In South Africa, violent crime has been increasing dramatically since the Communist-controlled African National Congress came to power, and now it is raging. A Reuters news story on March 17 estimates that individuals now have a "one in 60...

Feminist politics at work.(INSIDER REPORT)
April 18, 2005... When accused rapist Brian Nichols was unhandcuffed for his arraignment in Atlanta's Fulton County Superior Court, he over-powered his solitary guard and seized the officer's firearm. While making his escape, Nichols allegedly killed four...

More on the SPLC.(hate group home)(Southern Poverty Law Center)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... "After years of fighting to clear its name, a small Kansas town [has finally been] taken off a list of hate group homes," noted a March 21 wire service report. The town of 2,500 "was once named as a home of Ku Klux Klan members. Until now many...

While lamenting recruiting problems, Army Secretary says no to a draft.(snapshots)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... "The 'd' word is the farthest thing from my mind.... We're going to appeal to patriotism." Missing the Army's recruiting target by 27 percent, Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey admitted the failure of the U.S. Army to reach its goals, but...

Exiled from Russia, he blasts Putin.(snapshots)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... "The situation in Russia today I would describe as Stalinism. [President Vladimir Putin] enjoys the absolute power of one person, in that he uses the law enforcement system and the lack of a free press...." A former business associate of...

Syria's leader consolidates power.(snapshots)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... "If you're going to be a dictator, you're going to have to act like one. Bashar is learning that his father did things for a reason." After inheriting the presidency of Syria when his father died five years ago, Bashar al-Assad's moves to...

Key Congressman slams foreign influence at Supreme Court.(snapshots)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... "The American people have not consented to rule by foreign powers or tribunals, and have never authorized our courts to rely upon foreign judgments or pronouncements when interpreting either American statutory or constitutional provisions." ...

Author calls for U.S. to leave the United Nations.(snapshots)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... "There's only one solution to the problems of the UN: America must leave and form a new organization of democracies to try to deal with the problems we face together." The author of Inside the Asylum: Why the U.N. and Old Europe are Worse...

Anger at slow pace of arming commercial pilots.(snapshots)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... "We have an armed pilots program that's arming very few pilots." With fewer than 5,000 of the nation's 95,000 airline pilots trained and deputized by the Transportation Security Administration to carry weapons aboard their aircraft, David...

Operating a barber shop can be dangerous in Baghdad.(snapshots)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... "One morning about three months ago, I came to the shop and found a handwritten note with a bullet." In southern Baghdad, a barber who gave his name only as Ahmad expressed anxiety about prohibitions against the shaving of beards and...

Outrageous statement from the past.(snapshots)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... "Honorable representatives of the great saurians of older creation, may you long enjoy your lilies and your rushes, and be blessed now and then with a mouthful of terror-stricken man." Sierra Club founder John Muir, whose image appears on...

Government's attack on the dollar: the government is weakening the value of the dollar through deficit spending, thereby passing on a huge hidden tax to American citizens.(ECONOMY)(Cover Story)
April 18, 2005... "The ol' dollar, it's gonna go down. I'm short on the dollar." So warned Bill Gates, reportedly the world's richest man, at the January 2005 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Describing the situation as "scary," he added, "We're in...

The evolution of money: the rules of money state that for money to have worth, it must be relatively scarce, which explains why today's dollar is so unstable.(ECONOMY)(Cover Story)
April 18, 2005... If correcting the problem of the nearly free-falling dollar is to be accomplished, there has to be a basic understanding of what money both is, and is not. There also has to be a realization that creating gobs of new money-unbacked by a...

Repackaging the IRS: behind its new customer-friendly facade, the IRS remains riddled with corruption and committed to prosecuting its "war" against taxpayers.(TAXES)
April 18, 2005... "If we owe you money, we'd like to get it to you," announced Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Mark W. Everson late last November. "All you have to do is tell us where you are." Everson's winsome invitation came amid a sudden explosion of...

Exporting American jobs & industry: CAFTA, a forerunner of an "EU of the Americas," trades away American jobs in the name of rewarding Latin American "democracies.".(CAFTA)(Central American Free Trade Agreement)(European Union)
April 18, 2005... Allen Johnson, chief agricultural negotiator for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, was enjoying his vacation in late February when he received a panicky call from the White House. The mid-year meeting of the National Association of...

Fallacies about the Schiavo case: the case for starving and dehydrating Terri Schiavo to death was built on hypocrisy and deception.(RIGHT TO LIFE)
April 18, 2005... The culture of death revealed its face in the propaganda campaign for Terri Schiavo's demise. Perhaps the most noteworthy fact of the entire ordeal, other than the killing of an innocent woman by starvation, was how thoroughly the American...

Service before self.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Airman Joshua Johnson helps a woman and her two-year-old son from a drowning car)
April 18, 2005... Last December, Airman Joshua Johnson, who is stationed at Kessler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, visited his hometown of Kellyville, Oklahoma, during Christmas leave. While there the 18-year-old airman went to Tulsa to visit his...

Plastic surgeon helps poor.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)
April 18, 2005... After Geoff Williams completed his medical training at the University of Utah, he went to Taiwan to specialize in cranio-facial medicine. While in Asia, he traveled to Vietnam and India to perform facial reconstructive surgery on children. Dr....

Exemplary citizens.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(public-spirited citizens awards)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... Each year the Ashville, North Carolina, police department holds an annual awards banquet to honor individuals for various achievements. Citizens who have demonstrated exceptional qualities are given the "Exemplary Citizen" award. The department...

Fiery "lover of country": a man of explosive temperament, South Carolina's Christopher Gadsden willingly endured solitary confinement rather than forsake the cause of American independence.(HISTORY--GREATNESS OF THE FOUNDERS)(Biography)
April 18, 2005... The South Carolina legislature elected 58-year-old Christopher Gadsden governor on January 18, 1782, but South Carolina's leading patriot rose to the podium to decline the honor: My sentiments of the American cause, from the Stamp...

Planting an idea.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... A 75-year-old Bozrah, Connecticut, man demonstrated the crime-deterrent effect guns have in the hands of law-abiding citizens in an incident on Sunday, February 27. James Dunn, a retired Navy man, said that on that night a stranger came to...

Former farmhand.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Georgia Sullivan shoots an intruder entering her house)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... A woman from Clinton, Louisiana, who was awakened by the sound of her dogs barking before dawn on the morning of Wednesday, March 9, retrieved a gun and shot an intruder who was in her house. Upon waking that morning, Georgia Sullivan, the...

Slow-motion justice.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... According to a January 29 article in the Post-Gazette of Pittsburgh, a man who was wounded by a homeowner earlier in the week was captured because of the wound he sustained. On the night of Tuesday, January 25, Jim Baer of Derry Township...

Loose knots.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... In Chelsea, Alabama, a city of about 5,000 without a police department, violent crime is a rarity, but it happened on Sunday, February 27. At about 2 a.m., Kerry Standridge and his wife were awakened by the sound of breaking glass and were...

Lackluster advice.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(Theresa Gesell of Oklahoma City captures the robber who robbed her 83-year-old mother)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... Ignoring a police dispatcher's advice that she not get her gun and pursue a man who had just robbed her 83-year-old mother, Theresa Gesell of Oklahoma City managed to capture the robber. The robber, Roger Campbell, apparently followed...

Setback for energy foes.(CORRECTION, PLEASE!)(Correction Notice)
April 18, 2005... ITEM: After the Senate voted to permit drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), London's Guardian for March 18 reported: "Alaska's wilderness is a place of frozen tundra, calving caribou, wolves, polar bears, millions of...

Post editor flatters China.(CORRECTION PLEASE!)(Washington Post managing editor Philip Bennett)(Interview)
April 18, 2005... ITEM: Washington Post managing editor Philip Bennett, in an extended interview with the Communist Chinese newspaper People's Daily published on March 10, had much more praise for the regime in Beijing than he did for the United States. ...

Oklahoma City--a decade later.(THE LAST WORD)
April 18, 2005... Before 9/11 there was Oklahoma City. Before the name of Osama bin Laden entered public discourse there was Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh was executed on June 11, 2001 for his role in the April 19, 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building. ...