The following is a summary of the June 2009 issue of the St. Croix Review:
In "Hard Measures," Barry MacDonald considers whether the harsh measures the Bush administration used to interrogate the captured, elite al Qaeda worked and concludes that the methods succeeded.
In "Journalistic Cupidity," Herbert London documents a "consistently worshipful tone" the press has taken to President Obama; in "Human Rights and Free Speech," he reports that the Human Rights Council of the UN has voted in favor of a resolution to protect Islam from criticism; in "What's Good for the Goose Isn't Good for the Gander," he writes that it is time for Westerners to expect the same tolerance from Muslims that they demand from us; in "Atlas Ready to Shrug," he shows two events in which Obama has taken unconstitutional and unprecedented powers over the private sector; in "Post-Racial America?" he asks: Why should we be so obsessed with the President's race?
In "Reflections on Visiting a U.S. Military Cemetery Abroad: The /Uniqueness of America and the Dangers of Going to War Precipitously," Allan Brownfeld draws on American history to make the case for a careful foreign policy; in "Are There Any Limits on Rewarding Bad Behavior?" he shows how our free enterprise system depends on the chastening and educational effects of failure.
Mark Hendrickson, in "FDR: Then and Now," details the similarities between FDR's disastrous New Deal policies and Barack Obama's; in "The Ghost of John Maynard Keynes," he shows how the "defunct" British economist's free-spending theories are harming our economy; in "Into the Fiscal Abyss," he writes that U.S. Government's financial liabilities are $65 trillion. Instead of facing reality Obama proposes a huge increase in spending -- with no credible plan to pay for it; in "Anger at AIG," he writes that while AIG deserves blame for causing much of the economic crisis, politicians are just as blameworthy, and they are using bonus recipients as scapegoats.
Dan Miller, in "2009 International Conference on Climate Change," provides an overview of the events that took place in March 2009 at the conference dedicated to countering global warming alarmism.
Joseph L. Bast, in "Opening Remarks: 2009 International Conference on Climate Change," uses an opinion poll of scientists to show that there is no consensus supporting the need for drastic measures.
John H. Sununu, in "The Politics of Global Warming," compares today's alarmists with those of 1960s and 1970s and finds them using the same methods, even though the focus was different: earlier it was a looming ice age, depletion of natural resources, and mass starvation that caused hysteria. John Sununu gives a concise statement of what present science can and cannot determine about the climate; and he plots a course of action for how we should deal with the alarmists.
In "Climate Alarm: What We Are Up Against, and What to Do," Richard Lindzen shows how global warming alarmism has always been a political movement (it is well organized and powerful), but he is confident that the alarmists will be defeated because they are wrong.
Kesten Green, Scott Armstrong, and Willie Soon look at the faulty climate forecasts that warming alarmists rely on in "Climate Change Forecasts Are Useless for Policymaking."
In "Country Writing," Jigs Gardner writes about his and his wife's many years experience writing essays for practical and realistic magazines devoted to life in the country. But presently writing on the countryside has become ideological and childish, a consequence of left-wing fantasies.
In "The Political Economy of the Obama Administration," Murray Weidenbaum considers whether the huge stimulus bill passed in February will stimulate the economy, whether the Bush and Obama administrations have been effective in fixing the financial markets, and whether congressional regulators have fallen down on the job.
In "China's Calculated Currency," an installment of the "Geopolitical Diary," published by Stratfor Global Intelligence, the writer believes that the U.S. is in no danger of a massive sale by China of its holdings of U.S. T-bills, and that the dollar cannot be replaced as the global reserve currency.