
 |
|
May 20, 2013
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Sept. 5, 2006
/ 12 Elul 5766
Musings, random and otherwise
By
Jeff Jacoby
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
If you were one of the journalists kidnapped in Gaza last month and ordered at
gunpoint to become a Muslim, what would you have done? Fox News reporter Steve
Centanni and photographer Olaf Wiig announced their acceptance of Islam on a
videotape released by their kidnappers "because they had the guns," Centanni
later said, "and we didn't know what the hell was going on."
Whether their acquiescence was an act of cowardice or of prudence, reasonable people
can debate. Clearly it wasn't their only choice. If I were ever told, with a gun to
my head, to recite the shahada or die, I hope I would have the courage to take the
bullet.
And I hope I would remember the example not of Centanni and Wiig, but of Fabrizio
Quattrocchi, an Italian security guard taken hostage in Iraq in 2004. Quattrocchi's
jihadi captors, intending to make a video of an infidel's craven death, ordered him
to kneel beside an open grave with a hood on his head. Defiantly, he stood up,
tried to rip off the hood, and shouted, "I will show you how an Italian dies!"
They murdered him an instant later, but he died bravely, on his feet, refusing with
his last breath to be humiliated by savages.
Whenever disaster strikes, some sage invariably declares that the devastation is
actually good news, since the money spent on rebuilding will give a boost to the
economy.
Last week that hoary economic fallacy showed up in, of all places, The
Economist. In a report marking Katrina's first anniversary, the magazine
discerned a "silver lining" in the storm's massive damage: "There are
plenty of jobs in New Orleans these days."
That recalled USA Today's headline after Florida's terrible run of
hurricanes in 2004: "Economic growth from hurricanes could outweigh
costs." The story quoted an economist who acknowledged the "real
pain" caused by the destruction. "But from an economic point of view
it is a plus," he said. In 2001, Paul Krugman had said much the same
thing about 9/11: "Ghastly as it may seem to say this, the terror
attack . . . could even do some economic good," he wrote.
This is like calling it an economic "plus" when your car is totaled,
since you now have to spend thousands of dollars to buy a new one. But
of course that's illogical the car dealer's gain is negated by your
loss. If your car hadn't been wrecked, you would have spent that money
on something else a sale that some other vendor will now be denied.
Similarly, the billions spent to clean up and rebuild after a Katrina or
a 9/11 represent not a net gain, but a net loss. But for the disaster,
those billions could have been channeled to more productive uses.
Instead they must be spent merely to regain lost ground.
"Traffic congestion is choking our cities, hurting our economy, and
reducing our quality of life," begins a new report from the Reason
Foundation, the respected libertarian think tank. Rush-hour gridlock
paralyzes 39,500 lane-miles of roadway each year, eating up $63 billion
in lost time and fuel. But much worse is to come.
By 2030, the number of severely congested lane-miles will reach nearly
60,000 per year, an increase of more than 50 percent. Commuters in the
largest metropolitan areas will spend 65 percent more time in traffic
than they do now. Within 25 years, at least a dozen major cities will be
choked with travel delays worse than in today's Los Angeles, which is
notorious for having the worst traffic congestion in America.
The solution is the obvious one: Build more highways, and manage them
more intelligently. "The old canard 'we can't build our way out of
congestion' is not true," the authors write. They estimate that 104,000
new lane-miles will be needed by 2030, at a cost of about $21 billion a
year, much of which could be raised through electronic tolling. The
return on that investment would be a stunning 7.7 billion fewer hours
spent in traffic each year, along with all the wealth and freedom those
time savings would generate.
All this is heresy, of course, to the car-haters and PC nannies who are forever
lecturing us to quit driving and use mass transit. But we are overwhelmingly a
nation of drivers; the real "mass transit" is the traffic on our highways. If the
highways don't grow to keep up with that traffic, the strangulating misery of
gridlock will only get worse.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Jeff Jacoby is a Boston Globe columnist. Comment by clicking here.
Jeff Jacoby Archives
© 2006, Boston Globe
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|