The Kensington Review

5 August 2005

Latest Commentary: Volume IV, Number 93
Subway Bag Searches are Constitutional but Stupid -- The New York Civil Liberties Union, an affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, filed suit in court yesterday against the random bag searches recently undertaken on the New York City subway system. The group contends that the policy of having cops randomly search the parcels and purses of subway riders (those who refuse are denied entry to the system) is unconstitutional. They are wrong; the searches are within the confines of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, but they are outside the bounds of strategic reason. Indeed, they enhance rather than dispel danger.

Mauritanian Coup Pokes Holes in Bush’s Foreign Policy -- A dictator of a Muslim country in western Africa was deposed earlier this week, and the junta that ousted him has promised to hold democratic elections within two years. Based on this evidence, President Bush might claim that his policy of fostering democracy in the Muslim world is working. Instead, his administration has called for a return of the dictator. Macedonia had Alexander the Great, Russia had Ivan the Terrible, and America now has George the Confused.

US 30-Year Bond is Back -- The US Treasury announced earlier this week that it would begin to sell 30-year bonds again starting in the first part of 2006, and to offer $44 billion of 30-year bonds in next week’s refunding. The “long bond” had been a major benchmark in the debt markets for years, and then, thanks to budget surpluses, the US government quit selling them in October 2001. The return of the long bond has cheered some on Wall Street, but to economic patriots, this is unadulterated bad news.

North Dakota Man Wins Bad Writing Prize -- Coming hot on the heels of last month’s Stupidity Awards, the literary world recognized the worst in writing this week with the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. The Department of English and Comparative Literature at San Jose State University awards this every year to commemorate the awfulness of Paul Clifford by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton. This year’s top prize went to Dan McKay of Fargo, North Dakota, for comparing a woman’s form to the inside of a car engine.

© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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