In its July 3 issue, World Magazine's "2010 Book of the Year" is Arthur C. Miller's The Battle , "How the Fight Between Free Enterprise and Big Government will Shape America's Future." As the U.S. economy sags, the book by Miller (the new CEO of American Enterprise Institute) is a timely and telling--and ultimately inspiring--critique of current challenges.

We're pleased also to see that World gives three "Honorable Mentions" to books by Discovery Institute fellows: William Dembski's The End of Christianity, Stephen C. Meyer's Signature in the Cell, and Jay Richards' Money, Greed and God.

The new Health Care Bill defies clear understanding, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi hinted when she said we would have to wait until it was adopted to find out what's in it. In truth, though adopted now, it is still opaque.

Here's an example. A helpful Capitol Hill staff analyst has assisted me as I try to comprehend all the taxes that are going to be raised by the Congress and Obama Administration. By now you know (I hope) that the top income tax rate for wage earners is going from 35 percent to 39.6 percent as of January 1, 2011. The capital gains tax goes up to 20 percent, the Estate Tax goes up to 55 percent (from zero percent this year). Pretty horrible if you think that economic recovery requires private sector incentives to invest in new businesses and jobs.

But another downward pressure on growth is uncertainty, including the sheer complexity of the tax code.

Note that Obamacare now adds new surcharges on "high income" earners and investors at the beginning of the following year (2012). But the process is so byzantine that it definitely will confuse many and frustrate everyone, even accountants, as they seek to comply. See if you can follow.

By Yuri Mamchur

An American friend wrote to me about the current Russian spy scandal in America: "Not good PR for you and [your friend] if he decides to go to Harvard... this is all hilarious... I'm loving all the coverage of a bunch of Russians getting paid to befriend Americans. I wish the U.S. had a program like this, I'd totally do this! Can you imagine?! I'd get my rent and tuition paid just to blurt out stuff that you can automatically look up (in even more depth) on the internet."

This ordinary American summed it all up in the brief four lines: this is funny, embarrassing, wasteful, and - most importantly - hurtful to many Russians like me--to those who honestly fight through American immigration hurdles, challenge the financial crisis to earn income, pass application tests and study hard to get American college and graduate degrees, make new life-long friends, fall in love with America's culture and natural beauty, and by default share their knowledge (and income) with Russian and American friends, families, businesses, and government agencies.

The idea apparently traces originally to Ralph Harris of the conservative Institute for Economic Analysis in London, according to Charles Moore in this morning's London Telegraph, but it has received most of its publicity from Nick Clegg, Liberal Party leader and Deputy Prime Minister in the new Conservative/Liberal coalition government in the UK. In any case the Great Repeal Bill that Clegg proposes invites all citizens to suggest laws and programs whose elimination would represent progress for the realm. Thousands of bad laws were passed under Labour, says Clegg, and "it is our liberty that has paid the price."

One suspects that Labour wasn't the only responsible party, but never mind.

It is proving to be a popular cause, as ordinary citizens seek vengeance on plush government job sinecures, spendthrift do-gooding, pushy bureaucrats, invasive and time wasting regulations and unnecessarily protracted government processes that succeed mostly in driving people bats.

We need a similar initiative in the US of A. Start with the various follies coming to light in the new 2,000 page health care act.

It's a suitable pledge for tomorrow's celebration of our nation's birth.

The New York Time's Michael Powell has a disturbing story about the fiscal bind of the State of Illinois, where bills the state owes to its agencies, such as universities, and to private contractors, such as funeral directors who bury the indigent, are many months behind. The State's collapse is damaging the private economy and exacerbating the already high (11 percent) unemployment rate.

The policy under the Democrats has not been "tax and spend," but even worse, "borrow and spend." Today, the state deficit is $12 billion, equal to about half the state budget.

California, New York and other states are in bad trouble, too, but Illinois may be closest to the brink. If it goes over, it could trigger other defaults and help drag down the economy of the country.

I blogged twice last month about the plans of Iran and its client in Lebanon, Hezbollah, to provoke the Israelis by sending "aid ships" against the blockade of Gaza.

It turns out that Iran thought better of it. This would be a bad time to confront the Israelis. They are still more powerful than their enemies. (Hat tip to Michael Ledeen.)

The failure of the US House of Representatives, under Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to write a long range budget plan "makes no sense" according to Kent Conrad, the Democratic senator responsible for managing a budget plan in the "Upper House". Thus, David Broder, the venerable Washington Post columnist (I was interviewed by him first in 1962!), points out the irresponsible attitude of the House majority in dealing with the spending issue--regarded by American voters as the most important facing the country.

Do Democrats, with a huge majority in the House, actually think their record will stand scrutiny this fall?

Says Broder, "Of all the times for Congress to abandon its responsibility for long-term fiscal planning, this is the worst."

At the (George) Gilder Telecosm Forum we learn that Evogene, Ltd. (TASE:EVGN), a genetic engineering company, claims that its Israeli castor oil plant-based biofuel product is suitable in composition and chemistry as a raw material for producing bio-jet fuel. Evogene's US subsidiary is collaborating with NASA on to create jet fuel from plant oils.

The tests of the product were conducted by Honeywell International Inc.Co. (NYSE: HON) petrochemical and refining unit UOP LLC, which is now developing a range of biofuels for various uses.

Writes GEORGE GILDER,

"I am suspicious of any green energy breakthrough that depends for its appeal on low emissions of "greenhouse gasses." But Evogene is significant as an existence proof for the value of Compugen (CGEN) in silico platforms for drug discovery.

"In Israel [last week], one of the most impressive public companies I saw
(among 12 private companies) was CGEN, where my host Jeffrey Grossman introduced me to the management. In the last year they have launched four further platforms,
the last two in March and April of 2010. Martin Gerstel has reportedly gone euphoric on the company's prospects, talking of not 10X but orders of magnitude larger potential beyond 10X and predicting that half of all the future pharmaceuticals in the industry will be based on his silicon genetic models and platforms.

Current support for raising income taxes on all people making $200,000 and more typically confuses that category of people with "the rich". Yachts and mansions are visualized, and if one is a bit more sophisticated, one imagines trust funds and the ability to hire lawyers and lobbyists to look after the rich person's business breaks. But in the real world folks with yachts and mansions--the truly rich--are not much bothered by the income tax for the simple reason that their money seldom rests on salaries; the truly rich are far beyond that.

But the people trying to become rich--the strivers we need to generate new businesses and jobs--are hit hard.

Surely one should not have a moral position on the rich. It's not morally bad to be rich any more than it is to be middle class or poor. It's also not morally good to be rich. It all depends, doesn't it, on how one uses his resources.

Unfortunately, while the income tax tends to hit strivers hard (and will hit them much harder come January, 2011), it still affords great advantages, such as tax breaks and incentives that are "subsidies for the reckless rich," as Ross Douthat writes today in The New York Times.

David Klinghoffer has an excellent article in the Jewish Daily Forward. However, I can't imagine who his "ardently pro-Israel, Catholic friend" is.

Jay Ambrose of Scripps Howard newspapers describes the experiences of do-gooding in Africa and the lesson learned: people don't appreciate what they are given nearly as much as what they have earned or purchased with their own money.

The current economy in the United States is testimony to the folly of giveaways.

George Gilder, cited in the article, reminds us that the entrepreneur is often more altruistic than the philanthropist, let alone the government official.

Tom Alberg, who helped found Discovery Institute in 1990 and was president of its Board for many years (and still serves as a Director), is one of the most innovative entrepreneurs around. He knows the importance of pro-growth economic policies and is keenly aware of the dangers of the present moment. So it is with delight that I note that he has been appointed by President Obama to the prestigious new National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The Council will operate under Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, former governor of Washington State.

Alberg is a lawyer by background, who served as Sr. Vice President at McCaw Cellular when it was sold to AT&T. He was an early investor in Amazon and a founding principal in Madrona Venture Group, the Seattle-based high tech investment house. He also is responsible for Novelty Hill winery and several other original-ideas-taken-concrete-shape. Many of his business projects, such as Oxbow, a model farm in the Snoqualmie Valley east of Seattle, combine philanthropic vision with business purposes-- as for example, a teaching program for schoolchildren visiting Oxbow Farm.

Tom has a talent for innovation, appreciates talent and promotes talent. He's an unusually enlightened and resourceful businessman. Good for President Obama for recognizing this, and here's hoping the President listens to his appointee's advice on his Advisory Council.

Among the other members of the Council announced yesterday are Steve Case, co-founder of AOL, Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo! and Carl Shramm, CEO of the Kauffman Foundation.

If you follow such things, you probably are aware that elite universities are fond of applicants who can pay the exorbitant tuition fees to attend--some $55,000 and up. Full-paying customers and the endowments of grateful alumni together make possible free or subsidized tuition for poorer applicants. However, as they fill the balance of their student bodies with scholarship applicants, admission officers tend to favor minority groups of various kinds. They used to favor women over men, but, since women are now a majority on many campuses, that emphasis has relaxed.

So what categories of students are not favored? Are there some that actually are discriminated against? Well, as you might also suspect, those effectively pushed away at elite universities are the very kinds of cases the schools might have sought out a half century ago, such as Asians, poor white students and middle class white students from rural areas and small towns. If they are demonstrably Christian--which might be revealed by essays submitted by applicants, or from leadership roles the applicants report having held in Christian youth groups--that is often a minus. So is excelling at activities regarded at retrograde, or at least unfashionable by the colleges, such as 4-H or ROTC.

The latter folks, the squares, who are rejected by admissions offices at the Ivies and other elite institutions, may well wind up in military academies and less prestigious state schools. They may become generals, entrepreneurs and small businessmen, rather than college professors and lawyers.

Ross Douthat (a Harvard grad) has a column today daring to expose the matter publicly. He concludes, "If such universities are trying to create an elite as diverse as the nation it inhabits, they should remember that there's more to diversity than skin color -- and that both their school and their country might be better off if they admitted a few more R.O.T.C. cadets, and a few more aspiring farmers."

Meanwhile, a friend who counsels students seeking graduate school admission tells me that cautions them to remove from their applications references to religious participation or activities. Thus, a church mission to build an orphanage in Guatemala, for example, should be reported simply as a "humanitarian trip to Guatemala to build an orphanage." Tutoring disadvantaged youth under a church program should become merely "tutoring disadvantaged youth."

Bill Whittle enthuses over America's space program that thrilled him as a boy, but now is relegated to sclerotic, bureaucratic drift. Plainly, the current Administration is not much interested. The odd and exciting consequence, Whittle says in a Pajamas Media TV talk, is that the way has been cleared for private pioneers using their own money, "or money they can talk out of someone else." Paul Allen and Jeff Bezos are among the the new class of space explorers, like Lindbergh and Howard Hughes.

It is great that The New Republic , in an article called "Animal Spirits", has reviewed Wesley J. Smith's A Rat is a Pig is a Dog is a Boy, and even better that the reviewer credits Smith's reporting on the extremism of the animal rights movement. But the reviewer feels a need to condescend to Smith, upraiding him for failure to emphasize that a key demonstration of the exceptionalism of human beings is the understanding we have that humane care for animals is part of our stewardship of nature.

Reviewer Michael David suggests, "Though we have an obligation as the only moral creatures that care for the welfare of animals, Smith might also have discussed the inverse. Does mistreating animals diminish our humanity?"

The trouble is, Smith addressed this issue straight on right at the beginning of his book, even using almost the exact words--"diminishes our own humanity":

Writes Smith (on page 3), "I am very well aware that these positions--once nearly universally accepted--have, in recent years, become intensely controversial. Indeed, few issues generate such intense emotionalism or fervent support by its adherents as does "animal rights." Thus, I want to make it very clear at the outset--as I will throughout the book--that I love animals and like most people, I wince when I see them in pain. Moreover, I believe strongly that as enlightened people, we have a profound moral and ethical obligation to treat animals humanely and with proper respect--a core obligation of human exceptionalism--and by all means, to never cause them to suffer for frivolous reasons. I also strongly support laws against cruelty to animals and support strengthening them when appropriate. Indeed, I believe that animal abuse is a terrible wrong, not only because it causes the victimized animal to suffer, but also because cruelty to animals diminishes our own humanity."

Smith also praises the work of animal reform advocates such as Dr. Temple Grandin, who has helped promote more humane forms of animal slaughter.

Smith is all for "animal welfare." We all should be. He believes, however, and argues persuasively, that what has become "animal rights" is another critter altogether.

Russia's terrorism problem is real and under-reported, including inside Russia. But yesterday's successful attack on a power plant in southwest Russia is an ominous sign of changed terrorist tactics and the Russian government's continuing vulnerabilities. It should cause Americans to wonder about copy-cat actions here. We prepare for airplane attacks, but not adequately for airport attacks, and for explosions in Times Square, but not for attacks at university football games in the middle west.

It is not clear why the number of academic freedom cases seem to be increasing. Is it because the iron hand of ideological conformity is squeezing professors more tightly? Or is it because more subjects of attack are fighting back in court?

I tend to think it is for both those reasons. Socially acceptable views in academia tend to run from the left to the far left. More traditional, conservative viewpoints are regarded as simply wrong. It occurs in field after field. We see it on many aspects of the evolution debate and issues pertaining to bioethics. Academic freedom policies are adopted by universities, but then selectively applied. They probably were written to protect left wingers in dissent, so when a right winger tries to appeal to them, administrators regard the appeal as bizarre. Freedom of dissent is for liberals, not conservatives.

But groups like the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) have been established in the past decade precisely to answer the cries of professors and students who are discriminated against on ideological grounds. As a consequence, some professors may be more willing now to sue.

In addition to evolution or bioethics, cases are coming to the fore on many fronts now. The ADF just won a settlement in California for a biology teacher who was assailed for providing an honest and scholarly answer to a question in class about the relative influence of nature versus environment in homosexuality. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and the ADF have entered another case by an Illinois professor who was denied promotion because someone was offended by his comparison of Catholic and utilitarian philosophies in evaluating sexuality.

Meanwhile, groups like the American Council of Alumni and Trustees is making some progress in forcing academia to live up to its own professed standards by adopting and enforcing serious codes of academic freedom. ACTA's own statement on the issue is preceded by a quote from former Yale president Benno Schmidt: "The most serious problems of freedom of expression in our society today exist on our campuses.... The assumption seems to be that the purpose of education is to induce correct opinion rather than to search for wisdom and to liberate the mind."

By John Wohlstetter

This past week saw tougher lines taken re Iran....

The Washington Post reports that European countries are imposing tougher sanctions on Iran. Reuters reports that tensions rose between Russia and Iran due to Russia signing on for stronger UN sanctions. But Reuters reports that Russia hedged its bets Tuesday, condemning the European moves Monday to impose new sanctions outside the UN. Reuters noted that Iran fuel imposts took a nosedive" in July. And on Sunday ex-CIA chief Gen. Michael V. Hayden said that he sees a greater chance of a military strike being launched against Iran's nuclear facilities.

By Wesley J. Smith

Well, I'll be cornswaggled! Richard Dawkins disdains the moral implications of human exceptionalism-for example, he yearns for the discovery of a human/chimp hybrid species that could interbreed with us to "break the species barrier."But even though he might prefer to tear it down-probably because HE can be seen as supporting religion-Dawkins clearly believes that human exceptionalism is an existential reality.

In 2007, Dawkins strongly asserted in a debate that we are unique and unprecidented in the history of life on the planet, indeed, that we have moral duties and imperatives to escape selfish Darwinian impulses and act in an explicitly "anti Darwinian" fashion as "earth's last best hope." From Dawkins' opening statement in the New Scientist/Greenpeace Science debate of 2007 (statement full at the YouTube video above):

Far from being the most selfish, exploitative species, Homo sapiens is the only species that has at least the possibility of rebelling against the otherwise universally selfish Darwinian impulse...If any species in the history of life has the possibility of breaking away from short term selfishness and of long term planning for the distant future, it's our species. We are earth's last best hope even if we are simultaneously, the species most capable of destroying life on the planet. But when it comes to taking the long view, we are literally unique. Because the long view is not a view that has ever been taken before in whole history of life. If we don't plan for the future, no other species will...

Wow. That's pretty darn exceptional. Indeed, I could have said it! In fact, I have, in other words, said precisely that.

But why would we do that? Why would we care? Because we are the earth's only moral agents. And that means, Dawkins is saying, that we should act morally:

(Note: Andy Kessler, hedge fund billionaire, meteoric success in Silicon Valley and at AT&T Bell Labs and author of four non-fiction books, has a novel out now: Grumby, a tale of the future of robotic intelligence. Gilder just read it.)

by George Gilder

Steve Jobs recoils in panic, pushing madly forth
his inferior pods and paddles, ipups and ap-kits, Quicktunes and
iTimes, before giving in to his disgrumbyment.

Mark Zuckerburg wanders forlorn and friendless on Facebook, before finally
matriculating at Harvard's new Grumby school of transgendered robotics.

Meg Whitman lifts weights and flees to the muscle bound beaches and
bureaucracies of California politics, now entirely virtualized by Grumby.

Bob Metcalfe propounds an ethereal power law of Grumbynets.

Eric Schmidt gives in to Grumby's inevitable "hollowing out" of Google and
retreats to a solar paneled virtual world without CO2.

Bill Gates zunes out and merges his x-boxes and OSes with his other
non-profits.

Ray Kurzweil revs up all his curves and hails the new Kesslerian
Singularity.

Jeff Bezos gasps at a new kindled amazon of litry laughs and lambencies.
All bow humbly before the coming of Grumby.

Microcosm and telecosm converge in a vivacious and incandescent vamp of
literature and futurism.

ORDER YOUR COPY OF ANDY KESSLER'S HILARIOUS NOVEL, GRUMBY, TODAY