The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update

Issues in the News

1. TECHNOLOGY           

Google launches a new global initiative dedicated to promoting literacy.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Iain Murray on the challenges faced by the company’s previous Google Library project:           

“What bookworm doesn’t love the idea of Google’s new project, Google Library? The ability to search the entire contents of the world’s greatest libraries online seems to fulfill one of the greatest potentials of the Internet. Unfortunately, Google has glossed over some inconvenient details. Unless Google is willing to step back and think for a moment, the whole project threatens to come off the rails.”

2. SAFETY

New industry research finds that side air bags significantly reduce driver deaths in SUV collisions.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: General Counsel Sam Kazman on CNN on the debate over SUV safety:

“We have a program in this country of federal fuel economy standards for new cars. It’s nickname is CAFE, and one consequence of CAFE has been to downsize the fleet of passenger cars, because one of the easiest ways to make a vehicle more fuel-efficient is to make it smaller and lighter, which gives you perhaps better miles per gallon, but also means you have a smaller, less crash-worthy vehicle.”

3. ENVIRONMENT

A new study predicts that the Northeastern United States could warm dramatically by the year 2100.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Senior Fellow Iain Murray on what every citizen needs to know about global warming:                                        

“Alarm over the prospect of the Earth warming is not warranted by the agreed science or economics of the issue. Global warming is happening and man is responsible for at least some of it. Yet this does not mean that global warming will cause enough damage to the Earth and humanity to require drastic cuts in energy use, a policy that would have damaging consequences of its own. Moreover, science cannot answer questions that are at heart economic or political, such as whether the Kyoto Protocol is worthwhile.”  

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