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The Uncreative Indestructibility of Modern Farming
Over at the Mises Institute’s website, Dan McLaughlin highlights a little-discussed pernicious effect of U.S. farm policy: the short-circuiting of the market’s creative destruction.
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DDT Saves Africans from Malaria
Donald Roberts has an interesting Op-Ed in the New York Times about the crucial role of DDT in preventing the spread of malaria in…
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In Defense of the Prix Fixe Menu
Our old pal Peter Suderman, now writing for FreedomWorks, has a great takedown of the argument for “a la carte” cable pricing up at…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. BUSINESS The Federal Trade Commission tries to block the merger of the Whole Foods and…
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What Gives in South Carolina?
I’m writing this from the new library in downtown Columbia, South Carolina. It’s a big, open all glass building that I wouldn’t want to be…
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Whole Foods merger: Using Antitrust to Protect Wal-Mart
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Federal judge rejects FTC’s arguments against Whole Foods-Wild Oats merger
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Elvis on the IRS
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In Brazil, a Moment of Silence against State Incompetence and Corruption
Tomorrow, Friday August 17, at 1:00 pm (local time), our friends at Brazil’s Instituto Liberdade will participate in the campaign “Worn Out,” (Cansei)…
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Drug lag — precaution or pipelines?
According to a CNN Money article, a report released yesterday shows that the FDA has been cracking down on new drug approvals. Pharmaceutical companies…
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Global Warming Alarmism Debunked
In the Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby has an interesting editorial debunking attacks by Newsweek and others on scientists and CEI staffers who have…
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Foreign Aid Kills
Foreign food aid often causes, rather than alleviates, hunger, by destroying the basis of the farm economy in the country that receives the aid, as…
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Getting the Word Out
Good news: Today’s Wall Street Journal highlights the recent study on DDT benefits in repelling mosquitoes and battling resistance issues. This study was highlighted…
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Bad Information = Dangerous Consequences
Anti-DDT activists might read this with glee: Misinformation about DDT risks is undermining its use in Kampala, Uganda. A Ugandan news website reports that…
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Global Warming Scams
The Washington Post has a story today about so-called “carbon offsets,” schemes “offering absolution for the modern nag of climate guilt.” In exchange…
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Hands Off the Carbon Credit Business!
A well-reported front page story in today’s Washington Post shows that the indulgence–oops, I mean Carbon Credit Offset industry–doesn’t always work as advertised. Many…
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The Carbon Offset Scam: Can I Join?
Free markets may not be perfect, but they demonstrate enormous flexibility and creativity. Display a demand, and a market will develop. So it is with…
Newsletter
CEI Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. HEALTH A pending bill in Congress would ban the use of genetic testing by insurance companies…
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Talking About Municipal Wi-Fi on 1460 KION
Mark Carbonaro of 1460 KION had me on the “Wake Up Monterey” program yesterday morning. Here’s a clip from the segment where we talked…
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A Week is a Long Time in Politics
This wise adage of British Prime Minister Harold Wilson continues to hold true. As scientist Roy Spencer points out, the last week has seen…
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Panhandling Drug Addicts Make $60 Per Hour
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1998’s Lowered Status, and the Supreme Court’s Global Warming Decision
NASA’s recent downgrading of 1998 as the warmest recorded year in the US should automatically overturn the Supreme Court’s global warming decision, no? …
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You Can’t Save the Planet by Ruining the Economy
The issue of global warming has become a classic morality tale: the heroic environmental activists battling the evil temperature deniers. Despite the efforts of Newsweek,…
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Deadly Environmentalists
Newsletter
Cooler Heads Digest
News Highlights Why the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme Isn’t Working Open Society, 9 August 2007 NASA’s Global Warming…
Newsletter
CEI Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. CONSUMER Prices for basic foodstuffs are rising sharply, driven in part by the use of corn…
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Municipal Wi-Fi Stalls, Market Surges Forward
Over the last two years, San Francisco has been in negotiations with Earthlink who, in partnership with Google, has had plans to build a Wi-Fi…
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Burning the West by Lawsuit
Today in The American, Capital Research Center’s James Dellinger and Stephen Albert highlight an exacerbating factor to wildfire threats: environmental group lawsuits. At issue…
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Killing Orangutans in the Name of Green
The short-sighted idiocy of biofuels is not just confined to the ethanol boondoggle in the U.S. In much of the rest of the world,…
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New Offense: Walking While Ripped
Nanny says eat healthily, exercise, and grow up big and strong. The Nanny State says don’t look too well-developed or we’ll arrest you. Seriously. It…
Newsletter
CEI Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. ENVIRONMENT NASA orders a review of climate data after an independent researcher discovers that 1934 – not 1998 as…
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Nicaragua Objects to U.S. Cigar Tax Increase
Nicaragua’s legislature has objected to proposed increases in U.S. cigar taxes, which would raise the tax on some premium cigars from 5 cents…
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Bipartisan Greed on Capitol Hill
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Climate Change and Gardening. . . What the !@#$@!@#?
This weekend many smaller newspapers likely carried this AP story about climate change and gardening as a prominent Sunday feature. One little problem: despite…
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Blackle: Making a Difference
The Washington Post reports that Blackle, a website by Australia-based Heap Media, is trying to “help make a difference” through a black version…
Op-Eds
Bankrupting Florida
If a catastrophic Katrina-like hurricane sweeps through the state of Florida, it may leave behind more than wrecked houses, damaged shops, and ruined roads:…
Newsletter
CEI Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. TECHNOLOGY Microsoft presses the Federal Communications Commission to make broadcast spectrum available for wireless service.
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I can’t even parody this
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When don’t rich New England liberals love wind farms?
When it’s near their expensive vacation homes! From “The Daily Show.” Enjoy.
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Carney on LOST
In his new column, Tim Carney looks at the unprincipled shortsightedness of companies supporting the Law of the Sea Treaty. [T]he American Petroleum…
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Why Americans Are Getting Fat
Judge Richard Posner has an insightful discussion of why Americans are getting fatter and fatter. He discusses factors contributing to the obesity epidemic, such…
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Garbage In, Garbage Out: Latest Revelations on the IPCC Data
This week brought a slew of discoveries on the “Settled Science”: 1. Thanks to Steve McIntyre of ClimateAudit.org, we know now that James Hansen’s NASA…
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How Dare You Help Out!
The BBC reports that an old woman has “has been told she must stop tending a public flower bed unless she agrees to wear…
Newsletter
CEI Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. ENVIRONMENT Salt Lake City attempts to keep city employees – including firefighters – from drinking bottled water, citing…
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More Kudos for Carney
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Freddie and Fannie Buying Jumbo Mortgages?
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Kudos to Carney — from Novak
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Bush echoes Open Market on private equity partnership taxes
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Another case of plastiphobia?
Typical of Reuters' science articles, there's a scare element in an article today titled “Panel worried about baby bottle chemical.” The article was referring…
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No Excuse for Resistance to DDT
Anti-DDT activists in the environmental movement often suggest we should stop using this chemical to save people from malaria and other diseases because mosquitoes will…
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When Welfare Kills
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Radar on Green Fakers: A Must Read
The wonderful Radar Magazine has a funny, witty, snarky and oh-so-true feature on "Green Fakers." These are, of course, eco self-righteous celebs who…
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A Series of Tubes Episode 1
Introducing CEI’s weekly technology series A Series of Tubes. Cord Blomquist and Richard Morrison take a look behind the weekly headlines in tech and show…
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America’s Black Market in Raw Milk
Criminals continue to peddle their illegal wares in America, as heroic law enforcement officers seek to stamp out a dangerous black market. No, the product…
Op-Eds
CEOs, Like Athletes, Compensated For Their Successful Performances
I am by no means a sports fanatic, but there are times I wish that typical business stories would be more like sports…
Newsletter
CEI Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. LEGAL Government officials in Nigeria attempt to sue drug maker Pfizer for $2 billion. CEI…
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More on Bad Court Ruling Against Terminally Ill
“Terminally ill patients do not have a constitutional right to be treated with experimental drugs, even if they likely will be dead before the medicine…
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Drug Maker Faces Lawsuit by Corrupt, Kooky Foreign Government
Pfizer is seeking the dismissal of a $2 billion lawsuit by the Nigerian state of Kano. Pfizer’s purported offense was to give children an…
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Credit for Codex decision?
In your post commenting on the rejection by Codex of the use of the Precautionary Principle, I’d like to point out that giving the…
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UN Group Rejects Precautionary Principle
The Codex Alimentarius Commission, a joint UN Food and Agricultural Organization-World Health Organization food safety standard-setting body, has apparently agreed to exclude the…
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Harry Potter Books as Objects
Op-Eds
Argument is all wet
Why would lawmakers deny firefighters bottled water? And why would churches feel the need to condemn this commodity?…
Newsletter
Cooler Heads Digest
News Highlights The Big Ethanol Scam Jeff Goddall, Rolling Stone, 24 July 2007 Daily Show Correspondent Aasif Mandvi’s…
Newsletter
CEI Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. TECHNOLOGY Tech consultants raise concerns that public Internet access points may pose a threat to a user’s…
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Adobe Garamond in the Harry Potter books — not a character but a font
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Does Municipal Wi-Fi Have the Incentive for Security?
USA Today reports that most are unaware of the dangers facing them at public Wi-Fi hotspots, which brought to mind an…
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A Bridge Collapse Too Far
A lot of theories are being floated for what exactly caused the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis. The real answer, of course,…
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Court Rejects Terminally Ill Patients’ Chance to Live, Upholds FDA Red Tape
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled 8-to-2 in Abigail Alliance v. Von Eschenbach that terminally ill people cannot challenge the FDA's ban…
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$1 a Year Man
Chrsysler, has hired former Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli to run the now-private, once-again-American-owned automaker. Nardelli, of course, did a good job at Home…
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Hating America — even American historians do it
Op-Eds
Beckham bends it like a CEO
I don't get it. Where is the outrage? Politicians and pundits love to “bend it” when it comes to stoking resentment about…
Newsletter
CEI Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. CONGRESS Both House and Senate pass major energy legislation prior to the August recess. …
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Shed a Tear for Property Rights: Cuban Anniversary Edition
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More on Newsweek
Newsweek's cover story this week is a long opinion piece on "Global Warming Deniers: A Well-Funded Machine," written by Sharon Begley with the assistance…
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House, Senate Pass Equally Awful Energy Bills
The House and Senate head into recess having produced equally awful, yet complimentary energy bills. Like Tetris pieces, their respective energy packages fit one another…
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Detroit Mulct City
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Newsweek’s Cover Story: How the Tail Wagged the Dog
Newsweek‘s cover story, by Sharon Begley and three colleagues, purports to be an expose of the global-warming “denial machine” and how it…
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Next: Complaints about Blogging Being Outsourced to China
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So Much for Eating Local
Environmentalism embodies numerous religious rituals. Recycling is one — it doesn’t matter if the practice is economically or even environmentally productive. It’s essentially an act…
Op-Eds
Junk Science: How Now Brown Cloud?
A new study in the Aug. 2 issue of the British science journal Nature found that the solid particles suspended in the atmosphere (called…
Newsletter
CEI Daily Update
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Calling All Fair Pay Warriors!
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Search of Crooked Congressman’s Office Declared Illegal
Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson was caught with a $90,000 bribe in his freezer. That didn’t stop his colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus from rallying…
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A Peek into The Oval Office in ‘The Simpsons Movie’
Iain – You’re certainly right about most reviewers getting the “environmental” message of The Simpsons Movie the wrong way around. Along the way, we…
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Spitzer Vetoes Bill to Gut Welfare Reform
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Hatefull to the Nose, Harmefull to the Braine, Dangerous to the Lungs
If you’re looking for early health warnings about tobacco, Richard, you can go a lot further. The title of this post was the judgment of…
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FDA Tobacco Regulation Assailed
In the New York Times, Patrick Basham explains why the bill to give the Food and Drug Administration the duty to regulate tobacco is…
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Simpsons Movie Speaks Truth to Power – SPOILER WARNING!
I saw The Simpsons Movie last night and was delighted that most of the reviewers who commend the film’s “environmentalism” have missed the point.
Op-Eds
Anti-Energy Bill
Speaker Pelosi says that HR 3221, the New Direction for Energy Independence, National Security and Consumer Protection Act "puts us on a path towards…
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Goofy’s Coffin Nails
When it comes to the politics of tobacco regulation, one of the most important dates is January 11, 1964, when then-Surgeon General Luther L. Terry…
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“A monopoly on official wisdom” — the IPCC
FT resident global warming alarmist Fiona Harvey must be flaming. Her colleague Clive Crook just came out with an article (subscription required) in…
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Bridge Collapse Falsely Blamed on Low Taxes by Europeans
A Dutch friend of a CEI staffer passed on the fact that some Dutch and German newspapers today are filled with hateful comments online about…
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About that consensus…
A new peer-reviewed paper is out: In the mid-1970s, a climate shift cooled sea surface temperatures in the central Pacific Ocean and…
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FDA Tobacco Regulation Clears Senate Committee
A Senate committee has just voted 13-to-8 in favor of the bill to give the FDA jurisdiction over tobacco products and the tobacco industry.
Newsletter
CEI Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. BUSINESS Supermarket chain Whole Foods pursues a buyout bid for rival Wild Oats Markets. CEI…
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Tobacco Settlement Bars Smokers’ Punitive Damage Claims
A court has just ruled that a multibillion dollar tobacco settlement bars punitive damages in lawsuits by smokers against tobacco companies. In 1998, 46…
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English Plaintiffs’ Long-Distance Suit Moved Closer to Home
Usually, it’s the plaintiff who seeks to sue in his home state, while the defendant seeks to have lawsuits heard in its own home state.
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Nanny State In Montgomery County
Montgomery County, Maryland, is considering a law that would require food chains to post nutritional information about their food. In terms of its intrusion…
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Collaring Markets into a Chokehold
Greg’s post on the Whole Foods/Wild Oats merger brings to mind another pending merger: that between satellite radio firms XM and Sirius, which, while…
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