The Open Market Blog

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/28/2007

The Wall Street Journal has an editorial today on the SCHIP health-care bill, which would expand health care coverage for children, and even some…

• By: Ryan Radia
• 09/28/2007

The United States Patent and Trademark Office, after finally having done something right for a change, recently reversed a…

• By: William Yeatman
• 09/28/2007

Ex-CIA Director James Woolsey is a proponent of ethanol because he believes it can help make the United States more energy independent. Never mind…

• By: Eli Lehrer
• 09/28/2007

The Washington Post carries a story about a minor dust-up between Naral Pro-Choice America and Verizon. Naral wanted to use Verizon’s mobile network to…

• By: Alex Nowrasteh
• 09/27/2007

Google's bid to purchase the Internet advertising firm DoubleClick was scrutinized today in hearings by Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill), Chairman of the Congressional Subcommittee…

• By: Cord Blomquist
• 09/27/2007

Minor abuses at the FCC, such as the one mentioned in my last post, warrant at least investigating how the FCC assesses fines, if not…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/27/2007

The Senate Democratic leadership has added Ted Kennedy’s controversial hate-crimes bill to a defense authorization bill, in an effort to make it politically impossible…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/27/2007

Robert Novak has an interesting column in the Washington Post on the backroom politicking behind the SCHIP health-care bill that has passed Congress, but…

• By: Cord Blomquist
• 09/27/2007

Seems as though the FCC can’t get enough fining done within the bounds of its legal fining regime and is now fining arbitrary 3rd…

• By: Cord Blomquist
• 09/27/2007

GlobalWarming.org was relaunched two weeks ago by CEI and has enjoyed hundreds of thousands of views since.  I want to thank those who have…

• By: Cord Blomquist
• 09/26/2007

Playspan dubs itself “The Game Industry’s First Publisher-Sponsored In-Game Commerce Network.” What does that mean? To put it more simply, welcome to Wall Street…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/26/2007

The Wall Street Journal’s OpinionJournal aptly describes the cynical posturing of Lee Bollinger, Columbia University’s president, who first invited the oppressive Iranian despot Mahmoud…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/26/2007

A startling Reuters article today was titled “Gorbachev warns Russians against rise of Stalinism.” As reported, the former Soviet president made his…

• By: Richard Morrison
• 09/26/2007

CEI analysts appeared twice today on CNBC (so far), enlightening the financially astute and debating their fellow guests. First up, Editorial Director Ivan Osorio takes…

• By: Marlo Lewis, Jr.
• 09/26/2007

Trade—voluntary exchange—is the essence of economic activity. Trade leads to specialization, which increases productivity. As trade expands so does the arena of economic competition, which…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/26/2007

The District of Columbia is currently defending Washington, D.C.’s gun ban before the Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller. It argues that the…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/26/2007

A thought-provoking opinion piece in the Financial Times today by Michael Schrage, an MIT researcher –“Science must be more political.” That title is a…

• By: William Yeatman
• 09/26/2007

The Hummer is the bane of the greens’ existence. It is big and loud, so it makes an easy target for those so keen on…

• By: Gregory Conko
• 09/26/2007

The Supreme Court decided yesterday to grant cert in a pharmaceutical products liability case to determine whether federal regulation of pharmaceuticals preempts state tort…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 09/26/2007

“Rock ‘n’ roll is about rebellion” may be one of the world’s most tired cliches, but in the case of the Czech art-rock outfit Plastic…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/25/2007

Check out Bureaucrash’s latest video on drug lag at the FDA — with real people affected by those delays. Just released on Friday,…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/25/2007

You can’t board a plane or enter many courthouses without having some form of photo identification. But you can vote in many states without identification…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/25/2007

Congress may be on the verge of increasing tobacco taxes to expand the federal SCHIP health care program so that it covers not only low-income…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/25/2007

Finally, some Democrats have come out strongly in favor of the pending Latin American trade agreements. Though don’t give them too much credit for…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 09/24/2007

Organized Labor made its intention clear to reverse the National Labor Relations Board's "Kentucy River" decision, which clarified the definition of "supervisor" in the context…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 09/24/2007

The BBC reports that despite some government prodding — though subtle by Chinese standards — Beijing drivers largely ignored “National No Car Day,” China’s…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 09/24/2007

Yellow Day Brigade is a punk band that takes a decidedly unfashionable pro-freedom political stance, or as they call it, “Music consistent with the…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 09/24/2007

In the current issue of The Economist, the anonymous Charlemagne column outlines the fundamental differences between the regulatory philosophies that guide the United States…

• By: Alex Nowrasteh
• 09/24/2007

The Globalization Institute, a Brussels based think tank, has recommended the EU require all PCs to be sold without preloaded operating systems such…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 09/24/2007

This Thursday, September 27, Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi will talk about his new book, Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/24/2007

NASA’s James Hansen has called those who are skeptical of his alarmist predictions about global warming “court jesters.” But he himself apparently used to believe…

• By: Eli Lehrer
• 09/24/2007

The Washington Post reports today that Unisys Corporation is under investigation for its failures to detect intrusions into government networks. I’m not surprised. Prior…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/24/2007

Motions to dismiss a lawsuit against God by Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers have been filed. Lawsuits against God have tended to be dismissed…

• By: Cord Blomquist
• 09/24/2007

I saw In the Shadow of the Moon, Ron Howard’s new documentary about the Apollo program, yesterday evening and have done some looking into…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/24/2007

A Columbia University dean, John Coatsworth, has defended his university’s invitation to Iran’s anti-American ruler, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, by saying that it would have been equally…

• By: William Yeatman
• 09/24/2007

If you happen to catch Arnold Schwarzenegger’s speech to the U.N. on climate change today, please remember as you listen that the governator is full…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 09/24/2007

The government wants you to go deer-hunting. Go ahead. Take a day off. It’s on your employer. Well, Uncle Sam doesn’t quite put it that…

• By: Doug Bandow
• 09/24/2007

Government is a lot like a second marriage, the triumph of hope over experience. We create a program. Thieves loot it. Special interests manipulate it.

• By: Cord Blomquist
• 09/23/2007

Check out this great cartoon about the virtues of capitalism. Turns out that at one point Americans (or at least American animators) knew that…

• By: Richard Morrison
• 09/21/2007

Fran – I certainly agree with your response to the promotional video for Naomi Klein’s new anti-capitalist manifesto – loco indeed. At one point…

• By: Richard Morrison
• 09/21/2007

Mining giant Barrick Gold has recently announced a fascinating challenge to would-be mining engineers of the world: if you can think up a new…

• By: Hans Bader
• 09/21/2007

While Columbia University and its president, the pompous Lee Bollinger, were giving a big welcome to Iranian despot (and former hostage-taker) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/21/2007

You have to see this video to believe it — it’s a YouTube promo for Naomi “No logo” Klein’s new book,…

• By: Richard Morrison
• 09/21/2007

Fans of Sid Meier’s classic video game Civilization are framiliar to the challenge of designing an entire society, God-like from above. Fans of energy…

• By: Fran Smith
• 09/21/2007

Cécile Philippe of L’Institut économique Molinari in Brussels has a new article — “Sommes-nous sur la bonne voie pour répondre aux défis environnementaux?”—or…

• By: Eli Lehrer
• 09/21/2007

I don’t know what to make of it but DeSmog Blog–which seems pretty alarmist–reports that Dr. Klaus-Martin Schulte’s analysis of Global Warming journal articles…

• By: Michelle Minton
• 09/21/2007

All you Columbia rejects out there dig out your “we regret to inform you” letters and plaque them up on the wall. Take it as…

• By: Cord Blomquist
• 09/21/2007

Despite ICANN’s protests, the .su top-level domain remains for sale. That’s right you can still get a Soviet Union top-level domain and now the…

• By: Ivan Osorio
• 09/20/2007

This year’s “World Carfree Day,” the sanctimonious ritual of environmentalist Lenten self-denial, is on a Saturday.

• By: Michelle Minton
• 09/20/2007

The FDA wants your money—it needs your money if it is to continue poorly regulating the safety of drugs and killing citizens by stalling the…