CEI Daily Update
Issues in the News
1. TECHNOLOGY
The Australian government moves to block access to pornographic and violent content online.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Technology Policy Analyst Cord Blomquist on the best way to protect kids from inappropriate entertainment content:
“…while no media ratings system can or will ever achieve perfection, the best rating systems have three attributes: They attempt to describe, rather than prescribe, what entertainment media should contain; they are particularly suited to their particular media forms; and they were created with little or no direct input from government. We also find that ratings systems collapse, it simply results in the creation of better ratings systems.”
2. BUSINESS
Yale economist Robert Schiller predicts a possible recession due to the recent housing and mortgage shake-up.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Center for Entrepreneurship Director John Berlau on why more government intervention is not the answer:
“No one knows how the markets will react longterm to the White House’s official unveiling of [its mortgage relief plan]. But there’s good reason for conservatives to share the market’s initial nervousness. The administration has hammered together an agreement with some of the biggest lenders to freeze the introductory rates for certain borrowers for as long as five years. At the very least, if the Paulson plan is truly voluntary, it’s unnecessary.”
3. ENVIRONMENT
The New York Times’ John Tierney takes on alarmist predictions of weather events.
CEI Expert Available to Comment: Director of Global Warming Policy Myron Ebell on how climate change claims have become more extreme:
“The course of apocalyptic movements is generally similar. In order to keep the enthusiasm of its followers at a fever pitch and to attract new followers, it is necessary to keep stoking the fires with more and more outlandish claims. The hysteria peaks as doomsday is moved closer and closer to the present, and then — poof — it collapses. It appears to me that the global warming bubble has gone about as far as it can go before it descends into ranting and writhing on the ground or random outbreaks of mob violence.”
Blog feature: For more news and analysis, updated throughout the day, visit CEI’s blog, Open Market.
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