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Freedom Fighter
The war to advance economic liberty will last forever. The effort is frustrating and often discouraging. Many freedom fighters burn out, retire from the field,…
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BP’s mixed messages on core ‘old world’ activities
Sybil Ackerman (“BP is deserving of censure, but not a vendetta”, September 1) raises interesting points but fails to assign responsibility for BP's problems…
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Congress’ Silk Purse
During the Capitol Hill budget debates, many spectators must have found the use of the term “earmarking” somewhat strange. What does it have…
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Reform the Reformers
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> On the Saturday Show (Jan. 21), NPR commentator John Ydstie, in a…
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The Ideas Marketplace — Sans Market?
WASHINGTON—The Jack Abramoff scandal has many individual players, but it’s also added fuel to an older and broader theme—the quest to purge politics of money.
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Corporate Social Concerns: Are They Good Citizenship, Or a Rip-Off for Investors?
Fred Smith debates CSR in The Wall Street Journal…
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Jared Diamond and the Terrible Too’s
Full article available in pdf format Fred Smith's review essay of Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed in…
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Slicing Telecom the Right Way: Making a Real Market is the Best Cure for Monopoly
Mergers involving SBC and Verizon and a recent Supreme Court decision exempting cable-modem companies from open-access regulation have reignited fears of market domination…
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Risks in the Modern World: What Prospects for Rationality?
Risk refers to the likelihood that something will go wrong.[1] People naturally fear such mishaps, and risk aversion is a basic survival trait. Only non-survivors…
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The Internet as Medical Adviser?
While the future of health care is heatedly debated in this presidential election year, something less obvious, but possibly much more important, is occurring behind…
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Eco-Fascism Going Global
Full text available as pdf<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> We can say this for environmental…
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Reformers Are too Willing to Turn a Blind Eye to Liberal Fixes for our Economic Problems
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Sirs, Your edition of July 6 features two distinct columns that demonstrate…
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Reformers are too Willing to Turn a Blind Eye to Liberal Fixes for our Economic Problems
Sirs, Your edition of July 6 features two distinct columns that demonstrate a persistent neglect of economic liberalisation as a way of resolving societal…
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Guess Your Liability
In these days of corporate scandal, who can argue against full disclosure on financial statements? But now comes one cockeyed movement that pushes the concept…
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Split Decision at the SEC
Nobel Prize economist Ronald Coase long ago warned of a political risk—that of wishing to be an “economic statesman,” which he defined as a person…
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More Regulations Do Not Inspire More Trust (Letter to the Editor)
It is not surprising for regulators to seize upon business failures to argue for more regulation, touting regulations alleged benefits while minimizing its downside. But…
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The FDA Poses Threat to Our Health, Liberty
An unusual and powerful coalition of special interests is lobbying Congress for a new tobacco deal: Put the Food and DrugAdministration in charge of…
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The Progressive Era’s Derailment of Classical-Liberal Evolution
It is true that where a considerable part of the costs incurred are external costs from the point of view of the acting individuals…
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Corporate PR Must Reach People as Consumers and Citizens
PR pros have long sought to link their efforts to clients’ return on investment. The planned campaign for the Aluminum Association, detailed in this magazine…
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Rescuing Free Trade From the Bureaucrats & Special Interests
Full article available in pdf format.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> In the aftermath of the…
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A Bright Idea: Deregulate
The massive blackout that shut off lights along the East coast, <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Midwest and Canada need not…
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Developing World’s Moral Voice Absent in Bilateral Agreements (Letter to the Editor)
Sir, Daniel Griswold (“Bilateral deals are no threat to global trade”, July 27) raised several valid points in the defence of bilateral trade agreements. However,…
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Protecting the Environment (Letter to the Editor)
SIR – Your article about the resignation of Christine Todd Whitman as head of America’s Environmental Protection Agency suggests that the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s opposition…
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Avoid More Mandates
As more and more Americans become investors, paternalistic regulators are demanding greater disclosure by mutual funds to protect consumers from excessive brokerage commissions…
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Letter to the Editor, The Washington Post
Railroad deregulation provides a model for liberalizing all network industries. Network industries such as railroads, electricity and telecommunication have two elements: the flows (trains,…
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Getting The Rails Back On Track
As the recent crash of an Amtrak passenger train in Maryland illustrates, our nation's railroad tracks are in dire need of maintenance or replacement.
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Dream The Impossible Scheme
The Bush administration came out of the box on the energy issue with a reasonably positive mix of supply-side strategies – they are even willing…
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Can Science Make Us More Secure?
Fred L. Smith, Jr. President, Competitive Enterprise Institute The search for a safe society is dangerous as hell. One of the most…
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Why We Are United
As the patriotic tunes of July 4 reminded us, America is a highly diverse nation. We’re black, brown, white, red, and yellow; Catholic,…
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False Representation
In her book Whose Trade Organization, Lori Wallach argues that corporate interests have for too long dominated the World Trade Organization and that…
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Andersen Verdict Disappoints: Moves To Criminalize Accounting Mistakes Are Counterproductive
Given the media frenzy over Enron, no one should be surprised that Arthur Andersen, its accountant, was found guilty. The formal charge was…
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Verdict Disappoints
Given the media frenzy over Enron, no one should be surprised that Arthur Andersen, its accountant, was found gutty. The formal charge was obstruction of…
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The Hot Air from the Bush Administration
Well, Bush didn’t sign the Kyoto Global Warming protocol. It’s too bad he couldn’t leave well enough alone. While continuing to insist that…
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Secretary Gale Norton: Roosevelt Republican?
Gale Norton, an individual who was once libertarian and who has long espoused a principled view of private property and the market, now…
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Worrying About Frankenstein’s Monster
A specter is haunting Europe—called the “precautionary principle”. As generally defined, the precautionary principle states that a product or technology can be banned even if…
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Electricity Restructuring Is No License For Central Planning
Economists sometimes gets confused—specially when the real world doesn't fit into their…
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Where Were The Inside Traders When We Really Needed Them?
Contrary to what you hear from just about every politician and every pundit, the Enron collapse suggests that less regulation might make future…
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George “Smoot Hawley” Bush
The Bush administration’s decision to abandon its free trade position to protect the domestic steel industry is distressful. Even Clinton didn’t give in…
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A Man, A Plan, A Boondoggle
The Bush administration is not his father’s Oldsmobile—I mean administration—but it isn’t Ronald Reagan’s either. Bush II is amenable to reducing government, but…
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New Laws are Unnecessary
Politicians of all stripes are rushing into the Enron fray, eager to use this event as the pretext for enacting new regulations and laws against…
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New Laws Are Unnecessary
Politicians of all stripes are rushing into the Enron fray, eager to use this event as the pretext for enacting new regulations and…
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You Bastards: You Killed Bambi!
After recently watching Bambi, I worry that I may never again have an intelligent thought about man and nature. First we killed Bambi’s…
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Half a Cheer for the U.N.
Just when you thought you could count on a group to be consistent – they do something reasonable. The United Nations has rarely been a…
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It’s Magic!
The Left has a strange view of technology. Sometimes they like it, sometimes they fear it, and other times they view it as…
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Privatizing National Parks
Wonders never cease. China, once the poster child for socialist nonsense (remember the backyard steel furnaces?), seems determined to experiment with a wide…
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How the IMF Could Become a Real S&P for International Debt
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Two key members of Congress, House Majority Whip Tom Delay and House…
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When Property Rights Lead to Socialism
Economists have long been ecstatic about the growing enthusiasm of the greenies for the market. At last, economists chortle, our expertise will play a…
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CO2 Controls Are a Bad Idea: Voluntary or Not
Smith and Crandall Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal The Bush administration courageously rejected the Kyoto Protocol but is now considering “voluntary” carbon-dioxide suppression…
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Warming to Bush: The Political Complexities of Suppressing Global Energy Use
Those concerned that the Bush administration might have miscued on Kyoto will be reassured by a careful reading of the new boo Smith…
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Sustainable Development? How About Sustainable Growth?
The economic news out of Europe is bad — again. The euro is trending lower. German business confidence is down. Once-optimistic growth forecasts are being…
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The State on Autopilot
The almost-tie election, both in the presidential sweepstakes and in the House and Senate, suggest some problems ahead for the friends of economic…
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Rational Ignorance And Election Hype
Full Article Availabe in PDF Format Executive Summary A review of the recent election from the cultural value perspective…
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Monomania
While on a recent trip to Seattle, I was tempted to ride on the local religious icon – the monorail relic from the…
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The Peaceable Kingdom
A recent meeting between Christian Right leader, the Reverend Jerry Falwell, and gay rights activists, the Reverend Mel White, suggests that America may…
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Is Mankind a Titanic Failure
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio, a spokesperson for Earth Day 2000 (April 22), has bought into environmental alarmism. “The Earth is heating up and…
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Julian Simon and the Triumph of Energy Sustainability
Full Document Available in PDF Julian Simon would have been impressed…
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Don’t Tax the Net: Fred Smith in Economic Affairs
Published in Economic Affairs, the journal of the Institute of Economic Affairs<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Edited…
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CEI’s Fred Smith is Marketing the Market
Full article available in pdf format.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Navigator: CEI was founded in…
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The Dangers of Precaution
Full Document Available in PDF Has Europe, long the home of so…
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A Cowboy Economy?
On recent trips to Europe, I’ve become increasingly aware of a reality disconnect between the way America is and the way we’re viewed…
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Winning Intellectual Battles, Losing Cultural Wars
While free market advocates wage the intellectual fight, the statists have conquered much of our culture. Twice recently, I was asked to contribute…
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No: Well-Intentioned Boycotts Actually Make the Climb out of Grinding Poverty Even More Difficult
Someone once noted that the law was amazingly equitable – it forbids both the king and the pauper to sleep beneath the bridge! And…
Insider Online
Selling Ideas in a Rationally Ignorant World
Conservative intellectuals are increasingly frustrated at the policy impasse of the last five years. Weren’t we told that if we built a better mousetrap, the…
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NATO Raison D’Etre
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> In a Washington Post op-ed supporting the bombing of Serbia, Bill Kristol…
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Guilt By Association With Bill Bennett
Ralph Raico’s Reflection “Won’t You Go Home, Bill Bennett?” (April) on the Center for Individual Right’s challenge to race-based student admission policies suggests…
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Escaping the Malthusian Trap
On October 12, 1999, United Nations demographers lamented the symbolic birth of planet Earth’s six-billionth resident. The world’s population had doubled from three…
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Enemies Of The Stasis
Full Article Available in PDF Format Executive Summary Virginia Postrel's excellent book “The Future and Its Enemies” details the…
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Enemies of the Stasis
Virginia Postrel’s excellent The Future and Its Enemies (Free Press, 1998, 265 pages) details the many ways in which the forces of dynamism conflict with…
Insider Online
A Look at Resourceful Earth Day
April 22, once associated with the optimism of revolutionary Marxism (as the birthday of Lenin) and then with the pessimism of modern Malthusianism (as the…
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The Dangers Of Precaution
Full Article Available in PDF Format Executive Summary Has Europe, long the home of so much scientific and technological…
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Free Trade and Idealism
In October, the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 passed through the U.S. Congress with little opposition. The new law enables unilateral export embargoes to be…
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Government Research Funding And Economic Distortion
Full Chapter Available in PDF Format Executive Summary Science and technology are good things. Still, there are many good…
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Mogul vs. Mogul
Full article available in pdf format. Rupert Murdoch has come under fire for reneging on a contract to…
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Mogul vs Mogul
Rupert Murdoch has come under fire for reneging on a contract to publish former Hong Kong governor Chris Patten’s manuscript East and West. Reports indicate…
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Book Review – The Suicidal Corporation
Full Document Available in PDF…
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Climate Care
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Full article available in pdf format …
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Climate Care
Full article available in pdf format ClintonCare—Bill and Hillary Clinton’s plan to nationalize…
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The Role, Limitations and Legitimacy of Regulatory Mechanisms in Market Economies
The charge at this Ditchley conference was a broad one: we were to review the proper scope of regulation and examine how that function…
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Free Market Environmentalism: Protecting The Planet Via Private Property
Full Book Chapter Available in PDF Format Executive Summary There is an alternative to the traditional approach to environmentalism…
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Assessing the Political Approach to Risk Management
Full Document Available in PDF…
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Restricting Trade Will Not Help The Environment
Full Article Available in PDF Format Executive Summary Expanding free trade to include all nations could have beneficial effects…
The Freeman
Risks in the Modern World: What Prospects for Rationality?
Risk refers to the likelihood that something will go wrong.[1] People naturally fear such mishaps, and risk aversion is a basic survival trait.
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Learning The Washington Game: Political Strategy And Tactics
Full Chapter Available in PDF Format Executive Summary Those entering the federal government who seek to redirect the system to put greater emphasis on…
The Freeman
Books for Christmas
As a policy wonk, my recommended reading list, not surprisingly, is wonkish. Still, among all those dusty, boring books that make up this body of…
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Good Books For Christmas
Full Article Available in PDF Format Executive Summary Contains brief reviews of Searching For Safety, Essays On Economics And…
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Trading Away Free Trade
Full article is available in PDF (Liberty magazine, November 1994, pp. 22-26). The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade has lowered the world’s…
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The Quotable Fred
Full Booklet Available in PDF Format Executive Summary A compendium of quotes from the writings and speeches of CEI president and…
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A Free-Market Environmental Vision
Full Chapter Available in PDF Format Executive Summary There is one environmental vision, and only one, that is compatible…
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A Fresh Look at Environmental Policy
Environmental journalists are, on the whole, fairly good at producing stories. Unfortunately, these lend to be the stories put forward by the environmental establishment: Large…
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The Market and Nature
(Originally appeared in The Freeman, September 1993) Many environmentalists are dissatisfied with the environmental record of free economies. Capitalism, it is claimed, is…
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Better Living through Government Mandate?
Full article available in pdf format.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Technology—or rather government-favored technology—has gained…
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Better Living Through Government Mandate
Technology—or rather government-favored technology—has gained favor among Washington politicos and activists. Technology, these activists seem to believe, makes it possible to mandate almost anything—recycling,…
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Kentucky Hosts Rio Follow-Up…but Frivolity is Pretty Big on the Agenda
Article available in pdf format…
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Kentucky Hosts Rio Follow-Up, But Frivolity is Pretty Big on the Agenda
I eagerly joined more than 1,100 people from forty-nine states gathered in Louisville, Kentucky from May 26-28, 1993. I was a speaker and participant at…
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Acute Government Activism
Click on link above to obtain .pdf of article.
The Freeman
Acute Government Activism
While President Clinton has taken pains to mimic the rhetorical successes of Ronald Reagan and John E Kennedy, he has actually modeled his presidency in the…
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Don’t Cross these Lines
Please click on .pdf link above to view article.
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Barriers to Private Insurance
Full Document Available in PDF The American insurance industry is shackled by regulations and restrictions…
Wall Street Journal
Al Gore, Reactionary Environmentalist
Al Gore has written, “When giving us dominion over the earth, did God choose an appropriate technology?” And then: “One is tempted to answer, the…
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Carnival of Dunces
Rio is a beautiful city, shoehorned between steep granite mountains and seemingly infinite sandy beaches where, despite the thinning of the ozone layer, eco-efficient clothing…