Op-Eds
UNITE-HERE on the Attack: Pioneer of Corporate Campaigns Pushes Harder Than Ever
Full document available in PDF America’s national hotel chains are bracing for union trouble. The UNITE-HERE labor union thinks it has found…
Op-Eds
Ignoring Limits on Harassment Liability
Back in 1999, in Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, the Supreme Court laid down a test for when sexual harassment rises to…
Op-Eds
Protection Against Unanticipated Lawsuits
On Monday, in Arlington Central School District v. Murphy, the Supreme Court limited the court costs recoverable under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act…
Op-Eds
The High Cost of Petitioning
A radical pro-affirmative action group, By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), joined by Detroit’s mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, have filed a Voting Rights Act…
Op-Eds
A License To Complain
Last Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled that a worker alleging retaliation for complaining about discrimination may sue even if she has not suffered a…
Op-Eds
Get Rid of the High Places
In one of the least surprising developments of 2006, a Louisiana politician has been snared in a corruption scandal. Democratic Congressman William Jefferson has…
Op-Eds
Data Mismanagement
Members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat, now say that Sarbanes-Oxley can be unduly burdensome on business. The law that, in…
Op-Eds
The Responsible Corporation
Does anybody believe that companies should be socially irresponsible? I don’t think so. The problem is that few people seem to agree on…
Op-Eds
Global Warming Skeptic Claims Environmental Conversion
Al Gore’s new global warming movie is apparently causing some to think that a major turning point in the debate is at hand.
Op-Eds
Homeland Bureaucracy?
Writer P.J. O'Rourke once quipped: “Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” It seems…
Op-Eds
Defining Virtue
by Isaac Post | May 21, 2006 David Vogel’s The Market for Virtue: The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility offers…
Op-Eds
Schumer’s Way
Senator Schumer is on a roll. After coasting to an easy and well funded re-election in 2004, the senior senator from New York is…
Op-Eds
Tracey Ross: TV’s Outspoken Individualist
How many Objectivists are there among television actresses? Well, there is one for sure: Tracey Ross of NBC’s popular soap opera “Passions.” As you…
Op-Eds
Volatile Gases
The European emissions trading scheme (ETS) was launched with great fanfare last year. The idea was to require certain energy-intensive industries to have a…
Op-Eds
Harper Falls into the UNESCO Trap
Budgets and softwood lumber deals aren't Prime Minister Stephen Harper's only significant initiatives. On Friday, he followed through on an unfortunate promise he…
Op-Eds
The war hero vs. the bureaucrats
Pity poor Eddie Rickenbacker. His life so closely resembled the clichéd “American Dream,” that you can't blame him for buying into American mythology.
Op-Eds
Corporate McSocial Responsibility
Fast-food gadfly Eric Schlosser has a new book out. Chew On This: Everything You Don’t Want to Know About Fast Food is Fast…
Op-Eds
Bad Bugs, Few Drugs
During the late 1960's, my college roommate suffered a seemingly minor skin infection on a finger, which quickly turned into blood poisoning and…
Op-Eds
Politicians Should Quit Grandstanding; Focus on Long-Term Energy Solutions
As public anger over soaring gas prices continues to build, members of Congress have noticed that their re-elect numbers continue to go down. …
Op-Eds
‘Green’ Politicians Add to Gas Price Woes
Amid the race between politicians to capitalize on consumer anger at high gas prices, at least one member of Congress, Rep. Marsha Blackburn…
Op-Eds
‘Green’ Politicians Add to Gas Price Woes
Amid the race between politicians to capitalize on consumer anger at high gas prices, at least one member of Congress, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.,…
Op-Eds
A Bird Flu Manhattan Project?
Vaccination to prevent viral and bacterial diseases is modern medicine's most cost-effective intervention. Vaccines to prevent the expected avian flu pandemic could save…
Op-Eds
Ex-Im: Boeing’s Bank Once More
The Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im), a federal agency that subsidizes U.S. exports primarily through loan guarantees, dedicated a majority of its guarantee dollars again…
Op-Eds
Is the U.S. Sugar Problem Solvable?
The United States’ sugar policy has a long history of supporting sugar producers, and the current system has its roots in the agricultural programs of…
Op-Eds
Animal Rights, Human Wrongs
Animal rights extremism—which the FBI has labeled the biggest domestic terrorism threat—has encountered a number of serious reverses recently. These reverses are a…
Op-Eds
Sunset the FCC
Reforming telecommunications law is a favored subject in the halls of Congress this year. Hot issues include streamlining video franchising and addressing the "net…
Op-Eds
Twenty Years After Chernobyl
April 26 marks the 20th anniversary of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Anti-nuclear activists are still trying to turn Chernobyl into…
Op-Eds
Unholy Alliance
States are embroiled in a nasty squabble with their business partner of seven years: Big Tobacco. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office”…
Op-Eds
France’s New Revolution
The French climate of economic sluggishness and widespread unemployment has led to a pervasive restlessness. Many—especially the youth—have taken to rioting, striking, and…
Op-Eds
The UN vs. Technology
With diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS ravaging the world's poor—and perhaps a flu pandemic in the offing—the United Nations'…
Op-Eds
Top Ten Junk Science Stories of the Past Decade
My web site JunkScience.com celebrated its 10th anniversary on April 1, 2006. To mark the event, this column spotlights…
Op-Eds
New fuel standards unnecessary
Once again, the government has issued what it claims is a “win-win” fuel economy mandate— yes, it will raise the prices of new SUVs and…
Op-Eds
Let the Internet Grow Up
America has developed a proud paternal bond with the Internet. We've watched and cheered the net's growth from its awkward, text-heavy infancy into…
Op-Eds
Oil Corruption and Untapped Potential
Robert D. Novak's March 23 op-ed column, “Iraq's Oil Crisis,” highlighted one result of the Bush administration's decision to retain nationalized ownership of the…
Op-Eds
Senate Sets Up Lopsided Global Warming ‘Debate’
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will kick off a legislative effort to address global warming next…
Op-Eds
Waiting to Inhale: ‘Thank You for Smoking’
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Few industries are more demonized than Big Tobacco. From…
Op-Eds
V is for Read the Book Instead
“People shouldn’t fear their governments, governments should fear their people.” This line from the movie V for Vendetta seems to have convinced libertarian luminaries…
Op-Eds
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…
Op-Eds
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…
Op-Eds
Terrorist Heroes
Like it or not, comic books are no longer the domain of nerds and adolescents. Driven by the box-office success of adaptations of…
Op-Eds
Politics Nixed In Cancer Stick Flick
When Christopher Buckley’s novel Thank You for Smoking came out in 1994 it was a surprising satire of the vilification of the tobacco…
Op-Eds
New Drug Demagoguery
“New Drugs Hit the Market, but Promised Trials Go Undone” and “FDA: Drug Companies Drop Ball on Studies,” the headlines blared.
Op-Eds
Careful What You Wish For
If you wanted to lower electric energy prices in the US, what would you do? If you answered, “Cripple the domestic railroad industry,” you'd…
Op-Eds
Wi-fi? Why Not?
Walking around a corner, one never knows what will appear. Yet in order to move forward, it’s often necessary to turn corners anyway,…
Op-Eds
Hot Air Hysteria
Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are at record highs according to a new report from the UN’s World Meteorological Organization. The implication is that…
Op-Eds
Speaking in Tongues
In Monty Python’s classic "Hungarian Phrasebook" sketch, a Hungarian tourist walks into a British tobacconist’s shop, and, consulting a faulty phrasebook, tells…
Op-Eds
Gators and a Lot of Guff
Few experiences inspire awe like paddling a canoe through a Florida swamp filled with otters, turtles and tropical birds. Or spending the night on high…
Op-Eds
Standing Athwart History…
Is there a point at which societal change moves so fast that some people not only do not see it, but emphatically deny…
Op-Eds
Ethanol is good, except when it’s not
Some people accuse George W. Bush of seeing the world in simple terms, black-and-white, good-and-evil. He has been quoted as saying, “in Texas,…
Op-Eds
EPA Whips Up Air Pollution Scare
The air pollution scare industry is at it again — in a very timely manner to help the Environmental Protection Agency impose more dubious…
Op-Eds
Sarbanes-Oxley Accounting Board: An Agency Without Accountability
In 2001, the energy giant Enron unexpectedly filed for bankruptcy, laying off 4,000 of its employees and consuming the life savings of thousands more. In…
Op-Eds
Patients vs. Paternalism
Decisions about drug safety and efficacy are far from easy. Tysabri, a multiple sclerosis (MS) drug that was voluntarily withdrawn from the market last year…
Op-Eds
No Beef in Meat Packaging Controversy
Yet another potential food scare is being manufactured out of thin air — or rather out of carbon monoxide. Last November, with little fanfare,…
Op-Eds
The Lancet Pricks Itself
The term “medical journals” elicits automatic respect from most people. Not from me: I read them. I've found the editors to be increasingly…
Op-Eds
Is CSR A-OK?
A Friday conference at the American Enterprise Institute will try to answer the question: "Is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Serious Business?" And not…
Op-Eds
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.
Op-Eds
U.S. tech: Get to China
We once scorned the idea the Internet could be censored. Many politicians have tried to stop porn, but always to no avail. Spam still…
Op-Eds
WTO and Biotech Food: Who Really Won?
The long-awaited World Trade Organization decision on biotechnology applied to agricultural products, finally released earlier this month, elicited a great deal of buzz…
Op-Eds
The Kyoto Bubble?
It is one of the hallmark features of a capitalist economy that investors will react to changes in policy and regulation in order to…
Op-Eds
Weak Energy Week
This has been “Energy Week” for President Bush as he barnstormed around the country in follow-up to his State of the Union message that…
Op-Eds
Making a Meth of the PATRIOT Act
If you thought al Qaeda or Iraqi insurgents were the major threats facing America, Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) says you’re wrong. According to Dent,…
Op-Eds
Unhappy Birthday
This week marks the first anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol's coming into force. It's an unhappy birthday. The one-year-old has been badly treated by…
Op-Eds
In the Interests of Stakeholders… and Steakholders
There was good news last month on both sides of our northern border: In response to confirmation of an isolated case of bovine…
Op-Eds
All the news that fits
Newspapers are often criticized for bias in their “news” articles. A prime example was Andrew Pollack's Feb. 14 New York Times piece on…
Op-Eds
Kyoto: A Quiet Anniversary
Global warming alarmists marked the Kyoto Protocol’s first anniversary in subdued fashion this week. The treaty so far has been a failure and its…
Op-Eds
The top ten reasons to cut corporate welfare
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” />The federal budget is too big. It's way too big. George W. Bush has called for total…
Op-Eds
Beware False Profits
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers,…
Op-Eds
Low-Fat Diet Myth Busted
The widely-believed notion that low-fat diets are good for your health went “poof” this week—although the busting of that myth shouldn’t be news to…
Op-Eds
‘Oil Addiction’ Talk Boosts Enviro Leftists
“<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />America is addicted to oil.”With these five words in his State of the Union speech, President…
Op-Eds
Three Cheers for WTO Decision on Biotech Food
What do an <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Iowa corn grower, a Thai rice farmer, and a Dutch grocery shopper have…
Op-Eds
Woodpecker Racket?
Last year’s reported sighting in eastern Arkansas of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker, long thought to be extinct, raised the hopes of bird-watchers everywhere.<?xml:namespace prefix…
Op-Eds
We Have It Coming
Americans are about to learn the hard way about the unintended consequences of over-regulation and flawed policy initiatives. Vaccination to prevent viral and bacterial…
The American Spectator
What Are Op-Eds For?
Ever since the Cato Institute fired syndicated columnist Doug Bandow over the revelation that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff had asked and paid him to…
Op-Eds
Pot Calling Kettle Black?
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> In senior editor Dave Astor's article on syndicated columnists and their sources of…
Op-Eds
Gutting Kyoto
The worldwide press hailed the December negotiations in <?xml:namespace prefix = u1 /><?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Montreal over the Kyoto…
Op-Eds
FDA May Make Breathing Difficult for Asthmatics
The government may tell asthmatics to “take a hit” for the environment. But that “hit” won't be from their inhalers, which might be taken…
Op-Eds
I’m Proud to Be a Coal Miner’s Grandson
To hear Senators Byrd and Rockefeller speak, one would think that the coal mining industry in this country is one of the major sources…
Op-Eds
Open Federalism
The businessman puts the cash in an envelope. He leaves it on the agreed upon restaurant table. Another man, a government bureaucrat, walks over…
Op-Eds
What Does It Mean to Be a (Canadian) Conservative?
In yesterday’s Canadian election, the new Conservative Party swept into power for the first time since 1993. Paul Martin and the Liberals, it turns…
Op-Eds
Why Cable ‘A La Carte’ Won’t Roll
Americans love channel surfing, and many spend their evenings flipping through the vast ocean of inexpensive programming available through cable television packages. But…
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How Roe Destroyed Privacy
Op-Eds
Our Miserly Uncle
Although it may be heresy for a libertarian or a conservative to say, I really like living in Washington. I try to be grateful every…
Op-Eds
No Future in Kyoto Dreaming
In 1977, the punk rock band the Sex Pistols shocked England with their nihilist anthem “God Save the Queen,” where they declared there was “No…
Op-Eds
Starborn Society
Science fiction has long been stereotyped as a hardware-obsessed, techno-jargon laden refuge for computer nerds and outcasts. Especially on television, which lacks the geek…
Op-Eds
PETA: Cruel and Unusual
The FBI recently declared environmental and animal rights extremism its top domestic terrorism priority. The bureau is currently investigating over 150 cases of…
Op-Eds
Sarbanes-Oxley vs. the Free Press
Back in June, when New York Times reporter Judith Miller was about to go to jail on contempt charges for refusing to testify…
Op-Eds
A Boon for U.S. Consumers
Although Wal-Mart has been America's largest retailer since 1990, the company has only recently begun expanding into California, and the reaction from many quarters has…
Op-Eds
Some Hard Truths About Bird Flu
The issues surrounding the possibility of a pandemic of the H5N1 strain of avian flu are extraordinarily complex, encompassing medicine, epidemiology, virology and even…
Op-Eds
Plants Bad for the Environment? Celebrities Causing Frogs to Croak?
Could it be that celebrities are planting the forests that are causing the global warming that is growing the bacteria that are wiping out the…
Op-Eds
Fill the Moat, Lower the Portcullis
The issues surrounding the possibility of a pandemic of the H5N1 strain of avian flu are extraordinarily complex, encompassing aspects of medicine, epidemiology,…
Op-Eds
Flu pandemic prevention
This month's outbreak of H5N1 avian flu in Turkey—as many as 50 human cases and several deaths—looks very like what we might see…
Op-Eds
Russia’s Godfather Saga
“Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer,” was the lesson taught to Michael Corleone by his father Vito in the Godfather movies.
Op-Eds
Cruel and Unusual: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
On January 9, two employees of the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) will appear in court to answer felony…
Op-Eds
Ominous Prospects for Aging
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal described “a growing backlash against the pharmaceutical industry that is already affecting the development and…
Op-Eds
CEOs Should Mind Their Own Business
President Coolidge once said the business of America is business. He might have added that the business of business is to pursue profits,…
Op-Eds
Security rules for chemicals are absurd
Writer and humorist P.J. O'Rourke once said, “Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”<?xml:namespace prefix…
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Caveat Emptor: No, Really
One of the oldest maxims in commerce is caveat emptor: let the buyer beware. Sadly, this is often interpreted as a condemnation of businessmen, a…
Op-Eds
Black Gold: Syriana soars on substance, sinks on politics.
Syriana opens with a throng of Arab men quarreling over the right to board a bus. The camera peers at the scene through…
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Enviros Exaggerated Montreal Summit
A world historical event occurred in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Montreal in the hours before dawn on December 10. What? …
Op-Eds
Lives for Votes
December 15, 2005 — With his record, a call from state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is enough to give even innocent defendants…