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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.
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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…
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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…
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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. …
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‘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…
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‘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.,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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”…
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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…
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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'…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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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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…
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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…
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New Drug Demagoguery
“New Drugs Hit the Market, but Promised Trials Go Undone” and “FDA: Drug Companies Drop Ball on Studies,” the headlines blared.
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…