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Politicized Science Produces Bad Public Policy
A new study about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among Vietnam veterans once again spotlights the need to separate the process of establishing veterans’ benefits…
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EPA’s Never Ending Dioxin Scare
If ever there was an example of what’s wrong with the intersection of government and science, the Environmental Protection Agency’s 20-year campaign to scare…
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America the Parent?
Why is government trying to be our parent again? Congress’s latest effort is the campaign to regulate video game content. Yet this is…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Data Mismanagement
Members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat, now say that Sarbanes-Oxley can be unduly burdensome on business. The law that, in…
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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…
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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.
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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…
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Defining Virtue
by Isaac Post | May 21, 2006 David Vogel’s The Market for Virtue: The Potential and Limits of Corporate Social Responsibility offers…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…