TCS Daily : June 2004 Archives
Free Market Tariffs
Only with great reluctance should we impose tariffs, yet we need tariffs to fight pharmaceutical cheats. Many countries impose austere limits on drug prices, thereby diminishing pharmaceutical companies' profits and inhibiting drug research. Since drugs are develo
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An Energetic Future
Is it time for a Plan B for US foreign policy? And so, also, a Plan B for energy policy? The foreign policy Plan A, of course, is the Bush Doctrine. You know, "moral clarity," backed up the 82nd...
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The Central Front
Editor's note: This is the final installment of a three-part series arguing that neoconservatism best defends America. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here. Uniquely, democratic realism recognizes that in the present era of Islamic terror,...
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Expiration Date
This will be the last in my series of columns on aging and longevity research. I've spent so many pixels on it because I think the topic is about to take off in importance, both in terms of progress...
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Kerry Flip-Flops... Again
The House of Representatives is ready to pass a bill that would sharply limit an attempt by an unelected accounting board in Norwalk, Conn., to force U.S. companies to guess the costs of broad-based employee stock options and write...
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Thailand's "War" on Drugs
When Thailand's prime minister, Taksin Shinawatra, proclaimed a three-month war on drugs last year, police or their "hired guns" are believed to have killed more than 2,200 persons without trial or legal representation. His pledge to King Bhumibol Adulyadej...
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Malaysia's New Mood
A new and much more constructive mood seems to be emerging within the government of Malaysia, and there are signs that the country's economy is beginning to respond to a new range of policies and directions. This shift has...
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Dope Aplenty
Earlier this month, New Mexico officials seized more than 200 pounds of cocaine hidden in a juice shipment coming from Mexico at the Gallup port of entry. The load was estimated at $2.1 million. What is ironic about the...
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Read All About It!!
The headline on my copy of a touted new survey by the Pew Research Center read, "Press Going Too Easy on Bush." Now there's a story! It was late May, and the media had spent the past three months...
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Box Office
They're coming soon, the ski masks and Zarqawi,They've fixed the focus on the camera.I'm glad they had to waste the first beheading(They got the Moore film from the Hezbollah). They caught us at the well -- the pump was...
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Bubble Bubble, Is There Trouble?
"the price-earnings ratio for homes in the Bay Area and greater Los Angeles is also skyrocketing, according to a forthcoming report from UCLA economist Ed Leamer. He says homes are so overvalued that prices are likely to fall when...
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Model Politics
Jesse "The Body" Ventura taught Third Party Politics at Harvard's Kennedy School of Goverment this spring. If Ventura's career path - from former professional wrestler to governor of Minnesota - is an indicator, Harvard should soon be poised to...
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Liberal Disingenuousness About the War in Iraq
Search though I may, I have yet to find the inferential path from "President Bush lied" to "The war in Iraq was unjustified" -- which makes me wonder why the first of these sentences is uttered so often. I...
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The Exploitation Flick Returns
Fifty years ago, exploitation movie pioneer Kroger Babb lost his shirt trying unsuccessfully to hawk his premier product, an alleged sex film entitled Mom and Dad, to New York sophisticates. What might this episode teach us about Babb's contemporary...
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What Best Buy Teaches Us
Last month, Best Buy Co. Inc. CEO Brad Anderson declined 200,000 stock options worth $7.5 million and instead awarded the options to non-executive employees who are helping the company thrive in the face of heavy competition. This bold decision...
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About That Commission Report...
For the better part of a week, everyone who is anyone has been in a tizzy about the 9/11 Commission staff findings regarding the relationship -- or lack thereof -- between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime in...
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Away From the "New Conservatism"
It looks like South Africans are going to be in for a rough ride over the next few years or, more likely, the next few decades. Yesterday in parliament, President Mbeki signalled a policy shift to the left; perhaps...
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The Debate Begins
CLICK HERE to view the latest television ads from Progress For America and to find out how you can help. Last Armistice Day, I was on a panel to debate George Soros at Boston University. There was no Armistice,...
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Still a Small "D" Democrat
The New York Times's David Brooks points to an alarming lack of concern on the part of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry for the cause of democracy and human rights in Cuba. In discussing whether he would support the...
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First Do No Harm - Even to Trial Lawyers
The heart knows its own bitterness, and right now the bitterness in the hearts of many doctors is turning their grievances with the American Trial Lawyers Association into one that is very personal. A nurse in Arizona lost her...
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Big Men Are Back
Africa's despots are saber rattling again. Last week Sam Nujoma, the Namibian President, called white people 'snakes', and then Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's disgraceful dictator, called the almost saintly Archbishop Desmond Tutu an 'evil and embittered little bishop'
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A Pyrrhic Victory for Statism?
European pro-federalist politicians are patting themselves on the back after agreeing on a new constitution, but their self-congratulation may be premature. In part, this is because voters in several countries might decide that they do not want to be...
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Spaceship One-derful
As the third generation of my family to work, however peripherally, in rocketry and aerospace perhaps I can add my $0.02's worth to the Spaceship One celebrations? There's a justified jubilation at the achievement of the first private visit...
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Ken Starr Saved Bill Clinton from Himself
In advance of this week's release of his 957-page memoir, former President Bill Clinton is already rewriting history. Most notably he has excoriated Ken Starr; a remarkable delusion on Clinton's part given that the former Whitewater special prosecutor arguably...
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Getting the Skinny on Fat
Editor's note: Frequent TCS contributor Radley Balko recently covered the Williamsburg obesity summit and filed several dispatches. This is his final installment. In writing a wrap-up of the TIME-ABC News Summit on Obesity, I thought it might be best...
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Why We Don't Speak French
LIGONIER, PA. -- This is the 250th anniversary of why we don't speak French. It all began in this area of Western Pennsylvania in the spring and summer of 1754. It must have been a spring and summer much...
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No EUphoria
The recent EU parliamentary election demonstrates that Europe's political elite is leading the continent in an unpopular direction. Although European voters increasingly associate the EU with bureaucratic overreach, political conformity, and economic centralizatio
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Will "Fahrenheit 9/11" Defeat a President?
Michael Moore, once a scruffy maker of cheap, funny, satirical documentaries, now puffs himself with the plaudits of the metrosexuals of Hollywood and Cannes. Having portrayed Americans as a bunch of gun-happy lunatics in "Bowling for Columbine," he's now...
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Meet the Organiks
Never challenge organiks about the virtues of their food. Their fanatical faith in the imaginary benefits of fruits, vegetables, dairy products and meat free of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, antibiotics and hormones will result in contemptuous loo
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I Am (Apparently) a Left-Wing Democrat
It must have been the $10 I gave to UNICEF. Or to Project HOPE, which immunizes kids in third-world countries. Or to FINCA, a micro-lending institution. Clearly, anyone who gives token sums to carefully vetted development organizations must be...
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Exit Signs
At a time when the technology sector appears to be on the cusp of a major rebound, it seems that nearly every technology company has been ramping up efforts to find the next great billion-dollar market opportunity. By now,...
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Iraq: The Creators
Amid the car bombs and carnage, being optimistic about the situation in Iraq and the June 30 handover of sovereignty is quite a challenge. Many might say it could only be met by street pharmaceuticals or at least severe...
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The Slovak Tiger
From problematic baby brother in a fringe region to tax haven and industrial centre, the small Slovak republic has come a long way, but at least it's on the right track. It's been called the Detroit of Europe, even...
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What is the Earth's 20th Century Temperature Trend?
The following important comments were made by Kary B. Mullis in his autobiography, "Dancing Naked in the Mind Field." "Science appeared in the seventeenth century. Robert Boyle, who was a Christian and a friend of the English monarch Charles...
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Promises, Promises
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell is beginning to look more like the Los Angeles Lakers' Kobe Bryant than the Detroit Pistons' Rasheed Wallace when it comes to delivering on his promises. You may recall in the basketball playoffs...
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The Real Air War Has Now Started
CLICK HERE to view the latest television ads from Progress For America and to find out how you can help. A free-market conservative organization -- called a "527 political organization" after a section in the tax code -- goes...
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Death Be Not Proud
A few years ago, promised cures for baldness, impotence, and old age shared a common image as fraudulent and vaguely pathetic, the illusory straws grasped at by the desperate and gullible. Now, with Rogaine and Viagra offering relief to...
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Putting Taxes on Ice
According to the Iceland sagas and chronicles, Iceland was the world's first tax haven. When King Harold unified Norway in the 870s, his first ruling was to impose a new tax on its people. The Vikings refused to pay...
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A Beach Head in the Second Front?
JAKARTA -- Analysts of the War on Terror refer to Southeast Asia as the Second Front. There were terrorist bombings last year in Bali and Jakarta in Indonesia by Jemaah Islamiah, an affiliate of Al Qaeda. This year, over...
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The Market as Judge
As Chairman of the House Financial Services committee, Rep. Michael Oxley is probably more aware than most of the positive impact broad stock ownership would have on the U.S. economy. Voters that are owners of the capitalist system are...
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The "Cancer Epidemic" that Never Was
Cancer is a plague, and we have brought it upon ourselves. Or so many of us believe. "Cancer epidemic" in the Google search engine pulls up 10,500 references, while "epidemic of cancer" reveals 1,700. The culprit list is endless:...
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The Alternatives Are Dangerously Insufficient
Editor's note: This is part II of a three-part series. Read part I of the series here. Part III will be published next week. Criticizing a grand strategy as ambitious as the Bush administration's is easy. Providing an alternative...
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Prisoners, No Dilemma
The saga of John Yoo nicely illustrates the adage that no good deed goes unpunished. Yoo is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law who until now was little known outside the...
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SEC Shame
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday morning that the SEC is expected Wednesday to pass a rule requiring mutual funds to have independent chairmen. The action will be, write Deborah Solomon and John Hechinger of the Journal, "a stinging...
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The Best Bar... None
Congratulations, law school graduate! You've taken the first step on your path towards fortune and glory, and that throbbing sensation where your soul used to be won't bother you a bit in the years to come. (Remember: just a...
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Critics are Still Confusing Proof and Evidence
"PANEL FINDS NO QAEDA-IRAQ TIE," shouted the front page of the New York Times last Thursday. This wasn't supported by the facts of the story -- the 9/11 panel had found no solid evidence of Iraqi cooperation with al...
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Beyond Precaution
A 53 year old man recently sued the estate of deceased diet guru Dr. Robert Atkins. His grievance? He has coronary artery disease. The crux of his case is that his cholesterol went from 146 to 230 within two...
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Dude, Where's My Country?
Last week's European elections were, for once, an interesting spectacle. I enjoyed watching the results come in from across Europe, not least because they confirmed my predictions made in this same place two weeks ago. Apart from getting personal...
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Commission Impossible
Here's a handy way to gauge the esteem in which the European Commission presidency is held: The man who is almost universally wanted for the job - and not without good reason - cannot be tempted to leave his...
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Outta Gas
It is so mindless. So normal. This morning I awoke in our air-conditioned bedroom, fired up the electric coffeemaker and the computer before beginning this ramble about the energy shortages of the future. It seems so irrelevant; this issue...
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World Wine Web
It isn't exactly the Untouchables v. Al Capone, but there is a legal battle raging over the availability of alcoholic beverages. Internet wine sales have grown substantially in recent years, offering consumers both lower prices and greater product choice....
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Slobodan Milosevic, Esq.
There is, as Shakespeare tells us, such a thing as protesting too much. Someone might want to mention this fact to former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who is currently attempting to subpoena close to 1,400 people as witnesses in...
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The Arab Hall of Mirrors
As Westerners, as well as Muslims around the globe, watch the development of events in and associated with the Saudi kingdom, it becomes increasingly obvious to all that a curtain of deception, distortion, disinformation, and deceit stands between Saudi...
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Not Arrogance but Genius
When Tony Blair returned to London after signing the European Constitution, he was accused of arrogance by the leader of the UK Independence Party. There is truth in the accusation. After all, it is barely a week since the...
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Privatizing Foreign Policy
With all due apologies to Daniel Webster, some words need to be re-defined. Maybe we could start with the word "diplomacy". The classic definition of diplomacy as n. 1. The art and practice of conducting negotiations between nations (particularly...
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Sound Assumptions
The most hackneyed justification for dismissing economic analysis is the alleged unreality of the assumptions that economists use as bedrocks for their analyses. "Silly economists!" exclaim opponents of policies that enjoy widespread consensus among the intellectua
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Mass Men?
It is interesting question to contemplate: does education, in the modern sense, make a man more or less susceptible to propaganda, which I define here as mendacious manipulation of the mind? The conventional answer is, of course, less --...
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Are They Right?
Many Democrats won't be happy with John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge's new book, "The Right Nation." While re-electing President Bush this November may not be certain, if he is, these two Brits, who write for The Economist magazine, claim...
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The World's Largest Un-Scientific Clinical Trial
Recent developments suggest the world's preeminent global health organization is conducting the world's largest un-scientific clinical trial. The drugs and treatment guidelines it is recommending for poor nations raise troublesome questions. On May 27, the World H
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Saddam and al Qaeda
The 9-11 Commission has issued "Overview of the Enemy," its preliminary assessment of the al Qaeda network. Early press attention has focused on the conclusion that there was "no credible evidence that Iraq and al Qaeda cooperated on attacks...
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Fiscal Harmageddon?
Why does the German Agenda 2010 exist? Why have the EU countries invented the Lisbon process? Why are the governments in Italy and France discussing major changes in the pension systems? Why did New Labour not roll back the...
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Face Time
Most Americans were genuinely puzzled over the refusal by China's leaders to acknowledge or accept repeated apologies and explanations offered after the accidental and tragic bombing of their embassy in Belgrade by US warplanes acting under NATO orders. A...
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Vox Europa
The recent elections for the European parliament sent a very distinct message from the voters. They distrust the present political system, along with most of the sitting governments around Europe. The overall voter turnout rate of about 44 percent...
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Hating Inflating
One of the most enduring achievements of the late Ronald Reagan "stands all but overlooked," my colleague Robert J. Samuelson wrote in The Post last week. Reagan whipped inflation. It's easy for us to forget, but in 1979, on...
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Europe's New 'New World'?
An average American conservative thinker might normally expect to take kindly to something written by Strauss-Kahn, presuming it to have been some sort of collaboration between the influential conservative intellectuals Leo Strauss and Herman Kahn. Yet the combina
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High Profile
I drove to Baltimore-Washington International Airport the other day to pick up my wife and her sister on their return from a trip to Hawaii. As I threaded my way through construction barriers to the "Arriving Passengers" area I...
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Paul Krugman's Entitlement Problem
Intellectual honesty compels one to acknowledge two things: first, weaknesses in one's position; and second, controversial assumptions on which one's position rests. Paul Krugman, the economist-cum-columnist, is routinely dishonest in both ways. For example, the o
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Arrogance and Alternatives
Editor's note: This is the final installment of a two-part series. Read the first installment here. On May 10, 2004, a videotape, almost universally believed to be authentic, surfaced of 26 year old civilian contractor Nicholas Berg's beheading in...
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Junk Law
They all deserve a good spanking. "They" are the state attorneys general (AGs) and other lawyers who will soon file briefs with the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia demanding, in effect, that the U.S. Government ration...
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An End to Alzheimer's?
"My fellow Americans, I have recently been told that I am one of the millions of Americans who will be afflicted with Alzheimer's disease." When President Ronald Reagan announced that a decade ago, it shook us. Sure, everyone dies;...
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Congress Writes a Will
Wills are usually only exciting to their writers, giving them a good chance to chuckle about leaving a good chunk of their estate to a beloved cat instead of a ne'er-do-well nephew. Unfortunately, while writing its own will, the...
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Sick Economy, Sick Society
At a symposium at my college reunion last week, my classmates -- refugees from the '60s, still lefties after all these years -- were complaining that America wasn't enough like Europe. You know, compassionate and unstressed, with free health...
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Capitalist Tool
Michael Moore is upset. His movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" got hit with an R rating by the MPAA. Moore wants a PG-13. Are you surprised? You shouldn't be. The more restrictive R rating can cost a movie millions in potential...
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The Left's Tactical Weapons
"So if last week's Reagan retrospectives emphasized his lasting influence on history, it's worth remembering that his small-government crusade is one area in which his influence has come and gone. The dominant assumption of most political commentary in the...
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Bad Signs on the Horizon
Will May 19, 2004 be a date that lives in infamy for VoIP proponents? Two ominous developments took place on that day. The New York Public Service Commission declared Vonage to be a regulated telephone company. Meanwhile, several key...
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Not So Fast, Grave Diggers!
The U.S. Solicitor General, the government's litigator, decided last week not to appeal a critical ruling against the FCC to the Supreme Court. The decision by the SG was an unusual one -- a slap in the face to...
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Remote Control
The Pacific Island countries frequently complain that their geographical isolation from the major markets of the world is a major reason for their poor economic growth and poverty reduction performance. However, the very low-cost telecommunications now available t
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Putting the Con in Constitution
The governmental leaders of Europe will gather this weekend, along with aides, mistresses and varied leeches upon the tax payers (assuming that those classes are mutually exclusive), to attempt agreement upon the new European Union Constitution. I am not sure...
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What Academic Freedom?
Do you know who John Yoo is? Click here and you will find that Yoo is a well-respected legal scholar with a rich professional background. He has worked in a number of high-profile legal positions in the Justice Department...
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A Nation Turned its Lonely Eyes (and Sore Feet) to Him
They came from all over the country and all walks of life. Hill staffers and lawyers in suits, tourists in T-shirts and shorts, military men of all ranks in dress uniforms, women of a certain age in silk blouses...
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Why Schroeder Lost, and What It Means for America
German Chancellor Schroeder's party suffered an astonishing defeat in the European parliamentary election, garnering less than 22 percent of the vote. The week before the election, I traveled to Berlin to participate in an economic conference. During my visit...
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Delta Force
The Reagan presidency saw a tremendous evolution in the United States' presence in space following the destruction of the Challenger space shuttle. More expendable vehicles for launching payloads were pursued, reviving the highly successful Delta series of rockets
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Live Long -- and Prosper?
Last week, I wrote about research to extend human lives, and about some people's objections to that sort of research. I want to continue that topic, in a slightly different vein, this week. Though some enthusiasts talk about conquering...
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Why Neo-Conservatism Best Defends America
Editor's note: This is the first of a three-part series on neoconservatism and American foreign policy. The neo-conservative strategic paradigm has become the rhetorical punching bag of pundits across the political spectrum. Not only leftists, but isolationist-lea
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Green Mountain Statists
Vermont's state motto, created 225 years ago by some people who might have actually meant it, is "Freedom and unity." Today these concepts are being tested in the Green Mountain State as it becomes a battleground in the culture...
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Eurosceptics Rising
LONDON -- A pig farmer from Poland and a politically incorrect talk-show host in Britain have grasped what's clearly been lost on Europe's ruling elite: that average folks are in no mood for another centralized government telling them how...
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Switzerland in the Desert?
With the official transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi government on the horizon a monumental new challenge will soon begin: the drafting of a permanent constitution for a democratic government. Chief amongst the difficulties is the oft-cited problem of...
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Here We Go Again
John McCain just won't stop. He and someone else once favored by Democrats as a Vice-Presidential candidate, Joe Lieberman, look likely to have their Climate Stewardship Act (S.139) considered once again by the US Senate, despite it having been...
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Space Vision Misunderestimated
"Where are they going without ever knowing the way?" Asked the band Fastball in their hit "The Way." The same question could have been asked of the U.S. manned space program for the last several decades. Where it manifestly...
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A 2020 Vision for Education
"For a basket of economic education goods, will prices be higher or lower than the rate of inflation over the next 6 years and through 2010?" -- Randy Piper Questions like these from a loyal reader led me to...
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The Market's Neglected Virtues
The liberal economist Rebecca Blank and the conservative journalist William McGurn return to a familiar question in a new volume from the Brookings Institution and the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life: Is the Market Moral? The question...
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The General on the March
New York's Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has accused the British-based drug giant Glaxo-SmithKline of consumer fraud because of the manner in which GSK promoted Paxil, an anti-depressant, for children and adolescents. He has accused GSK of misleading consumers by
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The Greatest Athlete You've Never Heard Of
NEW YORK -- Chris Bergland is the greatest athlete you've never heard of. The native New Yorker and "IronMan" tri-athlete recently ran six marathons. In 24 hours. At 8 am on April 29th, the competitive ultraendurance athlete began running...
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The Dollar Factor
The recent spike in oil prices has predictably led to lots of finger pointing as to the cause. China, just six months ago thought to be the source of falling prices around the world, is now miraculously being blamed...
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One More Reason to Give Thanks
The week just past produced for me a blur of emotions. Of course the sadness was centered on the death of Ronald Reagan, a towering figure of the 20th Century whose single accomplishment of peacefully kicking the slats from...
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A Former Feminist Weighs the Wage Gap
The United States Census Bureau has just released statistics on occupational salaries. Here is an Associated Press report on the statistics (with a link to the Census). As you read the report, ask yourself whether the wage disparities discovered...
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How to Save Medicare
Buried deep in the bowels of the recently released Medicare Trustees' Report is the first-ever official estimate of Medicare's true long-run costs. Previous reports have considered only short- and medium-term costs. The new "infinite horizon" estimate adds up all.
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Fare Trade
Need a ready-made image encapsulating the message, "This is London"? Along with Tower Bridge and Big Ben most people will pick a Black Cab. Taxis may be a traditional fixture in London's cityscape, but they also exemplify Britain's booming...
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They're Coming for Your Shrimp
H.L. Mencken famously defined Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." Yesterday's puritans worried about their neighbors enjoying alcohol or gambling too much. Today's neo-Puritan activists fear that someone, somewhere, may be enjo
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Trust the Voters
Just when nobody believed there was any chance for "normalcy" in Romania an amazing twist of fate has restored hope to many discouraged souls. Last week Romanians voted for new representatives in the local administration. Though it only was...
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What Would Reagan Do with Today's Terror Threats?
God has more sense than we do. He steers things in ways that we don't always understand. It seems that God must have had a reason to keep Ronald Reagan alive until 2004. Because now, more than at any...
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It Ain't a Picnic
As the caisson carrying Ronald Reagan's casket moved slowly up Constitution Avenue toward the Capitol, some news stations let us watch in silence. Others filled the moment with talk about the man and his era. One theme that kept...
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Ronald Reagan GCB
Ronald Reagan GCB was known as many things, The Great Communicator, Mr President, The Gipper, Dutch and no doubt a number of less pleasant things by his opponents. There are few of us who take much note of the...
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Are We All Reaganites Now?
With the passing of Ronald Reagan, we are all, it seems, Reaganites. Democrats no less than Republicans have saluted the Great Communicator as a champion of liberty. Politicians and intellectuals who loathed him during his presidency have been forced...
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REAGAN!
Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great. --Ralph Waldo Emerson He was amiable. But he was no dunce. He had been a movie actor. But he was absolutel
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Fumbling on Telecom
The Bush administration has just turned its back on a 20-year Republican legacy of telecommunication competition. What will it do now to put things back on track? Bush Solicitor General Ted Olson decision not to appeal the D.C. Court...
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What to Do First to Save the World
For the leaders of the world's richest countries, meeting this week at the G8 Summit on Sea Island, Georgia, there's no more important question than, "What should come first?" At last, we have the answer. Earlier this year, a...
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Greenland and Global Warming
Recent popular media coverage of climate change issues has presented a scary scenario in which human-induced global warming will give rise to a new ice age. Indeed, this is the scenario sketched out in the climate disaster movie "The...
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Liberté! Egalité! Sororité!
OSLO -- The case for globalization is most often made in economic terms, pointing out beneficial effects on economic growth, welfare and poverty reduction. Although important, such benefits, even if difficult to refute, fail to persuade many, especially women....
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The Opportunities of Freedom
Ronald Reagan's great contribution to American conservatism was to shift its emphasis from the dangers of action to the opportunities of freedom. Reagan's optimism has been much though vaguely praised this week. But conservatives could stand to think about...
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His Convictions, America's Convictions
"Recession is when your neighbor loses his job; depression is when you lose yours; recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his." With those prophetic words, America turned the corner. The long national nightmare of Johnson-to-Nixon-to-Ford-to-Carter was over, and we..
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The Berkeley Intifada?
Over the past two and a half years Berkeley, California has added radical Middle Eastern politics to its chic campus culture. The result isn't pretty. A city that prides itself on tolerance and diversity is fast-becoming an epicenter of...
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Patent Absurdities
Treating disease in resource poor countries is a complex and disturbing problem. Usually, debate about the issue centres on the patent life of medicines, with the pharmaceutical industry characterised as the bete noir. A more rational analysis of the...
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China's Syndrome
Despite China's enviable economic performance, a reality check indicates that such high growth rates are unsustainable. The worse news is that there is also likely to be a sharp reversal could harm many of the neighboring countries whose economies...
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World Health Disorganisation
What is the new head of the World Health Organisation is up to? Dr. JW Lee, Director General of the WHO, has apparently lost his ability to check basic facts in an effort to placate his left-wing health activist...
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"End of the World" Narrowly Averted
The last few days have felt like I'm living through an extended version of the infamous 1938 radio broadcast of "The War of the Worlds." Someone with the signature "Aussie Bloke" has had thousands of people worried that large...
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The G-8: Abolish or Transform It
Sometime in the next day or two I am sure to get calls from reporters at leading newspapers asking me to comment on the prospects and significance of the declarations that will conclude the annual meeting (Tuesday-Thursday) of heads...
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How Long Should People Live?
How long should people live? Randall Parker's FuturePundit blog has an interesting post and discussion on aging research. The discussion revolves around an argument by Cambridge University's Aubrey de Grey that political reluctance is a major barrier to research..
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Growing Up With Ronald Reagan
When I was a young professor at the University of California in the late sixties I despised Governor Reagan, the more fool I. His whispery voice and downhome manner struck me as both cornpone and phony, and his occasional...
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Reaganomics in Context
" Let me talk, rather, of those presidents who I've known in my own lifetime. And there, there's no doubt in my mind that Ronald Reagan was by far the greatest. "...it took real principles to do what he...
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Bullying in Berlin, Part II
Editor's note: This is the second in a two-part series. (Part one can be read here.) BERLIN -- In two days of closed-door meetings, an international bureaucracy of industrialized nations -- whose membership is dominated by "old Europe" --...
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Bolkestein Day!
It may surprise you to know that not everything over here in the European Union is run by blithering idiots despite the manner in which, to me, our rulers increasingly resemble the floating bits in a septic tank. Yes,...
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Burying Carterism
On July 15, 1979, President James Earl Carter delivered a speech to the nation that more than other defined his presidency and perhaps made him ripe for defeat at the hands of a Hollywood actor, ex-California Gov. Ronald Wilson...
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The Global Warrior
Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980 with a mandate not just to contain communism, which was the U.S. policy since 1947, but to roll it back. Between 1975 and Regan's election, Angola, Afghanistan, Laos, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Somalia...
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Europe Ponders the Reagan Legacy
Ronald Reagan always had perfect political pitch and a great sense of the defining moment. Even his death on Saturday at the age of 93 seemed timed precisely to reinforce the already moving images and stirring messages coming from...
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The Ronald Reagan I Did Not Know
I started volunteering for Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign in the fall of 1979. I had just received my B.A. in political science, and so I figured I had three career options: go to graduate school, be a waiter, go...
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A New Beginning?
After more than two weeks, a final outcome of the presidential race in the Philippines has yet to be officially determined. The electoral process is placed in doubt by questions about its conduct and counter-accusations from opposing parties imperil...
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Reagan and Rights: Positive and Negative
Ronald Reagan's passing has brought forth a host of commentary from both the left and right. One of the key questions being raised, of course, is how we should assess Reagan's legacy. Most observers would see a deep commitment...
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Less Is More
The Founding Fathers of the European project -- men like Churchill, Adenauer, Schuman and De Gasperi -- built a network of institutions that has proven to be spectacularly effective in guaranteeing peace and prosperity in Europe. They realized that...
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Careless Whimper
There were predictions of mass demonstrations and harsh criticism for George W. Bush before his three-day visit to Europe to commemorate World War II anniversaries. Although the controversies surrounding the war in Iraq were off-limits during the D-Day ceremonies,
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Iraq: The Warriors
Another long gray line of warriors has joined the battalions engaged in the war on terror. Their duties are still being determined; the country they are fighting for is still in existential jeopardy. But Iraq, under the leadership of...
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The Greatest Generation of Engineers
Hell broke on the Normandy coast on June 6, 1944. Waves of men and machines landed with a fury seen only once in history. The delivery of 156,000 troops, by 4,800 vessels and 2,000 landing craft at sunrise that...
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The President of the Eternal Summer
It is always the summer of 1983, and Ronald Reagan is always president. Everyone measures the world against their impressions and perceptions from that first summer of awareness; that first summer when that big world Out There intrudes upon...
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Bacchus Bytes Back
The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear three cases collectively raising the following question for decision: "Does a State's regulatory scheme that permits in-state wineries directly to ship alcohol to consumers but restricts the ability of out-of-state winerie
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The Development Consensus
Zealots regularly make the mistake of assuming that others accept the rightness of their cause. That's why Greens run into brick walls, like developing countries. The recent "Copenhagen Consensus" of a group of the world's leading economists that global...
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The Press and the War in Iraq
The debate over media bias has reared its head yet again -- this time regarding press coverage of the war in Iraq. Some argue that the media is not covering the good news that is occurring in Iraq, and...
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Bluegrass Brass
Trial lawyers continue to work the American courts as if they were their private ATM machines, shaking down the public for abusively large sums of money, even in the face of attempts to reform the system. In most cases,...
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Out of Control
Recent calls for a 'kinder, gentler' form of rent control -- as was proposed last year in Boston, for instance -- clearly causes concern for property owners, particularly at a time when, in some municipalities, vacancies are rising and...
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Turning Communists Into Capitalists -- and Vice Versa?
In the year 2020, the largest democracy in the world could be ruled by a communist leader who is a compassionate capitalist. For those startled at such a proposition, remember that India has the world's longest-serving elected communist government...
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The Liberator
In 1917, with the advent of the communism in Russia, Vladimir Lenin and his coterie of thugs, gangsters and murderers could perhaps have been forgiven for having thought that no earthly power would deny victory to the ideology of...
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Reagan, the (Good) Actor
The chattering class is too quick to denigrate Ronald Reagan's acting career. Despite the derision of cultural elites, Reagan was an accomplished performer who enjoyed a successful career spanning three-decades and some 50-plus film titles that any aspiring thespi
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A Truly Social Europe
In the slipstream of May Day and in the run up to the European elections, socialist parties in several member states have joined labor unions across the continent in condemning the EU as a free market leviathan. Europe, we...
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Mourning in America
A man detested by the liberal establishment, laughed at as stupid by the sophisticates, feared for his aggressive, forthright foreign policy by the Europeans.... A man who cut taxes and revived an economy, gave hope and comfort in tough...
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Class Warfare in Berlin
BERLIN -- The US government wastes a lot of money, but few items in the federal budget do as much damage as the $50 million that American taxpayers send each year to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development...
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His Hip, Hooray!
Sweden's prime minister, Göran Persson, has never been known as a jovial man and has often been criticized for his grumpy and harsh political manners. But lately Persson has become grumpier and ruder than ever before, both to his...
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From Rome to Baghdad
Sixty years ago today Americans awoke to the news that Rome had been liberated from the fascists. The Allied Italian Campaign was, as Iraq is now, a separately managed conflict in a global war. In 1944, the enemy was...
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The Barriers Don't Exist
Editor's note: This is Radley Balko's third installment reporting from the obesity summit in Williamsburg, Va. Read his first two installments here (installment 1) and here (installment 2). When I was originally asked to write the designated dissent piece...
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We Will Never Forget
Editor's note: What follows are remarks from Rep.Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) prior to the vote on a House of Representatives resolution he introduced commemorating the 15th Anniversary of the massacre at Tiananmen Square. The resolution passed by a vote of...
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Michel et Moi
Recently the annual film festival in Cannes, Europe's answer to Hollywood's Oscars, closed with the awarding of its prestigious Palme d'Or to Michael Moore for his movie Fahrenheit 9/11. From the front-page, top-of-the-fold coverage this received in many European.
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America's Greatest Unknown Market Analyst
"I happen to love Cleveland," says Elliott Schlang as we sip our drinks in the dark and stylish bar of the Jefferson Hotel, which, to my parochial Northeast Corridor mind, is about as far from Cleveland as you can...
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Water World
The supply of fresh water is vital: as the world's population and economy expand, demand for water inevitably increases. The UN World Water Development Report "Water for People, Water for Life" should be, therefore, a timely and valuable document....
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Welcome to the Obesity Summit
Editor's note: Frequent TCS contributor and Cato Institute Policy Analyst Radley Balko is covering this week's TIME/ABC News Obesity Summit in Colonial Williamsburg. He will provide TCS readers updates throughout the conference. Balko covers nanny culture issues f
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Bonjour Wal-Mart?
"Wal-Mart tells Tesco we're coming after you: US giant lays down the gauntlet," reads a May 25th headline in the Financial Times. With Wal-Mart planning a huge expansion into the European market, and many powerful interest groups taking note,...
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What Impact Will "Day" Have?
"The Day After Tomorrow" is a disaster, and while that may not be a good thing, it's definitely a profitable thing. The film had the misfortune of going head-to-head with "Shrek 2" in the theaters, and yet it still...
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What Ails the Doctors?
On a recent flight from Johannesburg to London, I sat next to a South African nurse named Queeneth who was returning from a short holiday to her job in Wales. She decided to swap working at Chris Hani Baragwanath...
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'Ask the Crowd'
At this point, presidential polls are volatile and meaningless. In January, the Gallup survey had John Kerry leading George Bush, 55 percent to 43 percent; in March, Bush was ahead by precisely the same margin. Gallup's latest survey, on May...
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Is Sex Everything?
Why do people have sex? The answer given by many evolutionary biologists boils down to the "selfish gene" -- the powerful propensity of DNA to replicate itself. Indeed, in this view, the impetus to transmit one's genes to the...
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"NIP" and Tuck?
The recent release of the federal budget plan for FY2005 has already ruffled the feathers of the U.S. scientific and technical establishment. The preliminary numbers do not look good: 21 of the 24 leading R&D-funding government agencies -- including...
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Sell Bin Laden, Buy Bush!
OSLO -- Last July a small scandal broke in Washington. Admiral John Poindexter, of Iran-Contra fame, had been responsible for planning a government-controlled online futures market, the Policy Analysis Market (PAM). The purpose was to collect information on politi
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'As Threatening to Us As the Terrorist Threat'?
Editor's note: Check out Radley Balko's first installment here. If you check out the website for the Obesity Summit, you'll notice on the homepage the quote the summit's organizers have chosen to set the tone for three day event....
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Telecom's Catch 22
The author Joseph Heller would love the current telecommunications mess. Talk about situation in which legal minds have cooked up a catch, a real Catch-22, and it's this field. You know what a Catch 22 is, of course. It's...
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Appeal to Reason
On March 2, the D.C. Circuit Court reversed a landmark telecom decision by the Federal Communications Commission. The next step seemed obvious: file an appeal with the Supreme Court. Instead, the FCC asked for time to bring two groups...
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Fat Cats
Feeling a bit overweight? Blame capitalism. Or rather credit capitalism. In the not too distant past most people on the planet had difficulty getting enough good food to eat. But now we have a new worry: There's apparently too...
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I've Seen This Movie Before...
"The Day After Tomorrow" -- or TDAT, for short -- premiered Friday. It could have amounted to just another rip-snorting science fiction thriller with a thin plot, thinner characterizations but loads of great Hollywood special effects. That is what...
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Tyranny of the Self
In England, Birmingham lawyer Maxine Kelly is suing her former employers for sexual discrimination. Recently, Kelly and 50 other female employees received a memo banning them from coming to the office in skirts cut above the knee. The memo...
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Why There Are "No Villages Left to Burn"
A brutal war is being waged in western Sudan. Arab militias, called the Janjaweed, have been carrying out raids against the villages of the Masalit, the Fur, and the other black Africans of Sudan's Darfur province. Janjaweed attacks frequently...
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Taxed By Democracy?
The Economist calls it the greatest show on earth. With over 650 million eligible voters and thousands of candidates, elections in the world's biggest democracy are staggering in their scale. India is rightly praised for staging them in what...
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Health Fascism
The UK's parliamentary Health Select Committee in the House of Commons has now reported on obesity. As expected, the report is a health fascist power grab. It is an impressive mix of junk statistics, unsubstantiated claims, generalizations from single...
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Would You Mind?
Lots of people are worried about where neuroscience might be taking us. And such worries, as I've written here before (and, in a way, here, too), are not necessarily unfounded. Being able to manipulate brains offers substantial possibilities for...
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A Leonardo, Not a Luther
To east and west, the debate over the nature and future of Islam -- a global religious community of at least a billion -- continues. At times the word "debate" is an obvious misnomer; young Nick Berg seems to...
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Critical Choices for India
During the past weeks, India has come up with more surprises than a fun house at a carnival. First, on May 12, India's voters elected not to return the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, commonly termed the "Hindu Nationalist" Party)...
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Russia's "Official Conservatism"
MOSCOW -- There is a joke the locals here are especially fond of telling. "Which would you prefer: Superficial American smiles or sincere Russian hatred?" The punch line, as many Russians see it, is that no matter what their...
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Why Is Bermuda Richer Than Venezuela?
Other things being equal, one would think that Venezuela -- a democratic country with immense oil and mineral riches, populated by descendants of the liberators of Latin America -- would out-prosper Bermuda -- an island one-third the size of...
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It Ain't War
Now that every pundit, media mogul and editorial page pin-head is at full cry about the so-called gasoline price outrage and how it is about to send the economy into a 1929-style crash, I guess it's time for me...
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The Weather Channel Goes Hollywood
The opening of a big-budget weather-horror movie, The Day After Tomorrow, has the Weather Channel going Hollywood. Highlighted in the film, The Weather Channel now seeks the limelight by running a series on extreme weather, to be broadcast the...
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Bouncing the Security Check
The massive hiring in the security sector in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks has left us with a huge backlog of people waiting for federal security clearances. A recent General Accounting Office report estimated the total at 360,000...
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