TCS Daily : December 2007 Archives
Revisiting the Stupid Party
The nineteenth century English philosopher John Stuart Mill bequeathed to modern conservatism a lasting inferiority complex when he dismissed the conservatives of his day as "the stupid party." No one likes to be called stupid, as we can all...
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On the Stupid Party
The nineteenth century English philosopher John Stuart Mill bequeathed to modern conservatism a lasting inferiority complex when he dismissed the conservatives of his day as "the stupid party." No one likes to be called stupid, as we can all...
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Dressing Down
WASHINGTON -- Every morning, I first check the weather. 55 today, feels like 54. That's seven degrees warmer than it was yesterday. Also, 30 degrees colder than my native Miami. "It's warm today," I reason, "I'll wear long pants...
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Bureaucracy Kills Innovation
Today's main dangers to public health stem from taxies, duties, bureaucratic registration procedures and other impediments to free trade in pharmaceuticals, most notably violations of intellectual property rights. We have seen enormous progress in medicine during
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Palestine
November 29 is the United Nations' "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People." It occurs on the anniversary of the 1947 date that the United Nations voted to partition the British Mandate of Palestine between Jews and Arabs....
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Cancer Report
Ever since the recent release of the massive report from the World Cancer Research Fund ("Food, Nutrition and Physical Acitivty and the Prevention of Cancer") the media have been busy pounding into our heads the three new truths about...
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Good Bad Beautiful Ugly
Sport, it is often said, is a metaphor for life. In India, for the past couple of decades, sport has been synonymous with cricket. Even by its own standards, 2007 has been a very eventful year for Indian cricket,...
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Merry Christmas!
If you are happy and warm, Merry Christmas. If you are cold and lonely, Merry Christmas. If the world is your oyster, Merry Christmas. If the world seems like it is tumbling down around your ears, Merry Christmas. If...
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Brussels Will Lose Moral Authority on Democracy
The leaders of 27 member states of the European Union met this month in Lisbon, Portugal, to sign a new constitutional treaty that will, they hope, replace the previous draft that was rejected in 2005. With his typical penchant for...
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What Are We Celebrating When We Celebrate Christmas?
As children most of us were taught that we celebrate Christmas because it is the birthday of Jesus. This is an easy idea for a child to grasp, since from a tender age we are made aware of the importance...
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My Global Warming Question
"The global annual temperature for combined land and ocean surfaces for 2007 is expected to be near 58.0°F and would be the fifth warmest since records began in 1880. Some of the largest and most widespread warm anomalies occurred...
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The Fear of Living Dangerously
Many American boys will be getting a dangerous book for Christmas this year—so dangerous that it is frankly labeled "A Dangerous Book for Boys." Published in the USA back in May 2007, it immediately hit the number two spot...
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The 'Own-to-Rent' Solution?
CEO's heads are rolling, millions of homeowners are facing foreclosure and the public's sense of frustration is palpable: Isn't there something Washington could do to make the mortgage mess go away? Well, lots of things, actually - though few of...
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The Imperial Supreme Court
Critics of the Bush administration assert that America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other actions, overt and covert, in the larger War on Terror, constitute an attempt by President Bush to create an American empire in the classic...
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Success in the Global Economy: An Agenda for the Future
Against the backdrop of America's election season, one question should rise to the top of the public debate: What does America need to do to succeed in the global economy? The answers offered by political candidates in the months ahead...
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Handle Huckabee with Care
For some time now I have been watching the absorbing candidacy of Mike Huckabee. I have also been sampling some of the anti-Huckabee literature, which is becoming increasingly shrill and mean-spirited. As I read some of these comments I found...
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Beyond Bali: Fight Global Warming by Dumping Kyoto
Last week at the UN's global warming meeting in Indonesia, polar bear costumed activists passed out huge pieces of cake. They were celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions. I wonder...
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Regulation, Litigation and Taxation
As the year draws to a close, many of us find ourselves reflecting. We look back on what has happened during the past year and what we expect for the future. As lawmakers, those of us elected to serve engage...
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Evidence-Based Medicine vs. Patients
A new buzzword entered the medical lexicon in 1992 when the Evidence-Based Medicine Working Group published one of the first articles on the phenomenon in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). In the years since, the role that...
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Bucking the System
Recently, The Washington Post carried a front-page story about a federal raid on the headquarters of the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and Internal Revenue Code (Norfed). The Indiana-based company, which advocates "sound money," ha
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On the iCouch
A review article has been published speculating on the utility and future of computer-aided cognitive-behavioral therapy (CCBT). Basically, this amounts to software that does psychotherapy. It is remarkable that such systems are currently in use. For a long time,.
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Commons Problems
I recently read that a Japanese whaling fleet is heading toward Antarctica to kill humpback whales, a species "protected" since the 1960s. This took me back in time. When I was a grad student at Indiana University, nearly 40 years...
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Religious Right and Wrong
A week after Mitt Romney took to podium in an effort to answer the not-so-quiet questions about his Mormon faith, Mike Huckabee has raised the issue again, with an offhand comment about Mormon doctrine to The New York Times...
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All Americans Left Behind
Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act overwhelmingly in December 2001. NCLB's popularity was partly political and partly geopolitical. Republicans wanted a legislative victory for the new president, and legislators sought to demonstrate U.S. solidarity in t
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Reflections on 'Blowback'
Some time back Republican candidate for President Ron Paul stirred up considerable debate by arguing that 9/11 was "blowback" for the United States' foreign policy toward the Muslim world over the past half century or so, going back to...
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Success in the Global Economy: An Agenda for the Future
Against the backdrop of America's election season, one question should rise to the top of the public debate: What does America need to do to succeed in the global economy? The answers offered by political candidates in the months ahead...
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Success in the Global Economy: An Agenda for the Future
Against the backdrop of America's election season, one question should rise to the top of the public debate: What does America need to do to succeed in the global economy? The answers offered by political candidates in the months ahead...
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Intangible Opportunities
Technology firms offer both analytical challenges and opportunities for investors. More and more of the big winners in the stock market will be tech stocks that have gained their competitive advantage from intangible assets; i.e., knowledge-based assets. There is.
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Your Income and Your House
"In Northern California, a household income of $90,000 per year could legitimately pay the minimum monthly payment on an Option ARM on a million [dollar] home for the past several years. Most Option ARMs allowed zero to 5% down....
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Thoughts From a Lancet Skeptic
The British medical journal The Lancet published two articles about increases in mortality in Iraq caused by the US-led war and occupation. The authors estimated "excess deaths," the number of Iraqis who had died in excess of what would...
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How and Why Romney Bombed
The Reuters headline said: "Mitt Romney Vows Mormon Church Will Not Run White House." Unfortunately, this time Reuters got its story right. In his long-awaited speech designed to win over conservative evangelicals, Romney actually did say something to this...
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Unnecessary X-Rays Should Be Avoided (But Which are Unnecessary?)
American consumers should not be alarmed or confused by two recent studies that call our attention to the difficulty in deciding who should -- and who should not -- be exposed to radiation from medical X-rays. In fact, all you...
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Economics Books and Podcasts: The Class of 2007
For people who like to read about economics, 2007 produced a bumper crop of outstanding books. Here are my top recommendations. Well Written Professional writers are better than professional economists at authoring books that are fun to read. The book...
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What Hayek Might Think About Chavez
Something quite remarkable happened in Venezuela last Sunday. Hugo Chavez did not get what he wanted. By a vote of 51% to 49%, the people of Venezuela voted against Chavez' radical proposals to alter his country's constitution. They refused to...
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Euro-Imperialists: What Sarko and Putin Have in Common
Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Vladimir Putin in Moscow both project a strong profile against Islamist extremism. But "Sarko" is faced, as were his predecessors, by the permanent spectre of civil disorder in France, which seems more cultural and...
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Flying More to Help the Climate?
Vatican City is the latest to join the green crusade, recently announcing that it is becoming the world's first carbon-neutral country. Pope Benedict XVI will reportedly identify climate change action as a moral obligation in an encyclical next spring....
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Moving Mountains No More
As co-founder of Christians For The Mountains, I encourage church folks to enjoy God¹s creation and be responsible caretakers. Our primary advocacy mission is to end the practice of Mountaintop Removal coal extraction. Historically, coal has been mined by burrowing
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Torture and the Nation
BUENOS AIRES -- Across the street, rise the pristine white columns of the Navy Mechanics School. Here, during the Dirty War of 1976-1983, thousands of Argentineans were tortured. The majority never resurfaced, officially "disappeared," but in reality either machin
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Why It Takes a Village (To Afford a Prescription)
I once heard columnist George Will refer to a general election as a futile narcissistic exercise. I thought that proposition ridiculous at the time, but now I find it harder to argue against. The Bush administration has embroiled us in...
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Murdoch Is No Threat to Democracy, but Media Protectionism
Rupert Murdoch's August takeover of Dow Jones prompted a host of panickyquestions: Can we really afford to have someone as politically slanted as the Australian media tsar running the Wall Street Journal? Will Murdoch open the doors to sensationalism, populism,...
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Home Disappointment
Three Americans shared the 2007 Nobel Prize in Economics "for having laid the foundations of mechanism design theory." They owe an intellectual debt to Friedrich Hayek. His 1945 American Economic Review article, "The Use of Knowledge in Society," focused on...
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