TCS Daily : May 2002 Archives
Wal-Mart's Classless Act
On average, every two hours of every day of every year, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the world's largest retailer, gets sued. At last count, more than 9,000 cases were pending, including some that can only be called weird - like a...
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Let's Get Person-al
UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh made an important point on his web log this week about how activists can sometimes undermine their own cause by alienating moderates who might otherwise be predisposed to support their position. The context of...
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Calving and Sobs
There are a lot of headlines about weird weather these days. And many of those stories often blame human-made global warming for the wacky weather events. As a result, it would be difficult even for a reasonable person not...
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Serious Solar Power
It has become increasingly clear that solar power can play only a limited role in solving the world's energy problems - if the solar energy is collected on Earth. But there is an alternative that has received less attention than...
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Making Gray Davis Accountable
California's Governor Gray Davis is in hot water over his acceptance of $25,000 from Oracle Corporation following the state's no-bid $95 million dollar e-government deal with the company. And while the governor probably wishes he had never heard of e-government,...
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Hill Hysteria
Editor's note: This article is adapted from the author's testimony before a hearing on "Examining Enron: The Consumer Impact of Enron's Influence on State Pension Funds" before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs, Foreign Commerce and Tourism. Mr. Chai
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Creating a Martian Chronicle
As Webb Wilder says, I can't predict the future, but I can take a hint. For the last couple of weeks I've been writing about Mars, and specifically about the prospects and pitfalls of visits to Mars, colonies on...
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Danger: Clear and Present
What if? We now know that if a terrorist gets his hands on a nuclear, biological, or chemical weapon, he would not hesitate to use it on America. And we now know that another major terrorist attack is not...
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He Moves In Mysterious Ways
The Dow Jones industrial average is lower today than it was in mid-1998. The broader Standard & Poor's 500-stock index has lost a quarter of its value since the end of March 2000. As for the Nasdaq: Don't even ask....
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Tigers and Rhinos and Pandas, Oh My!
There's a reason the World Wildlife Fund uses a Giant Panda as its symbol. An endangered, attractive mammal is a magnet for sympathy. They would never think of using a burrowing insect or a slimy mould, however endangered they...
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Tigers and Rhinos and Pandas, Oh My!
There's a reason the World Wildlife Fund uses a Giant Panda as its symbol. An endangered, attractive mammal is a magnet for sympathy. They would never think of using a burrowing insect or a slimy mould, however endangered they were....
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Lives, Fortunes, Sacred Honor
Memorial Day is a solemn and sad occasion honoring the American soldiers who gave their lives in war. But it is also a hallowed day -- because the values those men fought to defend form the essence of our country:...
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One Nation, Under Kofi
There is a kind of political reactionary who sees everywhere a global conspiracy that's developing a massive supra-state and regulatory regime. The fear is that the supra-state will trample your rights and sublimate the sovereignty of your own country. It's...
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Highways to Hell
Having fun on the way to work? Chances are if you drive a private car like a vast percentage of the nation's citizens, your pleasure quotient lies somewhere between a migraine headache and an IRS audit. This is probably due...
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Necessary, But Insufficient
In the ongoing war against terrorism, there is a great deal of speculation about whether and when the United States will move to attack Iraq and institute a regime change by overthrowing the Ba'athist dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. The premise...
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No White Before Memorial Day
The fashion-conscious reader knows that white cannot be worn until after Memorial Day. For Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, however, any time of the year is apparently a good one to run up the white flag on the...
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Pork Addicts and Hypocrites
HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lanes got their start about thirty years ago. They first took root in California, where state and federal planners thought the carpool lanes would encourage ride sharing, which might cut congestion and air pollution. As most...
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Environmental Impact
Last week I wrote about environmental issues growing out of human missions to Mars, and the obligation of the United States (and other space powers) under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty to prevent "harmful contamination" of Mars. But what...
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Brave New World, Indeed
Many proponents of a congressional ban on therapeutic cloning have the issue backwards. They are demanding that scientists demonstrate the efficacy of their research into this procedure to avert a ban. "The cloning issue will remain a political and intellectual...
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Saddam, Atta, and 9/11
My occasional breakfast-mate, CNN's Bob Novak, gets it right most of the time. But last week, he got it all wrong on the most important issue facing our national security. Shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Czech Interior Minister Stanislav...
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Reel In These Stocks
Bottom-fishing can be a dangerous sport. The idea is to find stocks that have submerged so deep that no one pays attention to them. You hook them, and they start rising again. You hope. Most of the time, individual stocks...
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Science Not Sorcery
Why do we love technology in movies but not in real life? That is the question begged by the media explosion surrounding the latest "Star Wars" installment, "Episode II - Attack of the Clones," and a recent news story reporting...
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Solar Delusions
Editor's note: This article is the second in a series. Solar power proponents tout sunlight as an energy source that is abundant, free of noxious pollutants and carbon dioxide emission. They claim that if only sunlight were harnessed, plenty of...
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Orwell Would Be Proud
They travel around the country in tie-dyed T-shirts banging homemade drums and singing ear-crunching songs. They set up websites to organize themselves as they tour from city to city. Wherever they go, local police must mobilize to prevent rioting. If...
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Bring on the Clones!
The reviews of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones have been what you might expect. Everyone praises the breathtaking beauty of the film's visual effects and stunning action sequences. Everyone condemns the cheesy romantic dialogue between Natalie Portman's.
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Bad Science Never Dies
Splashy science news reports draw eyeballs and move policy, but sometimes the scientific heart of the news comes up short. Worse, it can be dead wrong. So what happens in the news when a study is found to be faulty...
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It'll Cost Ya'
When serious people examine problems, they usually look at it from all angles. Many leaders on the world scene probably figured they had all the angles covered when 100 nations agreed last fall to implement a program to reduce...
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You Say You Wanna Revolution?
The Islamic Republic of Iran is a tired and decaying government. Its failed domestic and foreign policies have brought international and domestic opprobrium upon the regime, and impel its swift overthrow. Iran's turbaned Torquemadas have isolated themselves by supp
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It'll Cost Ya'
When serious people examine problems, they usually look at it from all angles. Many leaders on the world scene probably figured they had all the angles covered when 100 nations agreed last fall to implement a program to reduce...
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Whose Failure?
Some Democrats in Congress, with the media happily in tow, are salivating at the news that President George W. Bush and his staff received generalized warnings during the summer of 2001 that there was a plot linked to Osama bin...
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Superfools on Superfund
Ronald Reagan was fond of saying "Things don't pay taxes, people pay taxes." As unremarkably obvious as that statement may sound, the essential insight is consistently lost on many. And once again this simple concept has stumped some of our...
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Trial Lawyers For Privacy
America's technology community has good reason to wonder whether Democratic Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings has something against it. In March, he introduced a harmful digital-rights management bill and now he's proposing burdensome privacy regulations that only ap
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Wretched Are These Peacemakers
The hypocrisy of the key Arab leaders launching a "peace initiative" while spreading hatred and justifying war is simply ghastly. Let's make damn sure Americans aren't bamboozled by all this P.R. and hope to heaven that our leaders aren't taken...
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The Mars Bug
Imagine that you've got a lot of money. No, more than that. A lot of money. Now imagine that you want to go to Mars. Oh, you already do? Me too. Then imagine that with your money you've built...
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Competition Now?
Consumers won a big victory in the Supreme Court this week when it upheld the Federal Communication Commission's authority to set wholesale rates for leasing of local phone network elements. The decision means that phone customers might finally get...
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It's a Small World
I wish I had written this column in January. Back then, I was researching an article just like this one -- about bargain-priced small-company stocks, a category called "small-cap value." So I went to an expert on the sector,...
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New York Times v. Sullivan
There's almost no point anymore in bitching about bias in the news media. Everyone with half a brain knows that the biggest and most powerful media outlets in print and television (e.g. New York Times, CNN, ABC News) tilt sharply...
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Non-Profits?
With economic growth in the first quarter of this year topping five percentage points, just about everyone now agrees that the recession is over. In the past, such news has had a tremendously positive effect on the stock market. This...
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Deep Links? No Way!
Editor's Note: For a different perspective on deep linking, click here. Some store just posted a no-trespassing sign on its back lot. Many believe that the store exceeded its legal rights, for the trespassers hadn't been doing much harm,...
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Is Breast Best for Tests?
Mentioning breastfeeding can elicit a variety of reactions. Some people are discomforted by women breastfeeding in public; others regard it as an important feminist statement. Others are unfazed. Still others resort to sophomoric giggling. Everyone, however, is agr
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Deep Links? Yay!
Editor's Note: For a different perspective on deep linking, click here. There is an old joke about how Hell was created. It seems that God and the Devil were walking side by side, and they passed by Heaven. "It's beautiful,...
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Pim in Perspective
THE NETHERLANDS -- Last Monday, Pim Fortuyn was brutally shot dead after giving a radio interview. Pim Fortuyn was the openly gay former professor of sociology and columnist who founded and led the List Pim Fortuyn (LPF), a new...
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Feminism vs. Sports and Science
Sports junkies know that sometimes developments in the sports world are harbingers of broader things to come. Jessica Gavora, a speechwriter for Attorney General John Ashcroft, has written an important new book that demonstrates how that's so. Gavora's book is...
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Levin Flunks Econ 101
Carl Levin needs an economics lesson. The Michigan Democratic Senator recently chaired hearings on what was behind last year's sharp rise in gasoline prices. While he admitted that his staff's investigation "did not discover any evidence of collusion," he neverthel
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Bauer Power
Today the Cato Institute, the Washington-based libertarian think tank, celebrates its 25th anniversary. One very special guest at a dinner gala was to have been Peter Bauer, a Hungarian-born British economist who was a pioneer in development economics. Several week
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Shotgun Mergers
While marriages may be made in heaven, a lot of business mergers are more like shotgun weddings - done out of necessity. That certainly seems the case with two major media marriages now in the prenuptial stage - Comcast's...
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Lame Crusaders
Any eighth-grader with a vague sense that the Cold War is behind us can understand why the Army's proposed 80-ton Crusader artillery system, designed to be stored at European bases and dragged into position for conventional, set-piece battles against the...
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Bauer Power
Today the Cato Institute, the Washington-based libertarian think tank, celebrates its 25th anniversary. One very special guest at a dinner gala was to have been Peter Bauer, a Hungarian-born British economist who was a pioneer in development economics. Several...
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Heed Hillary's Herald
Will Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) intercede with Sacramento politicians to protect the California marketplace for pickup trucks, minivans, and SUVs? Senator Feinstein is not widely known for her devotion to free market economics and opposition to big-government
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The New Upward Mobility
Upward mobility has a new trajectory, if what today's young and moneyed are striving toward is any indicator. Space exploration in the past was powered by the triple engines of scientific discovery, engineering virtuosity, and military necessity; it is...
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A Republican Moment?
Too much of a good thing, Mae West once remarked, is wonderful. That seems to be the spirit motivating many in the world of intellectual property today, though the results are wonderful only in that word's original sense: Cause for...
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Goldi-stocks
There's more to the stock market than gigantic, brand-name companies with tens of billions of dollars in sales and tiny, racy start-ups without any profits. In between these extremes lie mid-caps -- the Goldilocks stocks. They're not too big, not...
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OPEC's Enemy, Our Friend
Still fretting about our dependence on imported oil? The profligate use of gas-sucking behemoths clogging our roads as endlessly decried by the nannies at the New York Times and other media magnificos? Here is a solution. Not a perfect one,...
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Naval Overkill
In a fitting coincidence, the Navy has announced plans for its next generation of surface combatants just as it returns to duty the USS Cole, a destroyer attacked by Al Qaeda terrorists 19 months ago. The trouble, though, is that...
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The Kids Are All Nuked?
The public has a (usually quiet) fear of nuclear power, fed by the threat of war during the Cold War, the accident at Three Mile Island and even movies like the China Syndrome. On April 30, the Radiation Public Health...
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Scientific Goring
"Part of Al Gore's makeup is a moralistic streak that makes it hard to have a diversity of viewpoints." So said James Blumstein, one of the former vice president's professors. Blumstein is right about one thing - Gore is...
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Foolish Fuel Rules
Congress has for years mandated that automobiles meet certain mileage and pollution standards, all in the name of energy conservation and environmental protection. Some members even attempted to raise such standards in order to help the U.S. conserve oil. Yet...
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Goodwill Begets Goodwill
"Goodwill begets goodwill." That is a line out of the Inaugural Address of President George Bush the Elder, in 1989. President George Bush the Younger would do well to remember the wisdom of his father's statement in crafting his...
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Fine Wine?
This spring brought good news for wine enthusiasts. Not only did Justin Vineyards release a very good 1999 Cabernet Sauvignon, but two federal judges ruled in favor of scrapping state laws in Virginia and North Carolina that essentially banned...
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Phony Kass Council
A few months back, I wrote a column here with some advice for Leon Kass' Presidential Council on Bioethics. Little did I realize that the whole enterprise was a waste of my time, and theirs. But that seems to be...
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High Definition Headaches
What did you watch in high-definition (HDTV) television last night? If your answer is "nothing," don't fear; you're not alone. Only a fraction of American households are receiving HDTV in their homes. And our federal government's 15-year industrial policy to...
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Muddy Statistics Dirty Air
According to "State of the Air 2002," a report released today by the American Lung Association (ALA), "more than 142 million Americans live in areas where the air they breathe puts them at risk." If that were true, air...
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No STARS in Terror War
It's a new world out there for U.S. security, as most federal agencies have recognized since 9/11. Contrary to gibes at overblown bureaucracies, key government agencies like the FBI, FEMA, and Department of Treasury have risen to the occasion. They...
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