10 years ago
November 2014
“On July 14, The New York Times reported that scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had mishandled dangerous strains of anthrax and bird flu, failed to follow correct safety procedures after employees were exposed, and neglected to notify the appropriate supervisors for about one month. This is not the first time we’ve heard about lax oversight and dangerous disregard at the CDC. In 2006, for instance, the agency ‘accidentally sent live anthrax to two other labs, and also shipped out live botulism bacteria.'”
Veronique de Rugy
“Government Failure Is Baked In”
15 years ago
November 2009
“Despite all the layoffs, buy-outs, and shutdowns that have afflicted the newspaper industry in the last year, there are still 46,700 newsroom employees working at the nation’s 1,411 dailies, according to the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ 2009 census. That means we’ve still got years of alarmist op-ed pieces, Hail Mary revenue schemes, and Hail Congress calls for subsidies and rule changes before every last school board meeting in America goes unmonitored and we descend into chaos, corruption, and life without paid classified ads.”
Greg Beato
“Fading Print”
35 years ago
November 1989
“During Prohibition, gangs waged war against each other to control the liquor market. We stopped that violence by repealing Prohibition. Legitimate business stepped in, and the huge profits from illegal alcohol disappeared. We could end most of the gang violence today by repealing the Prohibition on cocaine and other drugs. But George Bush won’t do that. And his war on drugs will be about as successful as those of Reagan and Nixon. A few more laws on the book, a few more people in jail, and people will still be able to find whatever drugs they want.”
Charles Oliver
“An Unwinnable War”
“Administratively matching buyers’ and sellers’ interests as efficiently as markets can would be impossible even under the best of conditions. And U.S. farm policy is further twisted by the confusion of conflicting purposes. Politicians have never decided exactly what they want to accomplish with farm programs. Some measures increase production. Others attempt to hold it down. A costly and confusing tug-of-war is the result.”
Karl Zinsmeister
“Bitter Harvest”
45 years ago
November 1979
“The hard fact is that Chrysler has been out of touch with the market. The company that brought us tail fins in the ’50s and failed to build a subcompact to compete with the Pinto and Vega in 1971 (bragging about ‘no junior editions to compromise your investment’) restyled its complete line of big cars just when the Arab oil embargo hit and invested a fortune in failing European carmakers instead of tooling up at home to build cars for the conditions of the ’70s. It’s the market that has caused Chrysler’s share of auto sales to dwindle to just 11 percent. Clearly, taxpayers should not be asked to bail out Chrysler, either by loans or loan guarantees.”
Robert Poole
“Rescue Chrysler?”
“It has been said that ‘support for “gun control” is the litmus test of liberalism.’ Yet people who easily fall within the vague general category of liberalism are increasingly coming to oppose the prohibition of handguns for civilians. Why? Because the data show that such legislation is ineffective in reducing the number of handguns owned and might be effective only with an enforcement effort involving massive violations of citizens’ constitutional rights.”
Don Kates
“If You Liked Watergate, You’ll Love Handgun Prohibition”
55 years ago
November 1969
“As it stands in America today, the police aid in the trampling of rights on such a massive scale that there is hardly a word sufficiently descriptive. Limited liability? The price of retribution due to the victims of the crimes committed by police on any single day would be beyond calculation, yet not only do these crimes go undenounced (for the most part), and the perpetrators, police and politicians, unpunished, but, even worse, the victims are forced through taxes to finance the operation and salaries of the criminals.”
Lanny Friedlander
“The Cops: Heroes or Villains?”
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