Cato Daily Dispatch for November 9, 2004
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Arctic Council: 'Day after Tomorrow' Is TodayFifteen Years since Berlin Wall Fell
Postal Service Bill Unlikely
Arctic Council: 'Day after Tomorrow' Is Today
"Not only has it moved beyond the realm of science fiction, but the Arctic ice cap's melting has been much faster than anyone has suspected," according to an editorial in today's Washington Post. "That is one of the important conclusions of a report published yesterday at the behest of the Arctic Council, a forum composed of eight nations with Arctic territories, including the United States."
In the Cato Institute book Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media, Senior Fellow Patrick J. Michaels argues that scientists, politicians, and the media too often exaggerate their claims about the environment, especially with regard to global warming. He documents hundreds of exaggerations, misstatements, and errors that have appeared in major peer-reviewed scientific journals and media outlets, and explains why the gap between perception and reality persists.
On November 18, Cato will host a book forum on Meltdown featuring Michaels.
Fifteen Years since Berlin Wall Fell
"Today, Germans remember the fall of the Berlin wall -- an ecstatic night of pure joy when the communist East German government allowed its citizens unhindered access to the bright lights, well-stocked department stores, and warmhearted greetings of democratic West Berlin," according to the Christian Science Monitor.
In "A Decade of Human Liberation," Cato senior fellow Doug Bandow writes: "Despite all of the problems that have bedeviled the newly free countries since, the collapse of communism remains a fantastic triumph of the human spirit. With minimal bloodshed, hundreds of millions of people overthrew the worst tyranny in human history. They did what many thought to be impossible: demonstrate that the desire for liberty could defeat the desire for power."
In "Back at Checkpoint Charlie," Bandow writes: "Of course, the struggle for human liberty did not end with the Berlin Wall. Tyrannies remain -- the grotesque dictatorship of Kim Jong Il in North Korea, the oppressive rule of the mullahs in Iran, a bevy of African and South Asian dictatorships. ... The point is not that human beings have suddenly become good or that evil has disappeared from the world. Rather, most human beings crave freedom. And the good guys sometimes win."
Postal Service Bill Unlikely
"This was supposed to be the year that long-suffering supporters of revamping the troubled U.S. Postal Service finally got a bill through Congress," the Washington Post reports. "Barring a legislative miracle, however, that's not going to happen."
In "Postal Ploy: 'Give Us Your Money or Don't Get Your Mail!'" Cato adjunct scholar Edward Hudgins writes that "a private Postal Service, without special privileges, would have an incentive to operate efficiently and to offer innovative services that profit its stockholders, provide opportunities for its workers, and give customers the best service for the best prices."
"First-class mail, the major USPS cash cow, is stagnant," Hudgins writes in "Privatize the Postal Service." "More people in the future will be paying bills electronically, further reducing postal revenues. The postal service will lose more than a billion dollars every year for at least the next decade."
Hudgins is the author of the book Mail @ the Millennium: Will the Postal Service Go Private?
Wyatt DuBois, editor, wdubois@cato.org
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