Free Republic

German chemical company BASF today (16 January) announced that it is stopping production of genetically-modified (GM) crops for the European market, citing hostility from consumers as the reason for the decision. “There is still a lack of acceptance for this technology in many parts of Europe — from the majority of consumers, farmers and politicians,” said Stefan Marcinowski, a member of BASF's board. “It does not make business sense to continue investing in products exclusively for cultivation in this market.” The company will move its plant-science unit from Limburgerhof in Germany to the United States. It will also close other...

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- The number of new prescription drug shortages in 2011 shot up to 267, well above the prior record and about four times the number of medication shortages in the middle of the last decade. Figures just released by the University of Utah Drug Information Service, which tracks national drug shortages, show there were 56 more newly reported drug shortages in the U.S. last year than in 2010, when there were 211. By contrast, there were only 58 drug shortages reported in 2004. As the drug shortages worsen, so does their impact on patient care, particularly...

Laura Chavez is shown in this Santa Fe County Jail booking photo. (Santa Fe County Jail) Laura Chavez, 60, of Santa Fe, N.M., is accused of repeatedly stabbing her boyfriend, Clyde “Butch” Smith, 48, when a family game of Monopoly went terribly awry. Chavez began to argue with Smith while playing the board game with her 10-year-old grandson. The boy told police that Chavez accused Smith of cheating at Monopoly, and then sent the boy to bed around 11 p.m. mid-argument. According to a probable cause statement released by police, the couple’s argument escalated until Chavez hit Smith over the...

A New Mexico woman repeatedly stabbed her boyfriend after accusing him of cheating during a Monopoly game early yesterday, according to police. Laura Chavez, 60, and her boyfriend were playing the popular board game at her Santa Fe apartment when the dispute occurred. Chavez, pictured in the mug shot at right, allegedly admitted stabbing her beau, Clyde "Butch" Smith, with a kitchen knife. Police reported that both Chavez and the 48-year-old Smith appeared to be intoxicated. The man, who cops found bleeding heavily from wounds on his head and right wrist, was hospitalized yesterday in stable condition. Smith told investigators...

There’s a supermarket anomaly near my home. Two supermarkets, a block apart: King Soopers (a Kroger store) and Safeway. In my town, everybody shops at King Soopers. Safeway is deserted. There are literally more employees than customers. Consequently, I get tremendous prices at Safeway, including a large percentage of my groceries at 50% off. What’s up with that? For some reason, Safeway has made the corporate decision to keep the store open as a loss leader. Curious. They stock all the normal foods, but then they have to get the food out of the store quickly at 50% off while...

In a report issued today, Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner says the state liquor control board's wine vending machines, a wonderful illustration of what happens when a government monopoly tries to act more like a business, are operating at a loss, costing taxpayers more than $1 million since they were introduced a year ago. "We think the wine kiosk program has failed," Wagner said at a press conference, "and it needs dramatic, radical changes if the program is going to continue to exist." His report attributes the failure largely to mechanical problems that caused an embarrassing month-long shutdown of...

According to last Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, pets who rely on drugs approved for people are likely to suffer now that nearly 200 of these are in short supply, according to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. So you understand, only a fraction of the drugs veterinarians use on animals are actually approved for use in veterinary settings. That’s mostly because it’s expensive to get drugs approved for specific uses in specific species (as the FDA requires for each individual drug). Luckily, the federal government makes exceptions for what’s called "extra-label" drug use. This means that when a critical mass...

In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives by Steven Levy Simon and Schuster, 424 pp., $26.00 I’m Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59 by Douglas Edwards Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 416 pp., $27.00 The Googlization of Everything (and Why We Should Worry) by Siva Vaidhyanathan University of California Press, 265 pp., $26.95 Search & Destroy: Why You Can’t Trust Google Inc. by Scott Cleland with Ira Brodsky Telescope, 329 pp., $28.95 Tweets Alain de Botton, philosopher, author, and now online aphorist: The logical conclusion of our relationship to computers: expectantly to type “what is...

On the one hand, the tech industry is awash in patent trolls, companies that own generally spurious patents for technologies they didn't really invent, which exist solely to sue other companies into licensing said technologies. On the other, we have tech companies that have patents for technologies that they did, in fact, invent (or at least purchase legitimately) and, as important, use in actual products. These companies, too, must sue others to protect their patents, but for far more legitimate reasons. Google is upset about the latter kind of company, and it's citing two heavy-hitters, Apple and Microsoft, as example...

Just when you thought gentlemanly business competition was coming back to America…. Back in the ‘90’s, when all the bank mergers were happening and there was a massive consolidation of the defense industry going on, The Onion featured a headline that read something to the effect that Business has been Consolidated to Six Corporations. That’s about what it felt like at the time. Never mind anti-trust or the laws on vertical integration to prevent monopolies, competition was going out of style (and under a Democratic administration, too. Imagine that). That headline popped into my consciousness this week when I heard...

Opponents speak out against tuition vouchers Thursday, January 20, 2011 By Tom Barnes, Pittsburgh Post-GazetteHARRISBURG -- In his inaugural speech, Gov. Tom Corbett barely hinted at what is sure to become one of the most hotly debated issues of the spring -- "school choice," also known as "tuition vouchers." It would be a major change in how the state funds education. "Our students compete not only with those from the other 49 states, but with students from around the world," the new chief executive said Tuesday. "So we must embrace innovation, competition and choice in our education system." The measure,...

The Society of Pius X identifies the measures of Education Minister Klaus Kessler (Grüne) as "politically ideological" and will challenge them legally. Saarbrücken (kath.net) The Education Ministry of Saarland has concluded that with the end of the current half of the school year, two Saarland schools, which are operated by the Society of Pius X, must conclude their operation. It falls upon the grade school in St. Arnual in Fechingen, according to SR-Online. The back ground for this is, according to Education Minister Kessler (Grüne), the long conflct related to the dormitory of the Heart of Jesus Realschule, which the...

So I'm playing Monopoly with the kids. It's a set we ended up with a few months ago. Christmas Fund Matures' is now 'Holiday Fund Matures.' 'School Tax' is now a 'School Fee of $50 instead of $150. And you now get $25 for 'Consultancy Fee' instead of 'Receive for Services'. Oh, and Luxury Tax has been jacked up to $100.

Liberal consumer groups are aghast to learn that the Obama health team are really monopolists at heart, bent on handing hospitals a cartel in their local markets. Sunday's New York Times report on this horror confirms what I wrote about in these pages weeks ago ("Killing Marcus Welby," PostOpinion, Oct. 18). I warned that the creation of "accountable care organizations," which put hospitals in control of all the doctors in their outlying areas, would lead to concentrated power over the provision of medical care -- turning physicians into salaried employees and reducing consumer choices ACOs were invented as a way...

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved a bill that would give the Attorney General the right to shut down websites with a court order if copyright infringement is deemed “central to the activity” of the site — regardless if the website has actually committed a crime. The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) is among the most draconian laws ever considered to combat digital piracy, and contains what some have called the “nuclear option,” which would essentially allow the Attorney General to turn suspected websites “off.” COICA is the latest effort by Hollywood, the recording industry and...

AMITY SHLAES is a syndicated columnist for Bloomberg and a senior fellow in economic history at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is a graduate of Yale University and pursued postgraduate studies at the Free University in Berlin. She has served as a member of the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal and as a columnist for the Financial Times. In 2009 she was winner of the Hayek Prize, a book prize from the Thomas Smith Foundation of the Manhattan Institute. In 2003 she was the J.P. Morgan Fellow in Finance and Economics at the American Academy in Berlin....

...ticket sales for the top 100 touring bands are down 12% this year, Live Nation Entertainment's major executives went on the defensive Thursday, blaming the press for "scaring" artists from touring and arguing that acts need to alter their pricing strategies. ..."The press," (CEO Michael) Rapino said, has "scared about every artist" out of touring in the fourth quarter. A number of major tours have struggled in 2010, including the refurbished Lilith Tour, and once-can't-miss artists such as the Jonas Brothers have been canceling dates... Yet the company's top brass did more than point fingers at the media, and promised...

This could be one of the biggest bombs Live Nation Entertainment ever produced. Minutes after the concert promoter and ticket company told analysts at its first investor day that ticket sales for its biggest acts fell 9 percent in the first half of the year and were likely to see a steeper decline during the rest of 2010, its shares plunged -- tumbling throughout the afternoon until they lost about 18 percent of their value. The bad news rocketed from the stage of Manhattan's Irving Plaza concert hall near Union Square, where the meeting was held, to Wall Street and...

Last week, Sen. Byron Dorgan spoke to a room full of Internet regulation supporters at the Free Press Summit and said that the free-market community's argument that Net Neutrality is a government takeover is a lie. He also felt compelled to say that ATR and others were spreading falsehoods by calling it such. I shot back today with a piece in the Daily Caller explaining why I believe Net Neutrality is certainly a government takeover. From the op-ed: Sen. Dorgan dismissed the argument by the free-market community that this is a government takeover, claiming “nothing could be further from the...