Free Republic

Believe it or not, the government is about to regulate the shape of hot dogs. Bureaucrats at the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Agriculture and the Consumer Product Safety Commission are studying how to change the shape of hot dogs to prevent youngsters from choking. As a result, recent headlines have warned about "killer hot dogs" and "Doctors urging for a safer, choke-free hot dog." It's true that compared to some other foods, hot dogs seem to present a slightly higher risk. Of the 66 to 77 choking deaths for children younger than 10 in 2006, hot dogs...

All too many denizens of the city instinctively rail against corporate America as an article of their political faith but inevitably undermine the entrepreneurial spirit of the mom-and-pop tavern operators in their neighborhoods. This disconnect is played out in various areas of the city, initiated by civic association groups and the elected officials of the Advisory Neighborhood Commission. Their hubris is surpassed only by their thorough misunderstanding of the marketplace.

The Millennium Challenge Act, a new foreign aid scheme I wrote about back in May, received its hoped-for $2.5 billion from Congress last week. Only 41 members of Congress supported an effort to strip the funding, demonstrating once again that the two parties are not serious about reducing federal spending. Considering all the rhetoric in Washington about runaway spending, one would think a new foreign welfare program would be among the easiest things to cut politically. Since American foreign aid programs began in earnest decades ago, tens of billions of US tax dollars have been given to nations around the...