Michael B. Duff

Money quote: "Politicians are not your daddy."

StatCounter, which tracks Internet data, said that IE's share of the browser market fell to 49.9% in September. More people still use IE than any other single browser, but the combined market share of non-Microsoft browsers now outpaces IE.

Iraq's estimated oil reserves have grown by nearly 25 percent, the oil ministry announced Monday.

"This is a more sustainable and healthy alternative to conventional building materials such as baked earth bricks and concrete blocks," the study’s authors, Carmen Galán and Carlos Rivera, said.

This was not a real market. Instead, this is precisely what we would expect from government. In a real market, there is no way that a free-enterprise fire service would have refused to provide the homeowner service. They would be in business to provide that service. The fire would have been put out and he would have been charged for the service. It is as simple as that. It is the same as lawn-mowing services or plumbing services or any other type of service. Can we know for sure that the market would provide such services? Well, if insurance companies have anything to say about it, such services would certainly be everywhere. As it was, the fire burned down as a result of government policy, a refusal of service because the homeowners did not pay what amounted to a tax! The poor homeowner begged for help and offered to pay. He had paid the year before and the year before, so his credit was good. Even so, the bureaucracy refused!

If we actually had a free market, with competing fire departments, there’s no way in the world this would have happened. If one company had gotten to the scene, and then watched the house burn down, everybody would have switched to a competitor. But of course that nuance is going to be lost in this debate. Instead, we will have “conservatives” at National Review defending the “free market,” and progressives calling for compassionate coercion. Ah, America.