I was a huge fan of Maureen Dowd for years. Her column was bitting, funny and relevant. But in the past year, I find my self wondering what happened -- to her? Today's rambling column about Obama, which manages to squeeze in almost no real substance (reporting or analysis), and...

A blog on the news that is not reported in the US could be much longer. This is only about a few items involving global intellectual property negotiations.

The World Intellectual Property Organization
Beginning in 2004, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the specialized UN agency dealing with patents,...

Today in Geneva Switzerland, at an undisclosed location, the US government, the European Commission, Japan and a handful of other countries will meet in a secret negotiation on a new treaty.
The working name is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), a name that masks the much broader subject...

I used to live in Alaska, where questions of energy policy were quite important.

Economic analysis of the incidence of taxes is often considered in the context of the time frame. The short term incidence of a change in a tax is going to be different from the longer...

In February, Gabriel Sherman from The New Republic (TNR) called me up to talk about Ralph Nader running for president. In the May 7 issue of TNR, an article I'm sure will be of interest to few appeared with the title, "Nader's Traitors," quoting me and a handful of...

Officials charged with managing patent portfolios in U.S. universities have found a new cause. In addition to opposing patent reform in the US Congress, they are opposing proposals being discussed in the World Health Organization that are aimed at increasing R&D for neglected diseases and other global health needs,...

Both Obama and Hillary are appealing and impressive in televised debates. They tend to be more respectful when engaging each other directly, and both can showcase their considerable charm, intelligence, wit and command of the issues.

It would be helpful for the Democrats to get both back on television,...

According to reports (1,2, 3) from the European and technical press, Microsoft has succeeded in reversing an earlier vote rejecting a proposed standard on data formats called OOXML. The voting is by the International Organization for Standards, known as the ISO.

This is not just a...

While most Democrats have very little interest in the actual policy positions of the two remaining candidates (Hillary and Obama), many are fascinated by trivia, arguments about character and honesty, and really excited by endless and self-generating allegations of unfair treatment by the rival candidate. The cumulative impact has been...

On February 25, 2008, the Swiss government wrote a letter (copy here) to the Thai government, objecting to the use of compulsory licenses to obtain affordable cancer drugs in Thailand. (details here). The Swiss actions are closely coordinated with actions of the European Commission and the United...

Today the Bush administration's pathetic antitrust division announced that the merger of the two firms now providing satellite radio services would "not Substantially Reduce Competition."

Our earlier statement of opposition to this merger is here.

If the Bush administration wanted to allow consumers to use the same...

For a strong Obama supporter, MSNBC must be a pleasure to watch. If you are remotely neutral in the democratic primary, MSNBC seems pretty biased. It makes the Huffpo seem almost neutral. Fox news, on the other hand, is often providing some decent reporting and analysis of the primaries. Conservatives...

For his first seven years, Bill Clinton pursued an aggressive policy of imposing tough intellectual property rules for developing countries, most importantly in the area of new medicines, which were seen as an important U.S. export. In 1994, I began a long effort to address the flaws in this policy,...

Last year, I was told by a perceptive observer that neither Hillary nor Obama could embrace radical policy positions during the election, for the simple reason that electing a woman or a black would by itself demand voters to do something that was already quite radical by historical standards. In...

When Claire Hoffman recently wrote, "Is Obama a (or the) Messiah?", she was not only discussing the candidate, but also the candidate's supporters. Paul Krugman and others have raised the issue of the passionate and surprisingly uncritical way that Barack Obama is embraced by many of his supporters, as...

Which U.S. Senators voted for the resolution that authorized the use of force in Iraq? 29 Democratic US Senators, and all but one (R-RI, Chafee) Republican. The full roll call on H.J.Res. 114, 107th Congress, A joint resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq,

In 2007, Don Van Natta Jr. and Jeff Gerth's investigative book on Hillary Clinton was published by Little, Brown and Company, and barely made a wave in the presidential primary debate. Today Van Natta and Jo Becker's story on Bill Clinton and the Kazakhstan nuclear fuels industry was published...

On TPM, Greg Sargent says that Obama is "Winning Spin War Over Who's Victim."

I think this is right. Lately Obama is almost a poster child for the wronged. What is the biggest sin of the terrible Clinton attack machine? The suggestion that Obama said he likes Reagan? That...

Wolf Blitzer just presented the exchange between Obama and Hillary over Wal-Mart and Rezko. But in doing so, he reversed the order. First he showed Hillary bringing up Rezko, and then he showed Obama bringing up Wal-Mart. As presented by Blitzer, it appeared as though Hillary attacked Obama, and he...

In first half of the SC Congressional Black Caucus debate, listeners saw both a sharp exchange over substantive issues (health care plans, sub-prime lending, usury, etc), and a series of sharp swords over character issues. The interests of the Democratic party and the longer-term interest of its candidates were best...