25 Years Ago in Reason

February 1982

"The USPS has indicated that it would agree to legislation limiting its participation in electronic mail systems. Private telecommunications firms had worried that the subsidized Postal Service would compete with them in sending messages directly from one computer terminal to another."

'"Robert Poole Jr. and Eric Marti, "Growing Competition in the Mail Market"

"Lying perilously close beneath the surface of the discussion is the assumption that if we need the oil badly enough we ought to take it by force. Apart from its immorality, such a doctrine falls of its own economic weight. According to one administration estimate, war in the Persian Gulf would cost a trillion dollars, not to mention the bloodshed and the danger of a nuclear war. Such a war would so split the country'"and it should'"that the home front during Vietnam would seem a paradise."

'"Laurence W. Beilenson and Kevin Lynch, "Should We Spill Blood Over Oil?"