The United States isn’t known as the most well-traveled nation. To be fair, we have a huge natural obstacle: The enormous size of our country. You could fit France—which boasts centuries of history and culture—inside the borders of Texas. The entire continent of Europe, as a land mass, is only slightly larger than the United States. Unless you live in [...]

Last week, as Thomas Friedman was fretting about democracy in the Middle East, he also renewed his call for a $1 gasoline tax for the U.S., to be slowly phased in starting in 2012: “Legislating a higher energy price today that takes effect in the future, notes the Princeton economist Alan Blinder, would trigger a shift in buying and investment [...]