While evolution and food safety can't entirely account for the increased interest in smoke, the grilling industry credits the extended economic downturn as a proximate cause for its popularity.

WSJ: Move Over Bacon: Foodies Just Want the Smoke

Is there a proximate cause?

NPR: Tensions on the Rise in Horn of Africa

In its settlement last year with the US Department of Justice of the criminal charges against it, BP admitted that negligence on the part of its employees -- along with other companies -- was a "proximate cause" of the accident.

CNN: BP claims it now leads the way on safety

While inflation may fundamentally result from too great a creation of money, the proximate or immediate cause of its actual development is much more a function of expectations of what will happen next.

FORBES: What's The Trigger That Will Cause The Fed To Act?

The AMR example is cute, but is it possible that a tremendous drop in oil prices (always a boon to airline shares) might have been the proximate cause of the rally, the positive social sentiments merely coinciding with that?

FORBES: Monetizing the Moaning

But if they do, the Cochran ruling is available as a well-reasoned precedent and a model for how judges must respect basic tort law principles as proximate cause and the need for an actual injury.

FORBES: Effort Fails To Strip Actual Injury Requirement From 'Failure To Warn' Drug Liability

The proximate cause of this week's scare lies in Italian politics, and a row in which Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister, hurled playground insults at Giulio Tremonti, the finance minister, over a new austerity budget.

ECONOMIST: Italy and the euro