For the fifth year in a row, Vancouver topped the list of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s most livable cities report, which is determined by a combination of environment, health care, culture. According to Reuters, Vancouver received an almost perfect score of 98 percent in the 2011 liveability study. The remainder of the top 10 spots were dominated by Australia and Canada. Last year’s second place city, Vienna, was dethroned by Melbourne. (more)
Jonathan Gruber, an economist at MIT, is planning to write a graphic novel about President Obama’s health care overhaul, the Boston Herald reports. (more)
1.) Two Democrats announce plans to overreact to Tucson massacre — A little more than 24 hours after a lone gunman attempted to assassinate Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, killing and wounding more than a dozen others in the process, two Democratic representatives announced their plans to further restrict Americans’ freedom. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, whose husband was killed and her son injured in a subway car shooting, wants to renew a Clinton-era ban on large ammunition magazines, as well as investigate the type of ammunition used by deranged (and possibly schizophrenic) shooter Jared L. Loughner. “Looking at the number of clips that he was able to fire, from 15 to 20 rounds, we need to look at those and say, ‘Why should an average citizen be able to have that?’” McCarthy told Newsday. “If you have a semiautomatic and can’t take someone down with a standard clip, you shouldn’t have one.” Meanwhile, Democratic Rep. Robert Brady would like to make it “a federal crime for a person to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a Member of Congress or federal official.” When asked by CNN if he honestly expected his colleagues to join him in defecating on the First Amendment, Brady replied, “Why would you be against it?” (more)
The past is not always a prologue to the future. But looking at some of the big winners and losers of 2010 does provide some strong hints of a positive 2011. (more)
Consider Newsweek blogger Mickey Kaus. Failed Senate candidate, yes. And his iconoclastic views on immigration and unions drive some liberals nuts. But “stupidest human alive?” (more)
1.) Inouye and other Senate dinosaurs make one last mad hobble for cash register — “In the waning days of the lame duck congressional session, Democrats controlling the Senate — in collaboration with a handful of old school Republicans — are pushing to wrap $1.27 trillion worth of unfinished budget work into a single ‘omnibus’ appropriations bill,” reports the AP. Sen. Jim DeMint hates this bill so much that he has threatened to read all 1,900 pages aloud if his colleagues do not make it smaller. To that end, a small contingent of fiscal guerillas are hoping to address the federal budget in the new year, when reinforcements will have arrived from Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Utah, and Kentucky. Until then, it’s DeMint, McCain, and Coburn attempting to hold back a red sea of pork. Their efforts are not completely futile. After requesting an earmark for the Kentucky National Guard to eradicate the most valuable cash crop in the United States, Sen. Mitch McConnell suddenly realized that he is not supposed to be spending other people’s money willy-nilly anymore, and had the earmark removed. “This is exactly what the American people said Nov. 2 they didn’t want us to do,” a chastened McConnell said. (more)
The problem with earmarks is not just their cost, or even the revealing of the weak character of legislators and their lack of adherence to first principles that often devolves into a form of “legalized” corruption. (more)
In order to enjoy Cool It, Ondi Timoner’s docu-bio on Bjorn Lomborg’s environmental skepticism, one must be prepared to suspend one’s disbelief that the Earth is warming and that it is doing so because mankind has had a deleterious effect on the environment. If a viewer sees Timoner’s film and accepts that Danish environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg is not tackling the question of whether global warming is real but, rather, attempting to find better ways to address a serious manmade problem, then that viewer may find an engaging and exciting documentary. (more)
The House Ways and Means Committee has just approved a bill that would attempt, albeit modestly, to crack down on Chinese currency manipulation, a key cause of America’s trade deficit. The Ryan-Murphy currency bill (HR 2378) would allow the Commerce Department to treat currency manipulation as an illegal subsidy for the purpose of calculating countervailing duties intended as retaliation. This bill has to be passed by the full House of Representatives and then the Senate before becoming law, but already the prophets of doom are squealing about the dangers of starting a trade war with China. They are wrong. (more)
We skeptics of free trade are used to being told, “You don’t understand economics.” In fact, one major reason I wrote the book Free Trade Doesn’t Work was simply to expose, once and for all, that there do exist extremely serious and intellectually reputable arguments, within the confines of accepted mainstream economics, which question free trade. And indeed they exist. (more)
“A–hole!” That was what Jeff Skilling, the boss of Enron, called an investor who challenged his rosy account of his firm’s financial health. Other bosses usually give less obvious clues that they are lying. Happily, a new study reveals what those clues are. (more)
While the global economic downturn continues to take its toll, a new United Nations agency report contends that young workers may have been hit the hardest, pointing to a dramatic rise in the number of unemployed youth around the world. While analysts list a host of reasons why young people can’t find jobs, there is one culprit, at least in the United States, that some economists say continues to rear its head: The federal minimum wage. (more)
Since there have been so many bailouts, Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger suggested in the pages of the Wall Street Journal that print and broadcast media should be bailed out, too. He calls this “enhanced public funding of journalism.” He dismisses concerns that government funding might lead to government control, citing “a strong culture of independence.” A few days after Bollinger’s article appeared, he was named Chairman of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, so he is in a position to promote his ideas on a larger stage. (more)
Sarah Palin’s speech to the 2008 Republican convention impressed more than a few doubters, including even some members of Journolist, an online community for liberal journalists. (more)
Though the Department of Interior issued a second oil moratorium last week to fix issues deemed unconstitutional in the first moratorium, oil companies still aren’t convinced it covered all its legal bases. (more)
Homebuilders are feeling increasingly pessimistic about their industry, more evidence that the economic recovery is slowing. (more)
Non-profit organizations such as the one formerly known as the YMCA are commonly advised to become more like for-profit businesses. Management experts and consultants view them as horribly inefficient due to the absence of the concentrating power of the profit motive. The negative reaction to the Y’s rebranding suggests that non-profit outfits are not all that good at emulating business even when they try. There has been barely any reciprocal pressure on for-profit firms to learn from the non-profits. Yet this is what Nancy Lublin, one of America’s most successful non-profit leaders, proposes in a new book, “Zilch: The Power of Zero in Business.” (more)
While the American economy staggers out of recession, a new report shows that there’s at least one boomtown where people are raking in the dough and living large: Washington, D.C. (more)
William F. Buckley Jr.: The Maker of a Movement (more)
President Obama’s approval rating has shown major slippage in recent days and weeks, but has dipped noticeably this week as questions of whether he is anti-business have grown louder. (more)
