Brian Gongol
Democrats win both houses of Iowa legislature plus Terrace Hill
It's not quite as bad a trouncing as the GOP bloodbath in Massachusetts, but the upside is that having a unified legislative/executive docket gives them no excuses for underperformance. Perhaps a little time wandering in the desert will give the Iowa GOP time to shake off some of the over-emphasis on social issues and rededicate itself to ideas about limited government and low taxes.
The tension between "professional managers" and family businesses
How Disney uses good design to improve the amusement-park experience
Old microwave tower becomes a giant Lite-Brite
Communism alive and well in China, but the people aren't
On the nomination of a Chinese bureaucrat to run the World Health Organization: "Does the international community really want the WHO to be headed by a representative of a country that unleashes deadly diseases on the rest of the planet?"
Rumsfeld gets the boot
Robert Gates will be nominated as his replacement. The change (in the wake of the Democratic win in Congress) feels a lot like the kind of change that happens in a parliamentary system rather than in the slower-moving US system. Perhaps as significant as the Republican losses in Congress is the GOP's net loss of six governorships and a whole bunch of state legislatures.
Economic stances of the likely and declared 2008 Presidential candidates
The mid-term elections having ended very badly for Republicans, the 2008 Presidential campaign is now underway. But how many of the likely candidates know anything about economics?
Route to the Frontier
57% of Massachusetts voters are in need of head examinations
Puritanism is alive and well in what's usually one of the most liberal states in the nation: Voters rejected a ballot question that would have allowed grocery stores to sell wine. Why? Because they were talked into it by the liquor wholesalers, who spent a huge amount of cash to preserve their government-ensured market share.
"Mmm, dehydrated bulb things"
The Onion's snack-food dystopia: "Everyone's going to share in this misery, not just a handful of Naderites with spastic colons or loser kids with no taste buds whose parents want them to grow up to be boring milquetoasts afraid to have any fun."
ISU gets $598,000 from USDA to study water