Brian Gongol
Graphic of the day: Constructive
Leeroy Jenkins as corporate spokesperson
No shock: Iowa's cigarette-tax hike leads instantly to crime
Someone stole $60,000 in cigarettes from a trucking company practically before the ink was dry on the new tax. Pigovian taxes have their limits -- especially when a black market can become involved. Also not a shock: The Iowa Values Fund is almost completely unaccountable for any results.
Half-million gallons of wastewater bypassed into river
When religion interferes with economic growth
A public official with a sense of humor
Congressional redistricting coming sooner than many think
And Iowa's going to lose a seat in Congress
Crooks sending out fake bills by e-mail with malware payloads attached
It's just another evolution in the continually-changing world of online security threats. Another new threat: attacks on animated icons.
Bill O'Reilly loses his own culture war
The notion of "culture war" is so far overblown, it's almost impossible to take it seriously. Either you believe in human liberty or you don't. That's about as far as it can go.
One-paragraph book review: "Bogle on Investing"
One-paragraph book review: "Financial Freedom on $5 a Day"
GDP growth was (annualized) 2.5% in fourth quarter of 2006
That's only enough for a "C" based on the long-term GDP growth gradecard. Regardless of relative performance, 2.5% growth is much too slow. The US needs to grow considerably faster than that in order to stay ahead of China's economy.
Slide-show tour of the human brain
President Bush's stand-up routine at correspondents' dinner
Much funnier than last year's
AARP likely to cause nothing but trouble in Presidential campaign
Group is launching a massive effort in Iowa to put heat on Presidential candidates on health-care and retirement-savings issues. But since the group has been inexcusably wrong on both subjects (backing the completely unaffordable prescription-drug plan and opposing private accounts for Social Security), all they're probably going to do is pressure the candidates into doling out socialist platitudes about issues that demand market answers instead. Few of the 2008 Presidential candidates are sufficiently free-market.
"Forecast verification experts" say least-watched news in Des Moines has most-accurate forecasts
French slums no better off than before the riots
Interesting audio slide show simply reinforces the observation that the whole problem comes down to economics: If government does too much, it depresses private enterprise. If private enterprise is depressed, people are bumped into unemployment. And large groups of unemployed people are a scary political and social force.
UK freezes contact with Iran over parading of sailors on TV
Tony Blair is getting fed up with the Iranian government on the issue. It hardly seems possible that the people of Iran are being served by a government that behaves like this.
Look out Fox News
(Video) The Onion is now producing video spoofs, including a hilarious one promising "faster, scarier" news
Airline super-enthusiasts still romanced by flight
There are people who will fly thousands of miles round-trip just to say they were aboard an airline's inaugural flight on a new route. Their enthusiasm for flight for its own sake is the kind of enthusiasm we'd be much better-off with if displayed by more people for other technologies, too.
C'mon, baby, join the evolution revolution
(Video) If there's something funnier than a bunch of chimps dancing to disco, there's no telling what it might be
