Dan Choi to Speak at U Puget Sound
11.09.2009
Lt. Dan Choi > View profileOn Tuesday, Nov. 10, a day before Veterans Day, Lt. Daniel Choi will give a talk at University of Puget Sound titled “Truth and Consequences: One Man’s Fight to Openly Serve His Country.” The free lecture, starting at 7 p.m., is open to the public and will be held in Rasmussen Rotunda in Wheelock Student Center. > View article
John Fund on Potential Fraud in NJ Governor's Race
11.02.2009
John Fund > View profileThe race for governor in New Jersey is so close in final polls that it may well end up in a recount -- the 1981 election did and was decided by less than 1,800 votes. If there is a recount, you can bet disputes about absentee ballots will loom large. Moreover, if serious allegations of fraud emerge, you can also expect less-than-vigorous investigation by the Obama Justice Department -- which showed just how seriously it takes such allegations when it walked away from an open-and-shut voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia earlier this year. (Wall Street Journal) > View article
Jeremy Siegel in WSJ: Efficient Market Theory and the Crisis
10.28.2009
Dr. Jeremy Siegel > View profileIs the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) really responsible for the current crisis? The answer is no. The EMH, originally put forth by Eugene Fama of the University of Chicago in the 1960s, states that the prices of securities reflect all known information that impacts their value. The hypothesis does not claim that the market price is always right. On the contrary, it implies that the prices in the market are mostly wrong, but at any given moment it is not at all easy to say whether they are too high or too low. The fact that the best and brightest on Wall Street made so many mistakes shows how hard it is to beat the market. (Wall Street Journal) > View article
Yes Men Pull Off Climate Hoax
10.20.2009
The Yes Men > View profile
In a dramatic shift, the Chamber of Commerce announced Monday that it is throwing its support behind climate change legislation making its way through the U.S. Senate.
Only it didn’t. An email press release announcing the change is a hoax, say Chamber officials. Several media organizations fell for it.
The Yes Men, a left-leaning activist group that often impersonates officials from organizations they oppose, took responsibility for the hoax. (Politico) > View article
Zandi: Extend The Housing Tax Credit
10.16.2009
Mark Zandi > View profile
Mark Zandi, chief economist of MoodysEconomy.com, favors extending the current credit until June 1, 2010, and making it available to all home buyers regardless of income or at least to everyone except those at the highest end of the income scale. He estimates the cost of doing so wouldn't exceed $30 billion over 10 years.
Zandi's reasoning: Foreclosures are expected to rise next year because of rising unemployment, and that will drag home prices down further. Extending and expanding the credit will help mute that decline. And by June, there's a chance the job market will have stabilized. (CNN) > View article
Dan Choi on Anderson Cooper
10.08.2009
Lt. Dan Choi > View profileCNN's Anderson Cooper hosted a debate between First Lieutenant Dan Choi, a West Point graduate and Arabic linguist who is facing a discharge for announcing that he is homosexual, and Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, a group which opposes gay soldiers serving openly. (Huffington Post) > View article
NY Times Movie Review for the Yes Men
10.07.2009
The Yes Men > View profileIt takes some nerve, not to mention diabolical intelligence and financial resources, to pull off the elaborate pranks devised by Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno (who are in real life Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos), the antiglobalization activists and satirical performance artists known as the Yes Men. (NY Times) > View article
Cohen: Taking Back Nobel Prizes
10.07.2009
Randy Cohen > View profile
It’s a big week for Nobel Prizes. On Monday, the prize for medicine was announced. Today, Tuesday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences reveals the winner of the physics prize. On Wednesday, the chemistry award is made public; on Thursday, it’s literature’s turn.
There’s still time to get a bet down on what to me is the big one, the Peace Prize. Past winners comprise a roster worthy of esteem, but the list also includes a few clinkers, people who, in retrospect, seem curious choices at best. On Friday, when this year’s winner is disclosed, shouldn’t the Norwegian Nobel Committee do what we encourage in other realms: acknowledge error, and then rescind those past awards bestowed on the conspicuously undeserving? (NY Times) > View article
The Insiders: NY Times interview with Lockhart Steele and Ben Leventhal
10.06.2009
Lockhart Steele > View profileIn 2005, Ben Leventhal and Lockhart Steele founded Eater, a local blog about New York City’s restaurant and nightlife industries. Soon after, the site expanded to Los Angeles and then San Francisco and, as of Friday, went live with a national presence. It has also just rolled out “Eater 38,” a round-up of the go-to dining establishments in each of the site’s three satellite cities. Here, the duo share their favorite finds in their own backyards. (New York Times) > View article
Kiva.org partners with Moody's to Enhance Microlending
10.01.2009
Gotham Artists
Kiva.org -- the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website -- today announced a landmark partnership with Moody's Corporation to bring their credit ratings and risk management expertise to online microfinance.
Kiva.org estimates that Moody's in-kind services and financial support will spur the growth of microlending through its website through improved transparency and analytical rigor, and an expanded on-the-ground presence. Kiva projects that the partnership will contribute towards raising $1 billion in microloans by 2015, benefiting an estimated one million people directly and 32 million indirectly through economic development and improved living standards. > View article
Richard Florida on Youth-Magnet Cities
09.30.2009
Richard Florida > View profilePredicting cities that will emerge as post-recession meccas for the young is easy to argue about, but impossible to forecast empirically. Whether you prefer hip, casual Austin, Texas, over the cosmopolitan allure of New York City is partly a matter of personal taste. Still, we asked six experts which 10 cities will emerge as the hottest, hippest destinations for highly mobile, educated workers in their 20s when the U.S. economy gets moving again. Our panelists—demographers, economists, geographers and authors on urban issues—picked their cities based on the criteria they deem most important, from economic diversity to lifestyle. (Wall Street Journal) > View article
Kurzweil: Immortality in 20 Years
09.22.2009
Ray Kurzweil > View profile
The 61-year-old American, who has predicted new technologies arriving before, says our understanding of genes and computer technology is accelerating at an incredible rate.
He says theoretically, at the rate our understanding is increasing, nanotechnologies capable of replacing many of our vital organs could be available in 20 years time.
Mr. Kurzweil calls his theory the Law of Accelerating Returns. (The Telegraph) > View article
Weinstein: The Ethics of Multitasking
09.17.2009
Bruce Weinstein Ph.D. > View profileWhen you multitask, you're doing a lot of work, but you're not doing most (or any) of it well. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences revealed that people who fired off e-mails while talking on the phone and watching YouTube videos did each activity less well than those who focused on one thing at a time. Psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell, author of CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap! (Ballantine, 2006), puts it this way: "Multitasking is shifting focus from one task to another in rapid succession. It gives the illusion that we're simultaneously tasking, but we're really not. It's like playing tennis with three balls." (BusinessWeek) > View article
Frank Luntz: What Americans Really Want
09.17.2009
Frank Luntz > View profileFrom restaurant booths to voting booths, Frank Luntz has watched and assessed our private habits, our public interests, and our hopes and fears. What are the five things Americans want the most? What do they really want in their daily lives? In their jobs? From their government? For their families? In his new book, "What Americans Really Want ... Really," Luntz lays out a discussion of Americans' secret hopes, fears, wants and needs. In this excerpt, he writes about what he's found out about Americans' TV and sexual habits. (MSNBC) > View article
Newsletter
Subscribe to receive our news: