Assorted Links (11/19/2011)

Here’s a list of articles that I have been reading lately:

The 25 Worst Passwords of 2011

www.pcmag.com

Here are the 25 worst passwords: “1. password, 2. 123456, 3. 12345678, 4. qwerty, 5. abc123, 6. monkey, 7. 1234567, 8. letmein, 9. trustno1, 10. dragon, 11. baseball, 12. 111111, 13. iloveyou, 14. master, 15. sunshine, 16. ashley, 17. bailey, 18. passw0rd, 19. shadow, 20. 123123, 21. 654321, 22. superman, 23. qazwsx, 24. michael, 25. football”.

Quotation of the Day…

cafehayek.com

… is from page 16 of Hayek’s 1948 collection, Individualism and Economic Order; in particular, it is from Hayek’s deep and profound 1945 lecture “Individualism: True and False”: There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal. While the first is the condition of a free society, the second means, as De Tocqueville described it, “a new form of servitude.””


Freddie’s Friend Newt


professional.wsj.com


“In The Wall Street Journal, Business World columnist Holman Jenkins writes about Newt Gingrich and Freddie Mac.”


The Biomedical Century


professional.wsj.com


“Joe Rago interviews John Lechleiter in The Wall Street Journal about the regulatory and medical challenges that drug manufacturers face.”


A Caveman Won’t Beat a Salesman


professional.wsj.com


“Obama is somber but unserious, Peggy Noonan writes. Glib unseriousness isn’t the answer.”


Down and Out on $250,000 a Year


www.thefiscaltimes.com


“A family of four with an annual income of $250,000 may be in the top 2.9 percent of earners. But after taxes and basic expenses, they are far from the affluent family they may seem to be.”


The Dynamics of Firm Lobbying


hbswk.hbs.edu


This Harvard Business School study finds the following: “1) Few firms lobby, even among publicly traded firms, only 10 percent of the firms in this sample. 2) Lobbying is strongly related to firm size — larger firms participate more than smaller ones. 3) The probability that a firm lobbies in the current year given that it lobbied in the previous year is 92 percent. 4) Up-front costs associated with beginning to lobby may be a deterrent for firms that do not lobby. 5) The persistence induced by these costs … raise the prospects of regulatory capture ( http://bit.ly/m5i55).”


The Voucher Revolution


www.hoover.org


“In this essay, the author blends prediction with prescription to paint a vivid picture of what American education will look like in 2030. The essay is from an online publication of the Hoover Institution’s Koret Task Force on K-12 Education, American Education in 2030.”


Obama’s politically strategic inaction


www.washingtonpost.com


Charles Krauthammer writes, “Obama changes “Yes We Can” to “We Can’t Wait.””


The Technocratic Nightmare

www.nytimes.com

“The European Union is an attempt to build an economic and legal superstructure without a linguistic, cultural, historic and civic base. No wonder it’s in crisis.”

Steven Chu, Energy CEO

professional.wsj.com

“In The Wall Street Journal, Potomac Wach columnist Kimberley Strassel write about Energy Secretary Steven Chu and the Obama administration’s philosophy of government.”

Obama Abandons (Private) Labor

professional.wsj.com

“In The Wall Street Journal, Wonder Land columnist Daniel Henninger writes that President Obama’s decision to delay the Keystone pipeline symbolizes the Democratic Party’s growing abandonment of blue-collar workers.”

Another ObamaCare Glitch

professional.wsj.com

“In The Wall Street Journal, Jonathan H. Adler and Michael F. Cannon write that Congress made a legal mistake while rushing through the health law, and now it’s come back to haunt the administration.”

To Increase Jobs, Increase Economic Freedom

professional.wsj.com

“In The Wall Street Journal, John Mackey, co-founder and co-CEO of Whole Foods, writes that business is not a zero-sum game—when a business grows it creates value for all of its major stakeholders, including employees and communities.”

The Keystone Debacle

professional.wsj.com

“In The Wall Street Journal, Lucian Pugliaresi writes that the decision to delay the Keystone XL pipeline may be politically unwise for President Obama, as it will disrupt U.S.-Canadian trade flows that have grown thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement.”

Tiny tech titan

www.thedaily.com

Check out this TED Talks video featuring 12-year-old Thomas Suarez who programs in Java, C, and Python and owns his own iPhone and iPad app company called CarrotCorp. He literally has a “killer app” called Bustin Jieber! Hat tip to my bro John Garven for pointing this video out to me…

Leave a Reply