The Financial Times reports on a study commissioned by New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Sen. Chuck Schumer, which found that excessive regulation may be undermining the city’s status as a global financial capital.

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Via A&L Daily, I see a posthumous book of Bernard Williams’ essays about opera has just been released, which for me is a little like hearing that Terry Gilliam will be directing Watchmen after all.

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Via Megan, Robin Hanson wants to know: Last November we learned that the US public believes in God more than college professors, who believe more than professors at elite schools….If all we know about a view was that professors held it more, and elite professors even more so, we would be inclined to favor that […]

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I actually pretty much agree with Jonah Goldberg here: It’s a mistake to cast such issues as the debate over stem cell research in terms of a battle between “pro-science” and “anti-science” forces, although it’s a little tempting insofar as some of the religiously motivated opponents do seem to have a more general hostility to […]

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So, I agree with the general gist of this

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There’s a piece in Der Spiegel reporting that many in Iraq consider the “Kalashnikov Index,” a tongue-in-cheek name for average local arms prices, “the most reliable indicator of what the future may bring”: On Thursday morning, only hours after US President George Bush once again promised America would help bring peace and stability to the […]

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Techdirt explains.

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A press release from direct-mail king Richard Viguerie calls attention to a measure in a new lobbying reform bill that could, in effect, require bloggers to register as lobbyists. The relevant provision, Section 220, dubs as “grassroots lobbying”: any paid attempt in support of lobbying contacts on behalf of a client to influence the general […]

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What could possibly be more glib, insufferable, and smug that Thomas Friedman’s New York Times column? Why, Tom Friedman on the radio! Marvel at his noxious Director of Human Resources tic of addressing the host by his first name every fifteen seconds. Wonder at his limitless capacity for self-congratulation. And gape in awe as Friedman […]

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It certainly sounds like good news that the administration has finally deigned to let FISA courts play their legally mandated oversight role, putting an end to the extralegal enterprise euphemistically (and question-beggingly) dubbed the Terrorist Surveillance Program. But as Orin Kerr notes there’s a big honking ambiguity in this new oversight: Justice department officials won’t […]

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