New York Governor Andrew Cuomo seems to understand these days that the blue social model is a recipe for economic decline. The FT reports that he has proposed making certain locations in upstate New York and elsewhere “tax-free” to boost the state’s lagging economy. Upstate New York in particular has fallen behind New York City, […]

In November 2011, we ran a story about a pair of teen rowers from Episcopal Academy in suburban Philadelphia who gave up a race in order to stick around a rival boat whose rowers had fallen into the water. The two young men stayed until the others were safe and then rowed on to finish the […]

President Obama signed an executive order yesterday to levy a ninth round of sanctions on Iran, this time on the country’s currency and auto sector. The stated goal is to render the Iranian rial “unusuable” outside of Iran and to bring the country’s car industry to a grinding halt. But while the targets of these […]

Brussels often seems to busy itself with matters silly and bizarre, but the European Commission may finally be taking action on a worthwhile goal: fixing the EU’s broken and destructive fisheries policy. European subsidies for fishermen have frequently found their ways into the pockets of those caught illegally depleting stocks to dangerous, unsustainable levels. The FT reports […]

The US Embassy in Cairo is warning Americans to stay away from the Egyptian pyramids. This is bad news for Egypt’s tourism industry: Vendors at Egypt’s pyramids who are desperate to make money in a deepening economic crisis are using aggressive and even violent means to get tourists to give them some business, frequenters of […]

American high-speed rail boosters often yearn that the rail networks of Europe and China could be brought to our shores. A look across the pond suggests that some of these “model” high-speed rail systems aren’t doing so hot. Consider the Netherlands, which is now dealing with the fallout of its own botched high-speed rail project.The […]

Over 4,000 Hezbollah fighters have taken position around Aleppo, according to sources in the Free Syrian Army. Large numbers of Hezbollah fighters are already battling Syrian rebels in and around Qusayr. Reports suggest as many as 75 Hezbollah fighters have been killed in that battle so far, the highest death toll for the “Party of […]

Computer hardware isn’t just getting more powerful; it’s getting more efficient. Intel gives us the latest example of this with their new Haswell chip, which will boost processing power while significantly improving battery life. The BBC reports: The firm says the new design of the family’s CPU cores is capable of delivering a 15% boost […]

The news that Russia will ferry its “state-of-the-art” S-300 anti-aircraft missile system to Butcher Assad in Syria may be claptrap. Israeli military officials were dubious from the get-go about Assad’s claims to have already received the first installments of the Russian weapons package, with the Israeli Defense Minister going so far as to say that […]

Sixty-four percent of uninsured Americans haven’t yet decided if they will buy insurance by January 1, 2014, when Obamacare’s individual mandate goes into effect. Polling company Princeton Survey Research Associates International recently conducted the survey on behalf of an insurance price comparison website. The reaction by the senior insurance analyst at the website (InsuranceQuotes.com) hints at the danger this […]