Recent allegations of improper conduct have been made against former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and current Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Both cases, which are unrelated, have raised questions about a conflict-of-interest, which arises when public office holders use their positions for personal gain. These stories about Clinton and Trudeau are nothing more than minor symptoms of a much bigger problem.

The Skyscraper Index shows a correlation between the construction of the world’s tallest buildings and economic busts. It was created by economist Andrew Lawrence in 1999. Mark Thornton of the Mises Institute expanded on Lawrence’s work combining Austrian Business Cycle Theory to the analysis.  

Dr. Thornton said in an interview,

In the slump of a cycle, businesses that were thriving come to experience difficulties or go under. These errors aren’t specific to any one firm. They occur in tandem with whole sectors of the economy. People who were wealthy yesterday have become poor today. Factories that were busy yesterday are shut down today, and workers are out of jobs.

In a previous post, I argued that there is little evidence for the existence of a “war on cops,” at least when measured in terms of the number of police officers feloniously killed. Some readers suggested that such a measure is too simplistic and does not capture precisely what is meant by commentators when they call it a war. In response to this, I consulted one of foremost proponents of the war on cops narrative, Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute.

In 1962, the first version of Spacewar! was completed. Technically, this wasn’t the first video game ever created, but it was probably the first one that really mattered, as it serves as the beginning of the long line of advances in video game technology that continues into the present day.

Politicians in London, Ontario have revised their business licensing regulations. Public consultation was part of the process, and sex workers asked City Council to delete a clause in the by-law that bans touching between customers and employees of London’s strip clubs. However, Council unanimously denied their request, as they claim to be a better judge of what is in the best interest of these workers.

Have you ever been birdwatching? If not, how well do you think you would recognize the birds around you the first time you tried? Even if you were specifically looking for a species present in your area, you might fail to recognize it. The reason is simple. Without additional training, there are many ways to identify birds you are unaware of — you often would not know what to look at or listen for, or where or when to look. An experienced birder might well see what you missed.

An optimist says the glass is half full. A pessimist says the glass if half empty. And a Vox writer says if you drink 60 glasses of that stuff in the next hour, it’ll kill you.

New York’s current financial woes have a precedent, and perhaps a solution, in the pages of the distant past. Well back in its history, in the late 1830s, New York State was spending and lending money lavishly. By the early 1840s, the rapidly mounting debt had occasioned a severe financial crisis. To avert the imminent possibility of bankruptcy and default, the state legislature in 1842 passed what was known as “the stop and tax law”, a levy of one mill on each dollar of taxable property. The new revenue helped the state meet its most pressing obligations.