Check here, or here. If you're gonna give someone a gift card, spare the environment and the firm's profit line, and give them cash.

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The first paragraph is from the National Review. The second is from the Economist blog Democracy in America.

"Uniting the conservative coalition is not enough to win a presidential election, but it is a prerequisite for building on that coalition. Rudolph Giuliani did extraordinary work as mayor of New York and was inspirational on 9/11. But he and Mike Huckabee would pull apart the coalition from opposite ends: Giuliani alienating the social conservatives, and Huckabee the economic (and foreign-policy) conservatives. A Republican party that abandoned either limited government or moral standards would be much diminished in the service it could give the country."

"The message to Mr Huckabee from one of the Right's premier publications is crystal clear. For Republican presidential candidates, rejecting homosexuality and abortion remains perfectly acceptable, even necessary. But that social conservatism has to come with a commitment to economic conservatism. Equating gay people with corpse-lovers might win Mr Huckabee the votes of some social conservatives. Being a Baptist former pastor and a dyed-in-the-wool evangelical will almost certainly win him many more. But the economic conservatives are going to need a lot more convincing. "

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"Third, and most serious, the carbon-offset movement, combined with well-publicized projects by Google and other companies to reduce carbon emissions, creates the false impression that global warming can be tamed by voluntary efforts, just as cleaning up after dogs has been achieved by voluntary efforts, without need for legal compulsion. Global warming cannot be tamed by voluntary efforts, because the costs of significantly reducing carbon emissions in order to reduce the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (or at least stop it from increasing) are enormous. If people believe that voluntary efforts will suffice, there will be no political pressure to incur the heavy costs that will be necessary to avert the risk of catastrophic climate change." Link here

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[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOomh_YPcYI"]

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Senior arrested for breaking into girls dorms, stalking them, and stealing underwear and handbags. Much loved sophomore Anne Ryan dies of meningitis. Economics professor admits that he killed his wife with a chin up bar following an argument about whether their daughter would miss school for vacation. Admissions director Lee Stetson steps down after 29 years, leaves only a voicemail, no one knows why he left. Penn Police shoot and kill a man at a strip club off campus (The man had shot the DJ, and refused to drop his gun). Dozens of shots fired a block away from campus, one dead, one cop shot in the thigh. A security escort walked a girl home and then exposed himself on her doorstep. A student was raped in her off-campus apartment. Our poor school. We need to stop the violence.

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You can't sign a player for ten years, and you can't sign him for $275 million. At least you shouldn't want to. Who can predict anything that is going to happen ten years in the future? Look at Barry Zito, Charlie Weis, deals made by the New York Mets, etc. - very long contract deals rarely work out.

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The moral of Tim Harford's article is, don't try to do people a favor unless you want to get trampled. If you were wondering why Harvard has a $26 billion endowment and is increasing the cost of tuition every year by 6%, that article is a good place to look.

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"Dr. Fryer said that after months of working with students, he has learned to listen to their opinions. At one point, he considered creating special shoes along the lines of Nike’s Air Jordans for students who did well. He mentioned the idea to a group of fourth-grade students. “It took about three seconds,” he said, “for one of them to look at me and say, ‘Oh, you mean Air Nerds?’” The idea - to create a limited-release product that you can only get if you have good grades, is okay, but anything that is only available to smart kids will act as a negative signal for those kids.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_M7FjjBA5I]

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I've been struggling with this recently.

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