Random and Shiny Linking

• Caring for the poor by smiting them. Both Clinton and Obama have made rather curious statements on trade on the election trail. Nevermind that there is a preponderance of evidence that trade creates jobs, and that this practically the only thing all economists across the political spectrum can agree on, if the Democrats win the presidency, this could bode rather ill for both US competitiveness and the global economy. Comments from the Club for Growth here. More here earlier from ChinaLawBlog.
• "It's not you, it's your books." I don't suppose business books count. (from the dreaded New York Times.) [For the record: I'm a fan of Ayn Rand.]
• Fall of newspaper revenues from advertising accelerating (TechCrunch)
• Amish Paradise: computers are no substitute for creative problem solving and quality thinking. Why a focus on putting computers in classrooms may be useless and wrongheaded. (PBS: Robert X Cringely)
• 50 free ways to get free advertising for your business/startup (InsideCRM)
• The hypocrisy of 'Earth Hour'. (TechCrunch, Samizdata) [I've suspected that environmentalists wouldn't be happy until we were living as if in the Dark Ages - now they've proven it - literally. It strikes me as a rather arrogant assumption that the lack of light offsets the benefit of whatever activity that required the electricity to begin with and that people are generally unable to make the tradeoff themselves as the advocacy of this token measure suggests.] Update: Earth Hour at the CBC (Canada's state owned broadcaster)