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John Cassidy of The New Yorker reports on an article comparing Larry Summers' role in the Obama administration to Henry Kissinger's influence in previous administrations.

Mario Rizzo criticizes a New York Times article on Cass Sunstein and provides links to scholarly work that offers a critical examination of Sunstein's "libertarian paternalism." via ThinkMarkets.

Alex Tabarrok argues against Paul Krugman's claim that the BP oil spill demonstrates the failure of libertarianism, saying Krugman misunderstands the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.

via Marginal REVOLUTION.

This EconTalk podcast episode features Russ Roberts discussing his paper about the 2008 financial crisis and uses a poker game analogy to illustrate how the expectation of government intervention distorts incentives for borrowers and lenders. via Econlib

State and local government finances are strained, in part because public-sector pay has risen while private-sector pay has not.

WIRED offers the latest news and insights on technology, science, culture, and business. via WIRED

Yahoo is experiencing an outage and engineers are working on a fix. via Yahoo

A Times Square T-shirt vendor noticed a suspicious truck and alerted police, who found an explosive device inside.

President Obama delivered remarks at the annual White House Press and Scholarship Dinner, where he poked fun at himself, politicians, and the recent healthcare bill.

via The source of this content is whitehouse.gov.

Tyler Cowen speculates that high land costs in places like New York City lead restaurants to charge for table space by not offering free refills on drinks. via Marginal Revolution.

Robin Hanson finds it surprising that his economics students view corporations as more self-serving than politicians, prompting him to compare the incentives that drive both groups. via Overcoming Bias

Science fiction author Charles Stross explores Steve Job's reasoning behind his well-known hate of Flash and how it plays into Apple's strategy within the evolving landscape of cloud computing.

via Charlie's Diary