Today’s Links: November 16, 2011

OPINION

BRINK LINDSEY: “The Start-Up Act: Blueprint for an Innovation Recovery
“The best way to promote innovation is to clear the way for the main agents of innovation: the entrepreneurs who create new businesses. Existing firms innovate, but their contributions are usually incremental — improvements in existing products or production processes, or the introduction of new products through pursuit of well-established R&D agendas. When it comes to so-called discontinuous or disruptive innovation — the kinds of breakthroughs that topple the status quo and give rise to whole new industries — the catalysts of change tend to be new firms. ”

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY EDITORIAL: “Is the U.S. Lazy on Investment?
“President Obama told CEOs in Hawaii that the U.S. had been “lazy” in attracting foreign investment. Actually, the White House has been pretty busy demonizing it. The Obama administration has a record of making life miserable for foreign investors that put their capital on the line to create jobs in the U.S. Politically wedded to special interests such as Big Labor, White House officials have hurled scurrilous charges against foreign companies and muscled others in ways no domestic company would tolerate.”

BRIAN RIES: “Facebook Deactivates Salman Rushdie’s Profile, Makes Him Use ‘Ahmed‘”
“For a few hours on Monday morning, Salman Rushdiehad just about had it with Facebook. […] ‘Facebook deactivated my account because they thought I wasn’t me,’ [Rushdie]  explained on the site. ‘Now they insist I call myself by the first name I have never used. What a bunch of morons.’ That rarely used first name, Ahmed, is what’s printed on his passport. Salman, technically speaking, is his middle name. And a post about ‘name standards’ on Facebook’s Help Center—which the company on Monday acknowledged is a bit dated and then quickly updated after a query by The Daily Beast—suggested that middle names simply aren’t allowed.”

NEWS

ENERGY – Nebraska Lawmakers Vote to Reroute Oil Pipeline
“The Nebraska legislature on Wednesday voted unanimously to advance a proposed law that would reroute the controversial TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline to avoid the sensitive Sandhills and Ogallala aquifer.”

FANNIE & FREDDIE – Gingrich Acknowledges Benefiting From Freddie Mac Fees, Defends His Work For Mortgage Giant
“Rising in polls and receiving greater scrutiny, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich found himself on the defensive Wednesday over huge payments he received over the past decade from the mortgage giant Freddie Mac.”