Today’s Links: October 25, 2012

OPINION

JAMES BENNET: “Interview with Michael Bloomberg on Everything From Campaign Money to Circumcision
“I think it’s government’s job not to ban things but to give you information and let you make the decision. So calorie counts would do that. Portion control is a graphical or physical way of giving you information in terms of how much sugar you’re consuming, and whatever. Prohibiting you from smoking in places is information — it also, unlike these other things, is required, if you’re going to protect other people from the smoker’s action.”

NICK GILLESPIE: “The Semantics of Benghazi Don’t Matter: Obama’s Foreign Policy is a Failure
“The large point of this all is that regardless of what Obama might have might have meant right after the attack (it’s not clear that his “acts of terror” comment on September 12 was a specific reference to Benghazi), his adminstration royally screwed up in Libya. It’s totally clear why the Obama administration would be slow to acknowledge the truth of the attack – it undercut what they saw as the success of their containment of al Qaeda – but it’s just ridiculous for the larger media and voting public to play along with fixation on minor details.”

JASON BENDRICK: “Mr. President, Tuition Subsidies Are the Affordability Problem, Not the Solution
“It should come as no surprise that subsidies raise prices. Fortunately, there are now a growing number of innovative alternatives to traditional four-year colleges that have the potential to dramatically reduce costs while providing a quality education. Instead of subsidizing the expensive, inefficient and too-often ineffective status quo, government should just get out of the way.”

NEWS

JOBS – Ford Cutting 1500 UK Jobs As Europe Losses Grow
“Carmaker Ford announced Thursday it will cut 1,500 jobs in Britain, closing a plant and eliminating a stamping and tooling facility, as it warned that losses in Europe will exceed $1.5 billion this year.”

CALIFORNIA – California governor OKs ban on gay conversion therapy, calling it ‘quackery’
“Therapy aimed at turning gay kids straight will soon be illegal in California, with the state’s governor declaring he hopes a new law will relegate such efforts ‘to the dustbin of quackery.'”

HATE CRIME – 2 Ky. Men Acquitted Under New U.S. Gay Hate Crime Law
“The first U.S. prosecution under a new federal law against anti-gay violence ended with a Kentucky jury acquitting two cousins of hate-crime charges while finding them guilty of kidnapping in a 2011 attack on a gay man.”