Brian Gongol
5 people killed by oil-train explosion in Quebec
Early reports suggest the train was parked uphill and that the brakes either failed or weren't properly applied, causing it to run downhill. It was carrying tankers full of oil, and the crash caused an explosion and fire.
Why would a town decline state funding to repair bridges?
Possibly because the funds usually require matching spending by the locals, and municipal governments aren't necessarily flush with cash right now. It's very difficult to get the right combination of foresight and political motivation to pay for infrastructure maintenance and upkeep. It's not always easy to get the funding together for the initial construction of a capital project -- though anything that invites a big ribbon-cutting is usually good for at least a few votes. The Archway Monument over Interstate 80 at Kearney, Nebraska, has run into hard times just a few years after being opened, and now the parties involved have to figure out whether to spend the money to keep it open, or pay a big bill to tear it down.
Are we regulating ourselves right out of prosperity?
Niall Ferguson suggests so in a recent "Wall Street Journal" column.
Process matters, including in Egypt
The president has been deposed in a coup, and now the opposition groups that led the protests that brought about the coup are trying to decide who will take over (and it's not a settled process). Meanwhile, some supporters of the ousted president are pledging to put him back in power. Whether Morsi was any good or not, it should make everyone nervous that there's this much instability -- and such a crisis of process -- in a nation of 85 million people. Is the military's intervention good for democracy? That's a tough sell.
Pebble "smart-watches" are for sale at Best Buy
The watch synchronizes with Android and Apple smartphones, because now it's too much work to reach into one's pocket to retrieve one's phone
This week in "making money and having fun"
