As part of a great-as-usual exchange between ESPN’s Bill Simmons and noted writer Malcolm Gladwell, the two sports-niks hypothesized about the NHL’s future.  Simmons pondered why Canada, the unquestioned home of hockey, doesn’t have more NHL teams.  In response he proposed a new, two conference league split evenly between Canadian and American teams.  Gladwell replied with:

I'm with you on the 24-team, Canadian-American conference idea, particularly since it turns the Stanley Cup finals into a border war every year. I was once in Brazil when Brazil was playing Argentina in soccer, and the entire country was in a state of advanced hysteria. I was at a conference and they stopped the proceedings, in the middle of the day, so everyone could go watch the game. Unbelievable. That's what happens when you combine sports and national loyalties. Can you imagine this happening every spring?

Meredith Whitney is bearish on banks.

Bernanke isn't ready to call asset prices inflated.

What's behind the tight correlation in commodity prices?

Last night, Charlie Rose featured a powerful one-two punch of glib thinking (the powerful one-two punch of glib thinking): The 'Freakonomics' guys and Malcolm Gladwell (in separate segments). Steven Levitt and Steven Dubner were about what you would expect...

Outliers: The Story of Success

By Malcolm Gladwell

(Little, Brown and Company, 309 pp., $27.99)