• There’s an effort underway to undermine the Electoral College through an interstate compact in which participating states agree to appoint Electors based on the national popular vote. The project, in fact, is called the National Popular Vote. But, as the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, points out, the Electoral College is one of the essential moderating institutions in the U.S. political system. To learn why the Electoral College is worth preserving, visit the Evergreen Freedom Foundation’s Web site, SaveOurStates.com.

• Want to know which leaders will shape the world for decades to come? Check out the World Economic Forum’s list of Young Global Leaders 2010. We are happy to note that Frankin Cudjoe has made the list. We are fans of his work advancing liberty and free markets as the Director of the IMANI Center for Policy and Education in Ghana.

• The Macdonald-Laurier Institute is now online—which means it is officially up and running. Brian Lee Crowley started the Canadian think tank as an effort to “make poor quality public policy in Ottawa unacceptable to Canadians.” Crowley, by the way, is the author of much discussed Fearful Symmetry: The Fall and Rise of Canada’s Founding Values, which debunks the myth that Canadians have a natural preference for the welfare state. (If you are in the neighborhood of Ottawa on March 15, you can help the institute celebrate its start by attending a launch party.)

• Liberty Fund has published a new, definitive edition of Democracy in America, Alexis De Tocqueville’s classic survey of American political culture. This edition, produced by a team of Tocqueville scholars, is a new and accurate translation based on primary source material, and includes extensive marginalia, critical comments from Tocqueville’s contemporaries, four little-know essays intended as original appendices, and text notes—all of which allow the reader to trace the development of Tocqueville’s thinking.

• An upcoming event at the Mercatus Center will offer an assessment of how the economic downturn is affecting freedom at the state level. The event, to be held on Thursday, March 11, 2010, from noon to 1:30 p.m., will feature the authors of Mercatus’ annual “Freedom in the 50 States” survey.