Monday's Child

1.  Seriously?  Some sort of deep allegory?  Not just a chance to show muscular women in scanty outfits?  And the "Yellow Horde" thing?  Reminds me of this:  "Yao Ming is the most profound threat to American Empire..."

2.  US/Russia still cooperating in space.

3.  A silly, silly study.  I would expect that being read to is much better than not being read to, for a child.  Whether the book is "factual" has to be a second or third order effect.

4.  Mr. Segal reveals his deep knowledge of leadership.   Perhaps Segal and Rodman can have a cage match to argue over whose psychotic "dear leader" is cooler.

5.  Dying to win?

moremoremore

LeBron Interrupted: Marginal Revolution Gets a Pepper Solution

LeBron was pepper sprayed as a right-wing bad guy by an angry restaurant owner?

Sam Goldwyn was said to have remarked once, "That's so unbelievable, it's incredible."

Some guy goes into LeBron's class and tries to "arrest" him?  Then the guy pepper sprays him?

When D-Boo and D-Kly are right down the hallway?  Tyler's pretty inoffensive and fair-minded, by the standards set by GMU Econ faculty.

More here.  I wonder if the guy was a spurned restaurant owner, one that Tyler had critiqued as lacking the proper atmosphere for his dive.

When I first heard about this, and the report said that "a deranged man" had entered Tyler's classroom, I assumed they meant David Levy.

Tyler, sensibly, has not himself posted about this on MR.  The whole "break into my class, pepper spray me, and I'll make you famous" pattern is not incentive compatible.

UPDATE:  This is cool.  Tyler was teaching a section on vigilantes!   So the class thought that the "attack" was staged.

UPDATE II:  More seriously, I have absolutely no reason to believe that the attack was ideologically motivated, none.  I object when people assume that some gunman is a right wing nut, so I should say that there is no reason to think that this person was a left wing nut.  He may just have been deranged.  I do stand by the whole "David Levy" thing, however.

UPDATE III:  Here is a video about pepper spray and firing guns.  A Russian man learns that "pepper spray is bad shit."   With thanks to Kevin Lewis...

UPDATE IV:  Sexual harrassment, and computer hacking?  Yup, the guy is just nuts.  

But They Were NOT Forced From the Marketplace!

 Instead, we bailed them out.  GM was poorly managed.  Yes, they had dumb labor relations.  But mostly they had dumb leaders.  They should have been allowed to die.

Management Practices, Relational Contracts, and the Decline of General Motors 

Susan Helper & Rebecca Henderson 
Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2014, Pages 49-72 

Abstract: General Motors was once regarded as the best-managed and most successful firm in the world. However, between 1980 and 2009, GM's US market share fell from 46 to 20 percent, and in 2009 the firm went bankrupt. We argue that the conventional explanation for this decline — namely high legacy labor and healthcare costs — is seriously incomplete, and that GM's share collapsed for many of the same reasons that many highly successful American firms of the 1960s were forced from the market, including a failure to understand the nature of the competition they faced and an inability to respond effectively once they did. We focus particularly on the problems GM encountered in developing the relational contracts essential to modern design and manufacturing, and we discuss a number of possible causes for these difficulties. We suggest that GM's experience may have important implications for our understanding of the role of management in the modern, knowledge-based firm and for the potential revival of manufacturing in the United States.

Nod to Kevin Lewis 

When Does It Become a Gun?

So, it's not a gun yet.  In fact, it's not a receiver yet.

But it could be.  And it's polymer, which won't show up as metal on a scanner.

Still, the bullets would show up, and so would most of the rest of the gun.  This is not really a legitimate seizure here.

Or is it?  I have to admit ATF is in kind of a tough spot here, trying to enforce a vague law.

Monday's Child

1.  NOOOOOObody expects the philosopher inquisition.  Actually, that's not true.  Angry Alex expects it.

2.  This is not complicated.  The premise of Obamacare, the foundational assumption, is that we are going to force poor people to get insurance.  Force.  As in gunpoint, coerce, etc.  Pretending that is not true is actually a bad situation much worse.  Now, one can agree or disagree that this is a good idea.  But pretending it's not true is just silly...and dangerous.

3.  Divorce:  Institutions matter.

4.  A report.  What I see:  "What Americans Spend on ILLEGAL Drugs."  What Republicans claim to see:  "What Americans Spend on Illegal DRUGS."

5.  What's odd is that anyone thinks this is odd.  Funny, yes.  And Chateau enjoyed it a lot.   Incentives matter.

6.  I've met Senator McConnell.  In many ways, I admire Senator McConnell.  But this was a bad idea.  Here are some reasons why.  Does the Senator deserve to be treated this way?  Of course not; he's a Senator, and in fact has provided lots of good service to the country (like Dick Durbin, another man I don't agree with much...at all.)  Should Senator McConnell have seen this coming, with such a creepy and long ad?  Yes, yes, he should have. For the best of everything, let's go McConnelling!

7.  The Big Bang...

8.  I thought it was BruSELLs, but apparently it's BruBUYs.

9.  Very cute.  Though, exactly the same sort of thing happens to me all the time.  Except for the "you're right" part.  But drinking...pretty much every night.

10.  Nothing is really alive.

11.  You can't caricature a caricature.  "Cartoonish"?  Seriously?  The Times long ago abandoned any pretense of objectivity, but this is a bit much even for them.

12.  It's a good day.  A great day would be only private drones, no state drones, but this will do.

13.  Interesting, and useful.  NOT legal advice, however.  I should restate the KPC "comment policy":  we'll delete comments if we feel like it.  We don't ever feel like it (I can't remember having deleted a comment, except for spambot posts), but it's our blog.

14.  Nice.  If people are still willing to live in Illinois, they must be too "in love" to leave. So let's tax the bejeezus out of them!

15.  If you are a toe-sucker, that's a little strange.  But why, oh why, would you want to ply your trade at WalMart?

16.  This is a bit different from the usual silly troll-piece on "questions libertarians can't answer."  This is actually data from surveys.  Useful.

17.  Finally, some USEFUL dating advice.

18.  Wolves love a good belly rub.  But then, who doesn't?

19.  Lots of amazing things in this story.  I count at least four.  The MOST amazing thing is that this bozo went outside in Maine on such a cold day with no shirt.

20.  I get goose bumps.  Lots of my libertarian colleagues are not big fans of the N.A., but I get goose bumps.

21.  Cute, and a little quirky.  They took the dog?

22.  The one that got away....

23.  Some people just have trouble playing on a team.

24.  In order to protect the wildlife, we had to kill the wildlife.

25.  "Gibberish talker finds fame, heads to US."  My understanding that being gibberish talker makes you qualified to be a female US Senator from Massachusetts, for example.

26.  Vaccination?  I don't need no steenkin' vaccination!

Spongebob Square Pants

Okay, so the Russian Army may be an arm of evil, but this is pretty cool.



Nod to M. Kaan.

This week's sign of the apocalypse

Best reaction I've seem from Erdogan's preposterous "Twitter-ban".

Sadly, I'm stuck on the "if crap like this can happen..." part of the post. Can you help me out in the comments?

Awards season

Everyone is anxiously waiting to hear whether Barack Obama will be one of the nominees for the coveted Fredrick Fleet award.

Personally, I think he's a shoe-in:

People, if I can write crap like this, why do we even have an NSA at all?

For the LMM

The LMM is trapped in a snow storm in a Holiday Inn in Arlington, VA.  So, for her, and for Shirley, too:  A video.




Nod to William H.  I like how the cat just sits there as if to say, "Oh, NO, you didn't just do that.  You're going to get in trouble. Oh, HELL, no, don't you come over here now, all lickin' and stuff."

Big Fat Aquatic Mammal Doing Situps

This is why Mr. Overwater invented the internet...




Nod to the LMM.

UPDATE:  Thanks to commenter for correction in title!

Monday's Child

1.  Ann Coulter is priceless.  Several howlers here.

2.  As always, my good friend Sid Kilgore will have some flowery reason why the state should have, and use, these powers to abuse citizens.  Because he cares more about control than he does people.  But this is pretty icky.

3.  Some folks say health care should be more like industry, so that you can do price comparisons.  Instead, industry is becoming more like health care, where with various subsidies and cross-subsidies, none of the prices are actually real.  I think that this is not a good thing.

4. "Trigger Warnings."  So I may have to put one on my syllabus:  "This class may contain material that you don't already know or agree with."  Wait...isn't that what a class is SUPPOSED to do?  Perhaps not....

5.  Weekend at Bernie's....for six years?

6.  Students will like you if you gesture more.  I think this means Jenn Merolla must do very well.  If she couldn't move her hands, she couldn't talk at all.

7.  This Okie must have been of Scottish descent.  Lost a $20 bill?  Well, I'm going AFTER that.  And he survived. As Angus explained to me, this recalls the invention of copper wire.  It happened when two Scots disagreed over who owned a penny.

8.  You call THIS "spring break"?

9.  How could you NOT be in favor of "net neutrality"?  It sounds so useful.  Well, there's this.  And then there's this.

10.  State of Jefferson:  The Phil Special.  Eclectic.

11.  Maybe elephants don't forget.  But how do they KNOW, in the first place?

12.  Should condoms be required, permitted, or prohibited in the legal porn industry?  Stoya has a view.

13.  Some jokes.  Number 5 is quite insightful, actually.

14.  Talk about an "open house."  Had to be a bad feeling to know the camera was there....after all...that.

15.  That's a really big boar.

16.  Putin and the thug life.

17.  Fair vote?

18.  What is it like to attend a "Magic:  The Gathering" tournament?  One fat guy with a beard goes around photobombing other fat guys with their butt cracks poking out.  But I have it on good authority that this captures the look and feel (ewwww!) of MTG quite well. Lagniappe:  A video of the "action":  I like what the Tofias look-alike says at the end.  'Cause that's really the point.  (Yes, this is likely staged, but it catches the essence pretty well).

19.  Food as a moral statement.  The alternative to education now being sold as education. This critique is a bit over the top, but it is a worrisome trend.

20.  Metadata is harmless and sterile.  Not, and not.   And these people KNEW their data were being collected.  Wow.

21.  Several handsome analysts discuss shale.

22.  Okay, so there's selection.  But is that skin/eye color combo adaptive, or selected sexually?

23.  It's not hard to cut spending.  It's just not.  The problem is that no one actually WANTS to cut spending.

24.  Ladies, Jesus thinks you are FAT.  And it's not nice to displease Jesus. (How does she get her hair to do that? It's not something you see everyday).

25.  "Thuggish bullies who went too far"?  No, just another day working for the state.   (I don't fault the police...)

26.  I can't tell if this is bad, or very very bad.  But I'm sure it's not good.

27.  Our favorite headlines: Kelly Brook’s on/off Gladiator boyfriend David McIntosh pleads guilty to crashing van full of dead badgers into bus stop.  Often, you don't need to read the story if the headline is good.  But in this case, the whole story is worth reading.  And Ms. Brooks appears to have stuffed dead badgers, or SOMETHING, into the back of her pants.

28.  This Reddit thread is worth reading in detail.  Several unexpected detours.  Overall, quite enjoyable. And, what kind of asshat doesn't put the weights back?

29.  Yawn ...

30.  Firing unprofitable professors?  Or firing professors who are simply political advocates for one narrow view and who have never done any actual scholarship in the first place?

Embrace those B's, Ladies

I was visiting one of my favorite colleges (Davidson) the other night. Had given a talk, and was having dinner afterwards with some students and faculty.

One young woman mentioned that she done very well in math in high school, and that she wished she had been able to take some math in college.  She was an Econ major, but had taken zero calculus and then took just the one required baby-stats-by-cookbook course.  (UPDATE:  Why so few women economists?)

I asked why she had not "been able" to take any math in college.  I knew for a fact Davidson offered math courses. (In fact, they do stuff like this, there). The young lady, obviously shocked, said, "I might have made a B!  Those are hard courses!"

I couldn't let that go.  I may have pointed out that she had just said that she was "really good" at math, and most people don't say that.  For a woman to say she's really good at math, she must in fact be really good at math.  And I may have said something like this was her only chance at an education, and the ridiculous courses (I may have said "underwater basket-weaving for beginners") she took instead were a giant waste of time.  Who cares if you get an "A" in that crap?  For my big finish, I said "Nobody cares about your G.P.A.  You have wasted more than $150,000 here, avoiding an education."  I may have been a jerk, in other words.


It was quiet for quite a while after that.  It's possible I was out of line.  But it's also possible I was COMPLETELY RIGHT.

Excerpt:

“Maybe women just don’t want to get things wrong,” Goldin hypothesized. “They don’t want to walk around being a B-minus student in something. They want to find something they can be an A student in. They want something where the professor will pat them on the back and say ‘You’re doing so well!’ ” 

“Guys,” she added, “don’t seem to give two damns.” 

So maybe the better question is: Why aren’t men scared off by rigid grading curves? Male students could be more overconfident — effectively, college bros shrug off gentleman’s C’s (or, more often today, gentleman’s B’s) as unrepresentative of their true brilliance.

Please spread the word.  The "game" in college is NOT to maximize GPA.  It's to maximize education, subject to the constraint of maintaining a decent GPA.

My own rule in graduate admissions:  never accept anyone with a 4.0.  And it's better if the person has gotten at least one "C."  If there is no C in the record, it means the person is going to be just another loser who is really good at taking courses.  If you could get a job taking courses, that would be the sort of person you want.  But we want people who will take risks, and learn new things that are too hard to master on the first go.

(If it matters, this is self-serving, yes.  I made two C's:  one in an intermediate Art History class that was completely over my head, and one in Real Analysis.  Finally, I made a "B" in my Intro Econ class.  Nobody told me I was doing well.  Because I wasn't.)

An extended discussion of the problem can be found in Megan McArdle's terrific new book, THE UP SIDE OF DOWN.  It's really great, and it argues that students need to be encouraged to fail.

Or at least get a "B," fercrissakes.

(UPDATE:  Claudia S. points out, on twitter [ @Claudia_Sahm ], that my "lecture" was almost certainly completely ineffective, and even counterproductive.  And Claudia is right, of course.  If someone is unsure of themselves then being yelled at in public by a creepy old guy like me is not really helpful. Another reader pointed out that this scene from Big Lebowski is apropos...   Further, if the young woman had taken a course in math and gotten a "B," then she would no longer have thought she was "really good" at math.  My point is that you should not just take courses in things in which you are already "really good", and courses in high school don't count!  You need to try to get better at OTHER things.  Staying inside your comfort zone is the whole problem!  Figure out what you are "really bad" at, and then go take THOSE courses, to get better.  So, either the young lady was "really good," and would make a good grade, or she would find out it was hard, and she wasn't really good, and so she needed to work hard to make a decent, maybe not even good, grade.  That's why I look for a "C" in the transcript, as long as the course is a difficult one.  Take something you are not "really good" at.)

This week's sign of the Apocalypse

Video surveillance in George Orwell Square?

I don't think you are reading him properly, Ajuntament de Barcelona!

People, if crap like this can happen, why do we have a secret world government at all?

Someone's selling all your heroes, and they seem so tame

I've had a deep emotional connection to Neil Young's music since I was a young 'un. Just a huge huge fan.

But now Neil is turned entrepreneur / evangelist for "high quality music", launching his own PONO music player.

I have to admit, I was expecting something amazing. But it's just a Toblerone bar that plays FLAC files!

Holy spumoli, Neil, what gives? 1997 called and they want their technology back! I guess I had so much respect and appreciation for Neil that I just assumed PONO would actually be an amazing step forward.

But it's not.

First off, you don't need to spend $400 to get a player that will play FLAC files. Your phone will do that, if you just feed it FLAC files.

Second, for most people using earbuds or cheap headphones, the sound differences between MP3 and FLAC will be negligible.

Third, probably the biggest sound quality issue in modern music is that bands are getting their music mixed with very little dynamic range and little concern for traditional audiophile qualities, because most folks download / stream the music into earbuds anyway.

It is true that the company making PONO's DAC (the thing that converts the zeros and ones in the FLAC files to amplifiable sound) is built by AYRE who makes an excellent asynchronous USB dac, but I can't tell much about the quality of PONO's dac from their webpage.

The PONO DAC can also handle Hi-REZ files (CDs are 44Khz, HI-REZ is like 96 or 192 Khz), but that is not very relevant in a portable player when you are wearing Beats by Dre headphones!

With a good asynchronous DAC, quality amplification, and physically separated high quality speakers, HI-REZ audio can sound amazing. You can also clearly hear that CDs ripped into FLAC files sound better than when they are ripped into MP3 files.

But the target audience of PONO is extremely unlikely to be using it that way.

Can't Even Lie Straight

The only way that Obamacare could work is if he doubled down on the lie that "if you like your current health care plan, you can keep it." That was never true.  The only hope was to charge much higher prices to healthy people so that the government can force insurance companies to offer "insurance" to folks with pre-existing conditions or who were too poor to pay the actuarially fair rate for that policy.  There  is no way to offer insurance far below cost to some people without raising the costs to other people.

It was ALWAYS a lie.  It had to be.  But at least it would have "worked," in the sense that he could have had most people forced--yes, at gunpoint, forced, but at least they would be included--into the system.  But now the Dems are too chicken-sh*t even to play out their own fraudulent bluff.  They are "extending" and "exempting" like there is no tomorrow.

This is an actual disaster.  Because it means that people who have cheap policies can keep them, but people who must be given cheap policies, people whose expected care far exceed premiums, must be written new policies.  It's Christmas!  The problem with Christmas is that our President is trying to be Santa Claus.  Even a Peronista would look at this and laugh.  "No, you can't back down now!  Grit your teeth and carry out the lie."

To paraphrase Glenn Close, "If you just told us to f**k off, we'd have more respect for you."

UPDATE:  Just when it couldn't get worse....it got worse.  They can't keep doing this.  They have to force people to sign up.  It's the logic of the system.  It's based on force, and cross-subsidy.

(Ras)Putin?

I know a decent amount about Latin America, and a small amount about Sub-Saharan Africa, and almost nothing about Eastern Europe, so take this with an appropriate amount of salt,  but....

I really don't understand or accept the Putin >> Obama narrative on Ukraine.

As I see it, Putin used to, de facto, have the whole Ukraine. But he and his stooge pushed things too far. Amazing and brave Ukrainians rose up, stood up, and got out from under Putin's thumb. Now as a blustery, face-saving measure, he's got "secret" troops in the Crimean Peninsula and there may be a referendum there about joining Russia.

People, the loser here is..... PUTIN!

Putin, people, not Obama. Obama and the US are fairly close to irrelevant.

Putin is going from de facto control of the whole country with little external costs to him of exercising such control, to perhaps de jure control of the Crimea with significant external costs to him of exercising such control.

That is not how geniuses do things my friends.

Slo-Mo Guys: Airbags

LPNC Keynote Speech

Thanks to "intrmntuvdeth" for posting this video of my keynote address at the Libertarian National Convention of May, 2008.  Here is the complete version (30 minutes LOOOONG).


And here is the "music video" version.  Under 5 minutes.

1st Amendment and 2nd Amendment are Just DIFFERENT

Reminded by this story, following up this story, of the difference between 1st Amendment and 2nd Amendment.  Here they are, for your reference:

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

So....the 1st Amendment is much more extensive and unlimited.  "No law," which doesn't quite mean no law, but no law is what we are going for.  The 2nd Amendment does also create an individual right, a right that cannot be taken away without due process and good cause.  But the process and the cause for restricting 2nd Amendment rights is much more open to state action.

As I have argued before in this space, the 2nd Amendment creates a right much more like the right to drive.  No law-abiding, responsible citizen can be arbitrarily denied a driver's license.  It's an entitlement:  satisfy these (reasonable) requirements, and you get to drive.  But the state gets to choose the laws, and define responsibility.  Sure, that means that there is the possibility of abuse of gun rights.  But that's because there is the possibility of abuse of guns!  You drive drunk, or recklessly, and you lose your license.  You use your gun irresponsibly, or store it in a way that allows it to be stolen or misused easily, you lose your status as a legal gun keeper and bearer. No outright bans, and no outright bans on regulations, either.  It's in between. 

So, background checks, required training, required registration...those are all things that are well within what is allowed by the 2nd Amendment, while also protecting the right responsibly, law-abiding citizens to own (and bear) arms. 

To drive, you have to take classes, demonstrate proficiency, have insurance, and behave responsibility.  Failure to do these things mean that the right to drive is not granted, or temporarily suspended, or permanently revoked.  There is no other way of interpreting "well-regulated," unless you go all the way to "they were talking about militias, and there is no individual right at all."  I think there is an individual right, and that right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  As long those people obey the laws, behave responsibly, and (for example) don't fire actual rounds into the air in "celebration."

Monday's Child

1.  Okay....ewwww.  But the guy is British.  What did you expect?

2.  Ouch.  Doggy brain freeze.

3.  Only in America:  Farmers bored in winter, but have excellent equipment.

4.  One way of ensuring "equality" is to punish the smart kids.  If school sucks for most, it must suck for all.  Or something like that.

5.  Lou is subjected to rhetorical questioning.

6.  Paul Samuelson's favorite pickup line.

7.  America!  Where children of five can learn calculus, but adults of twenty-five still never learned it.

8.  Sock puppets on parade!

9. What if they had a spelling bee, and ran out of words?  If only there were a book of some kind, one that had a list of words...and pronunciations....and definitions.  Now THAT would be useful.

10.  Okay, so youse better listen up, see?  Either youse stop this global warming, or the guac gets it in the neck!!

11.  Pretty long, but pretty cool.  Sliced bread.

12.  Self-segregate?  Really?  In my experience, being in a frat made it necessary to deal with people who didn't really like you, and vice versa.  Because you were all in the same organization.  GDIs hang out with much smaller, and more selected, groups.  GDIs self-segregate, IMHO.

13.  Hashtag:  #nosavesies .  Story from Philadelphia (of course).

14.  Write your own joke here.

15.  You are welcome to disrupt my lectures.  That way, they might remember SOMETHING.

16.  So many ways to go with this one.  Just write your own jokes...

17.  Mmmmmm....bacon.

18.  Poorly worded headline, or did they really try to land over the official's son?

19.  Something to watch if you are sad.  Because it's hard to be sad when you hear this.

20.  I think the "rocket cat" is an excellent idea.  Not so much as a weapon as a hobby.  But then I don't much like cats.

21.  La-la-la-la-la-la-la!  Come on to the mystery barge!

Compensating for the BBQ

So, more sex means more intelligence?  At the margin, at least? 

On the other hand, grilled or fried foods make you dumb.

I think the conclusion is obvious:  if you are going to have a BBQ, make sure it is followed by an orgy in the hottub. 

(Nod to Susan L.  I always wondered what made her so smart.  Now, I think I know...)

Willfully Annoying (corrected)

Oh, man.  Grand Rapids, MI, adopted hometown of one Angus Okieman, has a ban on being "willfully annoying."

That's a terrible law.  No wonder Angus moved away.

Think of it:  If that law were enforced, Angus and I would always be in court.  Scott de Marchi would have a life sentence, until the jailers found him so annoying they just sprung him loose. And P-Kroog would be prohibited from writing op-eds.

Strike it.  Strike it down.

Scarcity and Morality

A Lack of Material Resources Causes Harsher Moral Judgments 

Marko Pitesa & Stefan Thau
Psychological Science, forthcoming

Abstract: In the research presented here, we tested the idea that a lack of material resources (e.g., low income) causes people to make harsher moral judgments because a lack of material resources is associated with a lower ability to cope with the effects of others' harmful behavior. Consistent with this idea, results from a large cross-cultural survey (Study 1) showed that both a chronic (due to low income) and a situational (due to inflation) lack of material resources were associated with harsher moral judgments. The effect of inflation was stronger for low-income individuals, whom inflation renders relatively more vulnerable. In a follow-up experiment (Study 2), we manipulated whether participants perceived themselves as lacking material resources by employing different anchors on the scale they used to report their income. The manipulation led participants in the material-resources-lacking condition to make harsher judgments of harmful, but not of nonharmful, transgressions, and this effect was explained by a sense of vulnerability. Alternative explanations were excluded. These results demonstrate a functional and contextually situated nature of moral psychology.

Nod to Kevin Lewis

Monday's Child

1.  I am the Eye in the Sky, Looking at you; I can read your mind. I am the maker of rules, Dealing with fools. I can cheat you blind. Operation:  Optic Nerve.

2.  Impressive.  These four male policemen were able to subdue this young woman, once she was handcuffed, and force her arms up behind her.  Of course, she had it coming.  She had jaywalked while jogging.  On 24th Street, in Austin, TX.  Where I jaywalked all the time, while jogging.  I assume Dirty Davey will offer his usual defense of police brutality, about how it's all for the greater good.  We should just shut up and be glad the state loves us.  You do have to like the Police Chief, who actually said she was lucky the police didn't rape her.

3.  My insurance for nothing, and my checks for free.

4.  If our President can win a Peace Prize just for entering office, it makes sense to give a career news excellence award for just three days of newscasting.  Right?

5.  Even now, it's still true that voting is easier in NC than in most states.  Longer early voting, easier absentee.  Yet Dirty Davey will, once again, complain.  I don't know about you, Davey.

6.  Ser Maduro? Esta duro.

7.  This is what these kids will tell their therapists, 25 years from now.  "They gave me a lemon..."

8.  Extremely cute elephant/dog action.

9.  Daisy has a better life than you do.

10.  Russian Western, which is different from Western Russia.

11.  Very interesting.  Hotel room "speculators."  It's not illegal to "scalp" hotel rooms. 

12.  "The Bachelor" is icky.  Really quite icky.

13.  Too many choices bad?  Dilbert thinks so.  "Studies....that doesn't sound like a real thing."

14.  Interesting piece on "value," "price," and tuition.  Duke is a bargain, even at full tuition price?  Depends on whether you think that price should equal average cost, or marginal cost.

15.  In Russia, paper protests YOU!

16.  The odd thing is that people on the left believe that the police are there to protect our rights.  Perhaps in an ideal world.  But then in an ideal world we wouldn't need police in the first place.  And we certainly don't need this.  They claimed she was going to be charged with "Felony driving in the HOV lane."  Nice.

17.  The doughnut shop in the YMCA is refusing to sell doughnuts.  Question:  Why is there a doughnut shop in the YMCA?  The nice part is that the "low-fat muffins" are actually much worse for you than a doughnut.

18.  Out in the crosswalk....

19.  In honor of the Oscars...you can have fun and make a show without technology.  Or a script.  Or talent.  Still, fun.  Infectious.  I wanted to dance like this.  Actually, I do dance like that.

20.  Cheese is performance art.