Monday, December 18, 2017

Monday's Child is Full of Links!

1.  Dude. You broke the law.  You don't like the law, get the law changed. Taunting the cop for enforcing the law is really not going to work out well.  Just another example of the Thing Itself. It's not the cop's fault.

2.  Trump's message to Arab oil barons:  Frack you.

3. Anthony de Jasay on France. And on the electoral systems, trade agreements, and Trump.

4.  If you pick a small niche of extreme leftist indoctrination, you need to be able to be very highly ranked to continue to attract applicants. The second tier (and below) of "Progressive Finishing Schools" are going to face enrollment problems.   The few schools that have focused on extreme rightist indoctrination face far less competition. Hillsdale still has an acceptance rate below 50%.

5. Why the net should be neutral, but ex post.

6.  This is amazingly messed up, even for France, which is always messed up.

7. The Intolerable commits the Unforgiveable: Trump defiles the sanctity of the Unicorn State.

8.  It's a trap!  Or so says Bret Stephens. Trump is driving the left mad, in a way that will cause the left to continue to lose.

9.  When they start posting lists of stuff designed to make our sons (in our case, 28 and 25) feel old, that makes me feel old.  I remember that listing for Nickelodeon, though. Those were some good shows.

10.  In which David Henderson owns his fanaticism.

11.  Here's a happy thought. Women are consistently less happy than men, until about age 80+. The life expectancy of husbands? 79. Nice.

12. Whatever "net neutrality" is, it isn't "neutral."

13.  This article kind of buries the lede.  The title given on the web site is, "College student arrested; tried to trade chicken Alfredo, Sprite for sex." Inviting hilarious comparisons to more typical dinner dates:  chicken Alfredo and Sprite? Man, you need to go to Ruth's Chris and buy champagne. But then if you read the article:  Ick. Not very funny.  Lots of people apparently got caught tweeting before they read. Then, on the other hand, what the hell were the police actually doing? Headline should have been: "Bored cops catfish lonely fat kid, eventually get him to proposition 15 year old in a way that never would have happened on its own."

14. An extremely interesting article on "Bitcoin arbitrage" and storage costs. Sent by the intrepid Chateau. Given the storage and use costs, Bitcoin is a speculative, not a transactional, play at this point.

15. This short movie was made in 1909. And it's interesting. Possibly useful for class discussion. Amazing.

16. My man D-Drez on Trump's trajectory on NK.

17.  10 questions women "should ask on the first date." Also known as "I never, ever want to get married. Ever." This article is likely just trolling clickbait, but it's still worth reading. A lot of people really do think this way. Not "I want a life partner" but "I want someone to validate my emotional attachments to nonsensical causes."  But then THAT prompted THIS. Goodness.

18.  Tear down those statues.

19. Oh, gosh. Child care is already very expensive. One solution would be to require a college degree for providers, thereby eliminating many poor women from being able to provide the service and dramatically increasing costs. Wait, what? Why is that a solution to anything? Except the giant surfeit of unemployable women with over-priced "______ Studies" degrees?

20. Those Aussies. Despicable Minion steals chunk of lawn. Then does taunting on Facebook. I have to admit, if someone were that obsessed about their lawn, I'd be tempted.  Chill, bruh. Weeds are your friends.

21. Los Angeles taxes new housing to promote the building of new housing. And for my next trick, I'll make ALL the roads run downhill, in BOTH directions! It's as if "Atlas Shrugged" was a documentary, not fiction at all.

22. The African Enlightenment: Interesting.

23. 10 reasons people fail in grad school.  Angus and I tried our best to fail, but we ended up failing even at that. Seriously, it was interesting to watch the way the people who were good at classes (not Angus and me) end up drifting away, while Angus and I emerged like phoenixes from our asses.

24.  Air travel cronyism fails in the U.S. Senate.

25. Game theory and dating apps

26. Poor, poor, pitiful millenials.


The Grand Lagniappe: Alabama voters, ignoring partisan affiliation, by age. (Note that the children under 18 that Moore has harassed recently were not allowed to vote, so there's a bias there)






1 comment:

Unknown said...

Two articles on Net Neutrality, both pro. While in theory I understand the arguments for removing the Title II designation, I have some problems with it in the real world, which neither of these articles (nor any other I have read) address.

There currently is NOT a free market in most of the US.
1. Where I live the only broadband ISP IS a monopoly. I have a neighbor who works for Comcast and he CANNOT get Comcast service, which as an employee would save he a bundle.
2. I also have a choice of ONE wireless provider, but because I live in a fairly rural area the service is spotty and significantly slower. To improve their service would mean a LARGE investment in wireless towers, but since not enough people live in the area who use the service, it would not be economical for anyone to make the investment.
3. Recall in 1936, the US government had to pass legislation to get the power companies to extend service to rural areas.

The FCC can handle issues ex ante:
1. They will, when one of ISPs get caught, if they do. In the meantime, how much damage has been to consumers in terms of not only price but sub-standard.
2. Sure government regulation is bureaucratic and stifles innovation. But the same can be said of companies with monopoly power. At least with government I can have some say - voting at a minimum. With monopolies I have NO insight and NO say. Sure I can "vote with my money" by choosing NO service. From my perspective, some choice and control is better than no choice or control.

Again I agree in theory, but that theory requires the existence of free markets. This is why I think there is such an outcry from consumers about this.

Furthermore, a big part of the rise and success of Trump had to do with an uprising of the rural middle class being ignored by the coastal academic elites saying "really this will be good for everybody", and then ignoring what actually happens in the real world. (By the way, I say this as a rural wanna-be academic elite - but I need to house and feed my family.)