Monday's Child is Full of Links!

1.  A new version of the "broken windows" fallacy?

2.  There was a complaint, kids sledding on road. Cops sent their best undercover unit.

3.  The market-based "liberal" system has created so much prosperity, and that prosperity is so widely shared, that the two greatest problems facing the poor at this point are (1) obesity and (2) population growth resulting from reduced infant mortality. But the market system can fix that, too: the next stage is to pass the wealth threshold where obesity and birth rate fall. Plus, market systems will fix the environment, and through the same logic.

4. I'm always surprised when people are surprised at the reluctance to switch to "clean energy," which is expensive, inefficient, and not always all that clean.

5. Standard transitional gains trap stuff here. The demand for corn, without ethanol mandate, has been stagnant. So eliminating ethanol mandate (which is hugely expensive and harmful to the environment, since corn is not sugar cane) would cause bankruptcies of many farmers. It does NO GOOD, it's EXPENSIVE, but eliminating it is POLITICALLY IMPOSSIBLE. Welcome to Public Choice, folks!

6. Quite a lot going on here. Prairie ship, that's all Ima say.

7. A dog that plays Jenga. Not everything has to be complex, or ironic, you know.

8.  Top 3 episodes of Liberty Law Talk for 2019.

9.  A Tale of Two Cleveland Suburbs.

10.  Models of legal sex work (Cato podcast).

11. They had a bad day on the road.

12.  They had a bad day at a dock on a bay.

13. Pretty amazing "David" story.

14.  I am always surprised when people take T-Pikk seriously.

15.   Dave Barry's "Year in Review."

16. And the best year in review column I know of, from David Collum. Yes, the Collum column!
Here's Part I, and here's Part II.

17. One way to end the illegal selling of humans is to make sex work legal. These people (mostly women) need rights, not rescue. 

18.  Brett Stephens steps in it.


Grand Lagniappe: Camel shadows. Hard for a second to understand the perspective....

Buttigieg Gets His Own House Elf at Wikipedia, But I Can't Get a Fact Correction

One of my pet peeves is that "my" Wikipedia page is absurdly incorrect and out of date. When I contacted them, they said that "All the facts have links." Yes, but the linked URLs are wrong. Anyone can put up a link, and then link to it. That doesn't make it a fact. And I am not allowed to edit my own page, even though presumably I am an expert on what I think (for example, the page says, "He opposes the North Carolina Education Lottery and would make income taxes more progressive while cutting regressive taxes."

That's absolutely fabricated. Not true. Hogwash. And so on. But (say the coven of Wikins), it has a cite! The citation is an Independent Weekly article that NO LONGER EVEN EXISTS. And it was wrong from the gitgo. When I asked that the false information, which remember are about MY BELIEFS, the Satanic Wikins declined to allow me to serve as an authority, preferring to continue to rely on a nonexistent newspaper story about my beliefs.
_____________________________________________

At Right: Artist's rendering of Streeling, Mayor Pete's House Elf at Wikipedia

_____________________________________________


That would be okay, because it would mean that Wikipedia is a bad source of information, but that's not always true. Even about political candidates and their beliefs, that's not true. If you have a sympathetic, sycophantish editor that loves you, you get to use the Wikipedia as your own free advertising page, with daily updates.

That's what is going on with the Buttigieg campaign, as described here.  A quote from the story:

Luckily for Buttigieg, there is at least one person carefully looking out for his needs on Wikipedia—someone who has followed his political career from its very beginning, and whose interests and connections track his own with eerie sympathy.

A caveat: I have a friend who is reasonably highly placed in the Mayor Pete campaign, and I personally admire Mayor Pete, at least among the set of Dems now caterwauling on debate stages. Further, if you have a national "news" organization that wants to give you free campaign ads, in a setting where you are in a big fight for the nomination, I don't blame Mayor Pete's folks for at least tacitly cooperating with "Streeling" at Wikipedia.

But I do have a problem with Wikipedia, refusing to update or correct absurd and unfounded claims on some politician's pages, and having a house elf providing free campaign ads for other people, simply based on the personal preferences and biases of the inner circle of Wikins.

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1.  House of Drew. Justin Bieber's clothing line/house. And a commentary, by Drew, no less. But then Drew also wrote about "hovershoes," so perhaps he can't be trusted.

2.  California coast inundated by penis fish.

3.  At first, I read "Economics for people with Ha-choon Chang" as a prescription for someone with a particular condition. But Mr. Chang is the host of the video series.

4.  Republicans for Rule of Law, and their ads. And an ad.

5.  Empathy, you are not good.

6.  Ghosts of culture past. (A reading list)

7.  I believe that this is not a parody, and was actually staged by the Bloomberg campaign, thinking it would be a positive.  It is--positively--the whitest thing you will see today.

8.  Popular culture as product differentiation.

9.  Bitcoin ATM.

10.   Solar and wind are not enough.

11. Fruitcake.

12.  Divorce is changing. Because marriage is changing.

13. Bobby Jenks, "Scar Tissue." His stats.

14.  Red Letter Media guys review "RoS"

15.  The circle game....the racist symbol....the kerfuffle. My conclusion: The whole "if you make a symbol with your hand Ima put YOU in charge of MY feelings and reactions" thing is extravagantly dumb. I especially like the "the reason we know it's a hate sign is that there are many other meanings" logic.

16. All money is virtual.

17.  Long distance trade in timber?

18. Chicken trade wars are not good, and not easy to win.

19. Tom Steyer: gift to political science?

20.  Ron Manners and "Why I talk to Kelpie Dogs."  (and, Kelpie dogs, if you don't know)

21.  The War on Jewish Christmas. 

Grand Lagniappe:  Divine: Ahead of (pronoun's) time....

Monday's Child is Full of Links!

1.  Menotoxin. Seriously: menotoxin. Don't make the tapai.

2.  Florida baby shower.

3.  The rush to impeach is a sign the Dems don't think the public will be persuaded anyway.

4.  Heh. Some animals are more equal than others. If BoJo said, it's anti-semitic. If J-Cor said it, tho, it's reasonable.

5. Trade wars may or may not be good. They are (apparently) definitely not easy to win.

6.  Visions of immigrants.

7. Genuine evil often simply serves a vision of the good. But people are seen as means for achieving that good, rather than the good being FOR them as ends.

8.  This is a great read. Starts out a little slow, but by the second page it gets good. Fun in court with Allstate.

9. Uber's report on sexual assaults in cars, interpreted.

10.  4 baby daddies. In New York.

11. Dentist on a hoverboard.

12.  Prosperity and freedom.

13.  Man humping stuffed animals at Target. No, really. He went after the unicorn.  To quote the report: The December 5 information accuses Meader of “willfully and maliciously” damaging Target goods “by ejaculating on the merchandise.” I think "EOTM" should become part of the Target announcements: "Cleanup, aisle 15. There's been an EOTM."

14. The southern gothic guide to impeachment.

15.  Gay eye for the straight woman.

16.  DJT says what many people are thinking. Many people are wrong, but still, he's saying it. The problem with democracy is that "many people" are right even if they are wrong.

17.  This could easily be "The Onion." Instead, it's "The Banana," but apparently true. Of course, someday bananas may actually be a curiosity.

18.  I'm not a slovenly mess, I'm just really smart. Studies show it.

19. Immigration quotas did not raise wages. 

20.  Dan Klein on the leftist view of Adam Smith's argument. (VIDEO)

Grand Lagniappe: CAPTION CONTEST! In comments, let us know what JT is actually saying....

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1. The Band's song, "The Weight." I always wondered. An interview with the songwriter.

2. DJ Trump, songwriter for the Ramones.

3.  Many, and probably most, "market failures" are profit opportunities for entrepreneurs.

4.  All Bob's Money. By Remy, who is genius. Some background on why tuition's so high, also from Remy.

5.  Algorithms judge us, so know their rules.

6.  Viewpoint diversity in student affairs.

7.  A crowd-sourced "History of Political Science," from Emily Farris.

8. Play with Dad day.

9.  Boomers Partied, Xers Got the Hangover.

10.  Rules to protect the weak are almost always turned to oppress the weak. This woman has been punished enough. Protecting children does not mean punishing poor, overwhelmed parents when there is a freak accident. But it's a general problem: hate speech laws are being used to prosecute people of color who are angry at white male cops.

11. Beyond self-parody. John Bolton has evolved into pure energy.

12.  Yes, this is probably right. Repubs are going to vote "no" on impeachment in the House. That doesn't make them spineless. There's an election coming up.

13.  Rotten goat intestines as a drug-smuggling tool.

14.   This is hard to explain. Dude arrested for DUI. He ate his underwear, hoping it would absorb alcohol. And he only "blew" .08. Causality?  A new solution? Or just the sort of thing one does in Alberta on a Saturday night?

15.  Prop 187: Just keeps on giving.

16. The State is force. Actually, Trump is the logical extension of this. He is a Mafia boss, an expert in using force to get what is personally good for him.

17. Millenials want to try out socialism. Also, stick face in bag full of badgers. 

18. There is a strong strand of Progressivism that prefers purity to power. After all, if they actually take power, they'd be responsible. But jabbering about revolution and drinking in cheap bars is more fun than ruling.

Grand Lagniappe: Amb. Sondland was a big donor for Donald Trump. A photo of him during the campaign. Okay, no, that's Dr. Evil. But you have to look twice, right?

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1.  Division of labor and comparative advantage, when operating together, can transform societies. In fact, if division of labor is pursued to its limit, even comparative advantage disappears.

2.  Wealth is about a lot more than physical things that can be priced.

3.  Permission innovation case #4923: Silly Putty.

4.  The ritual sacrifice of valuable items and time have long been a feature of religious worship.  The difference is that now virtue requires that we keep it from being buried, and  we call it "recycling."

5.   This is mostly clickbait, since the drinking water is bottled and the tea and coffee are heated. But it is a little disturbing.

6.  Parking and the City.  Much of how we think about "free" parking is wrong, at least in large cities.

7.  We are ALL on double secret probation. And Dean Wormer can simply steal our property whenever he wants. That's the true nature of the state: creating a legal space for actions that, if undertaken by any private citizen, would constitute theft.

8.  Things we call "spices" actually mimic, or actually themselves are, antibacterial agents. That's why our taste buds are attuned to "like them." Saying "because they taste good" is no help. Taste is primarily a set of receptors for good and bad, correlates of biological fitness. Yes, sugar, salt, and fat can now fool us, because we can produce excessive concentrations of them.

9.  Wikifeet.

10.  Control, and stereotyping. Oh, and pattern deviancy.

11.  The butcher and the storyteller, and the Nobel Prize in 2018.

12.  Mexico has better ketchup.

13.  Don't worry that we collect all your data. We won't actually use. Unless, we feel like it.

14.  The high costs of not asking questions.

15. Did Hillary help Tulsi?

16.  When are religious exemptions morally required?

17.  Greg Gutfield is quite funny.

18. An obscure but interesting piece of St L Cards History.

19. Citizens of New Delhi are asked to stay inside indefinitely. I'm pretty sure that's not good.

20.  The WKRP Thanksgiving episode, or at least the excerpt from the end. I really think this is the best 4 minutes of television comedy ever.

21.  Prohibition in college sports is ending.

22.  This is how book reviews should be written.  We've gone soft. Bring back the savage book review.

23.  Turtles with swastikas. And a beluga whale playing some fetch.  (Made me wonder what the whale thought:  "Stupid human, you dropped your ball. Here it is. Please be careful." [human throws ball] "Wha....? Oh, man, these humans are even dumber than I thought." Goes after it; repeat)

24. The. Thing. Itself. Part 391,856.

25. Dopamine fasting. It's also called "graduate school," by the way.

26. Logical extension of Kelo: just let the developers take the land on their own, and cut out all the red tape. 

27.  His face really DID get stuck like that.

28. French bakeries closing, taken over by automation! Mon Dieu! Except that ACCCCCCCtually the total nuimber of bakeries is increasing, and what's happening is that in the smallest towns where labor costs are too high to sustain a bakery it is true that machines are providing a reasonably good--not AS good, but better than American grocery store bread--alternative. 


The Grand Lagniappe:  Unicorn Poutine, and the End of the World.  To be fair, this outrage happened in Toronto, because....well, because Toronto.

Wealth

Wealth is about a lot more than just physical things that can be priced....

Or so say I.

Monday's Child is full of Links!

1.  Febreeze.

2.  Hatin' on "Joker."

3.  The argument that Trump did nothing wrong. And....besides, Rick Perry made him do it.

4.  "P'owning the Lib/Fash" is not enough.

5.  "But Trump is really a libertarian." Or, not.

6.  I happen to think that, on net, Brexit is a bad idea. But reasonable people can disagree, and still be reasonable. Remarkable that such views make one a "fascist," for the left.

7. 30 years after the "Velvet Revolution" in Czech Republic.

8.  On the 100th birthday of JM Buchanan.

9. Self-censoring.

10. The very notion of economic "policy" is problematic.

11.  It's a good idea to learn to identify bad ideas.

12.  College libraries.

13.  Yankee fans at the playoff games all have their own trust funds and can't imagine having to WORK for a living. So they mock people who DO work.

14. Robots.

15. The bear cubs who locked themselves in the car and then blew the horn are big in India. Cuteness sells everywhere.

16. Making office hours less scary?

17. Stingy millennials. All that saving.

18.  Country music no longer exists. But, bluegrass abides.

GRAND LAGNIAPPE

It's a shame; P-Kroog had been doing better lately, sticking to international trade, a subject he actually knows something about. But this is just asinine. Debt is money that some actual people borrow, and use the money for narrow, selfish reasons. That money must be paid back by someone else, in this case by people who are not yet born and can't possibly be said to have consented.  The idea of "cost" to an entire nation is nonsense. The point is the distributional consequences, which Paul claims he cares about in other contexts.

I understand Paul takes himself seriously. But when he says stupid sh*t like this, how can anyone ELSE take him seriously?

Monday's Child is Full of Liniks

1.  Pumpkin Spice SPAM sold out in a few hours. I hope this means that they only made 4 cans of it. BUT....I don't think this means that. What is WRONG with you people?

2.  Swimmers and runners have different arm and leg muscle development, which makes sense. But they also have different heart development.

3. A Brit view of judicial REview.

4.  Tik-Tok.

5.  Markets and capitalism saved the whales.

6.  Why impeachment now?

7.  Interesting interview on Foucault, and the Austrians.

8. Learning by biking.

9. The horrible lantern fly invasion.

10.  Sex work is complicated. So is regulating it.

11.  Are we possessed by our possessions?

12.  Collective brain.

13. Boaty McBoatface.

14.  The China Gambit.

15. My paper on attention distribution as a measure of salience, in Public Choice. With Libby Jenke.

16. It's pretty straightforward. Protectionism is a huge tax increase. On American consumers.

17. A Twitter thread on history. Our rail system is built to accommodate a couple of horses' asses.

18.  Tipping in the gig economy.

19.  Cherry tariffs.

20.   Screaming babies in the air.

21. The Meaning of Life, in less than five minutes.

22. Nietzsche and the Meaning of Life, in more than five minutes.

23. Conservatives are useless. Again.

24. Remarkably tortured reasoning: ban vaping because some people use illegal black market capsules.  Should ban cars, because some bank robbers use them as getaway vehicles.

25. Howdy Modi. 

THE GRAND LAGNIAPPE:

Dude wants to propose to his lady.  At the zoo is strange enough. But at the hippo pool? Okay, whatevs. But then Fiona Hippo decides to photobomb the shot of the actual ask.  I guess all the ladies of all species want to say "aw...." at the sight of some dude proposing in public. Well done, Fiona.

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1.  Inspection Paradox. Really interesting.

2.  Contractors v. Employees.

3.  What if it comes down to "gigs" v. "no job at all"?

4.  John Tierney: The case of the vapors.

5.  All too often, environmentalism is capitalism in disguise.

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1.  VAR in women's Copa Mundial:  You are not good.

2.   WWII bomb in a barley field.  In Germany.

3.  Kamala Harris is a cop, and a political cop at that.

4.  Nationalism.

5.  Garbage pickup in Italy, and then in Raleigh.

6.  What does "voluntary" actually mean?  I claim we need the concept of "euvoluntary."  And Ricardo G and I wrote this, which I'm pretty proud of.

7. In San Francisco, you can have marijunan, but not e-cigs.

8.  Robots and jobs. Written by a person named "Anneken," no less.

9.  Peter Singer shows he is actually committed to the principles of liberalism, because he is a utilitarian.

10.  The illiberal right.

11.  Tennessee Wine and Spirits Assoc v. Blair.

12.  Florida Man and his moods:  First, hungry.  And then, wanting love from pet snake.  (Yes, from 2015, but still....)

13. Animal control, out of control?   It appears to be real, though the charges may be dropped. To be fair to the AC officers, though.....the thing itself. It is actually the law.

14.  The worst contract ever. And today is Bobby Bonilla day!  8%. They agreed on 8%. The Mets management is unbelievably dumb.

15.   Trump wants him some parades.

16.  Predicting the future.

17.  The scolds are coming.

Grand Lagniappe:  Remy!

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1.  Asset Liquidation, small college specialty. (Markets in everything)

2.  Georgia and their primary problem....

3.  The thing, itself, in Phoenix.

4.  From my excellent Duke colleague Sarah Bermeo.

5.  The Facebook LIBRA.

6.  "She's Gotta Have It," Netflix version.

7.  Burns and White on the Fed Under Trumpism.

8. Trump's Iran "Deal".

9.  Regulating the Unicorns.

10.  Wow. Oberlin really screwed this up.

11.  There was no word. Then Gary Larson made one up. Now: Thagomizers are a thing. Really.

12. Micro-aggression hot-lines are perhaps not a great idea.

13.  "Expressive Behavior" by Arye Hillman.

14.  "Buchanan and the Nature of Choice," Lewis and Behal-Dold.

15.  Physical attraction is not a rational process. Whatever its current status, it was attached by evolved processes to reproductive success. Thus, if it is true that "Trans People Are Excluded From the World of Dating," it may well be that physical attraction is complex, NOT that people are bigots. And, of course, people may be bigots. Both things can be true.

16.  Amazon's "Tiny Kiosk."

17. It turns out that if you are good at Matlab you can do things like this. If you want some background....

18.  Are "food deserts" caused by limited supply, or narrow demand? The answer is both. But limited and narrow demand for unhealthy foods is by FAR the greater cause.  On the other hand, there is a big effect on demand from having means-tested subsidy.  "Good" food is a normal good, in other words.  Forthcoming in QJE....

19.  No apprentice.

20. Aged, living alone.  Say "Hello in there."

21. Bustin' outta "whale jail."

22.  The future of policing is private?

23.  Libra may have been born under a bad sign....

24.  Hal Varian, and kale.

25.  The urge to DO something.

26. Medieval sexualizing.

27.  Anaxagoras:  The Moon Rocks.

28.  The way of carnal lust: Medieval nuns and sexual governability

29.  Texas water politics.

30. If a woman's body is a crime scene, that's not decriminalization.

Grand Lagniappe: The LMM had an "important" birthday this week.  Happy rainbow!

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1.  My closet is in the cloud.

2.  Divorce in the UK. Deciders, not sliders.

3.  Calling out Chelsea.

4.  If you're worried about stocks, buy a house.

5.  Dem candidates on housing.

6. I understand that AirBnb presents regulatory challenges. But this dumb sh*t is clearly not the way to go.

7.  On a "national divorce."

8.  How a "foreign correspondent" might cover the scandal on US college admissions.

9. Instagram: Hive of conspiracy theorists?

10. Did capitalism save Sweden?

11.  Dune.

12.  Is capitalism sustainable?

13.  Little tiny baby fox puppies.

14.  This is from May 2017. But the wall STILL won't work.

15. The best argument for capitalism is the grocery store. It seems mundane, but it's pretty great.

16. A panda trying to get into a hammock.

17. Witch Windows....

18. Clearly, I live in a bubble. Had never heard of Scruff. Reducing all sorts of transaction costs.

19.  The end of significance.

20.  The Electoral College is just federalism.

21.  Zoning and "political capitalism."

22.  Mother Russia.

23.  Guy writes article where the tl;dr is "If you are an idiot like I am, you should drop FB."

24.  Escaped Wallaby Walkabout would be a great name for a band.

25.  The EC is okay, but it's not worth defending at all costs. It is, in fact, an anachronism.

26.  In Tomorrow 3.0 I talk about "saltation" as an alternative to separation. But it's not really happening.

27. How many chuggas before the first choo?

Grand Lagniappe:

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1.  Eternal employment.

2.  The nanny state gets all real.

3.  I do want to thank all you kids. Yes, I'm already rich and all. But it's good of you younglings to pay for all my healthcare anyway. We just need more of you. I plan to be expensive.

4.  The Momo hoax. Local news is an active participant.  Including the ridiculous talking heads at WRAL, our home news fabricator here in Raleigh.  Embarrassing.

5.  Famines no longer exist, unless there is a war or a state uses famine as a weapon of genocide. Capitalism is not the only reason, but it's a big part of the reason this is true.

6.  Now that Amazon is up to 5% of the retail market, they must be broken up. Wait, what? That's 5%, folks. Not 50%, just 5%.

7.  He's tall, he's rich, he's got good hair and creamy white skin. Why should Manafort have to be in some icky jail? Well, because he's a $^&%*^&% criminal, for one thing.

8.  Tipping flight attendants. But it's only on in-flight purchases. I tip in the Sky Club. Why not in the sky?

9.  On Ilhan Omar. To her credit, criticizes Obama.  Good for her.

10.  I'm not sure people who advocate socialism "don't understand" what socialism is. But I know that we disagree about what socialism is.

11. "The Walk" was not good.

12.  Researchers, or corporate allies?

13.  The dishwater of orthodoxies.

14.  Facial recognition.

 15.   W F Buckley.

16.  Aid to Venezuela?

17.  Not sure this is real. But it says....something. Not sure
just what.

18.  Images of the divine.

19. I'm not sure this is on the up-and-up. Twice? Same store?

20.  People who believe in magic always want to destroy technology, because they think it's magic.

21. Occupational licensing. If we can't get rid of it, perhaps we can just start it in prison?

22.  This is interesting. CNN recognizes that war increase new viewership, perhaps? Because it turns out....

23.  Luxury car subscription.

24. My Duke colleague Jack Knight, on political science. 

Grand Lagniappe:  Remember how you drew cars when you were 5 or 6? It lives.

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1.  Universal state-supplied child care seems like a good campaign plank for Senator Warren. But it's very bad public policy.  If you believe in evidence, at least.  

2.  An illegal AirBnb empire. Whether it SHOULD be illegal....well.....

3.  Clearly, the male-only draft system does discriminate. Anything that employs differences is discrimination, after all.

4.  Prostitution is not the same thing as human trafficking.

5.  Debt. And China.

6.  Whoa. Not hypothetical.

7.  The trolley problem, only real. And a sweet ending.

8.  Jeffrey Sachs is a genius, as he will tell you immediately. But....not always right. And now he's equally confident that the GND is a good idea. Reminds me of "Trade wars are good, and easy to win."

9.  Life among the wokescolds.

10.  NOAA report on global climate.

11.  Minimum wage.

12.  Cell phones.

13.  We live in an age of wonders. This is available for free, whenever you want to watch it. 

Grand Lagniappe:  A possible new logo for Nike?

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1.  In fairness, what would YOU do, if someone was vigorously urinating on you? From the snake's perspective, this was just self-defense, people.

2.  This is not very difficult. The dude was at a meeting of the DEMOCRATIC PARTY, fercrissakes. He can say what he wants. If you don't like it, tell him, or organize your own meeting, party, or movement.  Twitter, same thing: block him, criticize him, knock yourself out. But you can't fire him or punish him on his job. If I have to like everyone someone else says, we're way to close to you having to like what *I* say. And I don't want that.

3.  Who's afraid of Howard Schultz?

4.  Conflicts over western range lands.

5.  Economy comes out of hole, does not see shadow of shutdown.

6.  It is hard to point to instances, at least since 1960, where U.S. "intervention" has had a positive result. For anyone, not even for the U.S. And again. Here is "Two Weeks Notice" on Venezuela.

7. I missed this. Why don't you people tell me things?

8.  Corey Booker. A piece of work.

9.  In honor of the day: Don't drive angry! It is disturbing to think that the "prediction" is decided in advance. But, then, you can just look to see if it's cloudy....

10.  The skyclad Jains and the forest monks.

11.  Trump got slapped, a little bit at least, in ways that might matter.

12. B. Caplan: The unearned compliment of "neoliberal."

13.  I have no idea how much, if any, of this is "real."

14.  I think the tl;dr of this is: "Because we want to bring people together to discuss ideas, we cancelled an event scheduled by a certified student group that would have brought people together to discuss ideas."

15.  This is beyond "1st World Problems." 

Grand Lagniappe (from  KPC friend Mark Perry) :

 

Monday's Child is Full of Links!

1.  Admitting you were wrong is hard. That's why I never do it.

2. Notes left in parking lots.

3.  The octopus whisperer.

4.  Not clear what the crime is here. The guy chopped up his own stuff. Perhaps it SHOULD be a crime to be 34 and to care that much about your "action figures," but it's not.

5. That 402 error....

6. Reputation index software is inevitable. It's not a question of whether you want it, it's a question of how you are going to deal with it.

7.  I want to be a fan of school voucher programs.  But the evidence is pretty mixed. Or, is it?

8.  Rebel Alliance fights United Federation: Who wins the battle?

9.  Hagfish.https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/01/hagfish-slime/581002/ That's all, just hagfish. But that's enough.  Still, I wanted to know more about that Prius in the picture.

10. If you only read one thing about the "MAGA boys on the Mall" non-incident, read this. If you read two things, read that and then also this.

11.  Does the right need to "grow up" on environmentalism?

12.  Libertarians ready to scream at vast, empty uncaring sky when government reopens?

13. They detected an odor of vanilla on her breath....Ick. And hard to understand. Even imitation vanilla extract costs more than $0.60 per fluid ounce, and cheap vodka costs $0.40 per fluid ounce or less.

14. Toxic masculinity and the male gaze are phrases I had not even heard two years ago. Yes, that likely says I live in a bubble.  The male gaze, in particular, is obviously important and worth being aware of.

15. Jeffrey Sachs on the campus free speech "crisis."

16.  A frustrating story to read. Mistaken identity and odd sanctimony are a dangerous mix.

17.  It is interesting that middle class white leftists get all upset about inequality, whereas people who genuinely care about the poor (rightly) focus on poverty.  They are NOT the same problem.  And I'm not even sure inequality is a problem in the first place. It is unjust to treat a murderer and a prize-winning high school science teacher the same way.  Isn't it?

18.  Very interesting interview with Barry Weingast.

19.  Tamales.

20.  Pave the muddy paths.

Grand Lagniappe:  This is precisely what it would be like to play checkers with Murphy pup.

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1.  Community policing.

2.  Have the Dems gone from 7 Dwarves to 20 Smurfs? And even if they have, that still may be better than 1 Gargamel. Though Trump seems to me more like Dr. Robotnik. The question is this: Who is Snively, McConnell or Pence?

3. A pretty good description of why the Dems are going to lose the 2020 Pres election, and they just don't care. In fact, the idiot who wrote this doesn't even know.  They all just have a bunch of demands.

4. Down the fracking hole.


5.   Jeremy Corbyn finds that it's hard out here for a wimp.

6.  I missed 9 of 43. Can you do better? It's not easy.

7.  Don't understand how a suicide bomb attack means we have to keep troops in Syria.  Don't know why we are there at all. Without U.S. involvement, there would BE no ISIS in the first place. I don't mean the Iranian canard; I just mean conditions.  We always get it wrong, and make things worse. Stop doing that.

8.  Weaponized Interdependence.

9. Is it getting harder to inluence the Fed?  You have to recognize that Congress could still do it.  And if it wants to, it can.

10.  JBJ Soul Kitchen: Livin' on a prayer.

11.  "All your base are belong to us."  Original video source, here's description.

12.  Piece of evidence #39,671 that journalists don't understand transaction costs: Ugly food is "wasted" because it will be damaged or not survive shipping. 

13. Aaron Sorkin pretty much tells everyone under 30 to get off his lawn.  Just another grouchy old guy.

14. Back to the caves.

15.  What was Rudy G thinking?

Grand Lagniappe:   This image is a Rorschach for our age.  I think it is one of the creepiest things I've ever seen. When I said this on twitter, a lot of people protested the young man was "provoked." But that's beside the point. Whatever else is true, this image, by itself and without context, is chilling and will be famous.  However, it turns out that the entire video tells a MUCH different story. A watershed moment: you see an image, you see the story someone else has attached to it, and you share, both the photo and emotional reaction. But there is no reason to believe the image tells the whole story, or that your outrage is justified. Here is Nick Sandmann's statement, if you haven't seen it already, about the context for the photo.UPDATE: From WaPo. UPDATE 2: The collapse of context.

Cold Today, Hot Tamales

Working on the menu for B-camp, in May, at Park City.

My previous efforts at meso-American cuisine have been okay, but my attempts to make tamales have been dismal.  Made them again over the past two days (prep time not that much, but quite a lot of time between steps).  And, delightful.  Really tasty.

Below: Still enhusked, in the steamer, and unwrapped and sauced.

They were great, among the best I've ever had (though I have usually only had tamales in restaurants, and those "Mexican" restaurants may not be very good, since they are mostly for gringos, rather than meso-Americanos verdaderos).

The innovation (for me; this may be common among home-made recipes, and I just don't know it) (UPDATE: Clearly a part of Mexcian-Jewish fusion recipes!!) was to use the chicken fat--of which there was plenty after boiling down 4 pounds of bone-in, skin-on thighs--instead of lard. Lard is fine, I don't object to it, but schmaltz is both delicious and (in this case) free and immediately available.

Recipe (if you can call it that) for dough:  1 unit masa, 1/3 unit schmaltz, 1/2 unit (or so, have to feel it) of reserved liquid to boil down chicken), plus baking powder and salt.  This scales, so an example might be 3 cups masa, 1 cup schmaltz, 1 1/2 cups liquid, one tablespoon baking powder and one tablespoon salt.

Chill the schmaltz, whisk together dry ingredients. Mix schmaltz into dry ingredients with fingers (think biscuit dough).  Should look like pebbles, pretty dry. Add liquid a little at a time, until you get the right consistency.  Work it a bit and then let it sit five minutes, then fabricate in the usual way. Don't over fill the dough on the corn husk, it's just a flavoring. This dough stands on its own well, moist and a little bit fluffy, not as heavy and greasy as one usually gets in restaurants.

(UPDATE: "real" Mexican sauces are much thinner and lighter than American chunky salsas. This one was great for tamales: three tomatillos, half an onion, and three roma tomatoes, roasted under broiler for a few minutes, then run in a blender with some comino and half a cup (!) of Tapatio. Yes, I know that Tapatio is made in California.  I love Tapatio, and it is much hotter and has less salt than comparable cheap American hot sauces.  You can get a quart of Tapatio for under $4, and the particular flavor is perfect, for me at least, for tamales.)