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.