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One of my pet peeves is that "my" Wikipedia page is absurdly incorrect and out of date.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.
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At Right: Artist's rendering of Streeling, Mayor Pete's House Elf at Wikipedia

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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....