Monday's Child

1.  NPR Planet Money:  Rhino horns and clean water....

2.  Division of labor:  A mouse, a bird, and a sausage walked into a house....

3.  Will Wilkinson on social norms.  (Via LeBron)

4.  Nice "deer fence."  Watch til the end, when they all come back.  They are extremely destructive, beautiful, delicious creatures.  (UPDATE: Note, link repaired)

5.  Risking one's life for ethnography.  I'm pretty sure Angus got a paper cut once, from some computer output.   I've never actually gotten hurt that way.
(more after the jump)

Full Auto Gatling Slingshot

At least once a month, I realize anew how glad I am that Mr. Overwater invented the internet.

This month:  an insane German man standing outside in the snow, wearing a t-shirt, firing a homemade full auto Gatling slingshot.  The craftsmanship is beautiful.  A genuine work of art.


Clearly, you'll want to watch this also, the artillery version.  As he says, "the most amazing rubber-based weapon I have ever made."

Those Wacky French Folks

Some French are very upset about people choosing to marry a person of the same sex.

But they are quite OK, in the know-it-all sophisticated Euro way, with a woman marrying a giant block of concrete.  You can see for yourself...

Excerpt:  "An Australian woman has taken her desire for the ‘strong and silent’-type to a new extreme when she married a bridge. Jodi Rose married Le Pont du Diable Bridge in Céret, southern France after falling head over heels for the ‘sensual’ 14th century stone structure."

Conservatives can presumably be appeased by the fact that she at least took the bridge's name.

(Adapted from an email from the indispensable M.K.)

Hypocritical racist derp goes viral. Now it's David Brooks' turn before the lash

Man oh man. What is it with right-wingers and hypocritical racist derp? It's truly amazing. Fresh off of Bret Stephens' salvo in the WSJ comes copy-cat racist David Brooks in the NY Times:

"It’s not that Egypt doesn’t have a recipe for a democratic transition. It seems to lack even the basic mental ingredients."

People, this is what used to be said about African-Americans in the US. About women in the US as well. They didn't have the "mental capacity" or "mental ingredients" to be allowed to participate in self-governance.

It's pure bigoted, racist, right-wing derp.

Rupert Murdoch and Carlos Slim better get their shops in order.

Not only is this derpy and racist, but, as I noted in the Stephens case, highly hypocritical.

We underwrote and supported 30 years of Mubarak destroying civil society and opposition politics. We underwrote and supported the Egyptian military for longer than that.

Any problems Egypt is having with self-governance are partly our fault. And that part is not tiny.

The Economics of Slut-Shaming

An interesting and provocative piece. Excerpt:


The economic way of thinking prompts us to consider the preferences, endowments, and trade-offs that shape our decisions in the face of our unlimited wants and limited means. Decisions about sex—in all of its pleasure, danger, and emotion—are no less subject to these constraints. Although rarely framed as such, in many ways, the euvoluntary exchange of semen and security for womb space and childcare constitutes one of humanity’s earliest, and perhaps most essential, economic spheres. 

Sex is a female resource. While both genders certainly enjoy and depend on the act, natural constraints on female sexuality create scarcity—and value. The high costs of female fertility—in terms of time, mental and physical health, and opportunities forgone—impel women to act as suppliers in the sexual market. Male sexuality, on the other hand, is ubiquitous and cheap. What’s more, men tend to place a higher value on sexual gratification than do women. Men, therefore, comprise the demand for sex. 

ATSRTWT, with thanks to SL Wilson

Asked and Answered

So, LeBron asks (as always) a good question, in this post.  "How might democracy disappear?"

But I think there may be an answer, here, from my guy W.E. English.

What do YOU think?

Happy Fourth!

Click for an even more invasive image.  Nod to the LMM.

Best 4th of July song ever!

New MCM Home Page

I have for years taken (fully justified) abuse on how crappy my web site was. So, I found a guy (or rather he found me, saying, "Man, your web site is crappy!  Can I fix it for you?").

And now it's much, much better.  If you are interested:  http://www.michaelmunger.com

And if you are interested in the web services of the maker, I want to give him some props:  His name is Mark Cunningham, and his portfolio of web sites is here....

It has been a real pleasure working with him.  And that silence you hear is the end of the giant sucking sound my old web site was making.

Grand Game: Libertarian Alamo Edition

This is a truly remarkable article.  Apparently Ami has not only never actually read anything written by a libertarian, he appears not even to be able to define the word.

In particular, it appears that he believes that Oklahoma is ideologically the apotheosis of libertarian thinking.  Oklahoma is many things, and I admire some of those things.  But Libertarian?  Ami, please.

Anyway, have a read, and then Grand Game it up, folks.