Monday, December 31, 2018

Monday's Child is Full of Links




1.  Angus Deaton: The U.S. system encourages rent-seeking.

2.  World's Oldest Restaurants.  Sort of puts those "Since 1979" signs in perspective.

3. The Year in Search.

4. End of year columns from two Daves, Collum and Barry. (tl;dr--It boofed)

5.  Books are hot.

6.  Oreos are NOT vegan. Suppose you see someone who is vegan eating because there is a myth that Oreos are vegan. You are not vegan.  Should you tell them?

7. Increasingly interesting question: If you own a vehicle/appliance/phone/computer, can you repair or modify it? What really do you own?  Article 1. And Article 2. And Article 3.  On the other hand, some things survive unchanged for a long time, until we aren't sure of their actual origin.

8.  BP makes a claim that is classic "broken window fallacy."

9.  Anarchapulco. In which my man JT appears to be having some kind of ecstatic experience.

10.  The Graham-Paul war for Trump's brain. Even tiny territories can be hard to control, it seems.

11. Booze-monks.

12.  Foreign wars morph into domestic control.

13.  EN-B makes a good point. The only reason Louis C-K is "out there being heard" is that you folks are giving him a platform. You can't think that the people who heard the set didn't know the content of the set. All you are doing is advertising for the man.  And, sure, signalling your virtue to the tiny bubble of like-minded censorious cretins you hope to gain approval from.

14. A nice history of Westerly, hometown of the LMM. 

15.  Titania McGrath is back!  Most excellent.

Grand Lagniappe: 2018--the Year We Lost Hope


Okay, seriously, the real GL:

Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Monday's Child is Full of Links


 1.  Right to repair, explained (with thanks to Mr. Overwater).  Should these kinds of contracts be legal? You don't have to buy the product, after all.  Old issue of "tying," of course. Here are the "2018 highlights" for right to repair.

2.  I have no idea how much, if any, of this is real. Please help. In addition to all the other strangeness, the notion of a "vegan condom" has me staring out the window. What the.... (Did some checking. Goodness.)

3.  It's not really fair to blame the USPS for its inability to fund the lavish retirement bennies Congress promised employees.  That should be covered separately. But as it stands, they goin' down. 

4. Pretty impressive to get all natural and go kick down some Xmas decorations. Especially in Wisconsin. Pretty cold for nekkid decoration kicking.

5. Had never seen this. PBS did a Gordon Tullock video. On voting. Called Voting Schmoting.

6. Will transaction costs reduction spell the end of brick-and-mortar retail?

7.  Year of the Old Boys.

8.  Bannon goes full "Bond Villain." In a castle.

9.  Titanoboa.

10.  Home Alone, 2018 update.

Grand Lagniappe: Remy thinks it's beginning to look a lot like Christams....