Monday, October 23, 2017

Monday's Child is Full of Links

1.  Just as Skippy suspected, squirrels chunk their nuts.  Little b***ards.

2.  In which Prof. Thomas Wood of OSU makes a claim.  A pretty sound spanking is administered by Columbia Prof. Musa Al-Gharbi here. (Lagniappe: More of Al-Gharbi's work. Nicely done...)

3. Planetary Resources: the first deep space commercial enterprise?

4.  The neo-Tollison post of the week: a perfect metaphor for the rent-seeking society.  Guy who had actual talents diverted to unproductive but highly remunerative tax shelter writing.  Now, guy is "too fat to jail."  Bob, get that bourbon and diet Coke and toast the world for us.

5.  Against the enemies of modernity.

6.  Hollywood appears to hope that if Harvey is burned at the stake, all the other abusers will just get a pass.

7.  Really? If "Wolfenstein" offends you, you are a snowflake. A Nazi snowflake, to be sure, but a snowflake nonetheless.

8.  Turo! Has anybody used it? Has anybody heard of it?  Seems interesting.

9. Might legalizing cannabis help reduce opioid use?

10.  Many of my colleague on the Left firmly believe in the value of international institutions.  I differ. I believe in their potential value. Their actual value is pretty low.  As evidence, I give you Robert Mugabe, "Goodwill Ambassador" for the WHO.

11. I'm wondering if this isn't the psychology equivalent of "broken window fallacy." The paper seems to say that social deviance can have positive social effects.  In particular, "gossip may be a mechanism through which deviance can have positive downstream social consequences."  Well, a hurricane likely causes increased social cohesion among survivors. But that just means that there is less harm than you might expect, NOT that there are "positive downstream social consequences."

12.  On the other hand, gossip may be beneficial all by itself.

13.  Trial by ordeal.

14. In which legal marijuana is discussed, and Jeff Sessions tells a "joke." Warning: I'm not sure it was a joke.

15. One problem with politics is that it's better to win elections than to lose them. Everything else is secondary.  Having started the "identity politics" crap, the Dems are horrified at the implications.   But it's pretty obvious that if your side depends on identity politics of minority groups, you are going to get hammered.  Yes, it's a shame that your enemies can use weapon that you used first. But the point is to win. That's why I don't trust majoritarian politics as a way of organizing society.

16. Almost Like Praying...

17.  FREE FOOD! In the staff kitchen! (I hear there's cupcakes, Mark!)

18.  Raleigh and the "Research Triangle" are often yammering about light rail. Always makes me think of the experience of Springfield.  Plus, there's a song.

19. KPC fave pmarca is, as usual, on firm ground. It may be true that software eats the world, but it's also true that the next morning there is another new world to be eaten...

Finally, congrats to those terrific Astros, for making the NY Yankees look like this:


3 comments:

Thomas W said...

The link to Prof Al-Gharbi's rebuttal in #2 is incorrect, it links to the original Washington Post article. Did you intend to link https://fiatsophia.org/2017/09/19/white-supremacy-narratives-trump-deeply-problematic/2/?

LH said...

I'm guessing, based on the date, the intended link was to http://quillette.com/2017/10/17/beware-emerging-field-trump-studies/

Angus said...

I like to think that, in heaven, Bob can have bourbon and regular coke!!!