Dear Internet World,
We’ve all heard the arguments against the arguments that the Web is making us stupid. (Nobody actually makes a crude form argument remotely that simplistic, but moving on.) Certainly, I’m not going to attempt...
Monthly Archive: August 2009
freedom’s just another word….
Actually, according to Arnold Kling, freedom is the absence of monopoly:
would Megan McArdle have saved Deamonte Driver’s life if it meant expanding government?
When I say that we have a moral obligation to provide people with adequate health care when their employment or financial situation prevents them from having it, I am usually told that “no one...
quote for the afternoon
“If arguing for your war of choice involves all of the following: describing it as “costly, risky and worth waging—but only barely so;” calculating “a net cost-benefit calculus perilously close to a wash;” resigning...
One of these things is not like the other
Marc Ambinder is right to say that vacuous, unintelligible outrage is kind of a bad strategy as far as trying to stop a popular president’s health care reform package is concerned. Unfortunately, he can’t...
Buried
Since they were inadvertently buried by a rapid succession of posts, I’d just like to recommend that anyone who hasn’t yet read Freddie’s post on Cowen and Wilkinson on autism, as well as Dr....
the caricature of lament
I want to reuse this title sometime, because I think it’s really good. I got it from this really good post by JL Wall over at Upturned Earth, responding to both myself and Nathan...
a broken system ctd.
By now we are all aware that should liberal health care reform pass through Congress we will face government-sanctioned euthanasia of the sick, elderly and mentally incompetent; we will sit in lines longer than...
Let’s try to focus on the rampant misogyny instead, shall we?
Via Jeremy’s twitter feed (whose blog Social Science Lite is a must-read) is this post over at Daily Mathematics by “Blackneck”, arguing for some sort of legalized prostitution. Which normally wouldn’t be worth commenting...
For the Defense
Isaac Chotiner says a lot of what needs to be said about Malcolm Gladwell’s latest strained analogy-cum-article on To Kill a Mockingbird and the Jim Crow South. As best I can tell, Gladwell’s argument...
Tyler Cowen responds
Tyler Cowen has graciously responded to my recent post in an email. With his permission, I am printing it below. In the interest of accurately representing him, I’m going to post the full email....
Ugh, Part 2
So, it appears that the political Right is in a tizzy this morning about this Rasmussen poll. Apparently it shows that Americans overwhelmingly oppose Obamacare, and independents oppose it by a 3-1 margin. Or...
Dear ESPN,
Your power rankings, while cute, should never, ever be treated as big news on your website. When one team passes another in an artificial competition that neither knew they were participating in, this is...
community as a brand
“If you think of your home as property, rather than a place, and your community as a brand, rather than people, then you have decided to take a businessman’s approach. If you become a...
If Only We Were A Christian Nation
This may seem out of the blue, but it’s been on my mind for at least a year or two now. A constant theme in American politics seems to be one of blame, and...
we need a new term for high-functioning autism
Or, perhaps, we need a more delicate, more nuanced and more intelligently considered use of language when we talk about autism and in particular those who are autistic and high-functioning. So: I don’t have...
passions and principles
Jack Gillis takes on Andrew Sullivan. I find myself thinking up points of agreement and disagreement and then…just burning out on the subject. Suffice to say there is much to admire and much to...
From reading Twitters and a few other places
I take it that some of my fellow liberals and progressives like Ross’s new column more than his other recent columns, particularly his now notorious Texas vs. California column. I’m with them, incidentally, and...
