Fun with Azathoth
You all know that I’m not a religious believer. But you might ask: What fills the God-shaped hole? Something has to, right? It’s a fair question, but my answer is pretty weird. I don’t...
Monthly Archive: February 2012
Kludges, Adaptations, and Evolution, Part 2
(Part 1 here.) From Kevin Kelley’s Technium, March 4, 2008: A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author – in other words, anyone producing works of art...
What Is Welfare For?
Writing over at The New Inquiry, Ned Resnikoff asks the Left to think a little more concretely about what it means to fetishize, as most have during the Great Recession, jobs qua jobs. Using...
Sympathy with the Kabbalists
I once wrote a short story for workshop that involved, I believe, the narrator dismissing any approach to grief informed by the Kabbalah as guilty of a kind of heretical dualism. It wasn’t this-worldly...
What Exactly is Overrated Here?
Matt Yglesias thinks empirical evidence is overrated. I am struggling not to say something incredibly snarky here. It seems to me that what’s actually overrated in policy debates is our ability to use an Econ...
Sock Puppets: Not Just for Kids Anymore
[Updated below] Dear Readers: We have uncovered overwhelming evidence of no fewer than 8 sockpuppets operated by a single individual, each with its own persona. In the process, we have also determined that our...
Intellectual Property, Abstract v. Natural Right, Part III
The third post in a series. In post I, we outlined a 10,000 – okay, 100,000 – foot view of the legal history of intellectual property in law. In post II, we covered some...
At the Gun Show
This past weekend I went to the gun show. This is the big annual show at the Kentucky Fairgrounds that brings in hundreds of dealers. In that one building there was probably over a...
Sheer Folly
Roger Cohen gets it horribly wrong when he advocates arming Syria’s rebels. The money quote is: In short, Syria is dangerous. But that not a reason for passivity or incoherence. As the Bosnian war showed,...
Surreal
Sometimes, the nuttiness of the world goes from making me shake my head to making me shake my head until I stop and then… channeling my inner teenager, I muse… “Hey, that’s actually kind...
Leaguefest: Let’s Talk About What’s Really Important
A reminder: Leaguefest 2012 will be at the LVH Hotel (formerly the Las Vegas Hilton) on Memorial Day weekend, May 25-28, 2012. To make your reservations, call (800) 635-7711 and advise that you are registering...
Religious Freedom
Just so people know, I think that this is a good example of why we need religious freedom: Deep in grief, Barbara Johnson stood first in the line for Communion at her mother’s funeral...
A matter of taste
So, I’ve discovered in my blogging of late that adding pictures to posts can really liven up a blog. It adds value at the margin.
In the “Things Go Right, Sometimes” Category
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules that the act of decrypting data is testimonial and therefore protected by the Fifth Amendment.
Intellectual Property, Abstract v. Natural Right, Part II
This is the second post in a series. The first post is here. In this post, I’m going to get into the weeds of Hegel’s “Elements of the Philosophy of Right”, the Cambridge Text...
Open Thread (Feb. 28th 2012) Ron Swanson is the man edition
Sound off in the comments. Comments? Complaints? Observations?
Ironic Blog Post Of The Day
That said, the core causal mechanism that Murray identifies has to do with the distribution of human capital rather than the meritocratic elite’s public policy priorities (or its taste in alcohol and recreational activities)....
“It” made the ballot in Colorado
Specifically, legalizing “it”. From Hit & Run, I learned that the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana like Alcohol got the “Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act of 2012” onto the ballot for this November. The November...
On Child Abuse
by Sam Wilkinson “Did you hear?” asked a coworker, in my office to take a break. “They found a 70-pound girl on the side of the road.” They in this case was a passerby...
Against Traditional Morality
by James Hanley Guest author: James Hanley. Tom Van Dyke has written a very thoughtful post about the role of traditional morality in law. There are various points at which we could quibble with...
