Author: Will
Helping Hands
I’m a poor substitute for Tyler Cowen, but since Sonny Bunch is soliciting comments on this post, I thought I’d chime in. The argument Bunch links to is pretty simple: We should think twice...
Will the last person to leave the newsroom please turn out the lights?
Newsday erects a pay wall. 35 people subscribe. Newspaper editors collectively shudder. Total cost of Newsday’s failed experiment? A cool four million dollars.
“The Movement”
I know the “teabaggers” are supposed to represent some combination of incipient fascism and no-nothing economic sloganeering, but this New Yorker profile makes the whole thing seem awfully benign.
Like eminent domain, but with guns and spaceships
Of all the too-close readings of “Avatar’s” stilted politics, I enjoyed David Boaz’s take the most. He argues that the film should be interpreted as a straightforward defense of interstellar property rights.
“It is inconceivable – repeat, inconceivable – to get a world recession.”
The Washington Post assembles a list of the most spectacularly wrong predictions from the Davos Economic Forum.
The Best Conan Postmortem
Like every other cynical 20-something, I admit to being temporarily enthralled by NBC’s late night wars. Michael Ian Black explains why Conan’s abrupt departure resonates with us:
“Dear Conservative Movement: Stop Ruining My Life”
Michael Dougherty’s simultaneously funny and pull-out-your-hair frustrating letter to the conservative movement is worth your time.
11 minutes of action
That’s how much playing time goes into a typical NFL broadcast, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Rise of the Machines
Garry Kasparov looks back at his 1997 loss to an IBM computer and its broader implications for the game of chess.
Too little colonialism?
At the Corner, Mark Krikorian proposes one possible explanation for Haiti’s woes: My guess is that Haiti’s so screwed up because it wasn’t colonized long enough. The ancestors of today’s Haitians, like elsewhere in...
The first draft of history is always poorly edited
Last year, Ross Douthat wrote a perceptive article on the inevitability of attempts to revive Bush’s flagging presidential reputation. Now Big Government is offering a sneak peak at what future Bush revisionism might look...
Arsenal of Authoritarianism
The top 10 technologies for tyranny. I’m vaguely mortified that my favorite childhood game – Civilization II – makes a cameo appearance.
Awesome headlines from across the pond
From the putatively respectable Times: “The day I decided to stop being gay,” “What it feels like to be a pick-up artist,” and “Fat bloke at fit camp – read his daily reports.”
Do recessions encourage crime?
Yes, says David Downes, professor of criminology at the London School of Economics. No, says Heather Mac Donald, writing a few weeks back in The Wall Street Journal. Downes also suggests that the breakdown...
Department of Easy Targets
Vanity Fair visits the Creationist Museum. Potshots abound, but it’s still a pretty funny article.
Outsourcing Content
In lieu of writing an actual, honest-to-goodness post, here are a few recommendations from around the web:
The age of ideological uncertainty, continued
Anti-stimulus sentiment ran high in the comments section of my (qualified) defense of the Obama Administration’s economic policy. I encourage the skeptics to check out this article from Richard Posner, which mounts a limited...
