Month: April 2009
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Stunningly Bad Health Science Reporting
Jane Brody reaffirms my astonishment at how bad science reporters are at their jobs. In the NYT Personal Health section, she tells us: The study found that, other things being equal, the men and women who consumed the most red and processed meat were likely to die sooner Which would be a very interesting finding…
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Humans are Pathologically Nuts: Proof Positive
I’ve often commented that if human beings are the (or a) result, it wasn’t a very intelligent designer. The most telling demonstration I’ve seen recently is a series of experiments conducted between 1959 and 1962, reported in wonderfully readable form in Morton Davis’s Game Theory: A Nontechnical Introduction. I recommend this book not only for…
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True Conservative Values, and Torture
In my earlier post I didn’t give Jim Manzi sufficient credit. He argues that a systematic government policy of torture (as distinguished from the torturous acts that Americans have engaged in over the centuries) is 1. a radical break with American tradition, and 2. because of 1, is quite possibly (I would say definitely) damaging…
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“The Commander-in-Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture.”
“The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.†–Major General Antonio Taguba, USA (Ret.) Read the Report. Related posts: True Conservative Values, and Torture The Strategic Value of Torture Businesses Constrained by Lack of Investment? Oh, Maybe Not. Even Fox Sez…
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Politicians Should Resist Equality and Prosperity!
Alberto Alesina and Paola Giuliano give us what strikes me as the most boneheaded argument I’ve read in a very long time (hat tip Mark Thoma): The thirty years after the Second World War were the period of the “Great Compression†– a sharp reduction in income inequality (Piketty and Saez 2003). A few months…
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The Strategic Value of Torture
Jim Manzi discusses torture here. I find the discussion uncomfortably cold-blooded, but it has the accompanying virtue of clear-headedness and cutting to the crux (unlike those from his compatriot Johah Goldberg at The Corner). The important (extra-moral) question is not torture’s tactical value, but whether it achieves America’s strategic goals. That’s a damned good question–it’s…
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More Popular than Republicans: China, Venezuela, and Legalized Marijuana
You can see the polling data here, here, and here. Related posts: Congressional Republicans’ Approval Ratings in Freefall. Dems Hold Steady. Polling the Pollster Pollers: Obama Still Strong It’s Working: Pubs’ Polls Plummeting Why nominating Clinton would be a Very Bad Thing Everything Sez: “Obama Landslide.” What Gives?
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Best Line of the Week
From the inside, ideology usually looks like common sense. From The ideology that dare not speak its name — Crooked Timber. Related posts: Innovation and Market Constraints: The Case for Artificial Selection Line of the Week Age, Wisdom, Sagacity, Common Sense, and Republicanism Controlling What You Say: Who’s Worse? Cutting Taxes Creates Growth: Yeah, Right
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Why To Have Kids
Bryan Caplan posts part of the preface from a book he’s writing (which I’m much looking forward to reading), titled Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids. My thoughts on the subject: Genetic inclinations toward having children aside (as Daniel Dennett explains quite clearly in Freedom Evolves, we’re at at totally different level of “design” here,…
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This Time Mankiw’s Just Plain Lying. And He Knows It.
He shares this with us today: Federal outlays and revenues as a percentage of GDP What he doesn’t say, but knows very well: the “baseline” is Bush-era shucking and jiving–hiding hundreds of billions of dollars off the budget. The Obama budget that’s being compared includes everything in full daylight–even though Obama knew that Mankiw et.…
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The Economics of Netflix
Tyler Cowen points to a calculator to see if you’re saving money using Netflix. But as he says, the per-DVD cost isn’t really the issue. Personally, I’ve canceled my Netflix subscription three times. But never again. Reason for canceling: the movie I have is never the movie I want to watch. They sometimes end up…
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S&P 500 Earnings: The Most Depressing Graphic I’ve Seen This Year
It’s worth taking a minute to look at this one. Related posts: How The Great Moderation Destroyed the Fed’s Credibility Red States Sucking the Federal Teat Businesses Constrained by Lack of Investment? Oh, Maybe Not. Rick Perry Got a D in Principles of Economics Recessions Are Nature’s Way of Keeping the Little Guy Down
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Free Will. Again. Some More.
Responding with only limited time to do so to a very interesting discussion prompted by a Bryan Caplan post: Obviously, indeterminism (i.e. developmental noise making identically-gened twins different from each other) does not satisfy as an explanation of free will. The weather system does not have free will. Need to look elsewhere. Just to point…
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Win-Win Utilitarianism: The Greatest Good For the Greatest Number
Scott Sumner at The Money Illusion has a very interesting (followup) post on Utilitarianism–the doctrine (as here described on Wikipedia) that “the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its contribution to overall utility: that is, its contribution to happiness or pleasure as summed among all persons.” In other words, aggregate utility or…
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Shakespeare Authorship (sigh): They’re At It Again
Yet again, we have Supreme Court justices giving credence to the wacky notion that William Shakespeare of Stratford did not write the plays of William Shakespeare. Reported in the the WSJ. It just goes to show that even supreme court justices who have long histories of probity and prudence can issue totally loony opinions. (cf…
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Joe Thinks Obama’s an Appeaser, and FDR Caused The Great Depression
Sigh. I stepped into a pissing match over on my friend Mike’s Facebook page, and since I don’t feel right continuing to piss on his wall, I’ve moved it over here. It all started with Mike posting this photo with the fairly innocuous and flippant comment, “This doesn’t look like a man shake to me.”…
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The Global Great Depression: Then and Now
Barry Eichengreen and Kevin H. O’Rourke give the global perspective. Just look at the pictures and read their last paragraph. Viz: The X scale is in months. Bottom line: While U.S. indicators hold hints of promise, the world as a whole is looking worse than it did in the Great Depression. The good news: policy…
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NoNoNoNoNoNoNo! There Is No Global Warming!
The Cato Gang really went off the edge recently with their ad (pdf) in the New York Times, claiming that: temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now.1,2 … The computer models forecasting rapid temperature change abjectly fail to…