EconTech

Comment:
Yes, more on this. To a large extent, I agree with the sentiments here. This is part of what I find so appealing about Rawlsian Justice and Rawlsian social welfare functions. The naive libertarian notion (that is, there are libertarians with more sophisticated views than this, but they are small enough in number to ascribe [...]

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warning: I almost fell off the couch laughing
The following transcript approximates a real exchange that took place at the conference I attended this past weekend among serious members of the international relations community. This is a true story. Only the names have been changed to protect the…
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Comment:
follow the statistic link. it’s funny.
I once wrote a piece about George W. Bush’s claim that he goes to Crawford to be with “real Americans.” As I asked at the time, And what are those of us who live in New Jersey — chopped liver? But here’s a statistic, via Nicholas Beaudrot, that really puts [...]

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Re: discussion with someone yesterday. Of course, this is the kind of thing that gets filed under ‘duh’ ex-post by most (non-racist) people. This may be the best of all possible worlds in terms of testing intelligence outcomes pre-environmental effects. However, intelligence is still a fuzzy word, and for me to accept the research (one [...]

Comment:
Abe Stone, redux
Rumors of a weird cult of “Straussians” obsessed with hidden meanings in classic texts have long amused me. Imagine my jaw-dropping surprise then to read an articulate and persuasive Straussian paper by Arthur Melzer in the November Journal of Politics:…
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Comment:
topology videos are, apparently, the shit
Watch a sphere get turned inside out with no cuts or creases. Hat tip: John Baez.
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Bicycle commuting is on the rise, as evidenced by the following articles in Treehugger.com, the Boston Herald, and USA Today. But if the idea of hitting the road on two wheels — with little to protect you from cars and trucks but good manners — strikes you as pretty risky, you aren’t so far [...]
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In many parts of France, dog-power was vital to the early industrial revolution. In the Ardennes, where nail-making was a major domestic industry, a passer-by who peered into one of the nail-makers’ low stone cottages would see a small dog…
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On reflection, I suspect the main thing keeping me from convincing people that the second half of medical spending hurts as often as it helps is a reluctance to believe that “doctors kill.” I should argue more like the October…
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The company says that customers who do not want their CPNI data shared need to call 1-800-333-9956 to “opt-out.” Failure to opt out will be interpreted by Verizon Wireless as “consent” for sharing your call records with certain other parties.
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I was at a conference yesterday on “Global Commerce and the National Interest” convened by Robert Kuttner and the Sloan Foundation, which brought together many of the luminaries on the left-wing of the Democratic party. I was asked to make…
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For years, progressives have responded to news of GOP scandals unpunished, abuses of power unchecked, and outrageous remarks ignored by the media with the acronym IOKIYAR - It’s OK if you’re a Republican.
But I think we need a complementary acronym: IACIYAD - it’s a crime if you’re a Democrat.
Adam Cohen of the Times’s editorial page [...]

…Maybe someday, humanity will advance further, and anyone who endorses the Bible as a source of ethics will be treated the same way as Trent Lott endorsing Strom Thurmond’s presidential campaign. And then it will be said that religion’s “true core” has always been genealogy or something…
asf1234
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Johnny Wilkinson’s prodigious kicking success may come down to what he does with his arms - but it is not just his trademark preparation stance that does the trick.
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Guitar Hero 3 should be a solid game, but Red Octane didn’t get lazy when it came to upgrade the guitar controller. A look at the changes to the newest hardware.
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