Check this out.  I am so opting out of this "serivce". I also found this recent experience a bit creepy.  I added some swimming stuff to my wish list on Amazon.  I'm thinking about taking up swimming as a way to get exercise without hurting my knee, but I haven't ...

Very interesting post by Simon Johnson, former chief economist of IMF and now econ professor at MIT about how confusion helps the powerful.  It makes a lot of sense and is pretty depressing, a common pair these days.   Note how so much of the bailout/stimulus/rescue and recovery operatio...

Krugman seems to be nearly completely correct in this analysis.  The only think I would add is that, unfortunately, nationalization may not work either.  From long experience, I have learned it is indeed possible that one can screw things up so badly that they cannot be fixed.  Roc...

I recall something about pissing contests and skunks.  Millions of people are listening to this every day. It's neither nice nor entirely fair, but it is funny....

We are totally unprepared for this new phenomenon. We have safety nets for the chronically unemployed, for the fast-food workers let go (oddly they may be the only ones keeping their jobs in this recession), and for the manufacturing plants that have been shuttered. The stimulus will create construc...

O boy, I wish I could have been at this.  I didn't know it was coming.  I wonder if I could join the American Philosophical Association?  Do they have a peanut gallery section? Well, I've read the whole long post now and it's really interesting.  If you are intere...

Professor Coyne of the University of Chicago has a long review here of two recent books by theistic scientists that try to reconcile religion and science.  I admit I found it a pretty annoying read and long too.  These pieces by practicing scientists about why religion is irrational (or ...

[This is a family life update.  I implore you not to read it.] I have gotten in a bad habit lately, which probably in fact means that is has been going on for some years, of feeding my dogs little treats from whatever I happen to be snacking on.  It's bad enough that I am snacking, w...

No fun being a hostage with a princess....

It's odd that a man who can transform the world to make it wonderful would make such a dumb choice for a dog.  As a rule a thumb, when a breed is described as say, "a little hard to handle" or "requiring a firm hand," that means something closer to impossible to train, ...