Nov
30
2005

URLs du Jour -- 11/30/2005

  • Is it just me, or does it look like the hapless bastard pictured in this article is about to begin the worst six months of his life (my estimate)? … well, maybe many years in the future, if he survives, he'll be able to pick out some brief sweet memories of his all-expense-paid tour of Hell.
  • At NRO's Bench Memos, Matthew Franck catches the scriptwriters at ABC's Commander in Chief in fundamental ignorance of the scope of presidential power: Geena Davis's character stops a Texas state execution with a simple phone call to the governor!

    Next week, Geena's phone call to the General Motors CEO will stop global warming.

  • Thomas Sowell has a "Random Thoughts" column today; Sowell's random thoughts are often more valuable than most pundits' non-random ones. One sample:
    Nightmare for the 2008 Presidential election: Hillary Clinton versus John McCain. I wouldn't know whether to vote Libertarian or move to Australia.
    Ditto.
  • When Tyler Cowen and Will Wilkinson point to an article as important, it probably is. The paper ("Paternalism and Psychology" by Edward L. Glaeser) is available here. The idea is that so-called "bounded rationality" (or, somewhat less euphemized: large-scale "cognitive difficulties" in the general populace) has been viewed as a possible justification for illibertarian state meddling in peoples' lives; Glaeser shows it's not much of a justification. Tyler's and Will's summaries are excellent; the paper itself is probably too econ-math-heavy to be accessible to most lay readers (like me).
  • In the oh-you're-just-trying-to-cheer-me-up department: an article at the Washington Post headlined "Economy of Scale Might Inspire Companies to Ditch IT Departments". There are no arguments I can see in the article that wouldn't equally apply to universities. Eek!
  • But that's OK, because the University itself won't be far behind. In an article titled The Modern University Has Become Obsolete," Froma Harrop argues that the … um, well, that the modern university has become obsolete. (Via Constrained Katie.)

Last Modified 2005-11-30 5:25 PM EDT