Those who think that it is only in recent years that people have started giving their children unfortunate names (such as Latrina) — and those who have complained that their own names are unpleasant — should check out this record from the 1880 Census. If you search here for the same first name, you’ll find […]
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Bad news:
Via Dan: The not-terribly-surprising but still most unpleasant news that Hoover’s Larry Diamond– the democratization scholar and optimist, editor of the Journal of Democracy, and sometime advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority– has decided not to go back to Iraq. “We just bungled this so badly,” said Diamond, a 52-year-old senior fellow at Stanford University’s […]
In Jesse Jackson’s world,
Yasser Arafat deserves to be embraced — but the invasion of Iraq is a “crime against humanity,” and “murder.” The one thing that finally gave the Iraqi people the opportunity (we’ll see if they can take advantage of it, but at least they have a chance) to have some semblance of democracy, human rights, rule […]
Exceptions for making fun of dictators:
Jeff Jarvis (BuzzMachine) writes: Among all the absurd, meddling, and stupid rulings from the FCC lately, this one really takes the Twinkie: The FCC fined a station for making a phony phone call to the real Fidel Castro — and getting him on the line — but not following commission rules about getting permission to […]
“Religious Fanatics, Out To Impose Their Morals On The American Public”:
Clayton Cramer has the details: Since 1983, with the formation of Eco-Justice Working Group, the National Council of Churches has been providing an opportunity for the national bodies of member Protestant and Orthodox denominations to work together to protect and restore God’s Creation. A major task of our environmental ministry is to provide program ideas […]
Blogging, the academy, and adjuncts:
The Chronicle of Higher Education has a good piece on the late Invisible Adjunct blog, its anonymous author, blogging, the academy, adjuncts, and more. Thanks to Ralph Luker for the pointer. (I’m told that the Chronicle piece should be available for free for five days.)
Life expectancy:
As I mention in the post immediately below this one, I much liked Radley Balko’s TechCentralStation piece. I do think, though, that this line falls into a common error: But I doubt that Easterbrook longs for the early 20th century, when 45% of American laborers toiled in the fields — and most of them could […]
Why prosperity really is pretty good:
Radley Balko forcefully critiques those who harp too much on prosperity’s discontents, in particular focusing on those people who are making much of our supposed obesity, general unhappiness, and frustration flowing from having too many choices. Some closing paragraphs, which are perhaps a titch hyperbolic but still pretty sensible: We don’t need to slow the […]
More on Why do they hate us? Reader Adam Badawi writes, apropos my post on the virulently anti-Semitic libels being printed by Egyptian government newspapers: As I am of partial Egyptian heritage I had a couple reactions to your post. First, the writer’s comments are obviously bigoted and delusion. It saddens me when I read […]
“Diaperless Babies Seen as Earth-Friendly Solution”: As environmentalists celebrate the 34th annual Earth Day, some in the green movement are now advocating “diaper-free” babies to help save the planet. Citing concerns about plastic disposable diapers clogging landfills and the amount of washing and detergents that cloth diapers require, many environmentalists are taking a page from […]
Most dangerous jobs:
Apropos my post below, reader Barry Jacobs passes along the data on the 10 most dangerous jobs, expressed in yearly job-related fatalities per 100,000 people: Timber cutters 117.8 Fishers 71.1 Pilots and navigators 69.8 Structural metal workers 58.2 Drivers-sales workers 37.9 Roofers 37 Electrical power installers 32.5 Farm occupations 28 Construction laborers 27.7 Truck drivers […]
Reason for optimism?
Diego Gambetta is one of my favorite social scientists. His writings on the Mafia and on trust are classics. I offer you a recent article by him on rationality and terrorism. Most importantly, he addresses the question of will this happen again. Here is one money quote: “9/11 is a wild outlier among terrorist acts […]
On a spring weekend…
Two posts at Crooked Timber on Friday, none on Saturday or Sunday. Three posts on Saturday and Sunday combined here at Volokh, even though Eugene’s finished reading the latest Stephenson doorstopper. (I haven’t started it yet. Conference season.) Nothing since Thursday from Drezner. Nothing since Thursday from John and Belle, who admittedly have an excellent […]
Lund & McGinnis on Lawrence v. Texas: On his Legal Theory Blog, Larry Solum has an interesting post today on Nelson Lund and John McGinnis’s recent paper on Lawrence v. Texas in which they take issue with my analysis of the case in Justice Kennedy’s Libertarian Revolution. While I have a very high regard for […]
Dangerous jobs:
How many jobs in the U.S. can you think of where the death rate from homicide alone has been nearly 2%/person/year (nearly 10%/person, with an average job tenure of 5 years)? I suppose there might be some specialized high-risk military categories during wartime that fit this profile, as well as perhaps some high-risk civilian job […]