July 31, 2005
What interests us about this Local Boy Makes Good long shot (Area Man lands 'Dukes of Hazzard' dream job, story in today's Austin American Statesman -- oh, go ahead, register. It's a short form), is, what made the difference between his story and hundreds of thousands of other idiosyncratic monomaniacs of one kind or another? We speak with a genuine personal interest here.
Continue reading "Area Man Can't Stop Laughing" »
July 29, 2005
Partly because Kyoto-nagging-discourse may take a sharp dive, it's legitimate to celebrate the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate
Powerline parses the policy -- having previously poignantly picked a peck of pickled peppers with parachuting Peter. :)

The pact includes the U.S., Japan, Australia, China, India and South
Korea; these six countries account for most of the world's carbon
emissions. The treaty is, in essence, a technology transfer agreement.
The U.S., Japan and Australia will share advanced pollution control
technology, and the pact's members will contribute to a fund that will
help implement the technologies. The details are still sketchy and more
countries may be admitted to the group later on. The pact's stated goal
is to cut production of "greenhouse gases" in half by the end of the
century.
Continue reading "Energetic Outcomes" »
The Social Affairs Unit is on a roll lately. Theodore Dalrymple (may his tribe increase!) on an enlightened caste system and cultivating opportunity for all; a review of We by Yegeny Zamyatin, the earlier dystopian novel (1924); and Myles Harris on evolutionism's rigid terror of the emergent creativity in which we seem to live.
Continue reading "Knowledge Contemplating Knowledge" »
July 28, 2005
In the Freakonomics genre, more intuitive and counter-intuitive economic thinking applied to daily life. We especially appreciate the interpretation of The Rules,
You think that the rule is designed to signal unavailability.... The true role of the rule is not signalling but screening. The “no last-minute dates” rule automatically disqualifies any man who is inconsiderate, short-sighted or just not particularly into you. Screening theory, which won enfant terrible Joe Stiglitz a share of the Nobel prize in 2001, recognises the fact that without some foolproof system, women are incapable of telling a Mark Darcy from a Daniel Cleaver...
and the matrix of balancing present value against the utility of additional information.
Continue reading "Dwarf-tossing Caffeine-starved Rules Meet the Financial Times Economist " »