Tim Harford on credit rating agencies
I think it’s safe to say that he’s not over-impressed with the organizations involved in doing credit risk assessments: What are rating agencies again? They are private companies that express opinions...
View ArticleQotD: How the sequester is a symptom of political cowardice
Those who can do. Those who can’t form a supercommittee. Those who can’t produce a majority vote in a supercommittee sequester. Those who can’t even sequester are telling the world something profound...
View ArticleThe political delusion: “We must re-establish the primacy of politics over...
That’s Angela Merkel, expressing the thought that many politicians have, but rarely speak out loud. There’s a lot of wishful thinking wrapped up in that statement: “We must re-establish the primacy of...
View ArticleSing a song, go to jail
This is rather disturbing: Imagine the scene. A dawn raid. A vanload of police officers batter down a front door. A 17-year-old boy is dragged from his home and driven away. He is charged with a crime...
View ArticleBC Supreme Court upholds law against polygamy
I’m somewhat surprised that the court upheld the existing law: I’d expected them to strike it down as overbroad. Polygamy remains a crime in Canada, B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman ruled...
View ArticleThe shot that started the First Interplanetary War?
Yes, it may not happen for a few more decades, but we were the instigators of what might be the most long-distance war in human history: The new habitability study has involved the collaborating...
View ArticleNFL week 12 early predictions
Our American friends are late in celebrating Thanksgiving, which is why your favourite US websites are full of turkey jokes and pumpkin pie photos. Because they know they have a captive audience who...
View ArticleNigel Farage on “German-dominated Europe”
Related posts: Britain’s “choice” on Europe A different (but not completely wrong) way to view Europe in 1914 French and German troops play catch-up
View ArticleUS to be crushed by Oriental economic juggernaut, film at 11
Do any of these statements sound familiar? “I don’t mean to be an alarmist, but I get the uneasy feeling that America is history” “The power behind the [. . .] juggernaut is much greater than most...
View ArticleClimategate 2.0 for dummies
For anyone who managed to avoid hearing about the original release of emails from many of the leading lights in the anthropogenic global warming community, revealing a much more sordid and...
View ArticleGCHQ goes public, sort of
GCHQ grew out of the WW2 code-breaking group based at Bletchly Park and is the British equivalent of the NSA. Recently it was announced that GCHQ will start offering its expertise to private...
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Ever gone looking for the answer to a technical question online?
This xkcd installment is amazingly accurate, at least based on my experiences: Wisdom of the Ancients Remember to mouse-over the cartoon: you’re missing at least half the humour if you don’t read the...
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“[Fill-in-the-blank] is now a clear and present danger”
Andrew Orlowski explains how we keep falling for junk science through media exposure: Firstly. An obscure researcher or scientist will make a dramatic claim. The media picks up on this, and a reporter...
View ArticleThis explains why Google dropped out of my “referer site” log
John Leyden explains how a change in the way Google handled search requests was reflected in my blog’s referer log by Bing suddenly becoming the top search engine for folks visiting Quotulatiousness:...
View ArticleJourneyQuest virtues: Forgiveness and Eloquence
Related posts: JourneyQuest virtues: Compassion, Honour, and Courage JourneyQuest, Episode 1
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This week in Guild Wars 2 news
I’ve been accumulating news snippets about the as-yet-to-be-formally-scheduled release of Guild Wars 2 for an email newsletter I send out to my friends and acquaintances in the Guild Wars community....
View ArticleDaniel Hannan on how the “Occupy” movement misunderstands the right
In his latest column in the Telegraph, Daniel Hannan lists ten mistaken beliefs that the “Occupy” folks seem to have about conservatives: 1. Free-marketeers resent the bank bailouts. This might seem...
View ArticleTV commercials don’t have to be irritating
Scott Jordan Harris explains that the purpose of TV advertising isn’t — despite all the evidence to the contrary — to irritate the hell out of viewers: Many of the best short films I see each year are...
View ArticleIncentives matter, especially in policing
Radley Balko looks at how federal government incentives to local police departments are encouraging them to concentrate on minor drug offenders instead of helping the victims of violent crime:...
View ArticleGary Johnson as the Libertarian Party candidate
Reason is asking their readers if they’d support Gary Johnson as the US Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate: Former two-term Gov. Gary Johnson (R-N.M.) tells the Santa Fe New Mexican that he...
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