Race

A largely Sowell-based post on race, racism, culture, and achievement. Gotta love Sowell, the PhD high school dropout.

All wet

Zakaria on the martini.

Very promising

I tend to be skeptical about the EU. I see the obvious benefits (common currency, free trade, etc.), but worry about the consolidation of political power and whether the Euro will be managed like the Lira or the Mark, plus some smaller issues like trade diversion. There had been talk about tax harmonizing, but it seems to be taking a different form than expected. Very promising.

Awesome

The NBA's Most Improved Player, everyone's favorite, Bobby Simmons.

A new low for ESPN

Guess which one of these dudes is (supposed) co-blogger Seth.

Alternative explanations

Where does oil come from?

Worldly wisdom

Buffett bud Charlie Munger on a lot of stuff, principally focusing on investing.

Against the war or on the other side

Contrary to what some people think, soldiers can tell the difference.

I think there's only one reaction to this...

Jeebus! (via Agoraphilia)

Hmm

I posted a site recently about MS doing Linux, which was of course a joke. Hopefully you could tell by the article it had about MS invading Cuba, and that kind of thing. Anyway, it looks like they are, to some degree, embracing Linux. Or, at least, acknowledging it. I think they know the clock is ticking on them.

Diworsification

Peter Lynch always warns against investing in companies that do things that don't really make sense for one company to do, like selling fruit and real estate. It's an idea that can be applied elsewhere, as well.

Voting models

Scheule on how taking a complex or nuanced position affects voting. His conclusion really demonstrates a powerful straight-forward bluntness.

There goes open-source

MS does Linux.

Who's no. 1?

Tyler Cowen says Shaq is the greatest NBA player, ever. Shaq is a great player, and if he had an average NBA work ethic, he probably would be the greatest ever, but I have to disagree with both Tyler's conclusion and his arguments. First, the players who can be seriously considered for greatest ever are Jordan, Bird, Magic, Kareem, Wilt, and Russell. LeBron may one day be in the discussion, Dr J and the Big O are just a bit short of inclusion, if Walton had been healthy he'd probably be in the running, and that's about it at this point. Second, he seems to be judging Shaq on different standards than others; MJ didn't have a jump shot at first, so he can't be the greatest, but we should just ignore Shaq's lifelong struggles at the line? Point 1 about Russell is defendable I suppose, but I disagree, think Ben Wallace with a handle, great passing, solid scoring, team leadership, and better understanding of the intricacies and psychology of the game than just about anyone else. I agree that Shaq leaving LA is (by far) the biggest reason the Lakers are bad, but there is more to it than that. I agree that Shaq is (by far) the biggest reason Miami is so good now, but there's more to it than that. I agree Chicago's impressive performance sans-MJ in 1994 muddies the picture (tho it was the semi-finals, not the finals, T), but anyone who understands the Ewing Theory and how the '92 and '93 offseasons affected things knows it doesn't muddy it as much as a naive reading suggests. Shaq has been swept out of the playoffs many times; I believe it's happened it each of the four rounds of postseason play. He doesn't take care of his body/conditioning very well, and so has missed about 15% of his various teams' games over his career. Despite his generally laziness, he is a good team player, but wasn't particularly one early in his career, tho he wasn't a bad teammate either.
So who's my no. 1? Well, if I had an awful team, Jordan would be my second choice after Wilt as the one player to add to improve it the most. If I had a good or better team, he'd be my third choice behind Russell and Bird as the guy to improve it's championship chances the most. Combine that with his sustained excellence and durability, and MJ's the one.

Incentives

Interesting (to me anyway) polling on taxes.

Hmm

Volokh has some interesting numbers on rape. Yes, he made them up, but they are still interesting.

Those crazy Pythons

Still going strong after all these years.

Startup wisdom

Paul Graham on how to startup a company.

Ah, straw men

Balko on "Realists" view of Minimalists.

Highs and lows

Watching the Sox home opener today was great. Johnny Pesky getting the love he deserves, everyone taking it all in, Russell and Orr and Seymour and Bruuuuuschi throwing out the first pitch. The highlight was, I think, tho, that every Yankee was booed, except for Mariano Rivera, who may have received the loudest ovation of anyone. Flippin' sweet.
Then I read this. Very depressing (via Balko).

Not sure

Mitt Romney has been paying a columnist to help him/his administration out. The Boston Herald fired him. On the one hand, the description of the work Chieppo did for them sounds innocent, helping them write memos and their own op-eds. On the other hand, he worked for the administration and wrote on them, at the very least an appearance of a conflict of interest. I think my conclusion is if his columns ended with a note that he works on the side for the administration that that would suffice, that's pretty much what my company does with its research reports, noting at the end possible sources of conflicts, but there may be more to the story than I know.

Huh

I don't know as much about Enron as I should, but this post doesn't make a lot of sense to me. They went bankrupt because they were successfully screwing over the California energy market? Imposing hard price caps would have fixed the situation, when every other situation that they've ever been used in has demonstrated their folly? Right.

Good to see

Arlington's new superintendent wants to have his pay raised or lowered based on how his students perform (via A Constrained Vision). Hopefully they'll use measures that are hard to game like many colleges and grad schools do with the US News rankings.

Coo

Steve Levitt (author of the intriguing Freakonomics) is blogging. It's interesting so far, even if he shows that he doesn't really understand much about baseball (via MR).

Disrupters vs incumbents

A look at Silicon Valley (via Vodkapundit).

Great

Another book added to my list.