Friday Highlights

Hmm. Interesting?

• iWc : The End of the Electric Car February 15, 2012
  Rational people have long argued that electric and hybrid cars must actually compete with "normal" cars in order to succeed. And that means without government subsidies, special fuel taxes, etc.Now, despite all those billions in taxpayer subsidies and a string of debacles, it looks like the electric car train is coming to an end.A123 is toast. Fisk […]
  iWc
• A Search-Theoretic Critique of Georgism February 15, 2012
  Bryan Caplan presents a rather esoteric search-theoretic critique of Georgism: Economist Henry George famously advocated a 100% (or near 100%) “Single Tax” on the unimproved value of land.  Many modern tax economists, most notably Joseph Stiglitz, conclude that George’s logic was sound: Since the unimproved value of land is perfectly inelastic, even an expro […]
  Isegoria
• They really don't get it, do they February 15, 2012
  A very brief recap for those who don't know: for about two weeks now, the NBA's social world has been practically obsessed with Jeremy Lin, a second-year point guard who's had an impressive (though hardly sensational) string of games for the New York Knicks. To my mind, the real question is whether Lin is good enough to make up for the Carmelo […]
  Eli Horowitz
• Early Date for Mark February 15, 2012
  Most Jesus mythers and a lot of atheists take the old nineteenth century view that Mark was written in the second century. They accept modern scholarship when it ways Mark came first and Mat and Luke are dependent upon him, then shed modern scholarship when it says (and the vast majority do) that AD 70 was the Date for Mark.I have argued that a new trend has […]
  Metacrock
• In which a cartoon is smarter than a Nobel laureate February 15, 2012
  Thanks to Rick Santorum's remarkable rise in the polls, lately I've been reading a lot of arguments like this one..."By [liberals'] lights...the federal government can dictate curriculum and the contents of courses, regardless of some quaint concern with academic freedom. [They]’d probably be O.K. with Professor Obama’s gentle hand at the […]
  Eli Horowitz
• Book of the Three Dragons February 15, 2012
  John Rateliff calls Kenneth Morris (1879-1937) one of the great forgotten fantasists of the twentieth century and praises his Book of the Three Dragons: “[T]he ancients did not posit omniscience or omnipotence as qualities of those whom they called the Gods: they saw evil in the world, and were logical…. [T]he Gods were the great […]
  Isegoria
• The administration gets a tad nervous? February 15, 2012
  Well, this is interesting. My ever-alert friend Neil A. Manson has brought the following discrepancy to my attention. Just yesterday, this link to an infograph at Barack Obama's web page was readily accessible. Click on it (and get a full page cap before it completely disappears). You will notice a couple of things. First it includes the claim that […]
  Lydia McGrew
• What Is Sex For? February 15, 2012
  What is the purpose of sex? Who should be able to have it, and at what cost?  Apparently, that was on many minds on Valentine's Day. That's when the Prospect's indefatigable Abby Rapoport told us that the Virginia House just voted to go full steam ahead on a personhood bill, which will define life as beginning from the very second that a sperm […]
  (author unknown)
• The Most Improbable Thing About Jeremy Lin February 15, 2012
  The New York Knicks were in free fall losing game after game. They were quickly becoming a cautionary tale about the danger of hiring big egos who can't play with each other. Their coach Mike D'Antoni was on the hot seat. But then after a rash of injuries, a desperate D'Antoni pointed to the Chinese-American player on the end of the bench who […]
  matthew archbold
• The Duties of Downton Abbey February 15, 2012
  [Over at Blinded Trials, my co-blogger Rose wrote the following post about Downton Abbey, with further reflection on the duties of art.  Several commenters indicated it deserved a bit more attention, and would be a good addition to recent main-page conversations along similar lines.  As Rose does not yet enjoy front-page posting privileges, I am posting this […]
  Russell Saunders
• Oliver Stone's Son February 15, 2012
  Has converted to Islam, in Iran. […]
  Daniel Foster
• Aereo puts TV antennas in the cloud, streams OTA broadcasts on the internet February 14, 2012
  We've all heard about SlingBox, that nifty bit of kit that lets you stream your cable or satellite television to the mobile device of your choice, and now a new company called Aereo aims to provide a similar service for OTA broadcast television. The service costs $12 dollars a month and will launch March 14th, but is only available to folks in New York […]
  Michael Gorman
• Homeland Security takes on The Carrington Event February 14, 2012
  While we worry about future threats like global warming, and present threats like Iran’s escalating nuclear program, the sun’s propensity for belching out monstrous solar flares (like the Carrington event of 1859) could almost instantly create a world without modern … Continue reading → […]
  Anthony Watts
• THE DAWN OF RECORDED SOUND IN AMERICA. February 13, 2012
  The Smithsonian has hundreds of the earliest audio recordings ever made, but they have been considered unplayable and nobody knew what was on them. Recently, the Library of Congress and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory collaborated to make optical scanners capable of recording the patterns, and some of the results are becoming available. You can get a b […]
  languagehat
• Save Money and Get a Better Drink with the Secret Short Cappuccino at Starbucks [Coffee] February 11, 2012
  According to news weblog Slate, Starbucks can serve you a better, stronger cappuccino that costs less money; the baristas all know about it, but it's not on any menu. We're talking about the Starbucks short cappuccino, and if you're going to visit the Seattle-based coffee megacorporation you may want to give it a try. More » […]
  David Galloway