Ozempic and similar drugs seem to be quite effective in helping people lose weight. But there are a number of serious side effects possible. One is that in addition to losing fat, users may lose significant amounts of muscle. (Which is bad for several reasons including that it makes it easier to put weight on again.)
But it seems there will be a pharmaceutical fix for that, too.
The amount of hoops folks have to jump through to teach in the public schools in most states is staggering. Here a former North Carolina teacher vigorously outlines one dopey hoop in our fairly well-governed state.
I am the kind of person you want teaching your kids. I don't have funky piercings or hair color; I will shut down any discussion about pronouns faster than a New York minute; I can take any topic (except math, let's be real) and make it interesting. But, I'm out.
A fine piece by "Sgt. Mom" that ends in a post-piece comment that made me laugh:
I’m waiting to get my T-shirt that says “Globalize the Reconquista!” I want to see progressive heads explode.
If you did long enough in a big dataset you can find all sorts of coincidences. And yes, I've heard some of these coincidences between Lincoln and Kennedy before. But for the additional ones adduced here, the clip is worth listening to.
Academics used to be puzzled for quite some time why investors seemed to "love" dividends. But now they've acknowledged that investors seem to be right:
Data from the past 50 years compiled by Ned Davis Research shows that the annualized return of dividend payers in the S&P 500 was 9.2%, compared with only 4.3% for nonpayers, and with less choppiness too.
Glenn Reynolds takes on four prominent justifications for college today: creating wealth, promoting public values, encouraging critical thinking, and maintaining intellectual capital. He declares doubts about all four. (He's a distinguished law professor at the University of Tennessee.) And as someone who spent his career in academia--while not true of every U.S. college and university and not true for every student--I share those doubts.
RELATED: Arnold Kling, "Artificial Demand for College: There are not many natural academics".
UPDATE: Link fixed now. Thanks, Doug.
Reports survey evidence on the "decline of legacy media".
And I agree with this:
. . . I think the deterioration of the American media environment is primarily symptomatic of deeper political and cultural factors—most obviously, the explosive interaction between intense partisan polarization (the parties hate each other) and educational polarization (Republicans are increasingly the party of uneducated voters who resent experts and institutions).
A bit of info on B2 pilots and missions.
Well, we could always use more. But Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman and the Alchian/Allen text and some acquaintance with the Public Choice literature and with history ought to enough for almost anybody.
Excellent question: "What kind of authoritarian doesn’t tell people what to do?"
An answer to the question: Why is Harvard--with a $50+ endowment worried about losing some federal funds?
It's a little late, but better late than . . .
I'd heard about the 20th Maine's heroism, but this was my first time hearing about the equally heroic First Minnesota.
Funny or very sad: you decide.
Our South Carolina neighborhood has green cans for garbage and blue cans for recycling. All our neighbors dutifully separate their garbage. We don’t, and we don’t for a very specific reason. What I discovered a couple of years ago is that, while different trucks drive around collecting blue and green cans on garbage day, at the end of the shift, the trucks dump all the garbage into the same landfill. It’s a scam that, according to my local representative, makes people feel good about themselves.
"It’s reminiscent of 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail,' in which the Black Knight taunts King Arthur even as the king cuts his limbs off one by one."
Claim: "Government funding of academic research does not stimulate growth."
I hope you have a fun and safe Fourth. Posting will resume on July 7.
A "Northern Soul stomper" from Julien Covey.
Made me laugh.
A classic from 1967 by Music Explosion..
Awful result #523 of teachers' unions.