Newmark's Door

Seems to be the same as babies: be careful intruding on their space, at least in the beginning.

I like that Save the Tiger is on the list. Great movie and despite Lemmon's Oscar, underrated.

When Andy Dufresne's escape from Shawshank in only #96, you have a heck of a list.

The Tide ripped him his team up, but Coach Pittman is a guy I could root for. (Wall Street Journal, gated.)

Bob Seger. (As heard on the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack.)

Some interesting sounding train trips if that's your thing.

I personally don't care for the great majority of his music, but Tyler Cowen presents an excellent case that he has lived a remarkable life.

More evidence that dogs are just pretty amazing.

The story of a fad and a fortune made: "That year, a 'USA Weekend poll found that 64% of Americans owned at least one Beanie Baby.'”

Some good advice for those doing what this lady is doing.

A bunch of stuff.

Not necessarily, but that's probably the way to bet.

But the idea that our hundreds of millions of gasoline-powered cars are going to be replaced by EVs within the next century is ridiculous.

Yet again the Door presents you with an answer to one of life's most important questions.

I enjoyed The Sopranos a lot. But the episodes toward the end where Tony is dreaming were quite tedious.

And The Wire is even better.

"Watching the education apocalypse in slow motion." Sample:

Bates College considering requiring ALL students to take course on 'white supremacy," 'power and privilege,' 'colonialism'. 

Much easier said than done, of course. But if you'd like to try, here's some potentially useful discussion.

I second the motion.

The Great Depression created an entire generation of frugal spenders and savers.

The pandemic may have created an entire generation of degenerate gamblers and speculators.

Most people assumed speculative activity in the markets would cool off once sports came back, the casinos opened up again and people were able to move about more freely with their normal activities.

Judging by the action in options trading, that’s not the case. If anything, there is even more speculation going on in 2021 than 2020.

Philip Magness summarizes what we've learned about lockdowns and the lamentable state of (some) scientific communication.

The benefits of the lockdowns are still ambiguous at best, this after a year and a half. We still have no clear empirical evidence that they delivered anything close to what they promised. But because science has been so completely politicized, it will take years longer to arrive at the truth than would have otherwise been the case. Here, we are left to offer advice with a nearly 2,500-year track record: First, do no harm.

Interesting account from noted economist Bryan Caplan.

One can argue with the methodology but I like that Raleigh is ranked #8 (our of 182).

A fine example of  what I used to tell my students: in the absence of randomized experiments, determining causality is damn difficult. (Also: modern mainstream journalism is a joke. See also "Billion, Trillion, Whatever".)

F0rmer federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy argues that AG Garland's recent statement is simply terrible:

That is what progressives do when they’re in power: They use demagogic rhetoric to defame constitutionally protected dissent, and threaten government retaliation — with its portents of investigative harassment and ruinous legal costs — to extort compliance.

Related: "The Devolution of the DOJ" and a Matt Walsh tweet.

Par for the course nowadays, but still shocking and awful.

Selena Zito continues her excellent reporting from small-town America.

See also her "Where the wave begins".

Scott Johnson at Powerline blog summarizes a gated Wall Street Journal article.

This is impressive:

I have always been a liberal, left-leaning in my politics, a devout adherent to principles such as liberty, free speech, tolerance, compassion, and personal autonomy over my body—a fierce defender of “My Body, My Choice.”

I have always considered my liberal friends to be open-minded, critical thinkers, compassionate, tolerant, educated and resourceful enough to know where to look up alternative information, capable of interpreting data and discerning facts from blatant propaganda; defenders of free speech, liberty and bodily autonomy—all of which are obviously the foundational principles of liberalism.

Now, every one of those paradigms has been shattered for me.

Every single one.

I am now ashamed to call myself a liberal.