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Posts from March 2010

Wednesday Lazy Linking

Re: The Census and the Social Construction of Race

The Census and the Social Construction of Race. Contexts Blogs: All Blogs (2010-03-31):

Social and biological scientists agree that race and ethicity are social constructions, not biological categories.  The U.S. government, nonetheless, has an official position on what categories are "real."  You can find them on the U.S. Census (source): Alvaro V. asked us to talk a little bit about the Census.  So,…

On the nationalization of culture, race and ethnicity. The closer: “The changing categories in the U.S. Census show us that racial and ethnic categories are political categories. They are chosen by government officials who are responding not to biological realities, but to immigration, war, prejudice, and social movements.” Which is exactly why any libertarianism worthy of the name ought to include a healthy skepticism towards conventional delusions about these politically-fabricated, border-bound, power-entangled categories.

Scratching By (Cont’d): The Government Land Cartel Vs. Costs Savings and Urban Living

Regulation of the Day 130: Roommates. OpenMarket.org (2010-03-30):

In New York City, it is illegal for four or more unrelated people to live together. At least 15,000 New York homes openly flout the rule. The ranks of lawless hooligans cut across lines of class and race. According to the New York Times, violators "include young actors and ponytailed…

Yet another way that government intervention and Land Monopoly creates sprawl, ratchets up fixed costs of living, and artificially transfers money from working folks to landlords and “developers.”

Countereconomics is already making inroads; but 15,000-odd people in New York City is only the first baby step towards freedom. A real free-market city would look nothing like the cartelized, rigidified land-grab sprawl created by the rigged markets and pervasive interventions by local governments that we have today.

The World is Awesome (cont’d)

Here’s some sights of some of the commonest things in the world. The commonest things in the world, seen in a new way. These are living insects, resting on plants outside, and becoming covered in the morning dew.

A common house fly and water.

A moth resting on a twig, covered in dew.

This and more from the Daily Mail Online (2010-03-26).

These photographs were taken by Miroslaw Swietek, a physiotherapist and amateur photographer who lives in Jaroszow, Poland. He takes the photos because he loves photography, and he wants to show something wonderful to the world. Sights of miracles and wonders that he can capture, and we can witness, because Technological civilization is awesome. Sights so wonderful that they look like a glimpse of another world — a world that is strange, wonderful, and new. And yet is the very world we all dwell in now. A world where creatures so common that we think of them as nothing more than annoying pests, and a substance so plentiful and ordinary that we use it to flush our toilets, can, when you catch them at the right time and look at them the right way, shine in the darkness, like creatures of light, shimmering in their living skin of diamonds.

Awesome.

(Via John Gruber @ Daring Fireball 2010-03-30.)

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Monday Lazy Linking

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