Forced to Be Free. Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-10-08). Across Europe, high-minded debates about terrorism, assimilation, and the social effects of Islam have been devolving into disputes over the clothes the government will let people wear, as countries from Switzerland to the U.K. ponder bans on burqas and head scarves. Curiously, legislators and pundits on both sides of the… (Linked Saturday 2010-10-09.)

09.23.10: Don't Forget the Motor City. David Byrne, David Byrne's Journal (2010-09-23). I'm here in Detroit to participate in a film directed by Paolo Sorrentino (Il Divo). The other day we performed the song "This Must Be The Place" with band and string section while the camera made a complicated move and a living room set rose up and traveled over our… (Linked Saturday 2010-10-09.)

The Drug War Metaphor: Increasingly Literal. Radley Balko, Radley Balko: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-10-06). A New Mexico narcotics task force sent a SWAT team and helicopter to raid a school where students "participate in farming as a context for learning mathematics and science." The raid was apparently part of a larger operation involving the task force, the state police, and the National Guard, in… (Linked Saturday 2010-10-09.)

Nazi Nudges. Will Wilkinson, Will Wilkinson (2010-10-06). Most of you have probably seen this on Marginal Revolution (from Dan Ariely), but the lesson is too good to pass up. When it suits them, Nazis use nudges, too... Nudge-style "choice architecture" techniques are ideologically neutral. We can't count on the guys in charge to have benevolent motives. That's… (Linked Sunday 2010-10-10.)

Military Keynesians Are the Worst Keynesians of All. Sheldon Richman, Free Association (2010-10-07). From the National Journal this week: Two wars are not enough. America’s economic outlook is so grim, and political solutions are so utterly absent, that only another large-scale war might be enough to lift the nation out of chronic high unemployment and slow growth, two prominent economists, a conservative and… (Linked Sunday 2010-10-10.)

Feminism. Marja Erwin (2010-08-24). When men consider how they should treat other men, it is moral philosophy. When womyn consider how we should treat other womyn, it is feminism. It has taken feminism to separate the were-centered moral philosophies from the human-centered ones. It will take feminism-in-practice to discover the full potential of feminism-in-theory.What… (Linked Monday 2010-10-11.)

American schools are killing children. Marja Erwin (2010-10-10). Through bullying, through high workloads, and through indifference to the needs of different children. Classrooms may be a good teaching environment for some kids, mediocre for other, and downright destructive for some. Bullying was an epidemic when I was in school, and I understand it has grown worse yet. Calling… (Linked Monday 2010-10-11.)

On the Town with Bad Decision Dinosaur. Dorothy, Cat and Girl (2010-09-24). (Linked Friday 2010-09-24.)

Food deserts and zoning. Stephen Smith, Market Urbanism (2010-09-13). by Stephen Smith The other day I put up a post detailing the restrictions that small-scale restaurants and food carts face, but I should mention that grocery stores and supermarkets also face similar restrictions.  Like restrictions on restaurants, they end hitting poor, urban, black neighborhoods the hardest, creating the phenomenon… (Linked Friday 2010-09-24.)

Apparently, starvation blockades are bad for the economy. Who knew? John Markley, The Superfluous Man (2010-09-06). David Brooks has a column in The New York Times entitled “Nation Building Works,” in which he attempts to vindicate the US government’s past seven years in Iraq. From the article (via Cheryl Cline at der Blaustrumpf):"Iraq has made substantial progress since 2003," the International Monetary Fund reports. Inflation is… (Linked Friday 2010-09-24.)

Haystack vs How The Internet Works. Danny O’Brien, Danny O'Brien's Oblomovka (2010-09-14). There's been a lot of alarming but rather brief statements in the past few days about Haystack, the anti-censorship software connected with the Iranian Green Movement.  Austin Heap, the co-creator of Haystack and co-founder of parent non-profit, the Censorship Research Center, stated that the CRC had "halted ongoing testing of… (Linked Saturday 2010-09-25.)

Libertarian Review Archives Online. Brian Doherty, Brian Doherty: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-09-09). One of Reason's high-quality competitors from the 1970s-80s has a semi-complete archives now available online. It's a fabulous compendium of Carter-ish era libertarian historical fun. David Boaz explains the mag and what it accomplished, focusing on its amazing editor the late Roy Childs. (Linked Saturday 2010-09-25.)

Openness is a lot of work. jonoscript, Not The User's Fault (2010-09-24). You can't just make something "open" and expect magic to happen. Openness is a lot of work. This is true whether you're making an open-source software project, a website with user-generated content, a political movement, a charity, or any other kind of organization where you expect volunteers to show up… (Linked Saturday 2010-09-25.)

George Lucas Stole Chewbacca, But It's Okay. Michael, Binary Bonsai (2010-09-18). Foreword The creation of Star Wars is comprehensive mythology onto itself, populated by rarely documented anecdotes, the likes of "the Millennium Falcon was inspired by a hamburger, with the outrigger cockpit being an olive off to the side" (1) or "My original inspiration for Chewbacca was my dog Indiana." (2),… (Linked Sunday 2010-09-26.)

Of Hayek and Rubber Tomatoes. Timothy B. Lee, Cato Unbound (2010-09-24). Henry Farrell writes that "Hayek argues that markets are superior because they allow the !!!@@e2;20ac;2dc;dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess' to be aggregated in a useful way." He then faults Hayek for failing to acknowledge a key limitation of the price mechanism:… (Linked Sunday 2010-09-26.)

"I've Never Seen a Poor Person Give Anyone a Job" Kevin Carson, Center for a Stateless Society (2010-09-16). "I've never seen a poor person give anyone a job."  The cliche is commonly repeated on the Right, in polemics against what they call "class warfare" — not that there's actually much of it being waged by Democrats, except when they're fighting on the same side as the Republicans.  See… (Linked Sunday 2010-09-26.)

I Am Detained By The Feds For Not Answering Questions. PKL, KNIFE TRICKS (2010-04-23). Sherman Oaks, CaliforniaI was detained last night by federal authorities at San Francisco International Airport for refusing to answer questions about why I had travelled outside the United States.The end result is that, after waiting for about half an hour and refusing to answer further questions, I was released –… (Linked Sunday 2010-09-26.)

10 Brief Responses To 700 Comments About Refusing To Answer Questions At Passport Control. PKL, KNIFE TRICKS (2010-09-11). Phuket Island, ThailandMy post about refusing to answer questions from Customs and Border Protection officers when re-entering the U.S. has resulted in a lot of debate. My thanks to everyone who joined the conversation, including the authors of the more than one hundred posts that called me a douchebag. Let… (Linked Sunday 2010-09-26.)

Deregulating food. Stephen Smith, Market Urbanism (2010-09-11). by Stephen Smith Urban planners like to discuss heavy things – roads, buildings, cars, trains. Food, though an integral part of humans' lives, generally doesn't enter into the equation as more than a footnote. This may be because food service is governed by different departments than buildings, streets, and vehicles,… (Linked Sunday 2010-09-26.)

How Inequality Shapes Our Lives. Roderick, Austro-Athenian Empire (2010-09-17). Those of us who regard socioeconomic inequality as a serious problem are often accused of "envy," as though such concerns were simply a matter of begrudging someone else's having more cookies than we do. I think this reaction misses the point in a number of ways; let me say just… (Linked Monday 2010-09-20.)

Comment on Eppur Si Muove by Kevin Carson. Kevin Carson, Comments for Austro-Athenian Empire (2010-09-16). If I can't have petty fights, I don't want to be part of your revolution. (Linked Monday 2010-09-20.)

THE IMPERIAL TWO-STEP. Robert Paul Wolff, The Philosopher's Stone (2010-08-26). The NY TIMES today devotes its premier placement [Front Page, far right column, above the fold] to the revelation that, in the words of their headline, “Key Harzai Aide in Graft Inquiry Linked to C.I.A. Said to be on Payroll. Conflicting Goals Seen for U.S. in Its Call to Fight… (Linked Tuesday 2010-09-21.)

Three Shalt Thou Count. Roderick, Austro-Athenian Empire (2010-08-30). The debates in the comments section of my Koch post have gotten me thinking about the different ways in which vulgar libertarianism operates. I think there are three. 1) First, there's the use of libertarian slogans as mere rhetorical covering for corporatist policies. This kind of vulgar libertarianism is standard… (Linked Monday 2010-08-30.)

C4SS in the MSM. Roderick, Austro-Athenian Empire (2010-08-30). Congratulations to Ross Kenyon, whose latest C4SS piece has been picked up by the Christian Science Monitor! (Linked Monday 2010-08-30.)

The Cold, Crisp Taste of Koch. Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-08-31). From Frank Rich's rehash of Jane Mayer's recent hit piece on the philanthropizin' oilmen Charles and David Koch: When David Koch ran to the right of Reagan as vice president on the 1980 Libertarian ticket (it polled 1 percent), his campaign called for the abolition not just of Social Security,… (Linked Tuesday 2010-08-31.)

Why does the Infrastructurist hate libertarians so much? rationalitate, Market Urbanism (2010-08-25). by Stephen Smith Among urban planners, libertarianism gets a pretty bad rap. Melissa Lafsky at the Infrastructurist goes so far as to call libertarianism "an enemy of infrastructure," and dismisses entirely the idea that private industry can build infrastructure with a single hyperlink – to a poorly-written article on New Zealand's… (Linked Tuesday 2010-08-31.)

Argumentum ad un-Americanum. Will Wilkinson, Will Wilkinson (2010-08-27). This Forbes column by Yaron Brook and Don Watkins arguing that the government should stop subsidizing homeownership was skipping along predictably but just fine until... When the government encourages homeownership, the story goes, it strengthens individuals and communities and thereby fosters the American Dream. They're wrong. A government crusade to… (Linked Tuesday 2010-08-31.)

Why Do Futurists Get So Much Wrong? Steven Horwitz, The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty (2010-08-25). The Austrian economist Ludwig Lachmann once walked into the colloquium room at New York University, where the blackboard displayed this quotation: "When it comes to the future, one word says it all: You never know. – Y. Berra." Having built much of his economics on the unknowability of the future,… (Linked Tuesday 2010-08-31.)

Scary scary news scary! admin, This Modern World (2010-08-31). Scary scary news scary! (Linked Tuesday 2010-08-31.)

Will It Optimize? John Gruber, Daring Fireball (2010-07-23). Another splendidly intricate post from Peter Ammon. Only of interest if you enjoy puzzles on GCC optimizations.  â˜…  (Linked Wednesday 2010-08-04.)

!!!@@e2;2dc;2026; An Improved Liberal, Accurate Regex Pattern for Matching URLs. John Gruber, Daring Fireball (2010-07-27). Back in November, I posted a regex pattern for matching URLs. It seems to have proven quite useful for others, and, even better, based on feedback from those who've used it, I've since improved it in several ways. The problem the pattern attempts to solve: identify the URLs in an… (Linked Wednesday 2010-08-04.)

On Broadway. Cat and Girl (2010-08-04). The joke only works under the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM. (Linked Wednesday 2010-08-04.)

Speaking the Truth is for Losers and Egomaniacs. cherylcline, der Blaustrumpf (2010-08-05). In Savage Mules:  The Democrats and Endless War, Dennis Perrin writes that "Speaking the truth is for losers and egomaniacs."  Had I read that before Wikileaks gained much traction, I probably would have agreed without fully comprehending.  In light of the accusations hurled against Julian Assange, however, I see that… (Linked Thursday 2010-08-05.)