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.)

buncha links on "triggering" and "calling out" bfp, flip flopping joy (2010-09-01). there was a discussion on tumblr about triggering–the first I saw of it was the following post: Calling out people is important but if you trigger the shit out of an abuse victim or someone with an anxiety or panic disorder in the process, you're being a bigoted shitbucket yourself.Always… (Linked Thursday 2010-09-23.)

The Trouble with the View from Above. James C. Scott, Cato Unbound (2010-09-08). State naming practices and local, customary naming practices are strikingly different. Each set of practices is designed to make the human and physical landscape legible, by sharply identifying a unique individual, a household, or a singular geographic feature. Yet they are each devised by very distinct agents for whom the… (Linked Thursday 2010-09-23.)

Seeing Like a Movie Mogul. Timothy B. Lee, Cato Unbound (2010-09-14). In his lead essay, James Scott writes about the efforts of German foresters to create "a redesigned forest that was easier to count, manipulate, measure, and assess," and throughout Seeing Like a State, he uses this as a metaphor for various state projects to reshape the complex, messy world to… (Linked Thursday 2010-09-23.)

Coordination vs. Coercion. Timothy B. Lee, Cato Unbound (2010-09-20). Don Boudreaux makes an interesting point about the way standardization facilitates social cooperation and the division of labor. But I think it's important to remember that the distinctive feature of the state-building projects James Scott describes wasn't just standardization, but coercion. People were compelled to adopt new surnames, geographical indicators,… (Linked Thursday 2010-09-23.)

Letters Department: Jacob T. Levy on Seeing Like a State. The Editors, Cato Unbound (2010-09-20). Editors' note: Political theorist Jacob T. Levy of McGill University sends us his thoughts on this month's discussion, which we are pleased to share in full. I begin with a few words of unembarrassed admiration. James Scott's Seeing Like a State, from which his essay is largely drawn, is one… (Linked Thursday 2010-09-23.)

The $200,000 Inverted Pyramid. Dorothy, Cat and Girl (2010-09-23). (Linked Friday 2010-09-24.)

Architecture Matters. Julian Sanchez, Cato Unbound (2010-08-16). In an astonishing New York Times op-ed last week, former homeland security advisor Richard Falkenrath greeted news of a technology ban announced by the rulers of the United Arab Emirates with "approval, admiration and perhaps even a touch of envy." In the name of national security, the UAE — soon… (Linked Monday 2010-08-23.)

Tie Me to the Mast. Dorothy, Cat and Girl (2010-08-24). (Linked Tuesday 2010-08-24.)

replace “conversation” with “convention” and the comic still totally works, but it does raise some questions as to how you got yourself into that sticky wicket in the first place. Dinosaur Comics (2010-08-24). archive – contact – sweet merchandise – forum – adventure – search – about!!!@@e2;2020;90; previousAugust 24th, 2010nextAugust 24th, 2010: Alright, if you didn’t nail having an excellent Monday, you can still have an excellent Tuesday. EVERYBODY, DON’T LET ME DOWN– Ryan (Linked Tuesday 2010-08-24.)

BUSH NOSTALGIA WATCH: Every president looks better as soon as. Jesse, The Perpetual Three-Dot Column (2010-08-24). BUSH NOSTALGIA WATCH: Every president looks better as soon as he's out of office, if only because we can stop worrying then that he'll be the one who finally blows everything up. But real nostalgia doesn't kick in until later, when even members of the other party start to cast… (Linked Tuesday 2010-08-24.)

Fannie and Freddie Want Their Allowance. Center for a Stateless Society (2010-08-24). But E. J. Dionne told me that a deregulated Wall Street caused the financial industry meltdown! (Linked Tuesday 2010-08-24.)

15th August 1889 – The Meeting of Emma Goldman & Alexander Berkman. Dorian, Dorian Cope presents On This Deity (2010-08-14).   Suffolk Street, NYC c. 1889   One hundred and twenty-one years ago today, a fateful and momentous meeting of two exceptional minds occurred in a café in New York City's Lower East Side. Like Wordsworth and Coleridge, or John and Yoko, the reaction between the two was instant and… (Linked Monday 2010-08-16.)

Climb Every. Dorothy, Cat and Girl (2010-08-16). (Linked Tuesday 2010-08-17.)

08/16/10 PHD comic: ‘LolGrads’ PHD Comics (2010-08-17). Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com title: "LolGrads" – originally published 8/16/2010 For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE! (Linked Tuesday 2010-08-17.)

Taking Afghanistan seriously. admin, This Modern World (2010-08-17). (Linked Tuesday 2010-08-17.)

Bradley Manning's Moral Clarity. Will Wilkinson, Will Wilkinson (2010-08-16). In case you haven't seen it, here's my latest column at The Week about Bradley Manning and Wikileaks. I've got to say that I've been pretty disappointed with the response to the Manning/Wikileaks affair from a pretty good number of libertarians. I think it's obvious that Wikileaks screwed up pretty… (Linked Tuesday 2010-08-17.)

Unbundling Government, by Arnold Kling. EconLog (2010-06-29). This week is Secession Week at Let a Thousand Nations Bloom. I have no problems with the S word, but I also use the economic expression “unbundling.” For example, Ed Glaeser writes, In a sense, the gulf between the political attitudes of New York City and Montana can be understood… (Linked Wednesday 2010-06-30.)

The Power to Tax is the Power to Destroy. Unqualified Offerings (2010-06-30). This is actually not primarily about taxes. Or about destroying. Or about Dave Weigel. But it is an interesting point from Jim Henley about what’s new — and what’s not new — in the ethos of journalistic bloggers, and why newspapers don’t understand it. (Linked Wednesday 2010-06-30.)

apology not accepted. Dinosaur Comics (2010-06-30). “So hey did you guys hear about the G20 in Toronto last weekend? The event itself was kinda a non-event but the 1 billion dollars Canadians spent on security was kinda – insane? We built a big wall around the downtown core of the city, and the chief of police announced that there was a new secret law passed wherein anyone within 5 meters of this fence had to produce ID or be arrested. And then, after the event, he announced that he made the law up because it suited his purposes? HILARIOUS. Toronto police Chief Bill Blair, ladies and gentlemen.” (Linked Wednesday 2010-06-30.)

eye of the storm 2010-06-30 11:05:51. Captain Capitulation, Anarchoblogs (2010-06-30). one thing that occurs watching the kagan hearings: i am very glad i have not lived her life. so when they ask her about memos she wrote in the clinton admin, strategizing on avoiding a ban on partial-birth abortion, she's all like 'i was working for a president who had… (Linked Wednesday 2010-06-30.)

Parking Lots. Dorothy, Cat and Girl (2010-06-30). (Linked Wednesday 2010-06-30.)

Porkymandias. Roderick, Austro-Athenian Empire (2010-07-01). And on the pedestal these words appear: My name is Robert C. Byrd, Senator of Senators: look on my works, ye mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains: round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away. (Linked Friday 2010-07-02.)