Emptying the Bottle: July '09 Links List

1) RonPaulSingles.com, "we put the love in revolution"

2) Turkish game show where four representatives from the different religions try to convert at least 1 of the 10 atheists to their faith

3) Dr. Doom doing stand up comedy (6:51)

4) Libertarian economist Arnold Kling on "Why I'm not a Republican"

5) FancyFastFood.com, "yeah, it's still bad for you - but see how good it can look!"

6) I'm still not sure if twitter is worth it, but you can use it to track Durham's burger truck

7) Economics (as he sees it) from the Vatican

8) Shorten your url's with is.gd and see what they were originally with longurl.org

9) Four questions about charity.

10) Economics (as she sees it) from Miss Teen South Carolina (2:34)

Here are previous links lists and here are my daily Bookmarks.

Ideas for Marriage, Anniversary Edition

Today marks two years with my lovely wife Traci. Here are some things I've learned (mostly the hard way). This is by no means exhaustive and many are Traci inspired, but not necessarily approved. Married or single, positive or negative, feedback or additions, it's all appreciated:

1) What's important to them isn't necessarily important to you, that doesn't mean it's not important.

2) Differences are valuable, just make sure the differences aren't values.

3) You don't realize how unique your family is until you try to start a new one.

4) There is a lot of baggage you don't know you have.

5) Love their family because to them, their family is who they are.

6) Invest in argument saving technologies: GPS, dishwasher, dual a/c controls, king size bed, separate bathroom sinks, and even blogs (so my wife doesn't have hear my every stray thought).

7) The safety of stability is the only way to raw intimacy.

8) Don't share the negatives about your spouse without their permission/knowledge.

9) However, you should allow trusted friends and family to know your hardships and speak to them.

10) Love because you said your would, not because they love you.

Economics of Slavery

Prominent black economist (should I say prominent economist who happens to be black?) Walter Williams debunks the economic benefits of slavery:

Reparations advocates make the foolish unchallenged pronouncement that United States became rich on the backs of free black labor. That's utter nonsense. Slavery has never had a very good record of producing wealth. Think about it. Slavery was all over the South. Buying into the reparations nonsense, you'd have to conclude that the antebellum South was rich and the slave-starved North was poor. The truth of the matter is just the opposite. In fact, the poorest states and regions of our country were places where slavery flourished: Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia while the richest states and regions were those where slavery was absent: Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts.

Human labor, no matter how cheap, is no match for the productiveness of industrialization. This reminds me of Ron Paul's controversial idea of avoiding the Civil War through the governmental purchase of slaves. The cost of 4 million slaves seems small compared to that of a four year war resulting in the of death of 600,000 at the hands of fellow Americans (not to mention the lasting effects of Reconstruction). After all, the slave trade had already been done away with in 1808 and 3/4 of Southerners didn't even own slaves.

However many more Southerners were certainly financially connected to them. And let's not forget slavery was not the central reason for succession secession. Lincoln originally supported bringing the South back with the promise of keeping their slaves. succession secession happened over states rights, but slavery was the main states rights issue. Either way, economic progress would have surely made slavery useless, eventually.

Note: Williams' piece also has some good points on the complexity of reparations.

Wisdom of Planet Earth

I had this passing thought when I first watched the Planet Earth series. It's stuck with me, so I thought I might share it. I not only learned details of obscure environments around the world, I also gathered a better understanding for the purpose of life (not my life, but life in general). Animals are not for me. More specifically, animals were not created solely for the human race. This may seem simple, but it's something I subconsciously believed before. I came to this conclusion after realizing how many different species there were that I'd never heard of. Then I realized if I'd never heard of them in 2009, most people had never heard of them for thousands of years. If it's true that most animals (and fish, stars and planets, etc) were not even realized by humans, then they can't exist solely for us. But most people already think that.

Why Catch 22?

But it could have been Catch-18. This was Heller’s original title - and his title throughout all the long years of composition, from 1953 to 1961. However, just before the book was published Leon Uris produced his novel Mila 18. Heller’s publishers, Simon and Schuster, thought two books with ‘18’ in the title in one year was one book too many, and suggested a change.

That's from the blog How books got their titles. Here are some other interesting ones:

• Alice’s Adventures Under Ground
• Wha's That Noshin' on My Laig? (a comedy?)
  
• the novum testamentum
• Mere (not trivial) Christianity
• A Four and a Half Years’ Battle Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice: A Reckoning with the Destroyers of the Nazi Party Movement (sounds like a John Stossel special)

Some of these titles are so common place it odd to think they could ever have been different. Then again, if they were different, they would be familiar too, just differently, and I would still feel weird. Is that a catch-22? How about a catch-18?

Random Act of Kindness or the Facebook Fairy?

My old GPS has been broken for a while and I've been putting off buying a new one. My wife and I are heading to Washington D.C. for our anniversary, so she posted this in her facebook status:

can you rent GPSs? we need one for the weekend...

24 hours later I receive a package with a new GPS inside. Now either someone went above and beyond nice and bought us a new GPS (I've narrowed the list down to a few) or Facebook gifts just got a lot better. So if you recently sent me a GPS, let me know, or Mark Zuckerberg is getting a thank you letter.

Economics of *this post is not yet rated*

Here's a collection of blue topics discussed through the lens economics:

• economics of bedding female colleagues
• economics of prostitution
• economics of wives vs. prostitutes
• economics of an ugly boyfriend
• economics of Mark Sanford cheating (audio)

*some of these are callous, but I found them all educational

Car Czar Cronyism

No one is particularly happy with the government holding a controlling stake in General Motors, but its hard to know exactly what problems will arise. Here's one, good old fashion cronyism:

The latest self-appointed car czar is Massachusetts's own Barney Frank, who intervened this week to save a GM distribution center in Norton, Mass. The warehouse, which employs some 90 people, was slated for closure by the end of the year under GM's restructuring plan. But Mr. Frank put in a call to GM CEO Fritz Henderson and secured a new lease on life for the facility.

Mr. Frank's spokesman, Harry Gural, says the Congressman discussed, among other things, "the facility's value to GM." We'd have thought that would be something that GM might have considered when it decided to close the Norton center, but then a call from one of the most powerful Members of Congress can certainly cause a ward of the state to reconsider what qualifies as "value." A CEO who refuses the offer can soon find himself testifying under oath before Congress, or answering questions from the Government Accountability Office about his expense account. To that point, Mr. Henderson spent Wednesday with Chrysler President Jim Press being castigated by the Senate Commerce Committee for their plans to close 3,400 car dealerships. Every Senator wants dealerships closed in someone else's state.

Imagine a world where car dealerships are stay open not because of profitability, but because of political connection. We are in that world. Then again, at least our housing market isn't government run.

Can Robin Hood Predict a Recession?

Remember the undead's correlation with hard times? Well it looks like Robin and his not-so-merry men do too:

My colleague Binyamin Appelbaum noticed something interesting yesterday: Robin Hood movies are tied to recessions. We're talking here about the adult Robin Hood movies. So set aside "Men in Tights" and the Disney cartoon. Instead, look at first major Robin Hood film, "The Adventures of Robin Hood". Release date? 1938. Similarly, "Prince of Thieves" came out in 1991, another recessionary year. And I ran a quick Google search: Sure enough, there's another Robin Hood movie slated for May of 2010.

Finding Your Lost Wallet

I recently lost my wallet and if you know me that should come as no surprise. Although I've gotten better as I've moved farther into adulthood, I still rarely keep cash in my wallet for this reason. But instead of what not to have in your wallet, maybe I should focus on what you should have in your wallet:

Richard Wiseman, a psychologist, and his team inserted one of four photographs behind a clear plastic window inside, showing either a smiling baby, a cute puppy, a happy family or a contented elderly couple. Some wallets had no image and some had charity papers inside.

Hundreds of wallets were planted around the city and the result was that the

baby photograph wallets had the highest return rate, with 88 per cent of the 40 being sent back. Next came the puppy, the family and the elderly couple, with 53 per cent, 48 and 28 respectively. At 20 per cent and 15, the charity card and control wallets had the lowest return rates.

My niece and nephew just got upgraded from the fridge to the wallet.