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a winter like a woman scorned December 31, 2007

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I love maps. A good map draws you in, revealing a place as well as creating a sort of mystique that fosters a desire to see the place for yourself.

Certain kinds of maps, especially historical ones, are almost always a pleasure to look at; maps that show the ebb and flow of empires or the tides of a battle.

Strange Maps has up one of the better military history maps I’ve seen: depicting the defeat of Napoleon’s Grande Armée in the depths of a wintry Russia.

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radio free books December 31, 2007

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Via Knowledge Problem, it’s LibriVox, which is, as Lynne Kiesling says, “…a volunteer project in which volunteers read books that are in the public domain; you can download them as MP3s to listen to.” ‘Nuff said.

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edenics December 31, 2007

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Ah, theists — the fun never stops with these guys. Check out this Language Log post on a (rather lame, I must say) mash-up combining biblical literalism, intelligent design, and a corny name.

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separate but equal December 31, 2007

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Russell Roberts at Cafe Hayek on how much similarity there is, in practice, between the big two US political parties:

“Government gets bigger under both Republicans and Democrats. What they spend money on is a little different, yes. But to hate George Bush for being a free market guy is to miss what is really going on. And to hate Hillary because she doesn’t understand the power of markets and to love, say, Mitt Romney, is to misunderstand both of them.”

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weekly photo #63: New Sweden December 29, 2007

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New Sweden
Up the street from the house that I grew up is a forested strip of land along the banks of Darby Creek. I used to play there quite a bit as a kid. One of the main attractions, besides a natural basin in one of the large boulders left over from the last glacial retreat, was a log cabin which we all referred to as the Swedish Cabin. Having a piece of history so close was quite a bonus for me as a kid; I suspect that it played no small part in my abiding interest in history.

The cabin has a support group, the Friends of the Swedish Cabin, which refurbished it (believe me, it used to look a lot worse than it does in my photo) and continues to take care of it and the immediate area around it. The cabin is one of the oldest structures in the United States and a relic of New Sweden - hence the title.

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weekly quote #14: Ronald Findlay and Kevin H. O’Rourke December 28, 2007

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I’m finishing up Bruce Caldwell’s Hayek’s Challenge, but I couldn’t wait to start in on Power and Plenty, by Findlay and O’Rourke. It could be pithily summed up as an economic history of the world from 1000 to 2000CE, but part of the reason I became more interested in it (despite the possibility of a pass, albeit an after-I’ve-read-it pass, from Arnold Kling), is that one of its main points seems to be about how much effective war is responsible for effective trade. Here’s a relevant line from the preface, page XXV of my edition:

“It is natural to suspect that the accumulating economic and geopolitical tensions unleashed in the course of each period of peace, prosperity, and trade culminate in successive rounds of conflict, so that wars, rather than being exogenous or external shocks to the world system, have been inherent in its very nature as it has evolved over the past millennium.”

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letting the cream run off December 28, 2007

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In a tangential follow-up post to one on tax-flight among wealthy Danes, Megan McArdle discusses why a country shouldn’t punish its wealthy citizens who emigrate:

“We’re not the Soviet Union, that’s why. A society should offer a good enough deal to all of its members, even the rich ones, that they do not want to leave. If it cannot do that, it should let them pursue happiness somewhere else.”

A good opener, but it seems to me that the closer goes a bit against the grain of that opening sentiment: “If people do not want to be Americans, then we are better off without them.”

I don’t agree with that — I think there are plenty of people around the world who would improve life for Americans if they were US citizens and who also don’t want to be US citizens. And, if we look at the opening sentiment, we as a society should not only let those who don’t wish to be part leave, we should try our best to make them want to be a part — and that, I think, includes acknowledging that we’re better off if they are here than we are if they run off. If people don’t want to be citizens of a society, that society should at least consider the possibility that not only would we be better off with them, but that they need to look seriously at what it is that makes them want to leave.

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minimalizing type I December 27, 2007

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Whilst discussing EU policy on genetically modified food — specifically, corn — EconoSpeak’s Peter Dorman discusses what it is, and why it matters, to do science:

“This single-minded insistence on avoiding Type I error is the reason why science is the one truly progressive human activity. Today’s science is better than yesterday’s, and tomorrow’s will be better than today. You can’t say this about poetry or politics.”

Not sure if I agree with what he says about economics, but I’m still a novice, so time will tell.

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real genius December 27, 2007

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Not Exactly Rocket Science has a post up featuring “… the favourite stories which I [that is, Ed Yong] managed to write about over the last year.”

My favorite? The one about Toxoplasma gondii casting its spell on the minds of mice — and humans.

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