2/12/15 Today's Inquiries

Snow Flurries giving way to lots of ice. And then it all melts.


The Links:

The worst case climate change scenario is bad. Earth's population: 500 million.

An increase of seven degrees Fahrenheit would see mass migrations from some of the most humid places on Earth – the Amazon, parts of India, northern Australia. Rising sea levels of four feet or more and ferocious storms would flood coastal cities from Tokyo to Mumbai, and submerge low-lying areas such as Bangladesh and Florida, displacing millions. Earth’s most populated areas, that belt of land extending from central China and most of Europe, Africa, Australia, the US and Latin America, would be parched by this century’s end, drying up surface water and killing crops that hundreds of millions depend upon for survival. Nearly half the world’s population, almost 4 billon people, could be enduring severe water scarcity and starvation, numerous studies suggest.

Tyler Cowen gave a talk at OU about the end of Pax Americana. Obviously there's been quite a bit of war around the world but Pax Americana refers to great power wars like, well, WWII. What scares me the most is his second point:

There is a myth of the rational autocrat.

However, there's a new cease-fire plan in Ukraine. But, Putin's got a lot of friends in Europe.

Yesterday was the anniversary of Yalta. Well, the Yalta conference, not the place.

A combat veteran explains why he is changing his military reserve status to one less likely to land him in combat again.

Three tours in Iraq put paid to that notion. I went to fight al-Q’aida, and instead hun­kered down under indi­rect fire from mostly Shi’a old men and young boys, shooting off decrepit, refur­bished rockets for the paltry sums they needed to keep their fam­i­lies fed for another day. These people hadn’t attacked us on 9/11. They weren’t plan­ning to attack us in the future. And we were killing them. I was killing them.

More rev­e­la­tions fol­lowed: Man­ning and Snowden, the slow reversal in Iraq, watching every­thing I fought for, that my friends died for, return to the hands of ISIS. I finally stood in the lobby of a hotel in Wash­ington, DC as Obama announced that we were sending another 1,500 troops to Iraq and I asked myself: “if they called you now, would you want to go?”

And I real­ized that, for the first time, the answer was, “no.”

The Saudis are building a 600 mile wall along the Iraq border. Hey, it worked in Texas...

If you're worried your child might be a terrorist, this helpful government checklist will give you some guidance.

The Bush campaign is off to a great start. First it fired its chief technical office for slut shaming women on social media and now i's published unredacted emails from his time in office, exposing the personal information of thousands. And he's the smart Bush!

Arnold Kling drove to Florida. His thoughts are brief and interesting. I wonder how the older and sicker commentary matches with the whole people-moving-South for jobs trend. Maybe the population growth in the South is not all job/cost of living seeking productive young adults? He also writes about Obesophobia.

In Florida, my casual observation is that the buildings with the guards are in affluent neighborhoods in communities that are miles from any urban diversity, and the buildings in the urban diverse neighborhoods have less security. I attribute that to selection bias–people who are comfortable with diversity are less xenophobic.

Is it time to reassess the low-wage recovery? Hey, market forces work. As more jobs become available, workers are able to push for higher wages or change jobs.

Are H-1B workers replacing Americans? Yes, because they are cheaper. At least initially.

The long term impact of inequality on Entrepreneurship and Job Creation. Does this sound like our tech sector to you?

We find that in countries with higher levels of inequality in the 1700s and 1800s, businesses today are more likely to die young and create fewer jobs.

Rand Paul's ideas about auditing the Federal Reserve make no sense. Yeah, but isn't the point to make your base feel all happy that someone is finally searching for the truth about things? For example, voting to repeal Obamacare 50+ times or Benghazi.

The first thing you need to know about the Fed is that its emergency lending during the crisis was already audited as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform. The second is that Dodd-Frank already requires it to disclose any future emergency lending at a one or two-year lag. The third is that the rest of what it does is already audited by, count 'em, the Government Accountability Office, the Office of the Inspector General, andindependent private auditors. And the last is that the Fed already publishes a summary of its balance sheet every week.

Paul Ryan isn't getting off the crazy train either:

I always go back to, you know, Francisco d’Anconia’s speech, at Bill Taggart’s wedding, on money when I think about monetary policy. Then I go to the 64-page John Galt speech, you know, on the radio at the end, and go back to a lot of other things that she did, to try and make sure that I can check my premises.

Here's an update on those people that were paid $100,000 to drop out of college.

For Mr. Gu and other members of that first class of fellows, their experiences have been neither as dire nor as dramatically successful as observers on both sides predicted. While many fellows say they appreciate what college gave them, they also didn’t feel they needed a credential to pursue their dreams. And while they agree that dropping out isn’t the right choice for many students, they hope they’re proof that there’s not just one path to success.

The key to financial success isn't saving more, it's investing more buying money.

The National Rise in Residential Segregation.

Analysis of neighbor-based segregation over time establishes several new facts about segregation. First, segregation doubled nationally from 1880 to 1940. Second, contrary to previous estimates, we find that urban areas in the South were the most segregated in the country and remained so over time. Third, the dramatic increase in segregation in the twentieth century was not driven by urbanization, black migratory patterns, or white flight to suburban areas, but rather resulted from a national increase in racial sorting at the household level. 

Gendered language in Teacher Reviews.

This interactive chart lets you explore the words used to describe male and female teachers in about 14 million reviews from RateMyProfessor.com.

What it's like for a woman to reject a man for a job. This experience meshes with what +Rachael Jones has told me of editing science fiction writing.

And of course, there was one older, white, academic man who felt the need to tell us that we are, “imperious little girls,” and that “we are not superior to [him].”

Go read the Amazon reviews for the children's book, Melanie's Marvelous Measles.

Melanie's Marvelous Measles was written to educate children on the benefits of having measles and how you can heal from them naturally and successfully

and

As a carpenter who specializes in itty bitty coffins I can't say enough good things about this book, my customer base has been growing at an epidemic rate!

Michael Pollan eats a ton of psychedelic mushrooms or something.

Smoking is bad for you.

Dubai unveils plan for the world's largest human rights violation.

How many Harvard Students attend class? It looks like it's about 80% at the start of the semester and 60% by the end.

Our brains process information in a way very similar to how Alan Turing broke codes.

Hypnocat: