Amy Phillips at iLiberty.org has a handy dandy roundup of various paternalistic initiatives on the ballots this week, and how they fared, from winking at dope-smokers to milking cigarette smokers. Read it, for your own good—and for the children.

[Read more →]

The ineffable Will Wilkinson (except, one supposes, by the nominal “Will Wilkinson,” allowing him to be at least briefly effed) has a fine piece in Aussie mag Policy on the trendy “arms race” attack on status competition. Reader’s of Will’s blog will recognize the basic argument: You can’t trust any schema that treats status as […]

[Read more →]

Neighbor and New Republic scribe Spencer Ackerman has finally succumbed to peer pressure.

[Read more →]

AntiRiddle is another series of puzzles to solve—some of these are pretty easy, others pretty fiendish.

[Read more →]

OK, last thing from Dawkins, I swear, but this is one of those little factoids that has been around forever, and still seems to be making the rounds. Maybe you’ve seen it: If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally […]

[Read more →]

So, having decided to go with Batman villain The Riddler for my halloween costume (the green-question-mark-blazer-and-bowler-hat version, not the original spandex catsuit one or the more recent tattooed metrosexual one) I’ve been paying more attention than usual to various kinds of puzzles and brainteasers. Two of which I’m fond, for those of you who are […]

[Read more →]

This weekend featured an always-welcome visit to D.C. from my old friend Rhys, who I see too infrequently, as he’s one of those that friend friends everyone needs, if you know what I mean. At all events, seeing him reminded me that he’s got an excellent sort of one-man-incubator blog called IdeaProvince where he stores […]

[Read more →]

Somehow or other, I never did get around to putting

[Read more →]

Via Wonkette comes an amusing Flickr set of publications produced by government agencies. As a bonus, many of them are actually linked from their cover pages, so you can thrill to the bike-safety adventures of Sprocket Man, get Customs’ guidance on distinguishing bolts from screws, or read the heartwarming “story of human conservation” that was […]

[Read more →]

Dilbert scribe Scott Adams shares his favorite conspiracy theory: My favorite conspiracy theory is the one that says the world is being run by a handful of ultra-rich capitalists, and that our elected governments are mere puppets. I sure hope it’s true. Otherwise my survival depends on hordes of clueless goobers electing competent leaders. That’s […]

[Read more →]