voluntaryXchange

Academics’ Flaw

Bret Stephens:

… Nothing is so typical of middling minds than to harp on the intellectual deficiencies of the slightly less smart and considerably more successful.

Technorati Tags: academic,quote,smart,successful

Pursuing Happiness ???

Schmuley Boteach:

Pursuing happiness is like pursuing sleep.

Think about that: in principal, you have the inalienable right to pursue something you actually have to be.

Technorati Tags: pursuit,happiness,sleep

Sexual Revolution Quote

In math, a bifurcation is where the dynamics of a system lead to one thing being split into two. This quote makes it clear that the demise of the shotgun wedding with the sexual revolution was a bifurcation:

By making the birth of the child the physical choice of the mother, the sexual revolution has made marriage and child support a social choice of the father.

George Akerlof and Janet Yellen quoted in Best of the Web Today.

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Barone On Obama’s Debate Performance

I had missed this. Here’s Michael Barone (perhaps the best combination of well-informed and non-judgemental in political coverage):

… I like to say, there is nothing free in politics, but there is some question about when you pay the price. In this first debate Obama paid the price for the hands-off treatment he has received from mainstream media. His talking points, advanced by his spokesmen in the confidence that they will not be seriously challenged, were refuted by an energized and articulated and well-informed Mitt Romney. He stood there petulantly and pathetically, nonplussed by the fact that his flimsy talking points were effectively challenged. [emphasis added]

* Thanks to Greader for keeping this unread Mike Munger post from Kid Prefer Cheese until I had time to read it.

Technorati Tags: barone,obama,debate,performance,quote,tanstaafl,free,lunch

Harold Rosenberg Quote

Thomas Sowell would call them the anointed:

[The] herd of independent minds

Rosenberg had in mind that what is avant-garde is already mass culture.

I didn’t have the words for it, but I think the first time I recognized this was in 1987-8 when I realized that there was a not-very-nice sameness to all my friends who liked organic produce.

Via Newmark’s Door via Roger’s Rules.

This post is sponsored. If you need some quick cash same day loans can help.

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Consensus Quote

Abba Eban:

Consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually.

Via Watts Up With That via Judith Curry.

Technorati Tags: consensus,quote,collectively,individually,belief

Good Advice for Students

Sarah Hepola:

Change is not a bolt of lightning that arrives with a zap. It is a bridge built brick by brick, every day, with sweat and humility and slips. It is hard work, and slow work, but it can be thrilling to watch it take shape.

Via Lifehacker.

Technorati Tags: change,quote

Luck

Roald Amundsen in his The South Pole:

Victory awaits him who has everything in order—luck, people call it. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time; this is called bad luck.

That’s an argument for a flat tax, if you think about it.

Via Marginal Revolution via the IMF’s Finance and Development blogs profile of Avinash Dixit.

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Poetic Truth

I’m still up in the air about the whole Martin-Zimmerman crime.

But, Shelby Steele coins a new phrase to describe some popular response to it:

Poetic truth is like poetic license where one breaks grammatical rules for effect. Better to break the rule than lose the effect. Poetic truth lies just a little; it bends the actual truth in order to highlight what it believes is a larger and more important truth.

I like this.

Poetic truth is a little like folk economics. It’s influence is way out of proportion to its accuracy.

Technorati Tags: poetic,truth,license,trayvon,martin,zimmerman,folk,economics

Cute Oxymoron from Breaking Bad

Jesse, in the episode “Kafkaesque”:

I double-checked it like 10 times!

I busted a gut when I heard that one.

I can’t believe I haven’t had a student say something like that to me before.

And … I guarantee each of my kids has checked a problem on their math homework close to ten times, and done it wrong each time.

Technorati Tags: breaking,bad,double-checked