Walk the Prank: Secret Story of Mysterious Portrait at Pentagon
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The portrait of “Ensign Chuck Hord,” a Navy man lost at sea in 1908, may be the greatest—or perhaps only—prank in Pentagon art history.
Obama and the Buffett Rule
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I’ve listened to the weekly Presidential radio addresses, since at least 2005. (Yes, I know that makes me something of a masochist.) Which means that I’ve heard the last 3 or 4, from President Obama, on the subject of taxes and the Buffet Rule. I’ve been irritated by them and have wanted to do a [...]
Can Wal-Mart Scale L.A.’s Great Wall of Regulation?
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L.A. Chinatown residents want a Wal-Mart. L.A. won’t let Wal-Mart in to serve them. While Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) has decried Wal-Mart’s “ability to…drive all other competitors away” with rock-bottom prices, many Chinatown residents, suffering for years from gouging by the local markets, would probably say “good riddance.” In what must frustrate the unions most, [...]
Romney Should Ignore ’Gender Gap’ Mythology
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The evidence that Romney is lagging in the polls because voters are upset about a “war on women” — rather than because of a bruisingly negative primary campaign or the recovering economy — is pretty thin. But Republicans are responding not just to the polls but to the persistent mythology of the gender gap. Ruth [...]
The Liberal Legal Bubble
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How could members of the Supreme Court possibly seriously consider the argument that ObamaCare’s individual mandate to purchase health insurance is unprecedented and unconstitutional? The quality of the arguments? The presence of a genuine legal debate? No, if you ask the law’s liberal cheerleaders, there can only be one answer: pure partisan politics. From the [...]
EconTalk: David Autor on Social Security Disability Insurance
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David Autor of MIT talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program. SSDI has grown dramatically in recent years and now costs about $200 billion a year. Autor explains how the program works, why the growth has been so dramatic, and the consequences for the stability of the program [...]
Comparing MPS and Voucher Per-Pupil Support
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I find discussions of the per-pupil funding level of different types of Milwaukee schools usually turns into a debate on how to make a true apples-to-apples comparison of per-pupil support for the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) and the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). While basic differences in MPS and MPCP schools and their cost-drivers make [...]
Printing Muscle
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In a small clean room tucked into the back of San Diego–based startup Organovo, Chirag Khatiwala is building a thin layer of human skeletal muscle. He inserts a cartridge of specially prepared muscle cells into a 3-D printer, which then deposits them in uniform, closely spaced lines in a petri dish. This arrangement allows the [...]
An Interview With Mary Robinette Kowal
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In which Pat Rothfuss does an interview with Mary Robinette Kowal and I learn a new word: eremitic. Also, I become even more interested in reading Ms. Kowal’s two novels: Shades of Milk and Honey and Glamour in Glass.
No Pulse: How Doctors Reinvented The Human Heart
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This article was fascinating from beginning to end. “Rare-earth magnets!” Cohn cried, straining to pull one free. He put it in my hand. It was the size of a pencil eraser, and when I loosened my grip, it shot like a bullet to the file cabinet with a clang. “Extremely powerful.” Cohn has pioneered the [...]