The Right Coast

More on Originalism and Sex DiscriminationMike Rappaport

Over at the Originalism Blog.  Start here and start scolling up. 

You're lying eyes!Mike Rappaport

Here.

The vanity of all wishes Tom Smith

[Family life update; don't read please.]

So I bought two new pairs of eyeglasses, of the progressive lens type.  This is so I don't have to switch between regular glasses when I look up at the class and to reading glasses when I look down at my notes.  I can't believe how expensive they were.  Between the two of them, they were like $900. They were selected for me by a cute, stylish I don't know, glasses selector lady.  Girl, really.  She looked about 16.  It was at a strip mall in East San Diego, so it's not like I was in Brentwood or something.  I take them home, show the family unit and everybody agrees they look, uh, not so good. I pressed for a reason.  I finally got -- they make me look "dorky".  Not the look I was going for.  On top of that, the progressive feature seems like it is going to be hard to get used to, as in, hard to walk without falling over.  By harranging LWJ I was finally able to get her to back down to "not particularly flattering"; still not very good.

Driving there and back I was listening to a Teaching Company professor lecture about the Bhagavad Gita and how desire never does you any good.  How true. Even desiring not to look dorky was evidently too much. I'm going to keep the glasses, dorky or not.  You can't fight these things.  It's bad karma to even try.  They won't take them back anyway. Son No. 3 helpfully observed, think how many poor African children you could have fed for $900.

Previous medical advice hereby revoked Tom Smith

Hmmm.  Maybe using those nasal irrigation devices you can buy at the drug store with which you flush your sinuses out with water are not such a good idea.  Turns out they can give you an infection in your brain and then you die.  So . . . any recommendations to use them from the RC are hereby revoked and I'm going to throw mine away.  Too bad, cause they do clean out the old tubes. By the way, you should not be getting medical advice from law, politics & culture blogs.

Originalism and Sex DiscriminationMike Rappaport

I have a series of posts on Calabresi and Rickert's new article at the Originalism Blog.  Start here and then just scroll up. 

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality Tom Smith

This is awesome.  Harry Potter fan fiction which is according to my kids pretty good and which teaches concepts like market arbitrage, efficient market theory, decision theory, scientific reasoning and so on.

A truly insane, dangerous and sick summit bid on which some are sure to die Tom Smith

To summit K2 by an unclimbed route, without oxygen, and in winter.  Russians.  K2 has terrible and unpredictable weather in the summer.  In winter, it's a lot worse.

Meanwhile, Felicity Aston is making her way to the South Pole, with difficulty.

Most Americans believe Obama should be voted out of office and that he will be re-elected Tom Smith

Sigh.

In defense of Iowa Tom Smith

Here.  Of course, the attack on Iowa to be rebutted came from, wait for it, a professor at the University of Iowa, who is there no doubt because a bizarre twist of destiny kept him from NYU.

The waxing of waxing Tom Smith

It's a pun.  Also one of the few topics on which I am not comfortable expressing an opinion.  I suspect it is yet another sign of the end of civilization, but I'm not sure.