Post office follies

The postal service has some value as a poster child for why the government should not run companies.

The most recent example: they apparently cannot even manage to close a single office.

Reducing hours is something, but of course leaves all the fixed costs intact and keeps the postal service from making some money selling off the land and buildings.

Someone should summon the ghost of Mancur Olson, who popularized the idea of small, well organized groups with lots to gain triumphing over large, poorly organized groups whose members, individually, have only a little to lose.

Movie: Marvel's The Avengers

A.O. Scott is right on target in his review: less genre convention and more Josh Whedon unleashed would have made this a better movie.  As it is, it is redeemed by Robert Downey Jr. and the beautiful Scarlett, though she seems often to be facing away from the camera. Just an odd coincidence, I am sure.

Recommended if you are in the mood for summer fluff.

Lewis Prize to Michigan Grad Student!

The Society of Labor Economists awards its H. Gregg Lewis prize every two years to the best article in the Journal of Labor Economics over a two year period.

This year's co-winner is UM economics graduate student Bill Lincoln, for his paper (co-authored with William Kerr) entitled "The Supply Side of Innovation: H-1B Visa Reforms and U.S. Ethnic Innovation."

Want to know more?  You can read the statement of the prize committee, the published (gated) version of the paper and/or an ungated version of the paper.

Congrats Bill!

Hat tips: Maggie Newman and Martha Bailey

Congrats to economist Robert Moffitt ...

... on his election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

EMU kicks out 23,000 students for bad grades

And then says "just kidding."

Perhaps this is some sort of psychology experiment? If so, their IRB is a bit more lax than ours ....

And that dress ... and the necklace ... and the brooch ... oh dear.

Hat tip: Charlie Brown

More on the Marcin congressional campaign ...

... from annarbor.com.  I am impressed that Dan got Ann Arbor's mayor to show up at his campaign event.

And a correction in the comments ... my penalty for reading too quickly.  And here I was liking John Heftje, if only for a moment.

Plagiarism at Arizona State

What should happen if a professor plagiarizes from wikipedia and a newspaper article?  Seems like something should happen. When my students do it - and, sadly, a few of them have - they get punished in the course but not kicked out of school.

Via: instapundit