Syria

Despite our supposedly hyper-partisan present, bipartisan support for ill-advised military deployments shows no sign of going away. In regard to Syria, I liked this piece and this piece by Conor Friedersdorf at the Atlantic.

Professorial disses

A fine thread of professorial digs at twitter.

Addendum: A former Michigan doctoral student on whose committee I served reminded me by email that another committee member (who will remain anonymous despite how entertaining it would be to out them) said that their first draft read like it had been "written by someone who was autistic."

Addendum: On the other end of the spectrum, there is this.

Assorted links

1. Fabio Rojas on what happy sociology would look like.

2. I quite enjoyed this Atlantic piece on "refugee detectives" in Germany. As always, the applied epistemology draws me in.

3. Stormy Daniels' visit to Madison.

4. An entertaining economics tweet with a point.

On presidential funeral rites

I am with these folks at CATO and at National Review. The spectacle is appalling, and better suited to an emperor than an elected manager.

Perhaps what people really want to morn is what someone - I do not recall just who - noted, which is that the first Bush was the last president recognized as clearly legitimate by both legacy parties.

My past self speaking at the AEI

I was at AEI a couple of weeks ago and, with the help of Michael Strain, who was sitting next to me, managed to re-find this video of my past self speaking at a 2012 event which had disappeared from the AEI webpage. I do not usually enjoy watching myself on video, but I watched this one and did not mind it too much, perhaps because the remarks have held up relatively well.

On the differences between the teams, or the lack thereof ...

Glenn Greenwald on the bipartisan lack of enthusiasm for press freedom.

Assorted links

1. A fascinating orgtheory.net post about spending a day with a leading art dealer.

2. Sometimes a folding chair is just a folding chair. The history of Franklin in Peanuts.

3. Defacing Soviet statues in Bulgaria. I really like the one with Ronald McDonald.

4. A fine rant by Alex Tabbarok on the too-high cost of getting anything done.