RabbitheadsDomestic violence rates among NFL players is astoundingly high. Even so, overall arrest rates of athletes remain remarkably low.

Eric Siu makes the case that employee happiness matters.

God’s Not Dead was filed for two million dollars and has thus far pulled in over sixty. It’s almost as though there is a market for such movies. Surely, with Hollywood being the capitalist beast that it is, scores of them are on the way. Right?

Unsurprisingly, it’s a better idea to give students work machines instead of toys.

According to John Henry Thompson and Andrew Quinn, providing housing to poor families doesn’t actually change outcomes much. They argue this has implications for the “just give them money” debate.

Allison P Davis is frustrated at her inability to mooch a charge for her phone. I would just point out that with a Samsung and a spare battery, this isn’t an issue.

Adam Ozimek looks at the sharing economy being most beneficial for developing countries.

The Japanese may or may not want to fire the nuclear plants back up, but according to Satsumasendai it really needs to happen.

A federal bill wants to restrict gun advertising “to children” on the same basis that cigarette advertising to children is banned. Eugene Volokh explains that there are differences.

Ruben Santamarta says passenger jets vulnerable to cyberattack.

Before physicians make a lot of money, they make less than a lot of money.

Jonathan McLeod is tired of Canadian cities trying to be cool for Europeans. The shorthand back home was “World Class”, as in “We have to pursue my favored policy because we want to be world class” as in “If we don’t do this, people who don’t live here will laugh at us.” (“This” usually being some variation of greenbelts, rail, and/or “smart growth”.)

Gabriel Rossman makes a good point about some of the recent botched executions, arguing that they are predicated in part on the actions of death penalty opponents and blame-assignment is unclear.

Even if no other measures are taken, transparent health care pricing may pay a crucial role in lowering health care costs.

Michael Brendan Dougherty argues that the victory of the culture wars could be… Apple, Google, and Facebook.


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14 Responses to Linkluster Characters in Toy Story 3

  1. Jonathan McLeod is tired of Canadian cities trying to be cool for Europeans.

    FWIW, French immigrants tend to become disappointed when they visit Quebec, as they didn’t discover a land that was France in North America. Instead, they discovered a place where Americans speak (terrible) French. I think Canadians like to paint themselves as magically different creatures from Americans, but Europeans just find it hard to really to point out those differences. A lot of Anglophone Canada’s identity is wrapped up in being “not American”, but even French Canada’s slightly more European bent doesn’t make the place into France on the St. Lawrence. I suspect the tourists were just somewhat shocked over the fact that Canada isn’t Europe.

    Mind you, Canadian cities tend to be a bit more amenable to using public transport, and the buses there suck less. On the other hand, Canadian cities aren’t European cities. They’re just American cities with more density, less crime, and less highways. Arguably, the same could be said for Australian cities.

    And I’ve been to Ottawa, and I have family there. For a capital city, it’s decidedly slow and sleepy, and my cousins long for the day that they could move to Montreal or Toronto. It’s the type of place that could do everything right, and they’ll never be world class because somebody cooler is only two hours away.

    • Trumwill says:

      One of the commenters over at Lion’s place has a real love for Montreal, which has me vaguely interested in it. But I don’t speak French. Sounds like maybe I’m not missing much.

      • Hell, when are you going to actually come up to NYC? 🙂

        FWIW, I like Montreal, and it’s probably the most NYC-ish feeling city in Canada. It’s well worth a nice weekend or a few days up there. I’m biased as I speak enough French to get by, but up there I still have trouble understanding people.

        And FWIW, I managed to visit Germany without speaking any German, so I think you can visit a place where 20% of the population speaks English as a first language, and a sizable chunk speak some degree of English as a second or third language.

        • trumwill says:

          We went on a 10-country in 20-day tour of Europe when I was 12 or so. I remember being impressed at the time how prevalent English was.

          Pity the poor fool who learned Esperanto.

          I made it up to New Jersey a couple times since I moved here. Haven’t made it all the way up to NYC yet. MHR Rice suggested that I go up there and we have a Hit Coffee gathering.

        • I remember being impressed at the time how prevalent English was.

          Even that depends on the country a bit. Northern Europe is much better at English when compared to Southern Europe, especially if you go off the beaten path. My friend routinely stated how “everybody in Germany speaks English”, but going to train station service desks and beauty supply shops lead to be believe otherwise. In the case of the former, sometimes one employee spoke passable English out of three, and in the latter case, the shop girls who worked there along with the German equivalent of Best Buy couldn’t speak any English at all. The tourist infrastructure supports English, but it can turn to mush when you’re “off the grid”.

          English is a de facto Esperanto. 🙂

          I made it up to New Jersey a couple times since I moved here.

          South Jersey or North Jersey? There is a difference. 😛

        • trumwill says:

          “Prevalent” was probably the wrong word to use here. Nonetheless, it was surprising. Even the whole in the wall in Vienna that we went to spoke a little. In addition to touristy-vs-non, I suspect that we were mostly in cities matters quite a bit. According to Wikipedia, most of Europe is in the 40-60% range, and I’ll bet a lot of that is cities.

          Near Bridgewater.

        • Near Bridgewater.

          You could have hopped on the train and been in NYC in 60 minutes. 😛

          In addition to touristy-vs-non, I suspect that we were mostly in cities matters quite a bit. According to Wikipedia, most of Europe is in the 40-60% range, and I’ll bet a lot of that is cities.

          And I suspect it skews middle class and up. As I noted before, it wasn’t uncommon to see retail employees lacking in English, and that’s something I discovered not just in Germany but in Belgium too.

  2. They argue this has implications for the “just give them money” debate.

    If your goal is to hand money out so their lives are *less terrible*, then giving out pure cash can work, but it’s not always going to be the magical solution. Tailored programmes with dedicated disbursements channel the money into the right places, but it’s not going to necessarily magically turn those living in poverty into middle class people with middle class benefits. It can help those who have those habits and tendencies to join or return to the middle class, but it’s not going to solve bad habits, single parenthood, or improve low pay.

  3. I would just point out that with a Samsung and a spare battery, this isn’t an issue.</i.

    They have battery packs that one can charge and attach to their iPhone too. Mind you, I don't have one since I usually end up driving and having access to a charger in my car, or I know where the nearest Apple store is to bum a free charge. 🙂

    • trumwill says:

      Who needs a battery pack when you can have a battery?

      The weather off the Third Coast was hot, which had an extremely detrimental effect on the battery life of my phone. I ended up having to buy another one just to keep up. Which is weird, because it wasn’t that hot.

  4. Mr. Blue says:

    I really like the Rossman link. My response when something goes awry with an execution is that the fault lies with the protesters that won’t let us use humane methods because they seem inhumane. Even if it is the state that chooses to go forward.

  5. says:

    If the author of the Atlantic article about junior physician salaries is correct, it seems that many people are unaware that medical training constitutes more than just four extra years of (expensive) school. Unfortunately, he didn’t consider that it can take years after training to build up to the average salary for the specialty. For instance, I’m on a five-year partnership track that requires accepting a below-market salary for those years as a way to reduce the buy-in. I will only see the full partnership income unencumbered by the buy-in beginning in my early 40’s. By then, the partnership income is likely to be much less than it is now due to health care reform, and it is already down about 30% from when I started work due to recent reimbursement cuts. Clearly, anyone joining my group out of training from now on will be much worse off financially at retirement than my colleagues who plan to retire in the next few years. We junior docs can also expect greatly reduced job security due to technological threats. For the record, I am not in a lucrative high-tech specialty like radiology.

    • Trumwill says:

      You always make me curious as to what specialty you are in (that’s not a query – understand why you don’t say). When salary negotiations were occuring with Clancy, I was wondering if we would be taking a hit. Not knowing what previous salaries are, I still don’t know. It’s more than she made in Arapaho, though cost of living is slightly higher here and she had a nice bonus structure at her old job.

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