links for 2007-07-20 Will Wilkinson on Ramesh Ponnuru: Here are two things you know: free will exists (it is obvious: go ahead, touch your nose) and the universe is made of whatever it is made of (obvious, if anything is). Therefore, you know the conjunction of those two thi Mark Kleiman: Terminological inexactitude: I am shocked that such a high-brow outlet as Wonkette is calling Sen. David Vitter a "whoremonger." Not only is that rude, it's wrong. A "whoremonger" is a pimp. A John, even one wearing a diaper, is a "whoremast David Chalmers: Brains in Vats Elizabeth Musselman: Severus Snape and The Transparency of Evil: On July 21, children across the country will stay up all night reading as the narrative of Harry Potter draws to a close. Many adults will also stay up all night reading the final chapters i The Onion: In a breakthrough study that contradicts decades of understanding about the nature of alligator–drunkard relations, Louisiana State University researchers have concluded that people’s drunkenness does not impair the ancient reptiles’ abil Will Wilkinson: Was the Marquis de Chastellux the First Growth Fetishist? That is, when we get over Moses’ flattering lie and realize that we are meat-machines, we can transform the knife to the scalpel and actually improve human life. Chastellux plumpe Will Wilkinson: Shorter Gerson: Virtual worlds like Second Life in which actions can have few irremediable bad consequences surprisingly include zones of anarchic licentiousness. Therefore, real lives of authentic freedom, unspoiled by censorious moralizi Hilzoy: Compassionate Conservatism Strikes Again Matthew Russell: One More Pathetic Reason Google Gets Away With Harvesting My Data Matthew Yglesias: Does Edwards Have a Problem?: Given the objective realities of the situation, his campaign's doing pretty well. He's leading in Iowa. Lefty intellectuals love him. Progressive bloggers love him. Labor leaders love him. If he continues to Journalists are also facing two futures they never expected when they signed on to jobs they saw more as a mission, not a business — the uncertainty of what Mr. Murdoch would do as an owner, or the uncertainty of a suddenly harsh advertising climate tha Anne Nivat: Baghdad: Life in the 'red zone' The Carpetbagger Report: Michael Duffy: Another reporter who doesn’t know what he’s talking about Brian Beutler: You leave your computer for a couple hours and people ask you for sourcing. Here's the Brookings report on just about every security variable out there. They're all faring pretty, well terribly. Or at best they haven't gotten much worse lat
