Category Archives: Uncategorized

Their forceful ideas inspired countless crimes against humanity and massive amounts of human suffering (here is a partial list): Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published “The Communist Manifesto” in London on this day in 1848. File under: Garbage In, Garbage … Continue reading →

If you could take only one road trip in your life (assume a fixed budget of $2000 USD or 2000 euros for either trip), which one would you prefer: (a) Seattle to Boston or (b) Lisbon to Moscow?

As my friend and colleague Alex Tabarrok (@ATabarrok), an economics professor at George Mason University, recently pointed out (see chart below), CO2 emissions in the USA are actually falling, but alas they are rising in the rest of the world, … Continue reading →

Do you have the day off? The third Monday of February is a federal holiday, but what should we call it? Read about the history of Washington’s Birthday here, via Wikipedia. Below is a portrait of George Washington by John … Continue reading →

I printed out Facebook’s terms of service (10 point font or smaller) and attached all the pages together into a single master document, eliminating all blank spaces. (The picture on the bottom shows the first page of this massive undertaking.) … Continue reading →

The cake pictured below was baked in honor of the great Dutch artist Piet Mondrian, whose abstract art “reached a point where his artistic vocabulary was reduced to simple geometric elements,” to quote from Wikipedia. (As an aside, both Abraham Lincoln and … Continue reading →

We have mixed feelings about “Black History Month.” On the one hand, joyous celebrations of so many great heroes (especially unsung heroes) are in order, but at the same time, such celebrations and remembrances should not be confined to a … Continue reading →