prior probability

My “Leibniz Conspiracy” paper was recently featured on Professor Larry Solum’s popular “Legal Theory Blog.” See here.

Via Kottke (links in the original): “The Cornell Lab of Ornithology recently added the ability to identify birds from hearing their birdsong to their Merlin Bird ID app — a “Shazam for bird songs” as Fast Company says. You just start recording with your phone and the app starts telling you the birds it’s hearing.” You can download the bird-song app here.

Before going on my working vacation last week, I picked up a copy of Stephen Budiansky’s new intellectual biography of Kurt Goedel, Journey to the Edge of Reason (W. W. Norton), which came out in May of this year, as well as a copy of Samuel Fleischacker’s new book about Adam Smith’s moral philosophy, Adam Smith (Routledge), which came out in mid-July.

I have already finished reading the Goedel biography, of which I will have many things to say in some future blog posts (not the least of which is the fact that Budiansky cites my paper “Goedel’s Loophole” in chapter 8 of his book!), and I have just started reading Fleischacker’s Adam Smith biography. Among the statements in Fleischacker’s book that caught my attention is this one on page 3:

“… Smith never married, nor is he known to have had so much as a single love affair.”

I respectfully beg to differ, however, for the reasons I give in my March 2021 paper “Adam Smith in Love,” the final version of which is available here (via Econ Journal Watch). Although Smith instructed his literary executors to destroy his private correspondence upon his death, a careful review of the remaining available evidence suggests that he may have had multiple loves during his lifetime — one in the Scotland of his youth with the “Lady of Fife,” another in France in 1765 or 1766 with one Madame Nicole, and yet another in Dalkeith House (pictured below) with a young aristocrat in the fall of 1767.

Stop the madness! Why is Disney World in Orlando, Florida making us wear masks outdoors on the attractions, even on the Kali River Rapids ride(!) in Animal Kingdom?

Happy Birthday, Adys Ann! As I patiently explain in my paper “Lockdowns as Takings” (available here via SSRN), in place of unlawful eviction moratoria or ad hoc stimulus checks, our political leaders should have remained resolute and faithful to our first constitutional principles from the start. How? By requiring the payment of just compensation to all “non-essential” workers whose labor rights were taken under State and local lockdown orders. After all, as John Locke taught us long ago, labor is not only a form of property; it is the source of all other property rights. #LaborIsProperty #RuleOf Law

Happy 8th Birthday Adys Ann!

On this day (August 5) in 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired 11,345 air traffic controllers who had gone on strike and banned them from federal employment for life — a ban that was eventually rescinded during President Bill Clinton’s first year in office. Gary Leff has posted this history of the ill-fated air traffic controllers strike of 1981.

Here is an excerpt from Leff’s excellent post (View from the Wing): “August 3-5, 1981 were a remarkable set of days in U.S. aviation. Negotiations between the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and the air traffic controllers union broke down in 1981. The union, the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, wanted to reduce work hours to 32 and wanted a $10,000 raise for each controller. The FAA offered 11.4% a year raises for 3 years, which was more than double what was offered to other federal employees. No reduced work week was offered.”

According to Leff, “The government managed to get air system capacity up to 50%, enough not to have to capitulate politically to the strikers. Without flights, the administration would have been under tremendous pressure to agree to terms. Some military controllers were used, along with air traffic control supervisors, and other employees to restore air service capacity. It took 10 years for staffing levels to be fully restored.”

Given the cover-up of the Wuhan lab-leak, the crack-down against the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, and the atrocities in Xinjang province, why the heck are we still trading with China?

I stumbled upon this book — Jon Knetsch, Florida’s Seminole Wars, 1817-1858 (2003) — at The Book Loft on Amelia Island.