Piketty pointed out in Capital in the 21st Century (and I’m forgetting who else he is quoting in this) that taxes themselves can be used as tools for uncovering flows of money.  Foreign governments will use a new American tax to help discover assets by their own citizens and companies that they can themselves tax.  An…

How do you imagine people have lived ever since they have become sedentary? Tightly packed villages, no less dense than the major cities people live in now. Non-agrarian societies centered around pastorialism and/or hunting? Tightly-packed camps that are easy to defend. Humanity is defined by our proximity to other…

It’s pretty good information, and it might make the point I had intended to make. The Athabaskan people who lived in this area were only sedentary in winter. They lived in groups and survived by hunting and trapping, activities that required mobility because they couldn’t get enough resources by staying in one spot.

Sometimes you can go on a trail that is really above your skill level, provided conditions are ideal.  Fording a braided river isn’t really an ideal condition, and that’s been one of the big causes for rescue operations on that trail since the book and the movie.

I always wonder if the people who do this journey really consider how far outside of humanity it’s taking them. You think of some idealized past human who could live off the land and be self sufficient, but the reality is that humans have been parts of societies since before they could be recognized as being human.…

You can get a doctor to prescribe drugs for your infertility, since they typically won’t cause harm. But everything they would prescribe would either be a testosterone supplement or a testosterone booster. The two most commonly prescribed treatments are actually indicated for female infertility and male hypogonadism…

Male fertility drugs are pretty much snake oil. The only thing they try to do, with inconsistent results, is increase testosterone ratio. It’s the same goal as actual doping. 

Whether she’s courting it or not, she’s getting a lot of suspicious traffic from automated accounts, which peaked after the first debate. It certainly looks like the interference campaign is using her in some way. 

I’m cynical enough to think that the Wu diva campaign is instigated by someone who would directly benefit.  She's definitely not the only diva in Hollywood. It reminds me of wide receivers in football, who by their nature should want the ball on every play, but get branded as bad teammates when it's time to renew…

I don’t tip for good service, but because I respect the dignity of the people who serve my food.  Hence it doesn’t much matter to me whether it goes to one server entirely or gets split among them -- the latter sounds more fair given my motivation for tipping.  Plus tips are taxable; you are supposed to self report…

It’s not healthy for the cat to get suddenly thrown like that — moreso with some surfaces than than with others. I had an apartment with polished concrete floors and it really didn’t do much good for the cats.

People get cynical about the flu shot because it’s impossible to get it 100% right on which strain to immunize, but it’s way better than nothing. Even Tamiflu can do nothing other than reduce the misery, at best. 

I always crack up at seeing Great Gatsby parties where people emulate the elegant debauchery of Gatsby’s parties. Even Fitzgerald’s friends didn’t get the point when he originally wrote it. One of his exes told him she was flattered that he included her in the novel, and his response was “Which bitch do you think you…

Schenectady?

It could have in fact been “just the flu”.  I keep realizing as I get older that the flu, bronchitis, and pneumonia I had when I was younger was a lot more dangerous than I realized.  Now that I’m a dad it’s somehow more terrifying to realize how close any of us are to the end.

“It takes the human influence out of the game!”

She make even more people angry by insisting that The Last Jedi is the best of the Star Wars movies, even though it is. 

It would be 1 million people in a traffic jam.  

Game 7 for the Blues was good physical play.  The rest was head hunting, and Deadspin was a big fan of those Bruins taking the beating on behalf of Patriots fans.

They were pretty solidly behind the Blues in the Stanley Cup. I would say they are against head injuries when it suits them.