Rants, Raves, and Guns

This week's Rants and Raves: on gambling in Massachussets, on the irrelevance of motivation to the evaluation of a position, on people responding to incentives in health care consumption, and on "the end of men."

Also, if you did not see it, I highly recommend Marcus Cole's post entitled "A Word of Thanks to Four Black Men and a Gun."

O to Be in Academia

Sometimes when I tell people outside of academia about things that go on inside of it, they don't believe me. Here is one of the true stories they have a hard time believing.

Taxes and Incentives

It is not exactly a newsflash that people respond to incentives. But two recent, dramatic illustrations of this truism--relating to LeBron James and to the impending reinstatement of the estate tax--lead me to make a radical tax suggestion.

American Independence

I took the family to visit Mount Vernon and Arlington National Cemetery in observance of the 234th anniversary of the signing of the American Declaration of Independence. A noteworthy difference between the two places, and watching the awesome precision of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknowns, lead me to draw a few lessons about American independence.

Longevity; Kagan

1. If you could find out, with a 77% accuracy, whether your genes contain the series of markers that would allow you to live to 100, would you?

2. There isn't much to go on in evaluating Elena Kagan, but I think we can make a few inferences.