Archive for January, 2013

A Really Inconvenient Truth

From Arnold Kling’s blog, here’s something to ponder. This year’s Edge Question is what people should worry about. John Tooby answers, The average G-type star shows a variability in energy output of around 4%. Our sun is a typical G-type star, yet its observed variability in our brief historical sample is only 1/40th of this. When or […]

Herbalife – A Case History In Bad Due Diligence

That all of the banter about Herbalife is of passingly little significance is a foregone conclusion. Whether Mr. Ackman’s short and subsequent publicity campaign to force Herbalife’s stock price adhere to his reality and thus endow him with further billions works out will in due time be decided. As of now it looks as if […]

Adventures In Class Action Suits

From PointofLaw.com here is an interesting case of a defendant and the tort bar gaming the system. Southwest gives away “premium drink” (i.e., “beer”) coupons worth $5 to customers who buy a Business Select ticket. Of course, not everyone drinks, and half of the coupons are thrown away. After giving out 11 million or so […]

Death Panels Belgian Style

Out of my normal sphere of blogging but I find this chilling. Two deaf twin brothers in Belgium were euthanized by their doctor after realizing they were going blind and would be unable to see each other ever again, their physician says. The 45-year-old men, whose names have not been made public, were legally put to death […]

The Fiscal Cliff Compromise

Well at least you can watch the bowl games without worry today. We have a grand bargain to avert the fiscal cliff, or at least we have what passes for a grand bargain in these meager times. Ezra Klein has the tiny details. Greg Mankiw puts the current thrust of fiscal reform in perspective. The […]