Link-O-Rama

• Allergy Death at School: When Do Morals Override Policy?: To be rule-bound is bad enough, but to be rule-bound to the point of allowing a child to die when you could easily prevent it... WOW.
  
• Politician's potentially incriminating conversation is live-tweeted by a reporter on a train: Newsflash: If you talk loudly on your cell in a public place, you're not having a private conversation!
  
• No Pet For You: Many rescue groups are making it nearly impossible for good people to adopt pets. All of my cats and dogs have been rescued, and I find that infuriating. Even a mediocre pet owner is better than living (or dying) in a shelter.
  
• Why Go to College At All?: If you want to learn, college is the last place you should go. A lot of learning isn't happening on college campuses." Too true. For more, see my webcast discussions of the value of a college degree and the value of a PhD.

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Link-O-Rama

• The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Talent Management Lessons from the NFL: Tom Stone takes a fresh look at talent management in the NFL, and applies those lessons to business.
  
• Scumbag Bison: Self-interest in humans means cooperation, production, and trade. Self interest in bison means running over the slow bison so that the the wolves eat him instead of you.
  
• Gingrich Ex: Newt Wanted an Open Marriage: I wouldn't give a damn about the private lives of politicians if they didn't attempt to regulate, control, and forbid choices that, by right, ought to be respected as each person's own.
  
• The 5 Stupidest Habits You Develop Growing Up Poor: This Cracked article is funny, insightful, and a bit sad.
  
• The Rise of the Female-Led Action Film: Here's an interesting look at action films that feature strong female leads, including why they're so rare. Ellen Ripley of the first two Aliens movies is one of my favorite characters in movies, hands down. If you like her, I'd also strongly recommend Panic Room: Jodie Foster is marvelously clear-headed, determined, and resourceful in defense of her values in utterly desperate circumstances.

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Link-O-Rama

• Auto-appendectomy in the Antarctic: In 1961, a Soviet doctor trapped in Antarctica performed an appendectomy on himself. No, really. (The author of the article was the son of the doctor in question.)
  
• Peter Cresswell on Ron Paul: Don't miss the discussion of Ron Paul's view of David Koresh's Branch Davidians as a "community of faith that ... believed the promise of free society." Then remember that the David Koresh was having sex with 13 and 14 year old girls, often with the permission of their parents. (The raid was a travesty, not because Koresh should have been permitted to rape these girls in peace, as Ron Paul seem to think, but because Koresh could and should have been arrested without such a deadly confrontation.)
  
• 18 years after Waco, Davidians believe Koresh was God: Speaking of those Branch Davidians, they're still nuts... but nuts on part with the early Christians who believed that the Messiah (who was supposed to be a mighty human figure of religious or political power) was crucified like a common criminal by the Romans, and that that Messiah was the literal son of God, yet also still God.
  
• Russia in color, a century ago: An amazing series of color (yes, color!) photographs from central and southern Russia 100 years ago.
  
• How (not) to communicate new scientific information: a memoir of the famous brindley lecture: The most amazing (and hysterical) report on a lecture on self-experimentation with curing erectile dysfunction. No, really... and NSFP (Not Safe For Prudes).

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Link-O-Rama

• Why Best Buy is Going out of Business...Gradually: It's all about pathetically crappy customer service!
  
• Why A Teen Who Talks Back May Have A Bright Future: "[Psychologist Joseph] Allen says almost all parents and teenagers argue. But it's the quality of the arguments that makes all the difference." (Via Hanah Volokh)
  
• This is why I don't give you a job: An entrepreneur from Hungary explains -- in horrible detail -- why regulations and taxes prevent him from hiring people.
  
• Dear Customer who stuck up for his little brother: A lovely story of a young man who stands up to his violence-threatening father in defense of his younger brother.

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Link-O-Rama

• Breastfeeding in Mongolia: I'm always fascinated by cultural differences on such optional issues, because it's a good way to challenge assumptions.
  
• NetFlix the Bully: A clever analysis of whether NetFlix is acting like a bully for its change in prices. I have no problem with anyone who decides to cancel or downgrade their membership, but let's not confuse "company that increased prices, which customers can choose to accept or decline" with "fifth grader beating the snot out of of a third grader for his lunch money."
  
• Religion in Harry Potter: Do J. K. Rowling's novels promote religion or undermine it? by Ari Armstrong, published in ESkeptic. The article begins...
  

  Given the runaway popularity of J. K. Rowling's novels and the related films, readers of the works, parents of readers, and those interested in cultural trends may wonder about the religious themes of the stories. Do the novels promote sorcery, as some conservative Christians allege? Do they instead endorse Christian notions of immortality, recapitulate the story of Christ's sacrificial love, and promote religious faith? Or is it a mistake to read any religious theme into these fantasy stories?

  ... and Ari does a great job of answering those questions.
  
• Career Versus Family by John Drake. Why and how career ought to take precedence.
  
• I Has a Sweet Potato. The hysterical story of a dog and his sweet potatoes... and a butternut squash. Yes, I did once catch Mae gnawing on a raw sweet potato in the kitchen. Happily, she prefers raw carrots.
  

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Link-O-Rama

• Gary Taubes has a new book -- Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It -- and he's got a blog to go along with it. He only has one substantial post Calories, fat or carbohydrates? Why diets work (when they do). It's on the poor methodology -- the failure to control variables -- in studies of nutrition. It's well worth reading, and here's a quick summary:
  

  So here’s the lesson, the moral of this story: before we assume that low-carbohydrate diets are just one tool in the dietary arsenal against overweight and obesity, and before we assume that everyone is different and that some of us lose weight and keep it off because we eat less fat (and more carbohydrates) and some because we cut carbs (and so eat maybe more fat), we should make an effort to understand the concept of controlling variables and look to see which variables are really changing and by how much. Because it’s quite possible that the only meaningful way to lose fat is to change the regulation of the fat tissue, and the science of fat metabolism strongly implies that the best way to do that, if not the only meaningful way, is by reducing the amount of carbohydrates consumed and/or improving the quality of those carbs we do consume.

  
  
• A pediatrician makes a case for giving probiotics to children on Kevin, MD.
  
• Hardships of a Nation Push Horses Out to Die: It's a story about abandoned horses in Ireland, and a sad follow-up to my post on the Perverse Effects of the Horse Slaughter Ban. For me, it's not merely the suffering of these fabulous animals, but the fact that so much equine potential is wasted.
  
• Finally, I'd be remiss not to show you this video demonstrating why fried gnocchi is a bad idea. (No one was hurt, and I love the guy's laughter!)
  
  

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Link-O-Rama

• Galt's Speech, as summarized by the "Philosophy Bro." I was even more amused by his version of Plato's Allegory of the Cave.
  
• The arbitrary search and seizure of laptops and cellphones before allowing American citizens to enter the United States is far, far worse than the invasive scans and pat downs that have attracted so much attention.
  
• In Nuclear Silos, Death Wears a Snuggie: A fascinating look at the lives of the soldiers who man America's missile silos.

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Link-O-Rama

• The Top 50 Gawker Media Passwords: People who have passwords like "password" deserve to be hacked.
  
• Universal Grade Change Form: Professors should include copies of this form in their syllabi, I think. That would save students the trouble of having to think up one of these "reasons" for themselves.
  
• Chrome: I recently switched from slow, bloated FireFox to Chrome, and my life is a thousand times better already. (Okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but I'm super-happy with Chrome.)
  
• Facebook Map of the World: Pretty nifty.
  
• Bureaucrats Hate Puppies: Only government bureaucrats would demand the removal of an attractive mural of dogs on a doggie day care building -- and only the Institute for Justice would fight for the rights of that business owner. For a quick overview of the case, watch the video.

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Link-O-Rama

Today I'm recovering from my fabulous weekend of skiing in Breckenridge, so for now, all you get is a few links to read. I do hope to post the podcast from last Sunday's Rationally Selfish Webcast later today.

• Trey Givens Hates on Thomas Kincade. And justly so.
  
• Danielle Morrill's Objectivism Website Index for October 2010. It's good to be #4!
  
• Bettina Romberg on her Atlas Shrugged Reading Group. Yay!

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Link-O-Rama

I'm off enjoying some fine winter sports in the mountains, so you can entertain yourself with these links. Just don't attempt to drink any liquids while reading the last one.

• Ultraviolet light reveals how ancient Greek statues really looked. I rather like them!
  
• If Historical Events had Facebook Statuses. Freaking awesome.
  
• 10 Most Popular "Damn You Auto Correct" entries for November. Of course, the funniest ones involve auto-corrects from ordinary words to sexual organs. My favorite concerned cleaning mom's china.

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Link-O-Rama

• Dogs Don't Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving. Completely hysterical.
  
• The Shadow Scholar. A man who wrote student papers for hire tells how he did it. It's depressing, but instructive.
  
• If Ikea Made Instructions for Everything. The baby-making was my favorite.
  
• The Man Who Launched a Blockbuster: "Previously unpublished emails show how Stieg Larsson set out to defy the conventions of the crime novel." It's an interesting read for fans of the novels.

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Productivity-O-Rama

• Twenty Ways to Stay Productive When Working at Home. Most of the advice applies to productivity across the board, not just when working at home.
  
  
• Trey Givens on Management Experience: My First Fail and Management Experience: This is How I Do It. (It's Friday Night). Yup, you can screw up completely, then learn to do better.
  
  
• What study methods actually work? Forget learning styles and teaching styles. Instead, try varying your physical context, switch between topics in any study session, and space out your sessions over time.

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Link-O-Rama

Ari Armstrong's Notes for Twitter Haters. Ari uses Twitter to great effect in his activism efforts. My purpose is different, but Twitter serves it well. You can follow us at @AriArmstrong and @DianaHsieh, respectively.

If only the US government would issue coins like these for the dollar, I'm sure that people wouldn't get them confused with the quarter!

The Afterlife of Stieg Larsson. It's a fascinating read.

See photos of the modern Afghanistan that was. Amazing, and tragic. (I've not read the article yet. No time!)

Stay away from the History Channel. Its "World War II" show is just so darn unrealistic! (Very funny.)

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Link-O-Rama

Lately, I've been enjoying the new podcast on parenting by Jenn Casey and Kelly Elmore: Cultivating the Virtues. I've listened to the first six episodes, and I love it! I love feeling like I'm eavesdropping on their conversations about parenting. You can subscribe in iTunes via this page.

Trey Givens tells a good story about Benevolence in a Free Society.

Kelly Elmore offers some great advice on finding potential romantic partners in Musing: Finding Romantic Prospects and Why It's Easy for Some and Not For Others and on recovering from mistakes in Parenting Toolbox: 3 Rs of Recovery.

An Open Letter to John Galt by Objectivist Richard Gleaves. Totally awesome.

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Link-O-Rama

If you've ever wanted to understand the differences between nerds, dorks, dweebs, and geeks, this diagram will help. I am solidly in the "geek" category -- or so I hope!

Earl Parson explains a small incident with big implications for social interactions.

Bowling Thunder has the best worst logo ever.

I don't plan to say anything about this bit of nonsense, as I've already said all that needs saying on the relevant OLists, except that Trey's analysis was spot-on and hysterical.

Dear People of London, What the heck were you smoking?!? Affectionately Yours, People of Earth

Too funny: LifeLock CEO's Identity Stolen 13 Times. The moron published his social security number in advertisements for his business of guaranteeing protecting against identity theft.

This review of a new biography of Jack London shows that his life really was similar to that of Martin Eden in some respects, as I suspected.

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Paleo-O-Rama

• Here's some interesting debate on the value of Vitamin A between Dr. Cannell of the Vitamin D Council and Chris Masterjohn writing for the Weston A. Price Foundation. Personally, I'm pretty solidly in the pro-cod-liver-oil camp with Masterjohn. I suspect that he's right on the science, and personally, I've seen huge improvements in my overall dental health thanks to cod liver oil. Even more remarkably, the inflamed and painful section of my gums from last summer's gum surgery is now only a tiny bit sensitive thanks to rubbing two drops of fermented cod liver oil on it every day or so.
  
• Dr. Kurt Harris on The Only Reasonable Paleo Principle: "a food being evolutionarily novel was a likely condition for it being an agent of disease, but that novelty was neither necessary nor sufficient for agent of disease status." See also The Paleolithic Principle: The Panu Version and Health and Evolutionary Reasoning: The PaNu Method. I don't always agree with Dr. Harris on particulars, and I have some disagreements with these posts too. However, I agree with his overall approach of "duplicating the evolutionary metabolic milieu," as well as his opposition to "paleo re-enactment." And bonus, even Mr. Grok himself, Mark Sisson, weighed in with a nice post on When Science Trumps Grok.
  
• I've begun experimenting with kefir-cheese. Fun!
  
• Ari Armstrong gave the Health Nanny Statists a well-deserved spanking.
  
• Ryan Koch discusses some complications with life expectancy data in Were Early Americans Really Living Shorter Lives?
  
• Yup, I'm pretty sure that the standard American diet has turned handsome, slender movie stars into ... well... something else. Good genes will only take you so far.
  
• I love the little "re-evolve" icon on this Paleo Brands web site. (I've not ordered any of their foods, so I can't vouch for them. They look yummy though.)
  
• I've been experimenting with sleeping in total darkness for the past few weeks, so I'm particularly curious to read about studies like this one, even if only on mice: Artificial Light at Night Disrupts Cell Division.
  
• Grrrr. A few weeks ago, Whole Foods has decided to stop carrying raw milk nationwide. From what I understand, their insurance carrier refused to cover it. So I don't blame them too much, but I wish it were otherwise.
  
• Here's some good advice on keeping it simple in the kitchen. You don't need that fancy emulsifier to make salad dressing, just shake a mason jar.

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Link-O-Rama

World's Largest Dam Can Be Seen From Space. Need I say more? Oh yes, I do: it was found via Google Earth.

Twitter jokes on trial: how one tweet turned a man into a criminal. It's yet another sign of the creep toward totalitarianism in the west.

Okay, I'm convinced. The best way to get back at a company that screws you over is with a catchy song: United Breaks Guitars

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Link-O-Rama

Simply amazing and frightful picture of the volcano -- you know, Eyjafwhatever -- in Iceland. More amazing pictures are here.

A fascinating line graph of Pew's "Public Trust in Government" polls since 1958. (Via The Agitator.)

Two articles that I haven't had time to read yet, but they looked interesting: Who Needs Mathematicians for Math, Anyway? and Science and Statistics.

The Floating Dog. Too funny.

Odd but true: Even the KKK repudiates the Westboro Baptist Church.

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Paleo-O-Rama

Go check out last week's edition and yesterday's edition of The Paleo Rodeo!

My paleo buddy Richard Nikoley of Free the Animal was recently interviewed by Jimmy Moore. I listened to it a few days ago, and I discovered that I'd been pronouncing his name wrong since forever. (It's nick-o-lie not nick-o-lee.) As Paul said when I told him, "I really object to people having names that aren't pronounced like they sound."

Dr. Eades hit the ball out of the park with Dining Out and Bad Fats. It starts with a funny story of restaurant disaster -- and ends with an alarming look at what you're ingesting when you dine out. It's bad enough that canola oil -- with that delectable "antifoaming agent" -- is standard for salad dressings and light frying. That's a good dose of pro-inflammatory omega-6 polyunsaturated fats, plus some artificial trans fats. Even worse is the partially hydrogenated canola oil used for deep fat frying. With that, you get omega-6s oxidized by the high heat, as well as a whopping dose of artificial trans fats.

Before we switched to a paleo diet, Paul and I used to eat out pretty regularly, maybe once or twice per week. Now we eat dinner out maybe once or twice per month, usually at some social function. We eat so much better -- meaning tastier, healthier, cheaper, and quicker -- as a result.

Dr. Kurt Harris explains how the body regulates fat with The Best Analogy Ever: Insulin is a doorman at the fat cell nightclub, not a lock on the door.

A few weeks ago, I opened and ate my first young coconut. I bought it from Whole Foods, and it was quite delicious. Despite the super-annoying music, the instructions on this site were indispensable.

Rotten Tomatoes: Scandal strikes the tomato-paste industry. Personally, I would prefer my tomato paste not to be "a bit moldy."

Gene research reveals fourth human species: "A fourth type of hominid, besides Neanderthals, modern humans and the tiny "hobbit", was living as recently as 40,000 years ago, according to research published in the journal Nature. ... The identification of a fourth species is potentially more significant because it was not an isolated population but lived in the centre of the Eurasian continent, where Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens were also present."

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Link-O-Rama

Ari Armstrong has put together an uber-cool version of his excellent book on Values of Harry Potter for the Kindle. You can read all about it -- and then go buy it!

How does government stifle innovation in America? Let me count the ways... starting with the FTC's shutdown of the second NetFlix Prize. Un-freaking-believable.

Will Religious Conservatives Hijack the Tea Party Movement? by Harry Binswanger

John Drake has a wonderful post on living a value-dense life. (I'm pleased to say that he was inspired by my post on value-dense buying.) I love his description of his choice to marry a woman a packed with value for him! That's what Paul is for me too!

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