Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Things in China got off to a rough start: President Barack Obama downplayed dust-ups involving the U.S. delegation and Chinese security officials during the opening hours of his trip to Hangzhou for the G-20 summit, but said Sunday the U.S. would not apologize for its efforts to expand media access in the country. "We don’t …
Continue reading "If You Want to Support Press Freedom, Start At Home"
Megan McCardle has a great revelation, now that Obamacare is in serious trouble: Here’s my radical plan: If the Obamacare exchanges are going to result in, at best, people being able to buy Medicaid-style plans with limited choices and benefits, then why not just eliminate the middleman and give them … Medicaid? Where was she …
Continue reading "Waking Up Too Late on Medicaid Expansion and "Fixing" Obamacare"
In this case literally, as can be see in the CCTV video linked here. It's a classic example of a problem called subsidence. When cities expand, the water delivery systems often lag, which means that people use well water. Many wells result in the lowering of the water table, which in turn results in the …
It's nice to mark milestones, so ten years ago today Positive Infinity began its migration (it took some time to complete it) to a WordPress blog. The post that announced it is here and you can catch up on some of the history up to that point. I want to look at two things: what's …
As the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland is doing: The Church’s wooing of the SNP is largely to blame. It started when Cardinal Winning clashed with the then Labour Executive over their social liberalism. Winning and many of the other people in charge convinced themselves that the nationalists were going to be more onside on issues like abortion. There was absolutely …
Continue reading "When the Social Justice Warriors Get in Their Own Way"
As we start another football season, it's good to pause and look back at those who have hit the field, lead others to do so, or both. Nearly two score and two conferences back, Texas A&M's coach was Tom Wilson, who led the Aggies to victory in the 1981 Independence Bowl. This week Coach Wilson …
Continue reading "What's Really Important When You Hit the Field"
It may seem an odd time to do a pseudo-graduation piece. Obviously the University of Tennessee thinks so: this weekend I am supposed to officially receive my PhD degree, but the university, having spent a great deal of money on a new, traditional looking quad, doesn't do an August graduation ceremony, with a graduation speech …
Continue reading "Advice to Graduates: The Two Promises I Made to Myself"
The Guardian laments the sameness of the "new" look: It’s no accident that these places look similar. Though they’re not part of a chain and don’t have their interior design directed by a single corporate overlord, these coffee shops have a way of mimicking the same tired style, a hipster reduction obsessed with a superficial …
Continue reading "Hey Hipsters, Like the Industrial Look? We've Got the Site For You!"
That's what Uber and others have found out the hard way in China: “Uber’s approach to markets around the world has been fairly arrogant,” from flouting local taxi regulations to threatening to sabotage media critics by digging up personal dirt, says Zennon Kapron, managing director of Shanghai-based consulting firm Kapronasia. “But arrogance is a very difficult …
Continue reading "It's Hard to Humble Americans, But It Can Be Done"
My mother used to tell her unretentive sons that geese "get up in a new world every morning." While I can't speak to geese, that's certainly a problem with our press: Pope Francis has created a commission to study the possibility of allowing women to serve as deacons in the Catholic church, following up on …
Continue reading "Women Deacons in the Catholic Church? Not the First Time They've Thought About It"
Positive Infinity 