Legalize Sports Cheating

John Tierney and Megan McArdle argue that we should let athletes use whatever performance enhancing drugs they want since some will cheat regardless of the rules and because our definition of "fair" competition evolves over time. The response to that, though, is obvious: many of these drugs are dangerous and legitimating them all but mandates them.  John, an early commenter on ...

The Illogic of Empire

Regarding the situation in Georgia, Megan McArdle writes:Another way to look at the question is: are we going to allow Russia to reassemble the old Russian empire? At its heart, that's what this is about. Maybe we should; maybe it's none of our business who Russia decides to invade, or what puppet governments they decide to prop ...

American Olympic Favoritism

Megan McArdle offers a defense of Americans from the charge that Americans are only interested in Olympic sports in which Americans are strong medal contenders, noting that we're a large country with established team sports loyalty and so forth.  It's all true. More fundamentally, though, I reject the premise that Americans' America-centric view of sports is problematic.  As Sir Paul McCartney, ...

Hell or New York City

A debate about the relative desirability of city and suburban living is spreading through the blogosphere at a surprising clip, given the timelessness of the topic.   It began, as best I can determine, by Duncan "Atrios" Black (a PhD economist) explaining that there are tradeoffs to having a big yard. [I]f everyone has a big yard the community ceases to be ...

Protesting the Protest Letter

John Cochrane's July 12 fisking of a letter from his University of Chicago colleagues protesting the creation of a Milton Friedman Institute has finally made its way around the interwebs to yours truly via Steve Bainbridge.  (Megan McArdle and Tyler Cowen had weighed in previously but they fell through the cracks of my RSS reading.) Cochrane's critique is worth reading in ...

Ectogenesis Questions

Bryan Caplan discusses the phenomenon of "ectogenesis," whereby babies would be conceived via artificial insemination and then grown in an artificial incubation tank rather than the mother's womb.  He asks, 1. If this technology were safe and effective, what fraction of prospective parents would pay an extra $10,000 to avoid pregnancy? 2. If insurance covered ectogenesis, what fraction of mothers would ...

Blogging’s Glass Ceiling, Or Why Baby Poop Don’t Get No Respect

A Sunday NYT piece about the BlogHer convention begins, FOR two days last week, many of the men’s bathrooms at the Westin St. Francis Hotel here were turned into women’s bathrooms. The stalls on the second floor were lined with note cards featuring nurturing messages like “You are perfect.” Nearby, women were being dusted with blush and eye shadow, ...

The Great Catholic Cracker Caper

Sometimes, Freud told us, a cigar is just a cigar.  Sometimes, though, it's a cracker. Apparently, there's a huge wave (that's media speak for at least two similar incidents) of people using Roman Catholic communion wafers for something other than their intended spiritual purpose.  Earlier this month, it a University of Central Florida student: Webster Cook says that, instead of eating a ...

Can’t Peddle 55

Megan McArdle argues that drivers who exceed the speed limit in their cars have no right to get angry at bikers who run stop signs and red lights, weave in and out of traffic, and otherwise ignore traffic laws.  Plus, because bikes are smaller and slower, they're not going to cause any harm: The reason cops don't ticket bikers when they ...

iPhone Mania

Megan McArdle and Peter Suderman camped out overnight in front of a Washington, DC Apple store in order to be among the first to get one of the new iPhones.  Megan assures us that this is a mere sociological exercise for her: "I feel no desperate urge to get my hands on one of the VERY FIRST 3G IPHONES, but ...