Tag: General nonsense

Whenever I write about foreign policy, religion, or science, the criticisms I get most often are along the lines of “Leave it to the experts. You don’t know anything about foreign policy/religion/science.” I always chuckle inside when I read that sort of comment. First, it must be noted that I…

If you could vote for a president of the United States who would be excellent in solving one issue, yet only average in every other area, what one issue would you want him/her to solve? Assume the president isn’t magic, so the solution has to be something entirely feasible even…

In the United States, we have freedom of speech, in the sense that the government won’t arrest you for speaking your mind. Yay for freedom! But your fellow citizens will happily ruin your economic life if you say something unpopular in public. Some might say that has nothing to do…

If you love your country, and you wish someone would kill me, vote for Scott Adams as a write-in for president of the United States. If elected, it’s a virtual certainty I’ll get assassinated, but not before I solve every problem in the United States. And by our excellent example,…

When you have a working knowledge of economics, it’s like having a mild super power. For example, I use my knowledge of economics to avoid speeding tickets. I assume the local law enforcement agencies have limited funding and can’t be everywhere at the same time. That tells me, fairly reliably,…

People often ask me to predict how long newspapers can survive in the Internet age. Ten years ago I believed newspapers would last another five years. Clearly I am not qualified to make this sort of prediction. But being unqualified has never dampened my enthusiasm for publicly embarrassing myself. I…

When you publish your e-mail address, you hear from a lot of interesting people. Some time ago I got a message from a guy who said something about having a four-sentence proof of God. I must have replied that I’d like to see it. Anyway, he sent it. I deleted…

After my recent post on Bill Maher’s show Real Time, and his interview with the author of the book “Cool It,” Bjorn Lomborg, I got a lot of interesting reactions. But first, some corrections. I referred to Lomborg as an economist because that’s how he was introduced on Real Time….

Yesterday I asked you to suggest a punch line for a Dilbert comic that was better than “Sometimes the best you can do is move the turd to another pocket.” I promised I’d tell you what I had come up with on my own, so you can compare your entries…

Anything you learn changes your brain. That’s the point of learning. And different types of learning strengthen different parts of your brain. For example, learning math changes your brain in a different way from learning art, or learning to juggle. I studied economics in college. One thing I’ve noticed is…

I was reading an article about the little hobbit-like creatures discovered in Indonesia. I couldn’t help notice that the article uses the abbreviation “H. Erectus” instead of the full name Homo Erectus. This is presumably to prevent jokes about why we don’t see any of them around these days. http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1230409.htm…

Yesterday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad went to Columbia University and asked Israel to bomb his country. At least that’s how it sounded to me. Meanwhile, the President of Columbia hurled personal insults at the leader of a soon-to-be-nuclear power and strengthened their reasons for wanting us dead. I wonder if…

This post will come off sounding argumentative, but I don’t intend it that way. It’s based on a genuine curiosity. After reading the comments to my posts for the past few days, it’s clear that people fall into some interesting categories. This made me wonder who gets to decide when…

In reading the comments to my post yesterday, I see that many of you were confused about my positions. Evidently all of you are brilliant, so I assume the problem is on my end. With your indulgence, allow me to clarify. 1. I am not happy that Hitler killed your…