Sex With 21 Women

Loyal readers (are any of you left?):   my significant other and I frequently debate causal reasoning, as she's more prone to jump from correlation to cause than am I.  Hence I was hopeful that this article would create opportunities.  However, she saw the flaw in my post hoc inference, and put the kabosh on any hopes in that direction.

On the plus side,  I will avoid brutal punishments!

How to Run a University

Megan McCardle in a recent blogpost reminds us about the importance of communication, especially from one's critics. A group is always wiser when it is open to the give-and-take of debate.  Large bureaucracies would do well to remember this.   I especially think this is true in universities, where we all think we know best, but we need people with bladders hitting us on the head to do our work effectively.

Government's Pernicious Effect on Culture

So now we know who's to blame!   (h/t Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution)

Get Konnected with The Kronies Action Figures

(h/t Popehat)

Why one should be a Pyrrhonist

A little dose of skepticism can be a good thing, as detailed here.

Bobcats

Say what you will about the Bobcats and their organization, but if the season ended today, Charlotte would be in the playoffs!  [the bar is pretty low in the Eastern Conference.]

The Brilliance of Plato

Plato always manages to surprise me.  Today I was preparing for class tomorrow, where we'll be discussing Plato's Crito.  In this dialogue, Crito tries to convince Socrates to break out of jail and run off to Thessaly.  Socrates refuses based on his duties to Athens. 

What I hadn't noticed until today:  at the beginning of the dialogue, Socrates talks about a dream in which the goddess tells him:  "The third day hence, to Phthia shalt thou go." (trans. by Jowett)  Both Socrates and Crito take this to mean that Socrates won't die until the next day (the third day from the dream).  I had never looked up "Phthia," assuming it's a mythical place where the dead go.  According to Wikipedia, Phthia is a town in Thessaly! Hence, Socrates has already committed to going to Thessaly.   The quote above is from the Iliad, where Achilles speaks the line; translated, Achilles says "I'm going home."  And as Plato indicates, so is Socrates, just in a different way than Crito imagines.