Highly linkable

Back from bi-coastal travel with a backlog of blogs to write. Let's start with some links to get us caught up:

What is probably most amazing about this is that we don't find it as amazing as it is. (HT: Steven Landsburg)

Art Carden is demanding action "FOR THE CHILDREN" a la, Helen Lovejoy, in this first of what will perhaps become an on-going series (there have been three posts in this meme so far).

The United States is incredibly and perhaps paradoxically wealthy.

Caplan shows how Game of Thrones makes the case for pacifism.

The EA Sports proposed settlement in the on-going legal battle between college players and the NCAA cartel is a both a win for the players as well as a win for consumers as pointed out by Sports Law Blog's Rick Karcher. Probability of a strike or other work-stoppage demonstration is rising. A couple of years ago it was rumoured that a team in the NCAA March Madness tournament was planning on a demonstration including perhaps refusal to play if they made the Final Four. The team was eliminated in the Elite Eight round.

Posts like this one make me understand why I relate to Scott Sumner. Perhaps I should discount somewhat my agreement with his views on monetary policy fearing I have an unconscious bias.

Is the magnitude of U.S. gun violence evidence of civil war warranting international intervention? I think not so much. This article is hyperbolic and the arguments within fallacious I believe.  I found the biggest problem with the lumping of suicide deaths by firearms, accident deaths, and violent crime deaths. Those are quite different subjects. Attacking firearms is attacking the particular method and not the underlying conditions. Crimes aided by guns and accidents are the cost side. The benefit side, crimes reduced or prevented (including government-committed) and the joy of gun ownership, is completely ignored. But the article was thought-provoking, nonetheless.