• Rather my intent is to encourage those on the left to maintain their principles, to not accept a little imperialism abroad in exchange for some paltry “reform” at home. If violence is what you abhor, then by definition the state – the greatest purveyor of it – is what you should oppose, even when the man dropping the bombs casts himself as a worldly liberal rather than a Texas hick.

    —false dichotomy by charles davis: Why can’t we be friends?

  • Vodka, as a category, is full of liars. A rudimentary understanding of how a column still works will tell you the much-hyped ‘number of times distilled’ is completely meaningless. The filtration techniques are a means of hiding poor craftsmanship in the distillation, and they remove anything that might have been interesting to taste or smell from the spirit. The vast majority of ‘hand-crafted’ vodkas are actually rectified spirit purchased and processed — people selling themselves as artisanal craftsman are buying tankloads of industrial spirit from the same same factories that supply perfumers and chemical makers, running it through their little copper still a few times, passing it through charcoal to try to get the esters out, and calling it hand-made.

    —

    A civilized person, unless their tastebuds have been destroyed by the frozen Siberian air, has absolutely (absolutly?) no reason to spend his hard-earned cash on vodka.

    (via jwz)

  • There are two states of the world, full F and hungry H. The state is known to the agent/child but the principal/parent does not know the state. The agent has private information. How does the principal work out the true state? Offer the agent another french fry. If it is accepted, the true state is H – he is truly hungry and only pretending to be full. If he refuses, it is F and the chips he had earlier filled him up. Of course you have to know your kids to determine which food product separates or screens the two states.

    —Incentive Compatibility: French Fry Edition « Cheap Talk