Balloons over New Mexico...

Balloons over New Mexico...  You'll definitely want to watch this one full screen...

Employment in America: WTF is going on?

Employment in America: WTF is going on?  Interesting rant from a headhunter, with some elements strongly resonating with my dimly-remembered corporate days (where I often recruited people)...

Well, duh!

Well, duh!  Doctors prescribe more of the most profitable therapies.  Does this really surprise anyone?  Incentives work!  The tricky part is to get the incentives lined up with the desired outcomes – which ObamaCare does even more poorly than what preceded it.  Real health care reform would take care of that by putting consumers in charge of their choices...

A nice “Halloween nebula”...

A nice “Halloween nebula”...  From APOD, of course!  Full resolution pic here.

The incredible shrinking workforce...

The incredible shrinking workforce...  William Galston, writing at The Wall Street Journal on the shrinking labor force participation rate, especially for men.  This is a very worrisome trend, especially when the U.S. looks so much worse than other countries...

21 of the best insults by classical composers...

21 of the best insults by classical composers...  Some of these are hysterical!

Geek! /dev/null as a service...

Geek!  /dev/null as a service...  Heh!

How the left distorts gun injury figure...

How the left distorts gun injury figure...  An excellent take-down. 

It should be noted, though, that political activists on all sides of any given question are prone to doing the same.  One of the biggest challenges for anyone seeking objective truth on one of these questions is sorting through the various statistics.  Megan McArdle is my favorite go-to person on such matters; she has the skills and the intellectual honesty required...

ObamaCare roundup...

ObamaCare roundup...  The blogosphere – and even some mainstream media – is in full rant over the ObamaCare roll-out debacle.  Here are some I found most interesting, or entertaining (and often both!):

A lie is just a truth that wasn't precise enough (NeoNeocon)
ObamaCare girl has disappeared (NeoNeocon)
Obama's big lie (NeoNeocon)
Obama lied for you, not to you (NeoNeocon)
I was very wrong to defend ObamaCare these past four years (Ace)
NBC throws its reporter under the bus (Ace)
Games incompetent people play (Ace)
How the Obama administration made sure people couldn't keep their plans (National Review)
Another story the media is missing (Ace)
Why won't the GOP let us have a normal debate? (Jonah Goldberg) [a fine rant!]
Why Obama's lie is so infuriating (Patterico)
Can we call Democrats the “Stupid Party” now? (Ricochet)
Democrats: the Gullible Party?  (Ricochet)
The ObamaCare Awakening (Wall Street Journal)
Questions for Secretary Sebelius (Peggy Noonan)

Rush Limbaugh's new book is #1 on Amazon...

Rush Limbaugh's new book is #1 on Amazon...  The book (Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims) is aimed at older children, the kind of book you wouldn't expect to hit #1 overall unless it was of Harry Potter caliber.  I haven't read the book, so I don't know if that's the case.  My first thought on seeing that rating was that it was a hopeful sign – maybe parents, believing that some of Limbaugh's conservative views would find their way into the book, would buy it for their kids in the hopes of educating them a bit.  Then I went and read the reviews, which are largely either 5 stars or 1 star.  The 5 star reviews mainly say the book's content isn't political, but is entertaining and historically accurate.  The 1 star reviews are overtly the same kind of mouth-breathing ad hominem attacks you expect from lefty trolls.

So I'm not at all sure what it means to see this book at #1 ... but somehow it still feels hopeful :-)