Dude stays standing. Hardcore.

I for one welcome our new reclusive amish robotic overlords.

Quoting threep: Dude stays standing. Hardcore.

For real. I'm fairly certain nobody in the history of BHTV has ever seemed to have more fun during an episode than Reighan does in this. He is, as my granny would say, "a hoot."

Dude, Reihan is smart as hell. I like this guy a lot.

It's good to hear these BHeads talking about the consequences of sanctions in Burma. We need to have this conversation in general, since sanctions are often considered a more "humane" way to pressure for regime change or human rights. Whether in Gaza , Iraq or Burma sanctions are, in my view, an act of violence -- the deliberate infliction of poverty, deprivation and death --- albeit indirectly. Sanctions are to real killing wars as enhanced interrogation techniques (waterboarding) are to torture. In other words, it's a slippery slope that goes from hideous to worse.

jim pinkerton is with the huckabee campaign...but ross douthat is still hanging when he's not over at _the table_

as i once argued to r. salam, assortative mating is a nice way to get around the dysgenic trends which have characterized our society for the past century. that is, if you can't increase allele frequencies correlated with intellectual creativity, just redistribute the gene pool so that the ones you want tend to clump together....

also, k. howely + w. wilkinson = disassortative every-which-way....

I love these guys. What a delightful, unpredictable talk.

The fertility decline is, IMO, as serious and impactful an issue as global warming, if not more so, yet it receives very little attention. And few believe it because of the overpopulation warnings that so many of us heard and absorbed as truth not so long ago. Envisioning the future consequences of the economic and social impact of declining fertility is the stuff nightmares are made of. The fact that the right first claimed this as an issue is no reason for the left to dismiss it. I believe that who "owns" this issue has significant implications for the solutions that are sought. There are serious issues here, and they are not just related to the matter of conceiving and giving birth, which technology can address, but to the matter of raising children - especially the matter of who does it and at what opportunity cost. In every nation, greater women's education and empowerment equals lower fertility rates. What does this say about the comparative rewards of raising children? Society needs to lower the opportunity cost to women of having children if, as a society, we want to have more of

Reihan is very charming -- and interesting. I have not figured out his politics very thoroughly yet. I hope he'll return often.
Reihan at one point makes the point that a premature monogamy leads to problems. I recall my grandmother making a similar point. She was definitely raised in a more sexually conservative age and I'm sure was a good girl when young. But she told me that in her day you would dance (and flirt) with many partners when you were young -- no rush to "go steady." She seemed to feel that this low-level promiscuity helped to make the decision to get married a much more deliberative decision.
Of course, she was contrasting her own age with that of my parents. I thought kids nowadays were all hooking up all the time.

Reihan Salam's wry substantiveness is every post-grad's dream. Please bring him back.

Agreed. Will Wilkinson the antinationalist has intelligently analogized 'citizenship' to a country club membership. At birth we're randomly assigned a country club of vastly disparate worth. But having been dealt a high-worth membership, for selfish reasons I want to safeguard and enhance my own club & club membership. An altruist might then argue 'this is a sham--let's abolish all country clubs' or 'let's take various actions to undermine country clubs,' and I'm not sure whether that's Kerry Howley's and/or Will Wilkinson's position. But it seems to me that, acknowledging the unfairness of the country club lottery, one still might not agree that the abolish/undermine goal is the best. Maybe we can lend a helping hand to those in low-value country clubs while simultaneously working to upgrade our own club--by taking action to prevent people from illegally gaining membership to our club, i.e. I read Kerry's superb recent Reason piece and thought a Singapore-style program of bringing in foreign workers [for strictly time-limited stints] to the US might make a lot of sense. But politically no one will be able to move such a plan forward when massive illegal immigration continues at its current

The exchange between these two was sub-par. They brought up articles and topics without any sort of backfill or introduction and rarely bothered to defend their opinions with anything like evidence. Must try harder.

See my comments here: reason.com/blog/show/124589.html ("Click 'n' Learn")
reason.com/blog/show/124909.html ("Click 'n' Learn")
reason.com/blog/show/124105.html ("TLB") Summary: she continually promotes open borders, using only smears and a first-level financial argument, without even acknowledging the massive non-financial impacts of what she promotes. The only good thing about her is that she's helping drag Reason even further down.

A very witty satirical piece.

I demand a blogalogue between Reihan's left eyebrow and his right!