Kieran Healy

Romney and the Land Beyond the Sea

Two examples from what I hope will be an ongoing series:

1. At the annual Miami-Dade Lincoln Day Dinner (for our overseas readers, that translates as “South Florida, right-wing Republicans”), he ended his speech with the stirring phrase, “¡Patria o muerte, venceremos!” Somehow, Romney missed out on knowing that that phrase—“Fatherland or death, we shall overcome!”—has […]

Ready.gov or Not

Oddly, 3quarksdaily links to a parody of ready.gov as though it had only recently appeared. Here’s a post of mine from almost exactly four years ago about this. (Four years! Jaysus.) It was one of the earliest bits of blogging I did that got a some circulation. Rereading it now, I think the narrative it […]

Be Vewy Qwiet

Via Matt Yglesias, a vintage bit of Glenn Reynolds.

I don’t understand why the Bush Administration has been so slow to respond. Nor do I think that high-profile diplomacy, or an invasion, is an appropriate response. We should be responding quietly, killing radical mullahs and iranian atomic scientists, supporting the simmering insurgencies within Iran, putting […]

Let me get this straight

So Nouri al-Maliki pardoned Saddam Hussein to promote national healing and move on, Gerald Ford is making one last appearance at the Apollo theater, and James Brown will shortly be buried at Arlington cemetery, his long reign of terror having come to an end at last. No, that’s not right. I’ll try again.

While I puzzle […]

Goodbye, Uncle Miltie

Milton Friedman has died at the ripe old age of ninety four. Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution writes a brief appreciation from the point of view of a fan. As Harry said around here only the other day, everyone should read Capitalism and Freedom at least once.

whoops

I think this is called a “market correction.” Looks like the last days of Long Term Capital Management.

I finally finished MacKenzie’s book, and now I promise to write something about it.