James Cason is the US ambassador to Paraguay. His agenda: meet with Paraguayan officials, represent US interests, negotiate trade agreements, promote cultural understanding, and release a bestselling album.

I check the arXiv fairly often to follow the most recent, cutting edge, brand new research in my field. Today there was a paper from the year 1735.

Okay, I'm a big Bjorn Lomborg fan, but this is a bit much:

I sat there throughout, mesmerised and sometimes lost for words under the gaze of the handsome, trim 43-year-old blond’s intensely sincere Danish blue eyes which never leave yours for one second.

The first two paragraphs are like this, but once you get past them this article has some good stuff. Including my favorite bit:

We tend to think in terms of absolute magnitude, so people will say, “Global warming is overall a bigger problem than micronutrition so we should deal with that first.” But what economists say is, “No. If you can spend a billion dollars and save 600,000 kids from dying and save about two billion people from being malnourished, that’s a lot better than spending the same amount to postpone global warming by about two minutes at the end of the century.”

Millions of poor people, mostly women, spend hours carrying water. And it's not even good water. Tyler Cowen wants to sell it to them instead. And he doesn't even want it to be cheap:

Carrying water on your head costs much more--in terms of both money and effort--than piped water. If you're a poor person, wouldn't you rather face a private monopolist, selling you water through pipes, than not have any water company at all? Whether we like it or not, those are the real world alternatives.

The idea here is not that greedy soulless monopolistic corporations are good, but that greedy corrupt incompetent governments are even worse.

Is the universe made of mathematics?

No. Mathematics is made of the universe. Next question?

There's a more serious discussion of this at the Secret Blogging Seminar. I'm gratified to see that Terence Tao agrees with me. If he didn't, I would of course change my opinion, but luckily I don't have to do that.

After we get rid of bumper stickers, we should go after road signs:

When you’ve trained people to drive according to the signs, you need to keep adding more signs to tell them exactly when and in what fashion they need to adjust their behavior. Otherwise, drivers may see no reason why they should slow down on a curve in the rain.

Give that guy with the "Visualize World Peace" bumper sticker a little extra space:

Drivers of cars with bumper stickers, window decals, personalized license plates and other "territorial markers" not only get mad when someone cuts in their lane or is slow to respond to a changed traffic light, but they are far more likely than those who do not personalize their cars to use their vehicles to express rage -- by honking, tailgating and other aggressive behavior.

Want public policies that help the poor? Promote globalization and lower the minimum wage.

I like Oregon, but at least here in Colorado my health insurance doesn't threaten to kill me:

After her oncologist prescribed a cancer drug that could slow the cancer growth and extend her life, Wagner was notified that the Oregon Health Plan wouldn’t cover the treatment, but that it would cover palliative, or comfort, care, including, if she chose, doctor-assisted suicide.

One of the problems with physician-assisted suicide is that it leads to creepy financial incentives. After all, a dead patient is cheaper than a live one.