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Excerpts from The Believer: An Interview with Lyle Lovett

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-interview-with-lyle-lovett
Created
Fri, 29/08/2025 - 23:00


“I’ve always made it a policy to never question good fortune.”

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Food items mentioned by Lyle Lovett:

  • Summer strawberries from the Pacific Northwest
  • Eggs, bacon, and pancakes from IHOP
  • Two-thirds-of-a-pound burgers, served with chips and a jar of pickled jalapeños
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Lyle Lovett has been a mainstay of the American music scene since he was playing the bars and burger joints around College Station, Texas, in the 1980s. He learned to sing in his Lutheran school choir and started playing guitar while his age was still in the single digits. While Lovett always loved music, he didn’t start trying to make a go of it until he was attending college at Texas A&M and began playing around town. Eventually, the legendary Texas troubadour Guy Clark heard a demo tape of Lovett’s songs and helped him get a deal with MCA Records.

America Now Really Does Run on Dunkin’

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/america-now-really-does-run-on-dunkin
Created
Fri, 29/08/2025 - 22:00

“The Trump administration is considering taking stakes in defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin Corp, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Tuesday as he defended President Donald Trump’s push for a greater government role in American business.” —Reuters

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Wake up, America. It’s Dunkin’. History is happening, and it smells like scalding hot hazelnut pumped into your nostrils with the force of pure freedom.

While you were blinking at your phones, the US federal government acquired a 60 percent majority stake in a goddamn donut chain. Uncle Sam is now the de facto barista of the republic. This Department of Diabetes is a public utility, and it’s time to make the people’s donuts, you ridiculous monkey-see-monkey-do rubes, courtesy a modest cut from every one of your feeble little paychecks.

The superiority of economists

https://larspsyll.wordpress.com/2025/08/29/the-superiority-of-economists/
Created
Fri, 29/08/2025 - 21:27
There are several reasons for the insularity of economics, most importantly the different epistemological cultures of the various social science disciplines and the power inequalities between them. First, the theory of action that comes with economists’ analytical style is hardly compatible with the basic premise of much of the human sciences, namely that social processes […]

In Search of Left Wrestling

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/08/in-search-of-left-wrestling/
Created
Fri, 29/08/2025 - 19:07

World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) — the industry powerhouse that has been unrivalled since buying out World Championship Wrestling, its former competitor, in the early 2000s — is fairly openly aligned with Donald Trump’s administration. Recently, they rehired Brock Lesnar, who is implicated in the Vince McMahon sex trafficking scandal; WWE has close relationships with Logan […]

ALSO I HAVE MANY SPECIFIC COMMENTS ON YOUR RANKINGS THAT I HAVE COMPILED INTO THIS 200,000 WORD TEXT FILE / IT IS ABRIDGED

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=4373
Created
Fri, 29/08/2025 - 17:00
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Uncertainty, learning, and rational expectations

https://larspsyll.wordpress.com/2025/08/29/uncertainty-learning-and-rational-ex…
Created
Fri, 29/08/2025 - 16:04
The rational expectations hypothesis presupposes — largely for reasons of internal consistency — that agents possess complete knowledge of all relevant probability distributions. When economists attempt to incorporate learning into these models, it is always in a very restricted sense. Nothing genuinely unanticipated ever occurs; instead, learning is reduced to a mechanical process of updating […]

Truth and justice — things worth figting for

https://larspsyll.wordpress.com/2025/08/29/truth-and-justice-things-worth-figti…
Created
Fri, 29/08/2025 - 15:44
Truth and justice are the essential foundations of any legitimate political order—not merely moral abstractions. Deny truth, and you replace reason with power. Abandon justice, and you permit domination to thrive. This is vividly clear in Gaza and Ukraine, where truth and justice are shown to be not distant ideals but concrete conditions for peace. […]

Is Consciousness Reality’s Organizing Principle? (Beyond Biocentrism, by Lanza and Berman)

https://www.ianwelsh.net/is-consciousness-realitys-organizing-principle-beyond-…
Created
Fri, 29/08/2025 - 11:53
Quantum mechanics is seriously weird. The majority of us have a model of the world based primarily on Newtonian physics. We believe in cause and effect. The universe is a giant machine following laws, and if there wasn’t a single conscious being in it, those laws would still be the same. But in quantum mechanics […]

Great academic opportunities: 26 calls for papers, 8 PhD scholarships, 7 jobs, 5 postdocs, a grant, a course, an award, and an internship

https://economicsociology.org/2025/08/29/great-academic-opportunities-20-calls-…
Created
Fri, 29/08/2025 - 08:59
Dear ES/PE community members, find below and benefit from an abundant and excellent list of great academic opportunities: 26 calls for papers for conferences (some are partly and fully funded) and special issues, 8 PhD scholarships, 7 job openings, 5 postdoc positions, a grant, a course, an award, a visiting fellowship, and an internship in […]

Escape Room Challenge: Your European Airbnb

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/escape-room-challenge-your-european-airbnb
Created
Fri, 29/08/2025 - 03:00

Welcome to this tiny fifth-floor Airbnb, your home for the next four days in a major European city. Can you escape without incurring additional fees for cleaning or damage?

Let the games begin.

First, you must open this rusty lockbox containing the apartment keys. The numbers have worn off the keypad, and the latch sticks, so you may have to lightly smash it with a rock. However, if you damage the lockbox, you will be charged a 300 replacement fee.

Hear that ominous clunk? It means either that you are about to plummet to your death in this coffin-sized elevator or that it’s functioning normally.

In this bedroom are fourteen light switches. Ten of them do nothing. One turns on the television, which will blast Eurovision at top volume. One sounds an alarm in the home of your grouchy next-door neighbor who hates Americans and will let his French bulldog poop on your doorstep. One notifies the trash collectors on the street outside that you would like them to crush glass beneath your window. Only one activates the tiny IKEA lamp at your bedside. Can you choose the right one in time?