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  • Libertarians on Immigration

    I was reading some random web pages, and came across an article (not linked) advocating that libertarians should support immigration controls.  It was a baffling article, and stuck in my craw, because the old school libertarians were for open borders. They’re way past where the Democrats and some socialists are. They’re way over in anarchy-land.

  • The Size of Mayan Civilization Compared to the Size of Los Angeles, CA

    The mapping of around 60,000 buildings in the Mayan Biosphere Reserve of Guatemala has revealed a civilization much larger than previously estimated, at an estimated 10 million people. See how this compares to Los Angeles County, an area with 10 million people.

  • Facebook 2009, Part 1

    I was participating only lightly in Facebook before 2009.  I had gotten a job that required more social media interaction, so I started to post partisan political material on my account.  I had some before, but, that’s been deleted. Now I’m deleting this old stuff. February 24, 2009 I don’t check this account often. Please…

  • Ezra Klein Discussion with Bhaskar Sunkara of Jacobin

    I hadn’t listened to this show before, and my first introduction was the episode before this one. Titled “How Democracies Die”, it irked me, not only in the big picture idea that the center holds things together, but in the particulars of how they picked out Hugo Chavez as their example of an anti-democratic demagogue,…

  • Facebook Memories

    Every day, Facebook shows you an old post, hoping you will retweet it. I usually delete the originals, and ignore it forever.  Now, I’ll archive some of them, here. Return and refresh for updates.

  • The End of Facebook

    It’s not the end of Facebook, but it’s been increasingly unsatisfying for the past  year or so, and I cannot quite pinpoint why.  Perhaps it’s the weird feeling of annoyance I get when a post surfaces three days late, or I poke around profiles, and see interesting stuff, while my feed is not always that…

  • The Book Trust – an attempt to monopolize cheap book production in the 1800s

    Back in 1889, John W. Lovell was attempting to create a “book trust”, or a cartel of book publishers to control prices by limiting competition between the publishers.

  • Etsy Helps Create Microbusiness Caucus, a Challenge to Labor Organizing

    Congress now has a Microbusiness Caucus, but does it represent workers? I’d say “no”. It’s for Etsy and those other companies, first, and only secondarily for people who sell on Etsy, and, lastly, for all the workers involved in producing for the Etsy marketplace platform.

  • Chili History

    https://www.texasmonthly.com/food/heyday-chili-con-carne/ Two interesting things I noticed: there’s a Chinese grocery store in the photo. “…one of the Chili Queens’ many forced migrations back and forth across San Antonio—from Military Plaza to Alamo Plaza, Market Square to Haymarket Square, Milam Park back to Military Plaza, and so on. When city fathers decided to “improve” a square,…

  • L.A. History: A Mexican Perspective

    Link: A Legendarily Censored Chicana Mural Finds Itself Shielded From View Once Again I don’t understand how this mural is “controversial” or “negative”. There’s nothing on there that hasn’t been seen in some TV public affairs programming from the 1970s or 1980s. It’s just what people call LA history.  (I don’t even understand how it’s …