The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, was recommended to me by the Girl, so I read it with due diligence. I think I missed out on getting assigned this at some point in high school.#

I get conflicted feelings about the characters in the book. On one hand, Hester is rather brave, because she accepts her punishment and doesn't reveal the identity of the minister to the townspeople. Then again, she is an adultress, which is a particularly nasty sin. Similarly, the minister eventually tells the truth to his parishioners and during the meantime teaches them well; however, he did take an incredibly long time to come clean.#

Best post title ever#

Pinochet:#

• Chile under Allende
• Chile's Socialists Speak Frankly
• Fidel, Pinochet, and Me
• Salvador Allende - The Herald of Pinochet

Defending a Free Nation, by Roderick T. Long#

On The Doomsday Argument: Apocalypse not Just Now - MARK GREENBERG#

Are Disagreements Honest? - Tyler Cowen and Robin Hanson#

The Paradox of Beneficial Retirement - Saul Smilansky#

The Idea Trap - Bryan Caplan#

Good and Bad Procrastination - Paul Graham#

Alex Tabarrok on constitutional interpretation:#

Liberals are claiming that President Bush has violated constitutional restrictions on torture and spying on Americans. Don't they understand that the constitution is a living document that must be reinterpreted in light of new events and understandings? An originalist reading of the constitution would throw us back into the primitive past when the minimum wage was unconstitutional. Fortunately, conservatives know that constitutional interpretation must change with the times and never more so than now. We live in a different world. The Founding Fathers may have been great in their time but they did not face the problems that we face today and we should not be bound by their 18th century ideas of liberty and executive tyranny.

This might be satire.