link

Summer Egg Nog.

6 egg yolks.
1/2 cup of sugar.
3/4 cup of dark rum.
1 teaspoon vanilla extract.
1/2 shot of coffee liqueur.
1 cup of milk
1/2 cup of cream

Put the sugar in a bowl.
Add the egg yolks.
Beat until thick and creamy.
Add in the other ingredients.
Beat with an egg beater until frothy.

Serve over ice.
Sprinkle on nutmeg.
Enjoy.

Mental Illness test

Mental Disorder Test

Picture the scene: You're sitting at home arguing with some dickhead on the internet who has the gall to disagree with you. Obviously the natural (and correct) inclination is to behave like a dick, because this is the internet after all. But then you have to think about what people might think about you. It's a drag, but you have to show at least a little bit of respect and consideration. You can't get away with it by claiming you have a disorder, like those fucking Aspies...

Until now! Just fill out this simple form and you'll have a 100% guaranteed internet-based diagnosis of your very own personality disorder! And don't worry, I know Asperger's is passé, so we'll hook you up with something a little more exotic. Hell, we might even throw in two or three for the price of one!

Do you find yourself quickly falling for someone and then rapidly coming to hate or distrust them?	Yes No
Are you close with anyone outside of your family?	Yes No
Do you feel that you're more important than people realise?	Yes No
Do you honour your obligations?	Yes No
Do you feel that there's some deeper meaning or plan behind things that happen?	Yes No
Do you often feel empty?	Yes No
Are you safety-conscious?	Yes No
Do you feel that people should treat you better than they do?	Yes No
Do you go to extremes to be liked or avoid being abandoned?	Yes No
Do you get into a lot of fights?	Yes No
Do you enjoy a wide-range of activities?	Yes No
Are you often tense or apprehensive or feel like people are out to get you?	Yes No
In a group, do you prefer to be the leader or center of attention?	Yes No
Do you feel you deserve more admiration than you get?	Yes No
Do you ever try to injure or kill yourself?	Yes No
Do you like to carefully plan ahead?	Yes No
Do you prefer to do things alone?	Yes No
Do you feel you know yourself pretty well?	Yes No
Do you feel that you're inferior to most other people or that most people look down on you?	Yes No
Do you take advantage of people to get what you want?	Yes No
Do you find yourself always going along with what others want?	Yes No
Are you very concerned with being positively percieved?	Yes No
Do you frequently break the law?	Yes No
Are you emotionally expressive?	Yes No
Do you often fantasize about having everything you ever dreamed of?	Yes No
Do you often worry about being criticised?	Yes No
Do you find yourself suddenly becoming irrationally irritable or anxious?	Yes No
Do you lie a lot?	Yes No
Do you laugh and cry a lot?	Yes No
Do you keep anything you can just in case it comes in handy?	Yes No
Do you often feel envious of others or feel that others are often envious of you?	Yes No
Are you a workaholic?	Yes No
Do you spend a lot of time making lists and schedules?	Yes No
Are you stubborn or do you hold grudges?	Yes No
Do you care if your actions hurt others?	Yes No
Do you take every setback personally?	Yes No
Do you avoid things you'd like to do because you're too nervous?	Yes No
Do you insist on keeping very strictly to the rules?	Yes No
Do you flirt a lot?	Yes No
Are you free with your money?	Yes No
Do you let other people make a lot of decisions for you?	Yes No
Do you usually ask for advice before making any kind of decision?	Yes No

This was shamelessly ripped off from Wallsy, due to facebook blocking getenjoyment.net links

Recalculation in the Labor Market

A new NY times story about how manufacturing jobs are having difficulty hiring people because of a skills shortage.

Some random thoughts:

• This seems to me to be a failure of education.
  
• Eventually companies in the US will have to increase and fund their own education efforts (beyond just specific skills training), because it seems that our k-12 educational establishment has failed to teach a significant portion of our labor force.
  
• This all fits Arnold Kling's "recalculation" story.
  

My entry to win some ammo!

"M.D. Creekmore at The Survivalist Blog – a survival blog dedicated to helping others prepare for and survive disaster – with articles on bug out bag contents, survival knife choices and a wealth of other survival information is giving away a 1,000 round case of 9mm – 124 Grain FMJ (a $200 value – donated by LuckyGunner)! To enter, you just have to post about it on your blog. This is my entry. Visit The Survivalist Blog for the details."

The Evil of Giving?

We find that,

• Giving of gifts tends to make givers happy, even happier than spending money on themselves. [1].
• Gifts that are felt to be unearned tend to make people unhappy in the long run. For example lottery winners and such tend to in the long run do pretty badly in the long run.

Does this mean that giving gifts to individuals who don't deserve them is selfish and evil? Obviously this wouldn't apply to giving gifts to foundations/charities/etc, because those are not really gifts but they are the relationship of agency with the foundation. We give money to charities because we want them to do what they want to do with our money, so really they are just acting as our agents. However, this would apply to many forms of gifts to adult children, such as inheritance. Also, does this suggest that welfare payments would be worse than government mandated unemployment insurance (paid for by the workers)?


Notes:
For those who don't believe in "evil", replace instances of "evil" with "negative" or "harmful" or whatever similar word suits your fancy.
This talk is what got me thinking about this question.

1. Elizabeth W. Dunn, Lara B. Aknin, and Michael I. Norton (21 March 2008)
Science 319 (5870), 1687. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1150952]

The Same Problem Now as Then.

“The claims of these organizers of humanity raise another question which I have often asked them and which, so far as I know, they have never answered: If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? The organizers maintain that society, when left undirected, rushes headlong to its inevitable destruction because the instincts of the people are so perverse. The legislators claim to stop this suicidal course and to give it a saner direction. Apparently, then, the legislators and the 
organizers have received from Heaven an intelligence and virtue that place them beyond and above mankind; if so, let them show their titles to this superiority.”
–Frederic Bastiat, The Law, 1850