Once again, someone wants us to feel for the rich and their terrible suffering—why did you know that laughing at someone because they inherited money is like making fun of Jews or blacks? Astonishingly it wasn’t written by Megan McArdle.
•Ben Carson explains how easily he would have captured bin Laden.
•If police rush in and create a situation where they have to shoot someone (in this case a kid with a toy gun) any bad judgment they exercised in rushing in is irrelevant to whether they’re using excessive force. At the link, Leon Neyfakh looks at the logic of that.
•If we arm Kurdish separatists in Iraq to fight against ISIS, it can’t possibly have blowback, according to an NYT editorial. They don’t really want independence just now, so no problem or negative side effects. I remain skeptical.
•One pundit argues Donald Trump’s positions are extreme. LGM points out that his views on Social Security and immigration are actually mainstream. That doesn’t make them right—I completely disagree with his immigration views—but he’s not necessarily wrong or more extreme than many Americans. I’d say that also covers his recent statement George W. Bush didn’t keep us safe is not that extreme either. More here.
•Someone actually admitted investigating Benghazi has nothing to do with government wrongdoing, just pounding Clinton.
•A look at how Catholic parishioners soldier on after their church closes.
•The problem with drones isn’t the tech but the willingness to kill people.
•While I’m skeptical we can resurrect chivalry as anything usable, this article on what chivalry can be (“Chivalry boils down to three things: mercy, charity, and humility.”) isn’t bad.
•A good linkpost from Slacktivist touching on topics including private prison companies making money off prison labor and the mental stress of being poor.
•San Francisco and LA are blocking an app for fighting traffic tickets from accessing relevant information in city files.
•Turns out high health-insurance deductibles don’t improve health-care results or push people to be more cost-effective.
