Dean's World

Wow.

Maybe there's something to that "Dalton solar minimum" idea.

Great video from Drew Carey on how life keeps getting better for Americans. Even with all its challenges, this truly is a Platinum Age, and tomorrow will be better yet.

Drew blames the media for creating these images of doom and gloom, and he's right, but it's important to remember news is always going to skew negative. This is not because news programs want to bum everyone out, but because humans have (not surprisingly) evolved a strong information-seeking preference for bad news over good, so the news media give us what we want (else we would watch their competitors).

The survival value of such a preference for bad news for early humans in a very hostile prehistoric world is probably self-evident enough to need no explanation.

Via Glenn, this is horrifying:

The authors conclude that an authoritarian form of government is necessary, but this will be governance by experts and not by those who seek power.

These are precisely the same arguments that gave us Communism. 100 million dead later, some people still haven't learned.

Or, as Burke put it:

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.