Akkam’s Razor

• Dirk Loss: Windows-Tools on CD-ROM
  (tags: windows software tools freeware utilities)
• Damn Interesting » The Total Perspective Vortex
  The typical person, it seems, depends on these happy delusions [of positive self-deception] for the self-esteem needed to function through a normal day. It’s when the fantasies start to unravel that problems arise.
  (tags: psychology self-deception cognitivebias congnitivedissonance)
• How Serious is Polling’s Cell-Only Problem?
  What effect does the growing numbers of no-landline households have on telephone polling?
  (tags: pew survey landline cellphone bias)

Before you get all weepy-eyed, and before the "press" heralds him as a divisive but religious force, let's review some of his "highlights" [Positive Atheism via MeFi]:

If you're not a born-again Christian, you're a failure as a human being.
— Rev Jerry Falwell (attributed: source unknown)

Please tell me I'm reading this wrong - from the NYTimes via Economist's View:

A 96-year-old rule that treats as an automatic antitrust violation any agreement between a manufacturer and its retailers to adhere to a minimum resale price is considered archaic and out of touch by the Bush administration and economists of the Chicago school.

[...]

[F]our justices [defending the rule, incl. Breyers, Stevens, Ginsburg, and Souter], include two with substantial expertise in antitrust law: Justice Stevens, who made antitrust his specialty as a practicing lawyer before he became a federal judge, and Justice Breyer, who taught the subject at Harvard Law School.