The More Men, the More Chickens

Betting on the Planet, this 1990 classic by John Tierny, is still freely available on the New York Times website.

This idea marked the crucial difference between Simon and Ehrlich, and between economists and ecologists: the view of the world not as an closed ecosystem but as an flexible marketplace. The concept of carrying capacity might make sense in discussing Ehrlich's butterflies or Vogt's "Gadarene swine," but Simon rejected animal analogies. He liked to quote the 19th-century economist Henry George: "Both the jayhawk and the man eat chickens, but the more jayhawks, the fewer chickens, while the more men, the more chickens."

At First Flush

Refreshing non-PC editorial in Investor's Business Daily:

Quran: So Islam's holy book was mishandled after all. Seems that some guards touched a few of them, another placed a pair on a TV and an interrogator stood over one during the questioning of a detainee. The horror.
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Overreaction and hysteria, though, are hallmarks of radical Islam. (They're also hallmarks of the mainstream media when they smell a chance to cast President Bush in a poor light.)

Baptists haven't rioted when a Bible's been abused. The Episcopal Church hasn't gone on a deadly rampage because Scripture was profaned. Not a single Jew has run amok after a Torah was trashed. The Catholic clergy hasn't stirred mob violence when sacred items of its faith have been trod under foot.

But according to the extreme code that roused some Muslims to riot over accusations that a U.S. soldier had flushed a Quran down a toilet, they'd be justified in doing so.

There are enough examples of Jewish and Christian holy books, sites and images being defiled by Muslims — and by so-called artists — to give plenty of offense. But the media don't seem to care about them.

Highbrow

A highbrow is a person educated beyond his intelligence.
-- Brander Matthew (1852–1929)