Politics/religion:

• "The Anti-Reactionary FAQ"
• Some thoughts on education and political priorities (Amazingly synoptic read from Dominic Cummings: physicists, psychometrics, education, experience curves, Fermi estimates, teaching high-IQ students, behavioral genetics - he's got everything. LW discussion, Guardian)
• "From the Okhrana to the KGB: Continuities in Russian foreign intelligence operations since the 1880s", Andrew 1989 (excerpts)
• "$0.60 for cake: Al-Qaida records every expense" (Principal-agent problems - because terrorism is not about beliefs; see also "An Economic Analysis of the Financial Records of al-Qa'ida in Iraq")
• "Appendix F - Personal observations on the reliability of the Shuttle" (Feynman's classic appendix on the Space Shuttle program is worth a read if you've never gotten around to it before.)
• "Francisco Franco, Robust Action, and the Power of Non-Commitment"
• "What Is the Koran? Researchers with a variety of academic and theological interests are proposing controversial theories about the Koran and Islamic history, and are striving to reinterpret Islam for the modern world. This is, as one scholar puts it, a 'sensitive business'"
• "No Safe Haven: Iran's Global Assassination Campaign" (I look forward to their version for the USA & Israel)
• "As Tanzania's Albino Killings Continue, Unanswered Questions Raise Fears: Targeted by witch doctors and underserved by government, East African albinos face many challenges"
• "What if the Tsarnaevs had been giant copper robots?"

• On the recent origins of ancient traditions:

  • "Don’t tell the kids: The real history of the tooth fairy; She's way younger than you'd think. And she might be descended from the Tooth Mouse" / "The tooth fairy and the traditionality of modernity"
  • Buddhist modernism / "A new World Religion"
  • "The invention of tradition (karate edition)"

Business:

• "How the Fed Let the World Blow Up in 2008: High oil prices blinded the Fed to the growing danger before the crash"
• "The Milkman Cometh: What did George Sperti have to do with America’s obsession with supplements? The long, winding tale of a clever young UC engineering student, a nation fighting rickets, and a little money-maker called vitamin D." (rise and fall of the Vitamin D cartel)
• "What Bad Students Know that Good Economists Don't" (I've been remarking for the past two years or so that we should find it very odd that the college wage premium keeps going up even as graduation rates stagnate; I'm glad Caplan has been looking at the problem.)