Here are a few of the most interesting and entertaining things I have been reading, listening to and watching over the last week or so.
Read
Spitting in the Soup: Inside the Dirty Game of Doping in Sports
I am just getting started on this book. I like the initial approach but I have doubts about any suggestion that it is possible to “kick pills out of the locker room once and for all”. Check out the book here.
The hook that caught me was the following.
“It’s easy to assume that drugs in sports have always been frowned upon, but that’s not true. Drugs in sports are old. It’s banning drugs in sports that is new.
With that said, I doubt the below will ever be achieved, although I have not made it to the author’s solution yet. Who knows, maybe Johnson Mark will change my mind. Yes, the author has a last name for his first name and first name for his last name 😉
Spitting in the Soup offers a bitingly honest, clear-eyed look at why that’s so, and what it will take to kick pills out of the locker room once and for all.”
Performance-Enhancing Drugs, Sports and the Ideal of Natural Athletic Performance. American Journal of Bioethics
While this article raises some important and interesting points, ultimately I think the conclusions are flawed. But you be the judge.
Why we should allow performance enhancing drugs in sport
Similar to the above, there are some decent points made, but the conclusions more-or-less fall apart when scrutinized. While I am sympathetic to arguments of safety, when these same arguments are applied to other areas of sport, the argument simply do not hold water. A better title would have been “Why we should allow PED in sport if we think they are safe enough”. It is worth a read anyway.
The NBA’s China Problem Gets Worse After 2 American Arenas Eject Hong Kong Supporters
I am a sucker for an excellent summarizing and quotable statement at the end of an article. “The NBA needs to think carefully about whether winning in China is worth losing in America.” In other words, get your shit straight NBA! Check out the Reason article here.
Listen
- Legion of Skanks – Ep. 434 – Robbie Smelly – Robert Kelly & Rick Vos – Not one for the easily offended 😉
- Ep. 207 – Krugman Embraces Warren, Discards Economics
- Ep. 7 – Tyler Cowen (GMU) on less homework, Swiss science culture, and low university completion rates
From Part of the Problem.
- Ep. 493 – Deep State Soup: A Retrospective
- Ep. 494 – The Pathetic Chuck Todd
From the Tom Woods show.
- Ep. 1507 Dave Smith on Libertarian Strategy, the Toughest Libertarian Views to Defend, and More
- Ep. 1509 Making Sense of Hate Speech, Hate Crimes, and Free Speech
- Ep. 1510 Syria, Trump, and the Kurds: Scott Horton Tells the Story
- Ep. 1511 Impeachment: Trump Stonewalls, So What Happens Now?
From the Peter Schiff Show Podcast
- Ep. 506 – Service Sector to Follow Manufacturing into Recession
- Ep. 507 – Powell Announces the Fed Is Not Doing QE
- Ep. 508 – Trump and Powell Follow the Same Script
From the Reason Podcast
- You Will Die If You Vape While Watching Impeachment Porn
- Why Hong Kong Protesters Are Channeling Bruce Lee
Tunes
- Black Anima (Bonus Tracks Version) by Lacuna Coil – Pretty good
- Closer Than Together by The Avett Brothers – Not great
- Without Fear by Dermot Kennedy – Pretty good
- A Pill for Loneliness by City And Colour – Excellent
- Sigh No More Sessions by Mumford & Sons – Excellent
- 01070725 by the Foo Fighters – Pretty good
Watch
- Peaky Blinders Season 5 – Love this show!
- El Camino – They should have left Breaking Bad alone if this is what they were going to do with it. You can skip this one.
- The Spy – Great miniseries!