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Daily Archive for January 12th, 2012

Fun Facts to Know and Tell: The Ultimate Resource Edition

Posted in Environment on Jan 12th, 2012

According to Vaclav Smil 40% of the people on Earth would not be alive if it were not for industrial fertilizer. Smil is one of my 5 favorite living scholars. If this estimate is right, I suppose I’d only have 3 favorites. The technology used to create these fertilizers comes from the production of ammonia […]

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The Heisenberg Bureaucracy Principle

Posted in Government Gone Wild on Jan 12th, 2012

Def: (noun)  The impossibility of simultaneously measuring what it is that a bureaucrat is doing while also achieving the stated public-interest objectives of the agency said bureaucrat allegedly represents. Illustration: George’s diner records food inspector in New York City. When not being recorded, the inspector awards the diner an A for cleanliness. When we try […]

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