The Daily Top Five: Jan. 9, 2007

1. Glenn Reynolds has a cool gig, covering the Consumer Electronics Show for Popular Mechanics. This photo in particular caught my eye. My wife and I have a friend who works for the Consumer Electronic Association, who puts on this technological orgy, and she says it is the most exhausting week of her year. Some really cool stuff though.

2. Are democracies poor information handling govenrmental structures. Mike Rappaport at the Right Coast points to an article that makes that argument. Rappaport notes:

We seek and remember information that confirms our beliefs. When we come across information we don't like, we attempt to attack it or to undermine it.

This analysis, sadly, rings very true to me, both about my own behavior and the behavior of others.

Still, what is interesting is that people do change their minds on matters. Over time, I have altered my views. Perhaps, then, the above analysis only tells part of the story.

I suppose many people would like to admit that they change their minds, but not very often on very large things, at least not very fast. But one thing I think that impacts our mental fixtures is experience as much as belief. Take the American savings habits. For the people of my grandparent's generation saving was paramount since they can remember the expereiences of the great depression. However, my parents and my generation are notoriously poor. Not because our ideas about saving are any better or worse than my grandparents, but that we have never expereienced a fiscal crisis on par with the Depression so saving has little experiential connection for us.

3. Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the union fees case from Washington State. SCOTUS Blog has a preview here. This case has two interests for me, the campaign finance side of things and teacher's unions. Overall, I think that despite the state supreme court ruling, the unions are going to be the losers in this case because agency fee payers must associate with the union for collective bargaining rules, but despite teh compulsion, such fee payers have a right to not affiliate with the union for political purposes.

4. Edspresso is hoting a debate this week on a couple of Supreme Court cases from December dealing with race based school assingments. Although still on-going the debate is, like all debates Edspresso hosts, a good one.

5. I love this post by Victor Davis Hanson about the hypocrisy of higher education. A must read.