Legal Commentary

Recent News From Our General Non-Law Blogroll: Blogs Beginning with B

By Andis Kaulins

Recent News From Our General Non-Law Blogroll: Blogs Beginning with B

The Belmont Club is a blog by Richard Fernandez, whose alias is Wretchard the Cat. We may not agree with a lot that is written there, but the blog is superbly written, and The Belmont Club is one of the most widely read blogs on the blogosphere as a voice of the right. See also the affiliated Pajamas Media. We definitely disagree with the opinions voiced there about Obama.

How far away is mainland Russia from the mainland United States? In Alaska, it is only 55 miles across the Bering Strait. But on either Big Diomede (Russian) or Little Diomede (US, see snowbound QuickTime VR Panorama by students, Little Diomede, April, 2007), one is practically face to face across the border and across the International Date Line. The blog Ben Muse has been blogging on Thin Ice, the shrinking ice cap in the Arctic, and the potentially coming surge in Arctic traffic due to the climate-caused clearing of ice from the Northwest Passage.

But the blockbuster posting there is news that golf and other active sports are on the downturn in the United States. In We're not playing as much golf, we are led to a New York Times article of February 21, 2008 by Paul Vitello, More Americans Are Giving Up Golf, where he writes that the number of people playing golf, tennis and other active games are dwindling:

"Rodney B. Warnick, a professor of recreation studies and tourism at the University of Massachusetts, said that the aging population of the United States was probably a part of the problem, too, and that ?there is a younger generation that is just not as active.
...
the soaring popularity of electronic games and newer sports like skateboarding was diminishing the number of new ... players everywhere.
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Surveys sponsored by the foundation have asked players what keeps them away. ?The answer is usually economic,? Mr. Kass said. ?No time. Two jobs. Real wages not going up. Pensions going away. Corporate cutbacks in country club memberships ? all that doom and gloom stuff.
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there was a consensus that changing family dynamics have had a profound effect on the sport.
...

Between 1990 and 2003, developers built more than 3,000 new golf courses in the United States, bringing the total to about 16,000. Several hundred have closed in the last few years, most of them in Arizona, Florida, Michigan and South Carolina, according to the foundation.

Brad DeLong has a blog which he describes as "Grasping Reality with Both Hands: Economist Brad DeLong's Fair, Balanced, and Reality-Based Semi-Daily Journal". His newest posting delves into the depths of the Industrial Revolution in England at DeLong Econ 210a Industrial Revolution Slides: March 19: Marx and Urbanization and Industrialization and Marketization.

Full post as published by LawPundit on March 20, 2008 (boomark / email).