There are many reasons not to vote.  Including the fact that you know full well it will make no difference in your locality, district, state, or even nation.  Compelling a vote does nothing to change that, especially with so trivial an amount of a fine.

If people are interested in voting, are legally allowed to, and find it so massively intrusive that they cannot find it in themselves to do so, then let's talk about fixing those cases.  Compelling people to vote just for the sake of voting seems foolish to me.

Been a huge fan of EconTalk for quite a while as well (a long enough time that I actually don't remember where I first heard about it).  It's really excellent.  Russ is obviously a nice guy, asks excellent questions, obviously has a point of view but is up front about it when it's relevant, and (especially after the mortgage/credit crisis), is much more humble than most economists about what he really knows vs. what he thinks he knows.

People new to EconTalk and checking it out for the first time should especially check out his (frequent) chats with Mike Munger.  They're always highly entertaining.

Very obvious (and in my opinion obnoxious) color alteration.  I really wish these guys wouldn't do that.  (You can see the unaltered pictures at the link, so it's especially obvious.)  It's beautiful enough on its own -- especially the Earth, of all places!  Lots of Solar System objects have rather drab colors (the Moon is astonishing at how little color there is) and so it makes a certain amount of sense to enhance them, whether I personally agree with it, but the Earth?

And, actually, full, high-resolution pictures of the Earth are fairly easy to come by (do a Google Images search for earth from space or something similar; Russia hasn't done anything unique here, though it is indeed a beautiful picture.  We've got lots of satellites up there.  The days of stitching together a series of fragmentary pictures are long in the past.

"That Yoo is me."  Magnificent phrasing, Professor.  This is a case which -- regardless of one's political affiliation -- one would hope that everyone can agree is baseless and absurd on its face.  If only it were so.

We are all Yoo!

Actually, naming computers on a (private) network after chemical elements is fairly common.

Very well said, Ben.  I agree completely.

Wow, if I hadn't already had reason to dislike Piers Morgan, there's a good one.  What an incredibly insipid final few questions he asked.

It's true that a lot of accidents these days are caused by overreliance on technology.  But then, one most not lose the bigger picture:  Many fewer accidents occur due to the increased use of technology.

Airbus' automatic and fly-by-wire systems tend to get the brunt of this criticism, I suspect, because they have tended to have lousy user interfaces and feedback mechanisms (this one being one example) -- why, exactly, I'm not sure.  But remember that most accidents are still caused by pilot error, whether it's a massive blunder or CFIT (controlled flight into terrain; e.g., flying a perfectly functioning plane into the ground)

Good for Jimmy Kimmel.  He's genuinely funny.

EJHill:  I think it's what the politicos call "lowering expectations."  Since so many comedians have made similar remarks for so long ... he might have been just playing to type.  I certainly could be reading too much into it, but Kimmel's a pretty smart guy.

The story I've heard repeatedly from various sources over the years, and from then-Soviet emigres themselves (the Silicon Valley has more than its fair share) was the first reaction upon setting foot into a supermarket in Downtown Anywhere, USA.  They wept.

That prompts in me a bizarre mix of heartbreak (for what they had to endure) and uplift (that they finally made it to the free world) that's hard to describe.

More Russ Roberts!  Bring it on!

I swear, I made that earlier comment before I saw that Russ Roberts would be on the podcast.  Now I feel like a doofus.

But Russ Roberts!  Squeeeeeee!

Mr. Robinson, talk to Russ Roberts at Hoover.  (Also his EconTalk is absolutely fantastic.)

In short, GDP is a measure of all the stuff (good and services) created in the country every year.  But it doesn't matter what those things are made for, what happens to them, who gets them, or how they affect the average person.

So all the wartime production during WWII counts towards GDP.  But there was rationing.  Sure, everybody was employed, and everybody had money.  But there weren't a lot of things to spend it on.  So GDP continued to increase, but that doesn't mean the average American consumer got the benefit of that.

Put it another way.  Let's pay people to dig ditches and fill them. Spend $1 trillion for wages, materials, and so on.  Let's ignore multipliers for now; GDP has increased by $1T.  But does anyone really think that that increase means anything in terms of the quality of life for anyone?  (With multipliers, it's hard to say, because you'll also likely have inflation.)

Aggregates are a measure, and can be a useful one.  But they're not in and of themselves a measure of prosperity.

I am listening to the podcast right now, hopped on Ricochet, and popped open to the discussing thread to type exactly that.

I understand that it doesn't bother some people.  But those people need to be aware that some others find it absolutely repulsive (for reasons that may or may not be explicable or even rational -- it doesn't matter).  Don't do it unless you're starving.  In which case, you've got better things to do than chat on a podcast/conference call/video blog/vlog/television show!

Remember, these are about different accents, so there is variation.  Lots of people who make the distinction between the "oh/ohr" and "aw" sound don't pronounce these -orn sounds the same way.

Interestingly, Australians tend to be better than the British at imitating American accents.  They don't overcorrect as much.  (You hear it when someone British is not doing a very good job and says Rs too much when trying to mimic American English.)