Ok, we need a break from gas tax holidays. This column from John Tierney is nothing particularly earth-shattering in its pronouncements, but it addresses the moderately interesting (and moderately amusing) questions of why people would believe that buying insurance actually affects the future outcome.
But I liked this somewhat tangential remark:
The fear of tempting fate showed up in further experiments with Cornell students. When told about an applicant to graduate school at Stanford who had been given a Stanford T-shirt by his mother, people assumed he would hurt his chances for admission if he had the hubris to wear it. And they believed that a professor was more likely to call on them in class if they didn’t do the assigned reading.
The latter might actually be true. We can read faces, you know.
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