Monday assorted links

1. The polity that is Alexandria, Virginia this is the real America this will bore you.

2. “Ian McEwan, the award-winning author, has admitted feeling “a little dubious” about people being compelled to study his books, after helping his son with an essay about his own novel and receiving a C.” Link here.

3. Meet the wonderful Tim Kane, occasional GMU lunch partner.  The NYT runs a feature article on him, titled “Meet the Pro-Trade, Pro-Immigration Economist Running for Congress. As a Republican. In Ohio.”  And this:

On the campaign trail, Mr. Kane adapts a refrain from Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential run, saying that he is “from the Republican wing of the Republican Party.”

4. “Great Britain’s need for guns, war supplies drove 18th-century industrialism, Stanford scholar says.”  That is Priya Satia.

5. “A single academic paper, published by three Australian researchers in 2007, has been cited by Wikipedia editors over 2.8 million times—the next most popular work only shows up a little more than 21,000.” Link here.