Assorted Links

1. A Google Street View collection of panoramas of Joplin, Mo. neighborhoods before and after the monster EF-5 tornado.
2. A summary of a paper on the economics of the buffalo slaughter.  Here is the paper.  The author of the paper and the author of the summary put the onus on globalization and free trade (they also mention the lack of government regulation).  These reasons miss the point.  Cattle and buffalo are substitutes, but the buffalo was the species almost hunted to extinction.  If it were trade that were to blame, then both species should have become nearly extinct.  The key difference is that people had private property rights to cattle but not to buffalo, resulting in a tragedy of the commons w.r.t. the buffalo.  The commenters to the summary were quick to note this.
3. An Oklahoma mesonet station was hit by 151 MPH winds in a tornado recently... and survived, battered but intact.
4. Do you want to see more offense at the ballpark?  Wish for a cloudy day.  I wonder if the cloud effect is controlled for in betting odds.
5. The Welfare Economics of Elevator Travel.