DIFFUSION. The Corner (and scroll up) reports the bake sale has surfaced at the University of Michigan. [Fitting. Michigan and UCLA tie for college band with the most limited repertoire.] It's making people think.
Hmmm ... suggest food items to sell at an Eve Ensler play??
19.2.03
FOURTH TURNING ALERT. The op-ed writers and political weblogs are identifying elements of several secular conflicts. Thomas Friedman has been getting a great deal of play today for this vision: "The new world system is also bipolar, but instead of being divided between East and West, it is divided between the World of Order and the World of Disorder. The World of Order is built on four pillars: the U.S., E.U.-Russia, India and China, along with all the smaller powers around them. The World of Disorder comprises failed states (such as Liberia), rogue states (Iraq and North Korea), messy states — states that are too big to fail but too messy to work (Pakistan, Colombia, Indonesia, many Arab and African states) — and finally the terrorist and mafia networks that feed off the World of Disorder." Peggy Noonan makes a similar observation, with a sharper edge: "The new world reality is a division, a sharp split, between the civilized world on one side and those who comprise, or refuse to thwart, the uncivilized world. The civilized world wants peace and means to stop those who would use weapons of mass destruction to kill civilian populations and terrorize the people of world. Many in the uncivilized world love peace also, but not all, and a key question is whether the peace lovers in their alliance encourage murderous violence by refusing the stop the uncivilized war-bringers in their midst, such as Saddam Hussein."
There are two themes in the commentary that bear watching. The first is the invocation of secular crises past. (source: Power Line.) I've been reading Reagan's War and have been struck by the parallels between the protests against short-range missiles and strategic defense and the recent protests against a war that has yet to start. (Those protests tended to be better-attended; they were also funded with Soviet money.) Tod Lindberg provides a brief summary here. But there continue to be invocations of the 1930s, with the stakes appearing to be higher and intimations of major changes in international institutions and alliances surfacing. John O'Sullivan sees it thus: "It is rather as if a stern headmaster with traditional views on discipline were to arrive at a disorderly school. He would be resisted by the school bullies, of course; but he would also be resented by many of the children who had got used to misbehaving occasionally and by those teachers with "progressive" views on how to keep order."
But that anticipates the more challenging second theme. The real clash of civilizations might not be between Developed Order and Primitive Disorder, notwithstanding the havoc that nineteen guys with modelers' knives can wreak. Rather, look for the clash within the Developed Order over the kind of world we want to live in. The fault lines between the Bush Administration and the French government, and those in the Anglosphere who agree with the French are the most obvious. But look further, and imagine: students who argue for popular sovereignty: "And we recognize that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the problem of dictatorship. In Iran, where there is a strong and growing student movement for democratization, we hope to support change from within, rather than from abroad. What we cannot accept is doing nothing. We insist that suffering cannot end and that the war on terror cannot be won until the dictatorships responsible for that suffering and terrorism are replaced by democratic governments." Imagine further: pluralistic student politics whilst much of the professoriate remains as if in amber loyal to the pieties of the past. [There is something to be said for favoring button-down shirts and ties. Some kinds of dated are classic. But I digress.]
The rethinking of the kind of civilization we want to live in does not end in the campus, or in high geopolitics. Tuesday morning, Milwaukee radio host Charlie Sykes moderated a segment on the Chicago nightclub deaths in which host and callers recognized that nobody deserved to die and that the fight and flight had no racial overtones, but that perhaps some of those young people who left small children might better be at home at 2 in the morning rather than at an after-hours club.
There are two themes in the commentary that bear watching. The first is the invocation of secular crises past. (source: Power Line.) I've been reading Reagan's War and have been struck by the parallels between the protests against short-range missiles and strategic defense and the recent protests against a war that has yet to start. (Those protests tended to be better-attended; they were also funded with Soviet money.) Tod Lindberg provides a brief summary here. But there continue to be invocations of the 1930s, with the stakes appearing to be higher and intimations of major changes in international institutions and alliances surfacing. John O'Sullivan sees it thus: "It is rather as if a stern headmaster with traditional views on discipline were to arrive at a disorderly school. He would be resisted by the school bullies, of course; but he would also be resented by many of the children who had got used to misbehaving occasionally and by those teachers with "progressive" views on how to keep order."
But that anticipates the more challenging second theme. The real clash of civilizations might not be between Developed Order and Primitive Disorder, notwithstanding the havoc that nineteen guys with modelers' knives can wreak. Rather, look for the clash within the Developed Order over the kind of world we want to live in. The fault lines between the Bush Administration and the French government, and those in the Anglosphere who agree with the French are the most obvious. But look further, and imagine: students who argue for popular sovereignty: "And we recognize that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the problem of dictatorship. In Iran, where there is a strong and growing student movement for democratization, we hope to support change from within, rather than from abroad. What we cannot accept is doing nothing. We insist that suffering cannot end and that the war on terror cannot be won until the dictatorships responsible for that suffering and terrorism are replaced by democratic governments." Imagine further: pluralistic student politics whilst much of the professoriate remains as if in amber loyal to the pieties of the past. [There is something to be said for favoring button-down shirts and ties. Some kinds of dated are classic. But I digress.]
The rethinking of the kind of civilization we want to live in does not end in the campus, or in high geopolitics. Tuesday morning, Milwaukee radio host Charlie Sykes moderated a segment on the Chicago nightclub deaths in which host and callers recognized that nobody deserved to die and that the fight and flight had no racial overtones, but that perhaps some of those young people who left small children might better be at home at 2 in the morning rather than at an after-hours club.
17.2.03
KEEPING THEM MOVING. On the way home from the teacher training session, I used some of the back roads (in northern Illinois, there really is no such thing as a back road east of the Fox River.) The Wauconda police have a novel way of keeping traffic fluid. Where Illinois 59 crosses Illinois 176, there is the usual set of stoplights controlling traffic on and off of 59, which is elevated, into 176. Most of the traffic is bound north on 59 and west on 176 (from the office parks further south to the suburbs.) Just west of the 59 interchanges is a shopping complex, with access controlled by the usual mal-timed traffic lights. In order to keep the traffic fluid, a Wauconda police officer is stationed in a little-used portion of the center left turn lane on 176, and he uses the override feature in his cruiser to hold the signals controlling the southbound 59 ramps and the shopping center entrances at green. I noticed a Crystal Lake patrol car that may have been stationed to do the same thing at a rather nasty crossing further west. I suppose if you can't time the lights more precisely, a high-tech traffic cop will serve.
GATED CITIES? India West and Transport Blog have some information about the new commuter tax in London.
VINTAGE STALIN. "The fear that Iraq's 700,000-strong regular army might refuse to fight invading American troops has prompted President Saddam to take drastic measures. Last week he reportedly deployed a ruthless militia of Iranian fighters to several key cities to crush any popular uprisings. The Mojahedin-e-Khalq - a violent Iranian opposition group based in Iraq - was sent to defend urban areas, including Baghdad, Kurdish newspapers reported. MEK fighters have also arrived at the border with Kuwait and Syria." Send the Astrakhan regiments to Leningrad, and the Estonians to Russia? Source via InstaPundit.
I HOPE HIS CLASSES ARE MORE COHERENT. University of Colorado professor Ira Chernus does not want war. "The Pentagon plans to win a lightning fast war in Iraq by raining Cruise missiles down on Baghdad, about 15 every hour, for 48 hours." Only fifteen? Without some additional work by the Stealth fighters? I seem to recall more ordnance deployed in the first few days of Desert Storm. But I digress. Let's grant the professor's pacifist bona fides and get to the money grafs.
Literally. "One piece of the puzzle, which may be crucial, has been largely overlooked. The OPEC countries sell their oil for dollars, as do most other countries. The oil trade is crucial for keeping up the value of the dollar. In November 2000, Iraq began selling its oil for euros, not dollars. As the value of the euro has climbed against the dollar, Iraq has reaped a substantial profit from its wise decision. Iran and North Korea, the other links in the so-called 'axis of evil,' are also moving toward trading in euros rather than dollars." You mean Iran, Iraq, and North Korea are buying goods from the United States, or have short positions in the dollar? I was under the impression that Iraq was buying goods priced in euros, from inter alia France and Germany, the so-called 'axis of weasels.' The appreciation of the euro against the dollar is not going to have any effect on the prices of goods priced in euros.
"But the Bush administration’s real fear, according to one theory, is that OPEC will switch to euros. Oil importing countries would have to dump dollars and acquire euros. That could dramatically raise the euro’s value against the dollar." Or not. Read and understand this: "Unemployment in the euro area remained stubbornly high, declining from 10.6 percent in December 1998 to 9.6 percent at the end of 1999. Evidence strengthened that trend productivity growth was accelerating in the United States, but there were few signs that much-needed structural reforms were being undertaken in Europe." At that time, the currency traders missed some much-needed structural reforms in the United States. I hope the professor didn't buy any dot.com stocks at 300 times earnings in the hopes that someone would pay 400 times earnings for it next year. You'll find a similar point here. Moreover, there is something called an exchange rate. That, professor, is how many euros your dollar will buy. There is a reciprocal. It matters not to the price of a barrel of oil whether a seller wants euros or dollars for it. That's a portfolio decision. But if the dollar price of a barrel of oil is lower than the euro price of a barrel of oil, either the seller accepting euros sells fewer barrels, or the exchange rate changes, or some combination of the both. You really ought not leave $100 (or E98) on the sidewalk for me to pick up.
The professor's dissertation advisors at Temple clearly did not teach him the distinction between theory and speculation, as we now see. "This theory sees the Bush administration making war to acquire Iraq’s oil fields, but not simply to give U.S. corporations more oil revenues. The main goal is to pump oil like crazy out of Iraq, flooding the world market. That would drive prices down, which might hurt corporate revenues in the short run. In the long run, though, it would break the power of OPEC, which depends on a tightly controlled oil flow to keep prices up." Where to begin? First, if the demand for oil is sufficiently elastic, a lower price for oil would increase the revenues of the oil companies. There is reason to believe the demand is that elastic: just envision all those wood stoves in Indonesia and steam locomotives in China for openers. Such interfuel substitutions likely would help to reduce the Asian Brown Cloud. Second, a lower price for oil is a lower cost for oil users. Ceteris paribus that benefits other kinds of corporate revenues. There is a great deal of economic research into the effects of the 1973 and 1979 oil price shocks on economic growth. Do you miss the end of the Carter administration that much, Professor Chernus? Third, there are easier ways than war to lower the price of oil. Consider ending the sanctions against Iraq, or developing the oil reserves off Florida, in Alaska, and under the Great Lakes. The latter options would put paid to what remains of OPEC without a shot fired.
"With the U.S. firmly in charge of the world oil economy, we could rest assured that the dollar would be the standard currency for the global oil trade. That would save the dollar from U.S. capitalism’s worst fear: the euro replacing the dollar as the world’s pre-eminent and most desirable currency." No. Put the mid-1970s U.S. monetary policy in place and John D. Rockefeller himself would not want to accept dollars for oil. Or fast-rewind to the Weimar Republic's central bank and imagine oil priced in hyperinflating euros. Sorry.
"How many Iraqis must die to save the dollar?" How many Iraqis will die because the Tikriti thugs continue to treat the country as their private seraglio?
Now we somehow wind up here: "But the story in the Times that explained it best seemed to have nothing to do with war at all. Arkansas wants to execute a convicted murderer, but he has become insane." That escapes being a non-sequitur at the expense of giving free association a bad name. Why am I even bothering to comment on it? Because further down we get, "Don’t we all live in the same depersonalized, dehumanized, corporatized, sanitized, mediatized, computerized world? The only difference is that some of us have been lucky enough to realize it. Occasionally, we remember that we are here to change it." Same old same old. We're benighted, he's anointed. Nope. I recognize vanguardism, or fascism, or a man on horseback, or horse-hockey, when I see it.
Professor Chernus is director of graduate studies and a program director. I hope his admission and qualification decisions are better thought-out.
Literally. "One piece of the puzzle, which may be crucial, has been largely overlooked. The OPEC countries sell their oil for dollars, as do most other countries. The oil trade is crucial for keeping up the value of the dollar. In November 2000, Iraq began selling its oil for euros, not dollars. As the value of the euro has climbed against the dollar, Iraq has reaped a substantial profit from its wise decision. Iran and North Korea, the other links in the so-called 'axis of evil,' are also moving toward trading in euros rather than dollars." You mean Iran, Iraq, and North Korea are buying goods from the United States, or have short positions in the dollar? I was under the impression that Iraq was buying goods priced in euros, from inter alia France and Germany, the so-called 'axis of weasels.' The appreciation of the euro against the dollar is not going to have any effect on the prices of goods priced in euros.
"But the Bush administration’s real fear, according to one theory, is that OPEC will switch to euros. Oil importing countries would have to dump dollars and acquire euros. That could dramatically raise the euro’s value against the dollar." Or not. Read and understand this: "Unemployment in the euro area remained stubbornly high, declining from 10.6 percent in December 1998 to 9.6 percent at the end of 1999. Evidence strengthened that trend productivity growth was accelerating in the United States, but there were few signs that much-needed structural reforms were being undertaken in Europe." At that time, the currency traders missed some much-needed structural reforms in the United States. I hope the professor didn't buy any dot.com stocks at 300 times earnings in the hopes that someone would pay 400 times earnings for it next year. You'll find a similar point here. Moreover, there is something called an exchange rate. That, professor, is how many euros your dollar will buy. There is a reciprocal. It matters not to the price of a barrel of oil whether a seller wants euros or dollars for it. That's a portfolio decision. But if the dollar price of a barrel of oil is lower than the euro price of a barrel of oil, either the seller accepting euros sells fewer barrels, or the exchange rate changes, or some combination of the both. You really ought not leave $100 (or E98) on the sidewalk for me to pick up.
The professor's dissertation advisors at Temple clearly did not teach him the distinction between theory and speculation, as we now see. "This theory sees the Bush administration making war to acquire Iraq’s oil fields, but not simply to give U.S. corporations more oil revenues. The main goal is to pump oil like crazy out of Iraq, flooding the world market. That would drive prices down, which might hurt corporate revenues in the short run. In the long run, though, it would break the power of OPEC, which depends on a tightly controlled oil flow to keep prices up." Where to begin? First, if the demand for oil is sufficiently elastic, a lower price for oil would increase the revenues of the oil companies. There is reason to believe the demand is that elastic: just envision all those wood stoves in Indonesia and steam locomotives in China for openers. Such interfuel substitutions likely would help to reduce the Asian Brown Cloud. Second, a lower price for oil is a lower cost for oil users. Ceteris paribus that benefits other kinds of corporate revenues. There is a great deal of economic research into the effects of the 1973 and 1979 oil price shocks on economic growth. Do you miss the end of the Carter administration that much, Professor Chernus? Third, there are easier ways than war to lower the price of oil. Consider ending the sanctions against Iraq, or developing the oil reserves off Florida, in Alaska, and under the Great Lakes. The latter options would put paid to what remains of OPEC without a shot fired.
"With the U.S. firmly in charge of the world oil economy, we could rest assured that the dollar would be the standard currency for the global oil trade. That would save the dollar from U.S. capitalism’s worst fear: the euro replacing the dollar as the world’s pre-eminent and most desirable currency." No. Put the mid-1970s U.S. monetary policy in place and John D. Rockefeller himself would not want to accept dollars for oil. Or fast-rewind to the Weimar Republic's central bank and imagine oil priced in hyperinflating euros. Sorry.
"How many Iraqis must die to save the dollar?" How many Iraqis will die because the Tikriti thugs continue to treat the country as their private seraglio?
Now we somehow wind up here: "But the story in the Times that explained it best seemed to have nothing to do with war at all. Arkansas wants to execute a convicted murderer, but he has become insane." That escapes being a non-sequitur at the expense of giving free association a bad name. Why am I even bothering to comment on it? Because further down we get, "Don’t we all live in the same depersonalized, dehumanized, corporatized, sanitized, mediatized, computerized world? The only difference is that some of us have been lucky enough to realize it. Occasionally, we remember that we are here to change it." Same old same old. We're benighted, he's anointed. Nope. I recognize vanguardism, or fascism, or a man on horseback, or horse-hockey, when I see it.
Professor Chernus is director of graduate studies and a program director. I hope his admission and qualification decisions are better thought-out.
GET A GOOD START AND SAIL ON THE LIFTED TACK. Back from the training session in time to see the upwind mark rounding and drag race to the finish. From what I am able to piece together from the coverage, New Zealand picked the wrong shift at the start and never quite caught up. A spinnaker-handling error immediately after the rounding left the Kiwis with too much real estate to make up. Alinghi with her Kiwi afterguard have a 3-0 edge in the best of nine. Next race is Thursday afternoon (Wednesday evening here). Coverage will be interrupted as the Vermeer Quartet are continuing their Beethoven cycle on Wednesday.
PANHANDLE HOOK. The latest storm to graze DeKalb is creating havoc in the East. Commentary on the roadworthiness of SUVs is divided: some noting those that are spinning out, others noting those that are getting through. But there are other casualties. Critical Mass appears to have suffered a power failure, and there is truly horrible news from Baltimore: "Local TV news here in Baltimore is showing film of the partial collapse of the roof of the roundhouse here at the B&O Railroad Museum. At least two sections have come down and it's said that more of it is imminent danger of falling at any moment. So far, there are no reported injuries, but from the looks of things, some of the stored equipment must be heavily damaged," reports a member of the O trains discussion list. The Baltimore and Ohio collection is distinctive. North America's oldest common-carrier railroad is one of the few to recognize that its works might be of general interest and it preserved some of its rolling stock, and that of associated companies. This summer will mark the 175th anniversary of the Baltimore and Ohio, and there is a special event planned for the end of June. That might now turn into a preservation effort as well. More details as they become available.
UPDATE: The Flying Scotsman has been providing continuing coverage of the damage to the B&O Museum and the cleanup.
UPDATE: The Flying Scotsman has been providing continuing coverage of the damage to the B&O Museum and the cleanup.
NIGHTCLUB TRAGEDY. Twenty-one people died in Chicago overnight, the aftermath of a fight in an upstairs after-hours club that the security guards used Mace to break up.a fight between two girls. Reverend Jackson, just back from savaging Prime Minister Blair, appeared on CNN at 9 am (Central) proposing that security procedures at clubs be investigated. Perhaps the good Reverend will have the opportunity to learn that locking up the exits and using chemical weapons on your own people tend to be bad policy.
RETURNING DUCT TAPE. Kathryn Jean Lopez is displeased. Suggestion: find a Laser sailor, or a neighbor with a vacation home in Wisconsin. (For that matter, just about any dinghy sailor can never have enough duct tape.) Why is duct tape like the Force? It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the Universe together.
16.2.03
FIRST HAVE NO FUN. Rick Brookhiser isn't happy with V-day, rather than St. Valentine's Day. (Scroll down for more in a similar vein.) Would you rather have less fun this way or this way? Happiness is Eve Ensler and Mullah Omar on Blind Date.
UPDATE: Critical Mass, no worse for the light snow, is unimpressed with Eve Ensler, who spent St. Valentine's Day, unsurprisingly, visiting the University of Michigan.
UPDATE: Critical Mass, no worse for the light snow, is unimpressed with Eve Ensler, who spent St. Valentine's Day, unsurprisingly, visiting the University of Michigan.
YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. Columnist Bill Tammeus revisits the theme that nations have permanent interests. Then, "The goal is to respect - and even celebrate - cultural differences but not to endorse governments and societies that violate the foundational values for which we stand." No. Some cultural traditions are not worth respecting. And sometimes, unfortunately, ignoring them and hoping they'll go away, or making them the object of jokes and hoping they'll be shamed into changing, isn't enough.
STRETCH DC-9? Midwest Express buys 25 new Boeing 717s. Boeing and the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors are having some kind of contest for the longest-running series of transportation equipment (707, 720(?),727,747,737,757,767,777,7X7 and now 717 for Boeing, GP-7, GP-9, GP-18, GP-20, GP-35, GP-40, GP-38, GP-50 and the six-axle SD- series, now up to SD-90.) Who will run out of symbols first?
COMFORTABLE WITH HIS OWN PREJUDICES. A Des Moines schoolteacher is in trouble for circulating as humor a list of common-room commonplaces about Republicans. What makes the story newsworthy is the reaction of the president of the Gay and Lesbian Resource Center: "That's hate speech, and I'm outraged." That's consistent, at least. Isn't a central tenet of the Diversity Boondoogle that each of us has absorbed oppressive ways of thinking?
WHY NOT CALL THEM CHIPS? Dave Kopel proposes renaming "French fries" as "victory fries." That's a nonstarter, anybody remember "liberty cabbage" (prior to 1917 and after the armistice known as sauerkraut?) Why not just adopt the terminology of ye olde countrie, where you get fish and chips (as I've never purchased anything from a McDonald's there, I have no evidence whether or not the counter clerk asks, "want chips with that?") and where the thin-sliced, hard-fried potatoes are crisps.
UPDATES: Reader Josh Mercer directs my attention to this (there's even more in earlier posts.) Atlantic Blog notes that the cooking methods for fries differ from those for properly cooked chips. I suppose the term "soggy fries" could apply to either if improperly cooked. Atlantic Blog has also installed comments and posted house rules.
The Superintendent is unlikely to provide a suggestion box any time soon, this project is already rather time-intensive.
UPDATES: Reader Josh Mercer directs my attention to this (there's even more in earlier posts.) Atlantic Blog notes that the cooking methods for fries differ from those for properly cooked chips. I suppose the term "soggy fries" could apply to either if improperly cooked. Atlantic Blog has also installed comments and posted house rules.
The Superintendent is unlikely to provide a suggestion box any time soon, this project is already rather time-intensive.
HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACKS THERE. Why does Harvard's athletic department require diversity 'training' for scholarship athletes? Because it can. Critical Mass has it: "It's common for college athletes to be subjected to sensitivity training. And despite Norred's protests, the offended Harvard students read things right: the rationale is that jocks are less refined and intelligent than non-jocks; that as inhabitants of a muscular, competitive world they are less cerebral and more visceral, more likely to act than think, more likely to use force than reason, more apt to descend to interactive ugliness than to demonstrate tolerance and self-restraint." Perhaps it's the administrators who ought to confront their own prejudices.
PIGS SPROUTING WINGS? "Mr. Blix and Dr. El Baradei cannot be left to play games of hide-and-seek." That's the New York Times, noted by Andrew Sullivan.
DEFIES PARODY. The Saturday morning radio news included a bit from the West Coast. A "grief counselor" does not like the effect of continued terror alerts and placement of troops to protect landmarks. "It's not natural to live in a sense of constant fear and foreboding," according to Stephanie Demos of the Center for Living with Dying. "I think we're making individuals in this country vulnerable in the sense that we're wearing them down. And there will be very little resources left to call upon if something does happen." Where to begin? The Lord may be your shepherd, and He may make you to lie your naked body down in green pastures and study war no more. But the Lord helps those who help themselves. How many residents of the Bay Area have really thought through the fear and foreboding that their ancestors endured, in order that they might indulge themselves today? Have they contemplated crossing Donner Pass before the Pacific Railroad? Have they ever contemplated a bear in any setting other than on the Californian state flag, or as an object of oppression in zoo or circus? Do they view the redwood forest as anything other than a stroll in the park? Have they considered what a life expectancy of 40-50 years means ... as daily reality, not simply as the avoidable consequences of venereal disease?
Lest readers take my comments as more criticism for the coasts, this morning's radio news reported a woman in St. Charles, Illinois (no poverty pocket there) who objected to the Iraq campaign along these lines: there may be weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but there is no way for Saddam to deliver them here. Madam, what if you are wrong? Is that the kind of stress you wish to live with? What is your assessment of the downside risk? Danger properly prepared for must be respected but not feared. Danger, not prepared for, will be a greater test of your resources than any orange markers or scary newscrawls.
Lest readers take my comments as more criticism for the coasts, this morning's radio news reported a woman in St. Charles, Illinois (no poverty pocket there) who objected to the Iraq campaign along these lines: there may be weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but there is no way for Saddam to deliver them here. Madam, what if you are wrong? Is that the kind of stress you wish to live with? What is your assessment of the downside risk? Danger properly prepared for must be respected but not feared. Danger, not prepared for, will be a greater test of your resources than any orange markers or scary newscrawls.
BUY IT FROM WISCONSIN. There are wineries in Wisconsin (and Iowa and Michigan) but Kathy Kinsley has provided these options.
TRIVIALIZING THE DISCOURSE. Highered Intelligence has more on the guerrilla theater deployed by the College Republicans at UCLA (motto: On! Wisconsin!). Somebody took issue with the bake sale thusly: "By reducing the complexity of this issue into dollars and cents and cookies they are working to stop discourse." I'm going to have to remember that one the next time there's a "pay equity" cookie sale nearby ... it demeans the research of numerous economists into labor force participation.
UPDATE: The pay equity bake sale will face the same questions in St. Cloud.
UPDATE: The pay equity bake sale will face the same questions in St. Cloud.
15.2.03
DOWNHILL RACERS. Classic match racing tonight. After a two hour plus postponement, the second race of the America's Cup began in the kinds of conditions I've often wished for but rarely seen ... steady but not overpowering winds. Alinghi got the better of the first beat, but New Zealand got around her downwind, staysail notwithstanding. That's the position the yachts maintained until the final run, when Alinghi, again flying her staysail, got the better of a gybing duel downwind and blanketed enough to get into the lead, and late enough that the Kiwis could not blanket back. Lots of stuff for the experts to consider here ... what advantage does the staysail confer, is the "hula" a new design breakthrough, is the Kiwi team just not experienced enough at match racing, local knowledge notwithstanding. Next race is Tuesday (Monday evening in the USA.)
14.2.03
BAIL, BAIL, BAIL. The America's Cup racing commenced at 6 pm local, not 7 pm, and it's already wild. There's 23 knots of breeze and some chop. Team New Zealand have been shipping water, and one of the crew has been attempting to scoop it out one pail at a time. Now a fitting near the outhaul has failed and New Zealand are essentially sailing on the jib. WHOA .... now the jib has carried away. Upwind you can sail on the jib alone, the main is primarily a trim tab, but it appears to have carried away when the boat nosed into a wave. Still no death rolls. And now the replacement jib has carried away. The postmortems are going to be interesting on this. New Zealand have had their boat taken in tow. Race isn't over until Alinghi finishes, no certain proposition in these conditions. Nice conservative spinnaker set, they'll probably throttle back and sail a proper but conservative course.
UPDATE: Read the rather bloodless official coverage here. Forgive me the impertinence, but the attraction of Laser sailing is in the capsizing and the moments of sheer terror. The ESPN coverage suggests that the America's Cup yachts are reaching their theoretical maximum performance. There's apparently still a bit of beta-testing left.
UPDATE: Read the rather bloodless official coverage here. Forgive me the impertinence, but the attraction of Laser sailing is in the capsizing and the moments of sheer terror. The ESPN coverage suggests that the America's Cup yachts are reaching their theoretical maximum performance. There's apparently still a bit of beta-testing left.
BY THEIR FRUITS SHALL YE KNOW THEM. Critical Mass discovers (apropos of a Valentine's Day Massacre) a veritable epidemic of off-court trash-talkin' at Seton Hall University (the website has a rather amusing random phrase generator, but I'm rambling.) An adjunct professor of communications -- communications! -- took some stick from her students, who discovered a site that complements the student grapevine. The professor read the comments and sent an angry e-mail to all the students. Critical Mass sees in the episode the folly of treating a university degree as somehow equivalent to shopping at Marshall Field: "The consumerist mentality of Swissler's students is palpable in their comments. They speak as readily of how much money they have wasted on the course as they do of how offensive she is to look at--as if she had an obligation to please them visually with her person, as if her clothing and hairstyle had anything to do with the quality of her instruction, as if her red moped and yellow thermos materially damaged students' abilities to learn. This is the rudeness of entitlement, the hostility of students who labor under the mistaken idea that education should entertain them, and that teachers are performers whose job it is to play to their audience." It does not come as much of a surprise that the chairman of communications -- communications! -- panders. (Got to keep the basketball team eligible, after all.) The SCSU Scholars link, approvingly, to Brian's Education Blog's take -- and while you're there, look for the Adam Smith reference in the comment section. I have yet to decide whether Brian's "But they can all write quite well. I started reading their abuse, and was gripped to the end" is some of that understated British humour.
Although education is a commodity, it is a mistake to think of students solely as consumers, they are also products. Here Seton Hall -- and this is true of many a university -- has neither served the students well as consumers or as products. It is a mistake to pretend that college teaching -- particularly in introductory courses for any discipline or core courses for any program -- is something that can be done well by cheap and contingent labor. But to tell the truth about that, and to charge a tuition accordingly, is a prospect that turns administrators' spines to jelly. On the lighter side, what's this about eating brats for breakfast? For supper with a couple of beers, yes, or charcoal-grilled before Packer games, but for breakfast?
Although education is a commodity, it is a mistake to think of students solely as consumers, they are also products. Here Seton Hall -- and this is true of many a university -- has neither served the students well as consumers or as products. It is a mistake to pretend that college teaching -- particularly in introductory courses for any discipline or core courses for any program -- is something that can be done well by cheap and contingent labor. But to tell the truth about that, and to charge a tuition accordingly, is a prospect that turns administrators' spines to jelly. On the lighter side, what's this about eating brats for breakfast? For supper with a couple of beers, yes, or charcoal-grilled before Packer games, but for breakfast?
13.2.03
PC ATROCITY IN RALEIGH. The President of Shaw College brooks no dissent. Annie, Betsy, Big Arm, Craig, Kim, report! (InstaPundit has the main story.)
UPDATE: Tightly Wound suggests future employment for Shaw's president. And isn't this mission statement ("Believing that true education is both cerebral and attitudinal, Shaw University incorporates values and ethics into its curriculum, intent on graduating students with sound character. For the goal of education is the development of character") precious?
UPDATE: Tightly Wound suggests future employment for Shaw's president. And isn't this mission statement ("Believing that true education is both cerebral and attitudinal, Shaw University incorporates values and ethics into its curriculum, intent on graduating students with sound character. For the goal of education is the development of character") precious?
D'OH. Treat health care like a commodity, urges Reason's Ronald Bailey. If you can trade it and you can price it ... The non-converted ought to go hence and read it, and the converted ought read it and say Amen.
SUNK ASSETS. Reason's Sara Rimensnyder wonders why New York City must have fines for cell-phone use. It's New York. The past summer, I took the Circle Line Around Manhattan cruise. The captain asked all passengers to turn off their cell phones. That previous April (bearing in mind that many people were still riding the Circle Line to mourn) a passenger boarded the cruise and started taking calls, before the boat cast off. At the third incoming call, another passenger took the offending instrument and deep-sixed it.
DISTANCE LEARNING. The editor from hell, all the time? But students who expect to cut class and download "lecture notes" will be in for a shock in the future. (Via Newmark's Door.)
HERITAGE TROLLEYS. Virginia Postrel reminds readers that her prize-winning article criticized the Dallas heritage trolley, which appears to operate independently of the new Dallas trolleys, otherwise known as light rail vehicles. There's another dimension for readers to consider: to the extent that transit authorities operate heritage trolleys, does that complement or crowd out volunteer efforts at railway preservation?
FOURTH TURNING ALERT. Charles Krauthammer: "Those are the stakes today. Before our eyes, in a flash, politics has gone cosmic. The question before us is very large and very simple: Can--and will--the civilized part of humanity disarm the barbarians who would use the ultimate knowledge for the ultimate destruction? Within months, we will have a good idea whether the answer is yes or no." See also this.
THE UNIVERSITY THAT REJECTED PRESIDENT BUSH. Critical Mass (who has moved house) is all over the usual: "In the name of tolerance and inclusion, it preaches ritual expulsion. In the name of fairness, it seeks to subject each member of the UT community to an intrusive ideological litmus test. Those who fail it must go: all in the name of civility and decency, of course." Nothing new there either. Many years ago, something similar happened at Northern Illinois University. The Vice President for Student Affairs reacted in this order: denounce first, then find out what happened.
UNWITTING ACCOMPLICE. Yes, there is a vast right wing conspiracy, reports Newmark's Door. And I have evidently been a long-time participant. Like Paul Weyrich, I have been a fan of the North Shore Line, although I did not get involved in efforts to save it (perhaps a bit much even for a precocious seven-year old.) And I did earn some college money at Allen-Bradley (the reason Rockwell moved headquarters to Milwaukee) as did my father and all my siblings. But, like Clayton Cramer, I have never received any grants from the Bradley Foundation, established with proceeds from Rockwell's acquisition of Allen-Bradley. Notwithstanding that, I will note that Rockwell products qualify for Get It From Wisconsin.
12.2.03
SUSPENDED WITHOUT TRIAL. Possible drumhead court-martial of Texas A&M's Ross Volunteer Company. Developing ....
UPDATE: The Ross Volunteers have been cleared, as Cut on the Bias and Misha, more colorfully, report. But notice the press coverage. The Corps commander wants to avoid "even the appearance of confrontation or effort to intimidate." Hmm, does A&M apply that standard to, say, a pack of fraternity kids with matching Starter jackets and reversed ball-caps?
UPDATE: The Ross Volunteers have been cleared, as Cut on the Bias and Misha, more colorfully, report. But notice the press coverage. The Corps commander wants to avoid "even the appearance of confrontation or effort to intimidate." Hmm, does A&M apply that standard to, say, a pack of fraternity kids with matching Starter jackets and reversed ball-caps?
POETRY FOR THE WAR. Today's Best of the Web. No doubt the literati will sniff, because the limericks scan, the stanzas tend to be symmetric, the punctuation is correct, and there is rhyming, including but not limited to couplets. No candidates for tenure here.
GET IT FROM WISCONSIN. Just heard a news item. An importer of cheeses has been getting nasty e-mails from the American street. Just tried to go to the site. It wasn't available. May I recommend an alternative? Or start here. (Disclaimer: some of my dairy farmer relatives stand to benefit. Prize bulls have been a Hopkins tradition since 1644.)
ANOTHER SOURCE OF COMPANY MAIL? Me, Version 2.0 is the reflections of a teacher in training. Report cards for parents? Scroll down (permalinks don't appear to have been cut in yet.) Discovered by Highered Intelligence.
SIGNALLING. Highered Intelligence reports, "if a student must choose between failing in Minnesota or succeeding in North Dakota, that choice is easy." I am not making this up. (That also suggests real estate will get cheaper in North Dakota.)
ANOTHER SOURCE OF COMPANY MAIL? Number Two Pencil, not to be confused with No. 2 Pencil, who reported the new site. Go check them both out.
SPONTANEOUS ORDER. Susan Lee posts some thoughts on libertarianism. "To push my argument further, libertarian thought, with its fluid cultural matrix, offers a better response to some of the knottiest problems of society. It is, especially when contrasted with the conservative cultural matrix, a postmodern attitude. In fact, it is precisely this postmodernism that enrages conservatives who are uncomfortable with a radical acceptance that, in turn, promotes change and unfamiliarity. Yet no matter how scary (or irritating), libertarian tolerance provides a more efficient mechanism in dealing with those places where economics, politics and culture clash so intimately." Up to a point. As John McGee noted, "Open markets are institutions in which powerful and appraising evolutionary forces are at work." That implies separating the productive from the unproductive ideas. That also implies a certain conservatism, in that long-established practices well might be efficient practices. Transgressiveness for its own sake is likely to be inefficient.
BARNABY SNEERLY. It's not mean-spiritedness, it's being witty. Right. (via The Corner.) My sense is that Eric Alterman hasn't been listening to Limbaugh recently. James Lileks, natch, has the reality: "I don’t listen to Limbaugh - a bomb could go off in New York on Sunday morning and come Monday, he’d talk about the last golf tournament he was in."
ARE YOU SURE? "Actually, I have a feeling the demand for picture books about adult homosexual love is even smaller than the demand for picture books about adult heterosexual love. Kids who identify with Thomas the Tank Engine aren't interested in Matt and Sailor," notes Joanne Jacobs. You mean Duck didn't have the hots for City of Truro? And Henry didn't have tender envy?
NOTICE OF DISRUPTION OF SERVICE. Describe a ten-story building with two elevators, neither of which is currently working. Do you see Zulauf Hall at Northern Illinois University? One elevator has been out of commission for going on three weeks. A new motor has been delivered (looks like it had to be built from scratch) but not yet installed. Meanwhile, the other elevator, which has the perverse habit of going from the ground floor down cellar even when nobody has requested that trip, conked out (from three weeks' overloading?) Some notices around the building helpfully provide a number for motorchair passengers and cardiac patients to call for assistance. Despite an eight degree rise in external temperatures in the last two hours, I suppose we should be grateful that there is not a breeches buoy reeved to the outside walls.
Real good day for the elevators to fail, too. Economics is interviewing a job candidate, and today is a school holiday for some districts, with swarms of potential freshmen checking the place out. Come for the academics, stay for the basketball. Perhaps one day we will have elevators worthy of our students and faculty.
Real good day for the elevators to fail, too. Economics is interviewing a job candidate, and today is a school holiday for some districts, with swarms of potential freshmen checking the place out. Come for the academics, stay for the basketball. Perhaps one day we will have elevators worthy of our students and faculty.
INSTITUTIONS EVOLVE TO REDUCE TRANSACTION COSTS. Good Jane Galt post on developing economies this morning. Sample: "The reason I'm interested is that there's no evidence that natural resources are the key to national success; if anything, the evidence runs the other way. Most of the Asian success stories, for example, have little in the way of natural resources, and not much open space either. Nor does Europe compare with, say, Africa for mineral wealth. With a few exceptions, such as warm-water ports, the countries whose economies are dependant on their geographical or geological features are the basket cases of the world." The institutions matter. And developing the institutions doesn't happen overnight. For instance, the reality that the United States went into business with a relatively limited franchise could well be a feature, not a flaw. More recommended reading here.
PUBLIC CHOICE. Betsy's Page thinks George Will has made a bit of a stretch: "The budget evokes 1862. In that annus mirabilis, with the national government's writ severely restricted and the entire American project in doubt, Lincoln and Congress nevertheless enacted the Homestead Act, which sped the settlement of the Great Plains; the Morrill Act, which begot the land grant college system; and the law that ignited construction of the transcontinental railroad.
Today, with the nation in a war against terrorism and on the brink of a related war against Iraq, the president's budget calls for a dash for economic growth through another round of tax cuts, a tax-cutting pace President Reagan did not attempt; a prescription drug entitlement linked to reform of Medicare; and reform of the way Americans save. And in a budget-related document, the administration floats the idea of scrapping individual and corporate income taxes in favor of a consumption tax
."
Perhaps it's not that much of a stretch. The Homestead Act may have been an act of do-it-yourself creation of property rights where there were none. It also had the effect of fostering freeholding farmers in counterpoint to the plantations of the rebellious slaveholding states. The land grant colleges are pure pork barrel: in particular they made possible many of the Big Ten universities in a part of the country at the time distant and disconnected from Washington (nothing new here; also nothing new in that units from those states essentially won the war for the Union by securing the west while national command went through one political general after another on the Virginia front.) The location of the Pacific Railroad is also a matter of public choice. The easiest way west would have been from New Orleans to San Diego (although there would have been another spat with Mexico to secure the Carrizo Gorge.) With the south in rebellion, that route was not an option, but keeping California in the Union (see above) mattered a lot, and a route using only free states was available, commencing at Omaha. That choice also set the standard for the railway gauge in North America. Had a southern route been available, the standard may well have become the Southern (and Russian) five foot rather than the Northern 4 feet 8.5 inches (bear that in mind the next time the email about Roman military specifications and the Space Shuttle hits your mailbox.) During the Rebellion, Union engineers relaid Southern track to Northern gauge so as to enjoy superior logistics. After the war many Southern railroads went back to their old gauge and stayed there until the 1880s.
But I digress. This was a post about public choice, after all. I have to wonder whether genuine Social Security accounts, and medical savings accounts, and unbundling health insurance from employment, all haven't been postponed or cancelled (delay being the deadliest form of denial) haven't all become casualties of the war effort.
Today, with the nation in a war against terrorism and on the brink of a related war against Iraq, the president's budget calls for a dash for economic growth through another round of tax cuts, a tax-cutting pace President Reagan did not attempt; a prescription drug entitlement linked to reform of Medicare; and reform of the way Americans save. And in a budget-related document, the administration floats the idea of scrapping individual and corporate income taxes in favor of a consumption tax
."
Perhaps it's not that much of a stretch. The Homestead Act may have been an act of do-it-yourself creation of property rights where there were none. It also had the effect of fostering freeholding farmers in counterpoint to the plantations of the rebellious slaveholding states. The land grant colleges are pure pork barrel: in particular they made possible many of the Big Ten universities in a part of the country at the time distant and disconnected from Washington (nothing new here; also nothing new in that units from those states essentially won the war for the Union by securing the west while national command went through one political general after another on the Virginia front.) The location of the Pacific Railroad is also a matter of public choice. The easiest way west would have been from New Orleans to San Diego (although there would have been another spat with Mexico to secure the Carrizo Gorge.) With the south in rebellion, that route was not an option, but keeping California in the Union (see above) mattered a lot, and a route using only free states was available, commencing at Omaha. That choice also set the standard for the railway gauge in North America. Had a southern route been available, the standard may well have become the Southern (and Russian) five foot rather than the Northern 4 feet 8.5 inches (bear that in mind the next time the email about Roman military specifications and the Space Shuttle hits your mailbox.) During the Rebellion, Union engineers relaid Southern track to Northern gauge so as to enjoy superior logistics. After the war many Southern railroads went back to their old gauge and stayed there until the 1880s.
But I digress. This was a post about public choice, after all. I have to wonder whether genuine Social Security accounts, and medical savings accounts, and unbundling health insurance from employment, all haven't been postponed or cancelled (delay being the deadliest form of denial) haven't all become casualties of the war effort.
11.2.03
DISINFORMATION? Instapundit suggests. I heard a translation on the radio news and am inclined to suspect so. Dig trenches and fort up in the cities. "Do whatever you want with me, but don't fling me in that briar patch."
CHESS, SOLVED? Cal Pundit reports, you decide. That there is a solution to chess is well-known (or here.) Will the computers find it? Or will they rewrite the canon of opening theory? Or will human players make greater use of odd openings?
FOURTH TURNING ALERT. "It is the test of the American people whether they have the intelligence to identify multiculturalism for the mistake it is, and the resolve to ensure that it does not triumph over this, the last best hope of mankind." Read and understand.
GUERRILLA THEATER. A common activity during Women's (or is it Womyns') History Month is the cookie sale wherein women get to pay 73 cents for cookies that men pay $1 for. Campus Nonsense found a variant of the tactic employed at UCLA (motto: On! Wisconsin!)
BACK IN SERVICE. The Vermont Reactionary has been back in business for some time, noting follies in Marin-on-Champlain. The archives and the main page are a bit out of synch. Thanks to the SCSU Scholars for references to recent posts.
HOW OTHERS SEE US. Dennis Prager is unimpressed with the idea of academic prestige. "With very few exceptions, any tuition over $10,000 is rarely worth it. This is especially so for students in what is variously called the humanities, the social sciences (a term that is even more deceptive than the tuition), or the liberal arts. In the natural sciences, where students learn without being propagandized, a high tuition is far more often justifiable.
But for the student majoring in subjects such as English, political science or sociology, or in feel-aggrieved programs such as women's studies, students are paying enormous sums of money to be politicized by highly paid and underworked radicals." A bit over the top, perhaps. (Via InstaPundette.)
But for the student majoring in subjects such as English, political science or sociology, or in feel-aggrieved programs such as women's studies, students are paying enormous sums of money to be politicized by highly paid and underworked radicals." A bit over the top, perhaps. (Via InstaPundette.)
FOURTH TURNING ALERTS. David Janes argues, "This is all about 9/11. Everything is about 9/11. I think of lot of non-Americans are underestimating how _pissed_ the US about 9/11, and this has dictated a fundemental, long-term change in American foreign policy: the US will not attempt to "contain" other countries that may pose a threat to the US into the future, as it did with the USSR pre-Reagan, or it's 1990's policy toward the middle-east and near-Asia (the 'stans), and North Korea. In fact, the NK situation is exactly what the US is trying to avoid in the next 10 years in the middle east." Mark Steyn weighs in with "All the late 20th century arrangements--the European Union, NATO and most definitely the UN--are about to be remade." Perhaps so, but that might not be done quickly. The gold standard, the Treaty of Versailles, and the League of Nations were remade, but not in an afternoon. This Den Beste post suggests that there might be a misperception, not a breakdown.
10.2.03
NOTICE OF DISRUPTION OF SERVICE. Amtrak trains return to Grand Central Terminal. "Trains serving Albany with 2-digit train numbers (48, 49, 63, 64, 68 and 69) will continue to operate to/from New York Penn Station via a 27-mile detour." Rare mileage collectors, take note. I believe that also involves a run-around at Rye.
SOCIETE NACIONALE DE BAHN DES WEASELS. Michael Jennings reports, "In a great spirit of European non-cooperation, the French and Germans have each designed their own separate trains, the French TGV and the German ICE. These run on the same track gauge and with the same electrical voltage (25kV AC via overhead wires), but there are other incompatibilities. Early versions of the ICE were too heavy to run on the TGV tracks, and ICE trains can run on steeper gradient tracks than could TGV trains. Both trains are capable of also running on older rail lines, but simply not at speeds any higher than conventional trains." Hmph. Neither of those trains are up to North American crashworthiness standards anyway, and the Acela Express is capable of handling two different voltages and running on tracks that also support North American freight trains (hint: 100 cars plus, 125 short tons per car). Perhaps the Weasel Corridor could try these.
IF THEY HAD LOGICAL PLATFORMING .... "But from which platform would the next train to Victoria depart? This is a classic Clapham Junction dilemma. Many trains converge on Clapham Junction destined for Victoria, and there are two different platforms at which a Victoria-bound train might arrive and from which a Victoria-bound train might depart. These are, if I remember the numbers correctly, platform 12 and platform 14." If you set the stations up such that the Up Victoria tracks were adjacent to each other, rather than altenately Up Victoria and Down Vauxhall, that wouldn't be a problem, would it? (See Newark or the Kearney Connection for such configurations.) There is now a train indicator in the pedestrian underpass indicating where the next Victoria service will be.
MORE POWER OF THE INTERNET. InstaPundit posted some contact pages for German-based companies. I have not yet been able to open Volkswagen's. Hey VW, join my ancestors and migrate to Wisconsin, or to Brazil!
THE POWER OF THE INTERNET? Mindles wanted to vote "yes" on a Guardian poll and had all sorts of trouble voting. I didn't find references to that one (no surprise, it's now Monday), but I did find a Free Republic invitation to visit a BBC poll. No evidence in the comments section to the post that poll-freeping was in progress.
AND YET ANOTHER CANDIDATE FOR QUOTE OF THE DAY: Wisconsin accounting professor Larry "Rittenberg said employee shortages - even those in government - typically go away when the pay goes up enough." Duhhh. Now if we could just get writers to stop crafting clinkers like this: "The reduced supply has driven up demand - and pay - for accountants sought by rival accounting firms. In turn, that is making it more difficult for the federal government to offer competitive wages." Where's the shortage? Certified public accountants. That's good news for Northern Illinois University, at least in the short term.
DISCRIMINATING FOR EQUALITY. This Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article suggests intercollegiate athletics might learn a few things from the high schools about providing equal access to sports. The big stumbling block: colleges have athletic scholarships. Changes the accounting.
CONTINGENT LIABILITIES. American Kaiser is not happy with the possibility that Bethlehem Steel's buyer might be able to avoid providing health insurance for Bethlehem's pensioners. He's also not happy with there being a federal agency insuring pensions. Finding the efficient outcome isn't always easy.
AND YET ANOTHER CANDIDATE FOR QUOTE OF THE DAY: "There are more planes in the ocean than there are submarines in the sky." That's at Old Blind Dog, a retired Marine aviator and flight instructor out of Nacogdoches, Texas. The blogspot archives are a bit squirrelly at the moment, and his archives don't use the same structure as mine, so I couldn't go into his February 1 coverage, which looks to be extensive.
UPDATE: The archives are working, and his coverage the day of the wreck is extensive.
UPDATE: The archives are working, and his coverage the day of the wreck is extensive.
DUDE, YOU'RE GETTING THIRTY DAYS, reports The Smoking Gun (via the recovering No. 2 Pencil, who has had more snow days in the Carolinas than we have had in northern Illinois.)
UPDATE: The five pm radio news guy said, "Dude, you're getting a cell."
UPDATE: The five pm radio news guy said, "Dude, you're getting a cell."
ANOTHER CANDIDATE FOR QUOTE OF THE DAY "At this point, the pursuit of diversity is quickly becoming identified with defiance of the law," according to Critical Mass.
HOW OTHERS SEE US. Joanne Jacobs gets off one candidate for quote of the week: "Gee, if knowledge is a function of power, then President Bush knows a lot more than the intellectuals." It's a survey of a number of exegeses of Mark Goldblatt's visit to the Modern Language Association convention (OK, mocking the lit-crits is just this side of taking baby's candy) where he discovers the implicit finger-quote and other devices. There's some serious commentary here and some commentary on the lighter side here (the bit about Mutually Assured Deconstruction is quite nice), and here.
Some time ago I wrote an essay for the Faculty Bulletin at this university in which I suggested that people who denied coherent beliefs of any kind ought prepare to enjoy incoherence. Apparently some still do. But you'd think that people who claim some familiarity with the works of Marx would not be so willing voluntarily to participate in the reserve army of the unemployed.
Some time ago I wrote an essay for the Faculty Bulletin at this university in which I suggested that people who denied coherent beliefs of any kind ought prepare to enjoy incoherence. Apparently some still do. But you'd think that people who claim some familiarity with the works of Marx would not be so willing voluntarily to participate in the reserve army of the unemployed.
SPENDTHRIFT. Find out who is the most profligate President since Richard Nixon. With cross-references and more cross references. What was that Parkinson line about spending rising to meet available income?
READ IT IN THE ORIGINAL. Brad DeLong pays tribute to the Classic Works. Don't miss the comments. In my experience, the originals are well worth a look. There are some questions on pp. 40-42 of the 8th edition of Marshall's Principles of Economics that remain open today ... anyone seeking a dissertation topic would do well to start there. And some of John Maurice Clark's writings on workable competition anticipates contestability theory.
BYE, DADDY. Thursday night's Nightline covered the departure preparations of a Marine unit from Camp Pendleton. The closing tape was of the troops marching off. A couple of small voices called out, "Bye, Daddy." That got to me. The Marines go into harm's way in order that their kids can be safe. I wish them all a safe return.
THE URGE TO MERGE. Buzz Machine is unimpressed, likely for good reasons, with arguments that media mating means more mating on screen. His parting shot, however, is a bit much: "Let's get this straight: Sex sells. Sex is fun. Sex is good. Gotta problem with that? Then you're the freak, geek." Buzz Machine ought to be able to take on an argument about media concentration without making a foolish argument of his own. What does that sex sell? The battle of the sexes continues in the pages of the University paper, with these laments being the most recent, and the most jaded. Note in particular both columnists use of the term "single" to mean "not currently engaged in commit-and-switch with anyone." That last, of course, is a "relationship." As in "baggage" and "issues" therefrom, and as in a BMW radio commercial wherein the narrator asks, "Imagine if relationships could be certified." (That used to exist, before no-fault divorce.) Where is the fun, or the good, in that? Or, while you're selling the fun, imagine what the release for this reality show must look like. "Participant acknowledges that by appearing on this show, he or she may offer or be offered a casual sexual encounter with a near-stranger. Participant acknowledges that by appearing on this show, he or she may be treated very rudely by a near-stranger. Nothing in this release is to be construed as guaranteeing either or both of these experiences."
HOW OTHERS SEE US. Juan Gato gets a few chuckles from this source of anthropological hypotheses for SUV ownership in Marin County (motto: get naked and do it to Old Glory). There is a simpler explanation for "consumption decisions." In economics, we call them incentives. The sport-ute is the logical outcome of regulations that reduced the availability of station wagons and other family cars whilst preserving the ability of farm trucks.
9.2.03
BOLT=TIGHTEN. Aviation Week has more information about evidence of damage to Columbia's wing and the construction of that part of the ship. (Via Doc Searls.)
HOW OTHERS SEE US. "We should think, as the professors do, in multicultural terms and, therefore, render no moral judgment over Iraq or any other nation except Israel. Who am I to declare any regimes an "axis of evil"?" That's a taste of a Dennis Prager column recommended on Betsy's Page. It would be hilarious but that I have to work with people who think that way.
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