by John Q on October 24, 2005
Ben Bernanke has been appointed to replace Alan Greenspan, who’s been Chairman of the US Federal Reserve for just about as long as I can remember (the Volcker squeeze was in the early 80s, so he hasn’t been there forever, but it often seems that way).
Bernanke was the obvious candidate, but there was always the possibility that Bush would decide to mend fences with the base by appointing some obscure* supply-sider a la Harriet Miers.
Bernanke’s appointment suggests a general bias towards an expansionary monetary policy . He was prominent in saying that the Fed would not tolerate deflation, and could print money if necessary. More recently, he’s taken a very relaxed view of the US current account deficit, seeing it as the inevitable counterpart to a ‘global savings glut’. I agree with him on the first point but not on the second; there’s a significant risk that the wheels will fall off the entire policy, leading to a rapid depreciation of the dollar and an uncontrolled increase in interest rates.
Market movements were consistent with this analysis (stock prices went up, the dollar fell and the 10-year bond rate rose), but weren’t very big, suggesting that no-one is expecting really big changes.
* This is a redundancy, as there are no prominent supply-siders in the US economics profession. That is, not in the sense of supply-side popularised by Jude Wanniski and Arthur Laffers, although Mundell shares the supply-side liking for a gold standard. Almost all economists are supply-siders in the sense that they think attention should be paid to the supply side of the economy as well as the demand side.
by Henry Farrell on October 24, 2005
“Noam Scheiber”:http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank?pid=3075 has a brilliant plan.
bq. Our boss, Peter Beinart, has a theory about how to undercut the conservative punditry’s assault on the mainstream media: coopt it. The basic idea is that most of the conservative animus toward the MSM comes from feeling spurned by it. If that’s true, then the easiest way to fix this would be for establishment media institutions to hire lots of bright young conservatives. … I agree. But that George Will column Jason linked to earlier suggests another reason why the mainstream media might want to start hiring conservatives, at least conservative opinion journalists: It would allow conservatives to say and write what they actually think, which is usually both interesting and important. As Ryan Lizza noted last week, many of the conservatives who’ve spoken out against George W. Bush lately–people like Bruce Bartlett and David Frum–have done so at considerable risks to their livelihoods. That’s because the conservative “movement” is incredibly centralized and hierarchical. People who work at conservative think tanks or receive conservative foundation money, even people who work at conservative media outlets, risk having the plug pulled if they deviate too far from the party line.
But then “I would say that, wouldn’t I”:https://crookedtimber.org/2005/04/01/affirmative-action-for-campus-conservatives-a-modest-proposal/. Entertaining as it is to see something like my April 1 squib recycled as a quasi-serious plan of action, it can’t compete with Chris’s experience last year, of being (perhaps unintentionally) “directly”:https://crookedtimber.org/2004/12/17/the-real-threat-the-the-life-of-the-nation/ “plagiarized”:http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/2004_12_01_archive.asp#110333522580034888 by William Gibson. Now that’s real geek street-cred.
by John Holbo on October 24, 2005
It hardly seems sporting to take another poke at Maggie Gallagher, the best-refuted woman in the blogosphere. So I won’t. Still, her Volokh posts reminded of something I read recently …
Roads To Ruin, The Shocking History of Social Reform, by E.S. Turner. (Published in 1950. You could google up a used copy for yourself somewhere. Amazon hasn’t so much as heard of it, although other curious titles
tempt. Past the age of 90, the man’s most recent publication was … four days ago.)
The book’s theme:
It is a salutary thing to look back at some of the reforms which have long been an accepted part of our life, and to examine the opposition, usually bitter and often bizarre, sometimes dishonest but all too often honest, which had to be countered by the restless advocates of ‘grandmotherly’ legislation.
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by Henry Farrell on October 24, 2005
Matt Yglesias is “quite right”:http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/10/23/161832/81 when he says that Scowcroft, Wilkerson and company don’t deserve any kudos for giving the administration a few more kicks when it’s already reeling. But you can also turn this argument on its head – that they’re doing it illustrates exactly how much trouble the administration is in. While DiIulio and O’Neill dissented in the first term, neither were central figures in the administration or in the Republican movement (arguably O’Neill, as Secretary for the Treasury, should have been the former, but he was marginalized from very early on). That far more prominent Republicans* are now knifing each other in the dark tells us that the disciplining mechanisms that made “diIulio recant his apostasy”:http://www.rense.com/general32/shut.htm are breaking down very badly. Key people are calculating that they’ll be hurt worse if they stay on message and go down with the ship than if they try to get their own version of the story out while they can. It doesn’t take Thomas Schelling to tell you that situations of this kind can easily turn into a rush for the exits, as everyone tries to make sure that he or she is the first to get out, and thus perhaps to retain a few scraps of credibility. Not that this is happening yet, or necessarily will. But there’s a discernible atmosphere of deep nervousness among Republicans, which could easily explode into an out-and-out panic, given the right spark.
* Wilkerson isn’t very prominent, but Colin Powell, on whose behalf he is “very likely speaking”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/21/AR2005102101829.html, is.
Update: See also “Matt Welch”:http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2005/10/the_week_of_the.shtml.
by Chris Bertram on October 24, 2005
The New York Times “reports”:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/24/business/24onion.html?ei=5090&en=b40eb239c3b34014&ex=1287806400&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1130162497-jv9RaBeQrH9+1m446sivmw (hat-tip JD – via “The PoorMan”:http://www.thepoorman.net/2005/10/24/hooray-for-freedom/ ):
bq. You might have thought that the White House had enough on its plate late last month, what with its search for a new Supreme Court nominee, the continuing war in Iraq and the C.I.A. leak investigation. But it found time to add another item to its agenda – stopping The Onion, the satirical newspaper, from using the presidential seal.
by Chris Bertram on October 24, 2005
It is difficult to get a clear picture of what went on in Birmingham (England) at the weekend. But what seems to have happened is that unsubstaniated rumours of a sexual assault by members of a particular minority that was already resented for its local economic success began to circulate, and that vigilantes then felt entitled to attack random members of that group and their places of worship. Two people have died so far. The BBC has “a report here”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4370288.stm , and the Guardian has “some of the background”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/race/story/0,11374,1599126,00.html . A very worrying development.
by John Q on October 24, 2005
by Eszter Hargittai on October 23, 2005
For your weekend reading pleasure, my Internet & Society course blog links to 25 students’ class blogs. They are required to blog about their readings (which already leads to some interesting posts), but additionally, several of them have gotten inspired to blog about class-related (and sometimes unrelated) topics above and beyond the required assignments. From interviewing grandparents about their radio uses to reflecting about their obsessions with IT they have covered lots of topics.
Extras have included discussions of the “What Would Jesus Blog” movement, the Facebook banned at a university, Tuvalu’s .tv domain name (also discussed briefly in class once) and frustrations with software installation. One student blogged about a run-in with someone regarding a copied identity on MySpace. Blogger ELVIAJERO has a series on Weekly Musical Leanings. Another student blogged about an upcoming movie that a friend is producing. Some students also get inspired to add images to their posts, which adds a fun component when you’re reading through a couple dozen of these blogs. (And yes, they are careful about not hotlinking and using up others’ bandwidth.)
In case you’re wondering about the curious blog names, I encourage students to blog without their real names for privacy (and in compliance with FERPA guidelines).
I’m sure they’d be delighted to get some comments from people outside of class so if you have a moment please stop by and say hello. That said, many of the comments on the posts are closed due to spam protection we have implemented on their blogs. We use both the auto-close comments plugin for WordPress and an additional spam guard to protect against unwanted junk. I recommend both if you’re a WordPress user.
by Chris Bertram on October 23, 2005
I caught the “Guinness evolution ad”:http://www.bestadsontv.com/ad_details.php?id=634 (QuickTime movie) when I went to see the (rather excellent) “Sommersturm”:http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0420206/ last night. (I doubt that cinemas in Kansas will be showing the ad any time soon — or the movie for that matter!)
[Aaargh! It turns out that this is the _third time_ we’ve linked to the Guinness ad on CT (sorry “Eszter”:https://crookedtimber.org/2005/10/10/evolution/ and “Kieran”:https://crookedtimber.org/2005/10/06/noitulove/ ) — we really must start reading one another’s posts!]
by Eszter Hargittai on October 22, 2005
I saw a great concert last night as part of the Third Coast International Audio Festival‘s events. The special guest for the evening was One Ring Zero playing music different from most of what’s usually on my playlist. As one of the members described it at some point: weird circus klezmer music. As silly or weird as that may sound, I think it was a reasonable description of at least some of their music. (If you don’t know what klezmer music is, you can check out the bit of discussion we had about the topic here on CT a while back or see what Wikipedia has to say about it.)
The group was performing pieces from their most recent album As Smart As We Are that has songs with lyrics from an impressive set of writers. See the Web site for some sample mp3s and the list of contributors to this album.
The concert also came with the special treat of watching Bob Ewards play the theremin. I had never seen a theremin played so this was interesting in general. In case you don’t know what a theremin looks like (or what someone looks like playing it), Theremin.info has a helpful animated image on its front page to give you an idea. (Needless to say blogs exist on the topic of theremins if you want a daily dose.:)
Thanks to my friend Ben – the trumpet player in last night’s performance – for alerting me to this event, it was definitely a treat. I’ve posted a couple of images on Flickr.
by Chris Bertram on October 22, 2005
Der Spiegel has “an interview with Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk”:http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,380858,00.html — currently facing criminal charges for having publicly discussed the mass murder of Armenians during the First World War — which touches on his career as novelist, the political evolution of Turkey, the possibility of Turkish accession to the EU, among other matters.
by Eszter Hargittai on October 21, 2005
Do you like to play sudoku? Do you prefer images over numbers? You may for this game. Picture sudoku lets you choose images from photo-sharing site Flickr with which to fill your sudoku puzzle. You can specify the tag and/or the user whose images you want to integrate into the game.
Examples:
Chicagoland sudoku (with just my photos)
turtle sudoku (with everyone’s photos)
long-shadow sudoku (with everyone’s photos)
chocolate sudoku (with everyone’s photos)
As you can see, the possibilities are endless.
The game also gives you a “blank” with which to erase placement of photos. If you are intrigued by a picture and want to see it in full size on Flickr then just click on the asterisk next to its name in the left-hand column.
Have fun!
[thanks]
by Eszter Hargittai on October 21, 2005
It’s been too long since we’ve had some geeky goodness around here. But wait! You don’t have to be a geek to appreciate and benefit from the following so read on regardless of your geek quotient.
I’ve been a big fan of Firefox since last Fall and given its wonderful features (better security [update: see comments for suggestions as to why this may not be the case], all sorts of functionality) I try to do my best to encourage others to use it as well.
In that vein, I have put together a page with a list of my favorite extensions. Firefox extensions are little programs that add features to the browser. Some of my favorites include being able to search for a street address without having to retype the address or pull up a map first, tabbed browsing, better use of browser space, etc. I know some of these features are available in other programs as well, but it’s great to have it all come together so nicely in one program. Feel free to list additional favorites in the comments to this post.
I have also put together a detailed tutorial on how to install the program (on Windows) for those who do not feel comfortable downloading programs. Feel free to pass along these page to your parents, cousins, friends, etc.
This Webuse.Info site contains some additional information so to recap:
Enjoy!
UPDATE: Since the comments have gone in all sorts of directions, I have highlighted in green sections of posts that refer to additional extensions for those who want quick access to that info.
by Belle Waring on October 21, 2005
Oh, sure, they’ve been thinking about the whole bird flu thing. But what about zombies?
“When it comes to defending ourselves against an army of reanimated human corpses, the officials in charge have fallen asleep at the wheel,” [Pittsburgh Mayor Tom] Murphy said. “Who’s in charge of sweep-and-burn missions to clear out infected areas? Who’s going to guard the cemeteries at night? If zombies were to arrive in the city tomorrow, we’d all be roaming the earth in search of human brains by Friday.”
I’m afraid it’s all too likely that zombie-preparedness has been neglected in New Orleans, especially given former FEMA head Brown’s focus on tasty food—other than human brains.
At 11:20 a.m. Aug. 31, Bahamonde e-mailed Brown, “Sir, I know that you know the situation is past critical . . . thousands gathering in the streets with no food or water . . . estimates are many will die within hours.”
At 2:27 p.m., however, Brown press secretary Sharon Worthy wrote colleagues to schedule an interview for Brown on MSNBC’s “Scarborough Country” and to give him more time to eat dinner because Baton Rouge restaurants were getting busy: “He needs much more that 20 or 30 minutes.”
I was born in Savannah, GA, and raised just outside the city; I spent many a happy childhood hour playing on the various above-ground crypts which enhance the picturesque nature of the city. You can bet your life we were armed to the teeth against possible zombie intrusions. Wait, maybe that was just the paranoia talking after my parents were in on that big shipment of DMT from out west when I was a kid. When my mom woke up still tripping on the third day, stuttering things like “wheels of fire…wheels within wheels…” I knew things were bad. But by then I could totally make pancakes and stuff, so me and my 3-year-old brother were fine. Wait, what was I saying? Yeah. Zombie preparedeness. Don’t rely on the government. Y’all are going to be on your own. Mmmmm, braaiins. It makes the pain go away. The pain of being dead.
by John Q on October 21, 2005
Reading Maggie Gallagher on how gay marriage will bring an end to marriage as an institution for procreation and Leon Kass on how the Pill has ruined courtship, you can see the usual story of a vanished golden age. For Kass, it’s the turn of the 2Oth century when “our grandfathers came a-calling and a-wooing at the homes of our grandmothers, under conditions set by the woman, operating from strength on her own turf”. For Gallagher, it seems to be the 1950s.
The assumption is that turning the clock back a century (or half a century) will be enough to restore the golden age. In fact, the turn of the 2Oth century was a period of moral panic cast in terms very similar to those of Kass and Gallagher. As effective family planning became possible for the first time, the birth rate plummeted, falling from 5.1 births per married woman to 2.6 in the space of only forty years for the cohorts born between 1860 and 1900. My mother wrote the book on this. It’s loaded with quoted denunciations of selfish females pursuing pleasure at the expense of their duty to the race.
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