Month: November 2008

Glenn Greenwald is one of those rare souls who reads and remembers NYT editorials. The Gray Lady might prefer otherwise.

West Chester, Pennsylvania, 8 am.

Krugman is dreaming big:

The quintessential economic sentence is supposed to be "There is no free lunch"; it says that there are limited resources, that to have more of one thing you must accept less of another, that there is no gain without pain. Depression economics, however, is the study of situations where there is a free lunch, if we can only figure out how to get our hands on it, because there are unemployed resources that could be put to work. The true scarcity in Keynes’s world—and ours—was therefore not of resources, or even of virtue, but of understanding.

We will not achieve the understanding we need, however, unless we are willing to think clearly about our problems and to follow those thoughts wherever they lead. Some people say that our economic problems are structural, with no quick cure available; but I believe that the only important structural obstacles to world prosperity are the obsolete doctrines that clutter the minds of men.

To which, Krauthammer’s column this morning is a useful riposte:

The ruling Democrats have a choice: Rescue this economy to return it to market control. Or use this crisis to seize the commanding heights of the economy for the greater social good. Note: The latter has already been tried. The results are filed under "History, ash heap of."

Ross notes how used the residents of Mumbai are to low-level constant terror:

If you try to imagine how the United States would bear up under the kind of horrific drumbeat of small and large-scale attacks that India’s experienced in the last few years, it’s hard to feel anything save admiration – and, on this day, thanksgiving – for Indian courage and resilience under fire.

In dealing with terror, Americans have something to learn from the Brits and Indians.

Count them.

A reader writes:

I love your Rick-Roll bit so had to share this.  We live in the Panamanian highlands about an hour from the Costa Rican border.  I’m out walking the dogs one morning on a road that can best be described as unimproved.  I haven’t seen a car or another person for half an hour until I pass an Indio (Panamanian indigenous Indian) carrying a small boom box tuned to a local radio station.  What’s playing? You guessed it. You can run but you can’t hide.

From her current column:

This initiative protecting traditional marriage won by the same margin as Barack Obama did in that state — getting the support of some Obama voters, in fact.

It won 52 – 48. Obama won California by 61 – 37. He won by over 6 points nationwide.

The Economist summarizes a new study:

Bank details are the most popular single item for sale by online fraudsters, according to a new report by Symantec, an internet-security firm. They are also the priciest, perhaps because the average account for which details are offered has a balance of nearly $40,000.

Goldblog marvels at Zach Braff’s love of Israel:

"As an American Jew it’s an amazing feeling to come to a place where you feel you belong. You know we’re such a minority in the U.S. Even though I grew up in New Jersey, which was very Jewish, and then I went to school in Chicago, which was Jewish, and then I moved to New York, which is very Jewish, and then I went to Hollywood, which is very Jewish. But they say we’re only 2 percent of the population and shrinking because of intermarriage."

Morgan Meis is adamantly pro-fort:

Take two identical objects, one built to be a toolshed and the other built as a fort. They look exactly the same. But once you know that one is a fort, it transforms. You approach it with diffidence, with the respect of someone entering a sacred space. That is why children hide their forts and surround them with all manner of booby traps. Special spaces require special measures. For the uninitiated to enter the fort is for the fort to be sullied, to have become polluted. When you are a child the last thing you want is for a parent (for instance) to enter the fort, bringing with them, inevitably, the stigma of the mundane. A parent can be allowed into the fort only under special circumstances and with a firm understanding that they will play by a different set of rules: fort rules. It is like trying to take communion when you’re unbaptized. You can put the wafer in your mouth a thousand times, but the mystery of transubstantiation will elude you.

(Hat tip: Utne)