Month: July 2009

Drug Trends

by Patrick Appel

Laura Miller reviews Ryan Grim's book:

One of the theses of his new book, "This is Your Country on Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America" — a cornucopia of unconventional wisdom about our relationship to mind-altering substances — is that the popularity of drugs waxes and wanes according to a complex sum of factors. One of those factors is the "perceived risk" of using a particular chemical, which also fluctuates. There's a tendency to idealize new drugs, as the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal did with a recently isolated narcotic in 1900. "There's no danger of acquiring a habit," it assured its readers about the drug that had just emerged from the labs of the aspirin manufacturer, Bayer. They named it heroin.Even when we ought to know better, we don't. "It takes about seven years," Grim writes, "for folks to realize what's wrong with any given drug. It slips away, only to return again as if it were new."

Opportunity For All

by Chris Bodenner

Cato's Daniel Griswold argues that the influx of immigrants actually increases the income and skill set of native-born Americans:

One argument raised against expanded legal immigration has been that allowing more low-skilled foreign-born workers to enter the United States will swell the ranks of the underclass. […] As plausible as the argument sounds, it is not supported by the social and economic trends of the past 15 years. Even though the number of legal and illegal immigrants in the United States has risen strongly since the early 1990s, the size of the economic underclass has not. In fact, by several measures the number of Americans living on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder has been in a long-term decline, even as the number of immigrants continues to climb. Other indicators associated with the underclass, such as the crime rate, have also shown improvement.

(Hat tip: Hit & Run)

Topographic Typography

Fonts

by Chris Bodenner

British researcher Rachel Young, while recovering from a car accident, compiled an alphabet of New York locations using Google Maps. Flavorwire reviews:

The ‘B’ and the ‘N’ are pretty hard to read, meaning that roads probably don’t make the best letters. That ‘A’ though, is a thing of beauty. This will definitely be our go-to when the occasion calls for a special atlas-themed ransom note.

Enough Rope

by Robert Wright

Spencer Ackerman, though no great supporter of the Iraq War, finds a silver lining: America didn't make as many mistakes as Al Qaeda did! Actually, he's making a serious point, much worth pondering (even if, carried to its logical extreme, it perversely suggests that we should give Al Qaeda a foothold in every nation that might be vulnerable to its propaganda). 

Robot Brides

by Chris Bodenner

I Heart Chaos describes a disturbing photo from the AP:

Miimu', a HRP-4C robot, is seen here being utilized as a runway model for Japanese fashion designer Yumi Katsura's line of bridal gowns.Yes, the fucking Japanese have begun to replace runway models with soulless machines… as opposed to soulless bulemics that survive on cocaine alone. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, I suppose.

The Dish owes an apology to David Gibbs III.

The Age Of Wonder

by Patrick Appel

Adam Kirsch reviews a new book:

In The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, Richard Holmes explores an early-19th-century period of terrific—and often terrified—excitement about science, of marvelous discoveries that raised humble experimenters to the rank of national heroes. Holmes' subjects—including astronomer William Herschel, chemist Humphry Davy, and explorer Mungo Park—were household names in England, but their discoveries were by no means always welcome ones. Herschel's observation of the stars, for instance, showed that the Milky Way was just one of a vast number of galaxies that were constantly being born, aging, and dying. The Milky Way, Herschel warned, "cannot last forever." It followed, as Holmes writes, that "our solar system, our planet, and hence our whole civilization would have an ultimate and unavoidable end." For the first time, the apocalypse was not a matter of religious faith but of demonstrated scientific fact.

The Limits Of Federalism

by Patrick Appel

James Surowiecki on states and the federal government running in opposite directions:

[S]tate cutbacks have not been as severe as they might have been, thanks to the stimulus plan, which includes roughly $140 billion in aid to local governments. That aid, according to a recent study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, has covered thirty to forty per cent of the states’ budget shortfalls. Money for the states translates directly into jobs not lost and services not cut—which is why you can make a good case that more of the stimulus should have gone to state aid. Yet there’s no sign that those budget gaps are getting smaller, and, as the federal money runs out, state tax increases and spending cutbacks are only going to become more common. In the midst of this downturn, some of the biggest players in the economy—state and local governments together account for about thirteen per cent of G.D.P.—will be doing precisely the wrong thing.

Reihan Salam chimes in at his shiny new blog:

[If] social welfare spending in the states depends on state revenues and states have balanced budget requirements, surely this will deepen economic contractions. The solution is to move away from ad hoc stimulus efforts to federal transfers that kick in under certain economic conditions: a state is in recession, its unemployment rate reaches X amount, etc.