The Dish

A reader writes:

If you define a recession as two consecutive quarters of real GDP declines (as most do), you have to look at what the government uses as their number for inflation.  For the past two quarters, the government has used an inflation number that is in the mid-2% range.  If you used a number that actually reflected inflation (the government’s official inflation number has been adjusted numerous times since the 1970s), real GDP would have been negative for both quarters.

Another adds:

I learned in ECON 101 back in 1979 that it constituted back to back negative growth quarters and to be determined by some panel many months or years into the future. So the actual meaning has no real life application. Further, the definition itself is rather arbitrary and archaic in modern times due to rapid fluctuations. In my view, economic conditions should not be constrained by arbitrary dates, if the economy is not growing, then it is a recession; and I would add that if the economy is not growing in pace with population growth then we have what many economists call a growth recession since the per capita GDP is contracting.

On ethanol, Philip Klein has a point.

Even the pastor’s defenders think he’s lost it in the last week. For Marty’s previous assessment of Wright, see here. Wright is doubtless a complex figure: you cannot deny his theological depth, his intellectual gifts, his service in the Marines, his contribution to his community. But he is also clearly an ego-maniac, as some preachers often are. And he has succumbed to bitterness, envy, paranoia and racial polarization. One thing cable news cannot convey: human beings can contain a great deal of good and bad at the same time.

That’s how the vice-president of the United States described the following as practised by the American government:

He gets the quantum leap in soft power that an Obama presidency would give the U.S.. The Obama candidacy is potentially the most powerful weapon against Islamism this country now has:

Many Iranians are obsessed with Barack Obama. If he goes to Iran, I’m sure he could fill Tehran’s Azadi Stadium, which has a capacity of 100,000. To a large extent this is because of the nature of Obama’s message about change and hope. Iranian people truly want to change their situation, get rid of decades of marginalization and restore their reputation in the world. They feel connected to his message of change. They are tired of living under the threat of economic sanctions and military attacks. Obama’s remark about initiating a dialogue with Iran translated for many Iranians into hopes of normalizing the relationship between the countries and Iran rejoining the international community. For many Iranian women struggling for women’s rights, Hillary is incredibly inspiring. Senator McCain, on the other hand, they see as just as a third term of President Bush, and I see no reason for them to connect to him.

Obama remains a game-changer. Hence the resistance from the neocon right, whose interest is in keeping the game as it is. But the interests of the neoconservatives are not necessarily the best interests of the United States. As we have ruefully discovered.

Beware the mini-drones.

Some salutary tales from the edges of research.

Contemporary photographs of the recently deceased cause a frisson of transgressive shock. The Victorians were not so squeamish.

David Frum:

A century and a half ago, the American news media were small, polemical, often heavily subsidized by political parties and relatively poor. Horace Greeley started the New York Tribune with $1,000 in capital. That was obviously more money in 1841 than it is today, but even then, it was not so much money, not the kind of money needed to start a railway or a foundry, more like the kind of money used to start a nice looking Web site today.

Drop by a successful political blog, and you’ll notice something — ads, lots of ads, but special ads, ads from political candidates. Partisans give money to politicians, who pay money to blogs, in order to raise more money from partisans. Again, that looks more like Horace Greeley than like Walter Cronkite’s CBS, and even the big media seem to be trending in this direction.

Fox News was created as America’s first self-consciously partisan television network. The success of Fox has called forth the flattery of imitation from MSNBC. Partisanship makes political news pay, and that suggests that if we’re going to continue to enjoy political news, we’re going to have to tolerate a more partisan media. It’s a grim bargain, but then our parents thought that having to endure all those ex-lax commercials during the nightly news was a pretty grim bargain, too.