How to price a product and account for its health costs at the same time.
“Victory” In Iraq Update
An unsettling nugget from this week’s New Yorker:
"I asked Zaidan what sort of deal had led to the Sunni Awakening. ‘It’s not a deal,’ he said, bristling. ‘People have come to realize that our fate is tied to the Americans’, and theirs to ours. If they are successful in Iraq, it will depend on Anbar. We always said this. Time was lost. America was lost, but now it’s woken up; it now holds a thread in its hand. For the first time, they’re doing something right.’
Zaidan said that Anbar’s Sunni tribes no longer had any need to exact blood vengeance on U.S. forces. ‘We’ve already taken our revenge,’ he said. ‘We’re the ones who’ve made them crawl on their stomachs, and now we’re the ones to pick them up.’ He added, ‘Once Anbar is settled, we must take control of Baghdad, and we will.’ There would have to be a lot more fighting before the capital was taken back from the Shiites, he said. ‘The Anbaris will take charge of the purge. What the whole world failed to do in Anbar, we have done overnight. Baghdad will be a lot easier.’
Kevin Drum points to three pieces worth absorbing this weekend: from Tom Ricks, John Lee Anderson (above) and a post by Marc Lynch. Check this post out also – noted by Matt, by Brian Katulis. I have a feeling that this war is not "drawing to a successful close".
An Ikea Catalog Without The Furniture
From the work of Jason Salavon, courtesy of Kottke, who adds:
You may remember Mr. Salavon from his composite photographs and videos of blowjobs, late night talk show hosts, and Playboy centerfolds.
Throbbing Fox News
A brief tour through the raciest right-wing programming out there:
Hat tip: Nerve.com.
Help Bangladesh
The West has a duty and an opportunity right now: we need to do all we can to give assistance to those Bangladeshis whose lives have been destroyed by the recent cyclone. It’s at moments like these that we can push back against Islamists and help bolster support for and fondness of the US. Of course, we should help because it is just the right thing to do. But it is also strategically shrewd – a useful reminder that strength does not always means bombs and soldiers; it can also stem from clear moral standards and humanitarian care.
Why I Don’t Go To The Movies Any More
We just got "Ratatouille" from Netflix. That’s on the agenda for tonight chez Sully. Beats parsing Nixon in a pant-suit on CNN. Part of me is curious enough to want to go see "Redacted" in the theater, but Aaron has come to hate something he once loved: the grimy, sticky floors, the rip-off munchies, the idiot with the cell-phone, the non-stop chatterers, the poky, ill-ventilated multiplex rooms, and on and on. John Patterson sums up my feelings pretty well:
I didn’t have to rob any banks to fund my massive TV and thundering sound system. It wouldn’t kill me to save up for a customised DVD projector with a 12-ft canvas screen and perfect clarity; I have a quote on one for just over $2,000. This would transform my living room into a private screening salon just like any studio mogul’s, except that my guests can smoke, drink, make out, pause the picture and yell at the screen. NetFlix enables me to programme my bills as perversely as I wish without even leaving the house. And since I’m the boss-feller, the DVD dictator, the moviehouse Mussolini, I can unilaterally ban popcorn, which to my nostrils has a far more offensive odour than fags or vomit, and immediately eject idiots who leave their cellphones on.
Honestly, with all that available, why should I ever hit the multiplex again?
He means cigarettes, by the way.
Jesus In The Ghetto
In stencil anyway. More here.
Downward Mobility For African Americans?
Some brutal data:
Overall, family incomes have risen for both blacks and whites over the past three decades. But in a society where the privileges of class and income most often perpetuate themselves from generation to generation, black Americans have had more difficulty than whites in transmitting those benefits to their children.
Forty-five percent of black children whose parents were solidly middle class in 1968 — a stratum with a median income of $55,600 in inflation-adjusted dollars — grew up to be among the lowest fifth of the nation’s earners, with a median family income of $23,100. Only 16 percent of whites experienced similar downward mobility. At the same time, 48 percent of black children whose parents were in an economic bracket with a median family income of $41,700 sank into the lowest income group.
But Booker Rising blogger Shay has some methodology questions.
Those Anti-Mormon Calls
Weirder and weirder. They appear to be coming from a company based in … Utah. And that company, according to Liz Mair, has at least two employees, including a senior VP, who have actually donated to Romney. Romney is blaming McCain-Feingold – and you can allow your own head to do a Linda Blair on that one. So a dirty trick? Or some self-inflicted self-hate crime? Well, we’ll almost certainly find out soon …
The Poor and Groceries
Dallas News wonders why there are so few grocery stores in poor neighborhoods. Econobloggers pounce: AWOL store executives? Lack of cars? More discussion here.
