2/24/11

Yes, it must be exhausting to be paid handsomely to be wrong

"I've gotten tired of telling investors to buckle up and hang on. Instead, I am urging them to adopt a more cautious strategy than the conventional financial wisdom—or "Dow 36,000"—would dictate."

Dow 36000 Author, James Glassman in the WSJ, via Chait.

2/21/11

smells like burning

"I hear Steven Levitt is writing a book analyzing A.J. Jacobs' quest to spend a year reading everything Malcolm Gladwell ever wrote. The audiobook will be narrated by Robert Krulwich of Radiolab."

via the alt text of today's excellent xkcd, the first two panels of which go like this:

2/20/11

Solidarity

I'm thinking that of all the states in which conserviative governors are gearing up to try to destroy public sector unions, maybe Wisconsin wasn't the right place to start.
Mahlon Mitchell, president of the Professional Firefighters of Wisconsin, who pledged solidarity with his fellow state workers, even though firefighters and police were spared from Gov. Scott Walker's attempt to bust state unions' bargaining power. Among Mitchell's pledges: The state's safety workers would agree to forgo some of their privileges and benefits to preserve collective bargaining for all the state's union workers. "We have a unique job," he said, "but so does the snow-plow driver, so does the janitor, so does a nurse, so does a teacher at UW college.
Honestly I can't tell what's going to happen here. Russ Feingold is going around describing our time as "the Gilded Age on Steroids," and I'm not sure he's wrong. But I also don't see the antidote, so I'm hoping he's wrong and that we bounce back towards something like the mid-90s status quo.

2/14/11

Yeah I know what you mean


I don't have a source or context for that, but I like it.

2/2/11

WTF, Texas

On the one hand, Rick Perry is quick to proclaim that Texas's limited, business-friendly government is responsible for Texas weathering this recession better than other states.

Meanwhile, in reality, Texas school districts are laying off tons of teachers--yes, I weighed them--due to budget shortfall, meaning we will continue to have one of the worst educations systems in these United States.

Also in reality, rolling freakin' brownouts. Clearly our limited government is up to the challenge.

Just because I need to vent, let me introduce Apologist for the Incompetent Regime, Bradley Griffin:

While it might relieve some tension to complaining via news outlets, on Facebook, and / or calling the electricity retailer (Reliant, TXU, Ambit, or others) we should all be thankful, not complaining.
Controlled outages are good.
When energy reserves have been depleted, rolling blackouts provide a "last resort" answer.
Controlled outages allow your power to come back on! When energy consumption is high, ERCOT implements rolling blackouts to prevent circuit breakers from tripping and generators from overloading. If the controlled blackouts were not executed, there would be a total blackout...for everyone!
...
When another round of rolling blackouts hits our area, be happy in anticipation that your power will come back on.
Says $2 Bill:
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