Posted 10:48 AM

flakes from a Trichinopoly ...

...More than that, I am certain that the real explanation of the president's political forbearance is his determination to get a strong congressional resolution in support of the war. The president could have gone on the attack and shamed Bonior and McDermott for their words and actions, thus throwing the Democrats on the defensive weeks before a virtually tied election. And if, as a result, fewer congressional Democrats voted in support of the war, that vote could have been held over the heads of the doves for years after, just as with the Gulf War vote. But instead of attacking when the Democrats were vulnerable, the president threw away the partisan opportunity of a lifetime, in exchange for an attempt to forge a genuine national consensus about a war that he knows is necessary.

George Bush's very forbearance refutes Jim McDermott's scurrilous slanders. If the president had cooked up a bogus threat from Iraq to fight a war that would yield him partisan advantage before an election, he would have jumped on McDermott's slurs like a duck on a June bug...

Posted 7:25 AM

our state socialism beats theirs...

...Because we were nominally a capitalist nation, America had much more wealth and ingenuity to throw at the problem, and we won. We beat the Soviets to the Moon.

But in so doing, we also lost, because we betrayed the fundamental values of our nation, and in so doing, we established a premature, sterile and unsustainable beachhead on another planet, and then abandoned it.

Today we continue to reap the fruits of that decision.

We have a space program whose purpose is at an extreme variance with its advertisements four decades ago.

It provides jobs, rather than hardware on orbit. "International cooperation" takes precedence over schedule or utility. The engineers working on them proclaim that the Shuttle and the International Space Station are the most complex systems in the world, as though that's a feature in which to take pride (whereas most competent engineers follow the principle of "KISS"--"Keep It Simple, Stupid.")

Forty-five years after the Wright brothers flew their first flight, thousands of aircraft had been built, and hundreds of thousands of people had flown, on routine commercial flights.

Forty-five years after Sputnik, space remains an elite destination--fewer than a few hundred people have visited it...

Posted 4:55 PM

Word note...

...Charles II became very fond of yachting; and besides many yachts which were designed for him by Sir Phineas Pett, he is credited with having desired one for himself, named Jamaie, which was built at Lambeth.
 
The Jamaie was matched against a small Dutch yacht named Bezan in 1662 from Greenwich to Gravesend and back, and the King was gratified to find his vessel leading by three miles at the finish, although the little Dutch craft led by half a mile beating down, "the wind being contrary, but saved his stakes in returning, his majesty sometimes steering himself," according to Mr. Pepys. This is probably the first account of a yacht match, and the first record of an amateur helmsman. These yachts were, no doubt, sloop rigged, but yachts did not owe their origin to Charles II; for, as before said, the Plantagenets had their Royal yachts, and one later on, often referred to, the Rat of White, was built by Queen Elizabeth at Cowes. It is scarcely possible, therefore, that the Dutch can claim a greater antiquity for yachts than the English; and, indeed, so far as "yachting," as now understood, goes, there appears to be no doubt that it originated with Charles II, whose frequent yacht matches with his brother, the Duke of York, and his constant changing of his vessels, are duly recorded by Pepys...

Posted 1:17 PM

waiting for retraction

...Yesterday, Salon published another editor's note. "After careful review," the note said, "Salon's editors have decided to take down from our Web site an article titled 'Tom White played key role in covering up Enron losses' that we published on Aug. 29. We took this unusual step because we have come to the conclusion that we can no longer stand by the story in its entirety...

...To their credit, Salon's editors were the ones who informed their readers of the serious problems with Leopold's piece.

But readers of the New York Times have not been so well informed. Despite the seriousness of the plagiarism — which became public more than a week ago — Paul Krugman has not yet published a correction or a clarification of his original piece touting Leopold's work. Now that Salon has backed away from the e-mail story, Krugman's allegations seem completely baseless...

Posted 6:30 AM

update...

Posted 6:58 PM

Dull Sam...

...The whole world, town or country, was to Pepys a garden of Armida. Wherever he went his steps were winged with the most eager expectation; whatever he did, it was done with the most lively pleasure. An insatiable curiosity in all the shows of the world and all the secrets of knowledge, filled him brimful of the longing to travel, and supported him in the toils of study. Rome was the dream of his life; he was never happier than when he read or talked of the Eternal City. When he was in Holland, he was 'with child' to see any strange thing. Meeting some friends and singing with them in a palace near the Hague, his pen fails him to express his passion of delight, 'the more so because in a heaven of pleasure and in a strange country.'

He must go to see all famous executions. He must needs visit the body of a murdered man, defaced 'with a broad wound,' he says, 'that makes my hand now shake to write of it.' He learned to dance, and was 'like to make a dancer.' He learned to sing, and walked about Gray's Inn Fields 'humming to myself (which is now my constant practice) the trillo.' He learned to play the lute, the flute, the flageolet, and the theorbo, and it was not the fault of his intention if he did not learn the harpsichord or the spinet. He learned to compose songs, and burned to give forth 'a scheme and theory of music not yet ever made in the world.' When he heard 'a fellow whistle like a bird exceeding well,' he promised to return another day and give an angel for a lesson in the art. Once, he writes, 'I took the Bezan back with me, and with a brave gale and tide reached up that night to the Hope, taking great pleasure in learning the seamen's manner of singing when they sound the depths.'

If he found himself rusty in his Latin grammar, he must fall to it like a schoolboy. He was a member of Harrington's Club till its dissolution, and of the Royal Society before it had received the name. Boyle's Hydrostatics was 'of infinite delight' to him, walking in Barnes Elms. We find him comparing Bible concordances, a captious judge of sermons, deep in Descartes and Aristotle. We find him, in a single year, studying timber and the measurement of timber; tar and oil, hemp, and the process of preparing cordage; mathematics and accounting; the hull and the rigging of ships from a model; and 'looking and improving himself of the (naval) stores with' – hark to the fellow! – 'great delight'... ---Robert Louis Stevenson

Posted 3:46 PM



KRUGMAN TRUTH SQUAD
#46: Everything's changed, but Bush is still at fault...



Remember Paul Krugman's disaster scenario # 1. We heard it adnauseum all during 2001 and early 2002? The irresponsible Bush tax cut, which went only to the wealthy, was turning surpluses into deficits, raising long-term interest rates, choking off investment and destroying the economy. But then long-term interest rates went down, and down some more. Oops! – they are now at 40-year lows.

Well never mind. Here comes disaster scenario #2 and the only thing that HASN"T CHANGED is that the Bush administration is still at fault. In "Dealing With W" (10/01/02) Krugman rehashes previous columns of the last few months in which he fantasizes about a double dip recession that will pull the Democrats to victory.
Interest rates are now TOO LOW, in fact, dangerously low. Deflation, Japanese style, now threatens us. Deficits are not large enough (no mention of those highly touted surpluses). Basically, he wants to spend more money–on anything. Even those Japanese public works programs building "bridges to nowhere…. [and] highways with no traffic" don't look so bad to him now. No mention of rescinding the Bush tax cuts?? The fact that he's done a 180 in his reasoning does not seem to faze him. Actually, he's said it all before, and we have responded. See squad reports # 35 and # 36

[The Truth Squad is a group of economists who have long marveled at the writings of Paul Krugman. The Squad Reports are synopses of their discussions.]
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Posted 9:11 AM

encouraging political debate...

Posted 11:16 AM



KRUGMAN TRUTH SQUAD
#45: High School History



The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria in 1914 caused World War I. Right? Well, that’s the way some of us learned it in high school American history class. Only when we went to college did we learn that the assassination was a negligable event and that WW I had complex social and economic causes that were global in scale.

"In Broad Daylight” (09/27/02) Paul Krugman takes us back to high school with yet another simplistic column identifying market manipulation as the cause of the recent California electricity crisis. There is not a word about the nationwide rise in the price of natural gas that constitutes about ninety percent of electricity generation costs. Nor is there any mention of the explosion in August 2000 that shut down the El Paso pipeline that carries natural gas from Texas to southern California. Likewise, nothing is said about the three-year drought that reduced reservoir and river-flows levels and reduced hydroelectric generation in California substantially beginning in 1999. And, of course, California’s lame-brained “deregulation” scheme that shielded consumers from price rationing is not considered as a factor.

What makes this particularly shameful is that Krugman knows better than to try to peddle a few cases of alleged market manipulation as the cause of anything so grand as a “$30 billion robbery.” What he’s really doing is grinding an ax for Gray Davis and the sorry lot of California Democrats trying to escape blame for the electricity crisis.

But, we, like Krugman, have said all of this before. For more see squad report #9

[The Truth Squad is a group of economists who have long marveled at the writings of Paul Krugman. The Squad Reports are synopses of their discussions.]

Note: Steve Verdon writes that he is starting his own Krugman Watch. I say: go for it! The more the merrier we shall be ...
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Posted 8:48 PM

Now let's all sing "Blowin' In The Wind"

Posted 2:06 PM

Tip: moving Eudora's address book to OS-X