Kwatz!

Wow. “I read it in a book somewhere. No, it was off the fiction rack.” The wingnuts are really stretching for new reasons to keep killing brown people.

Does this mean I no longer need my microwave to make popcorn?

“No! ‘To Serve Man’ is a COOKBOOK!”

Not to be an asshole but – all novels, are by definition, fictional.

Aside from that: you are correct.

This sounds like something written by Arthur C. Clarke – except not nearly as good. Geez, they’re all nuts

Not my words…blame Think Progress.

“If You Mixed Peyote, LSD, and Bartles & James Peach Wine Coolers”

I’ve done that! But I have to say I never had hallucinations that bizarre.

The type of EMP from a primitive nuclear warhead such as North Korea or Iran could make would cause very little damage. That’s assuming, of course, that one of these mythical devices were detonated near anything important in the US. Military systems are, naturally, hardened against EMP. Not to mention how would they deliver it (suitcase bomb is a laughable Hollywood fantasy) and the fact that either of these countries will make what, one to ten nuclear devices? Ooh, scary.

Republicans are really just animals in clothes, aren’t they? There’s no real comprehension of anything they talk about.

From the people who brought us voodoo economics, voodoo science –because good conservatives don’t believe in that other Godless kind.

The quote is from Think Progress, so I forgive our dear watertiger.

“Republicans are really just animals in clothes, aren’t they? There’s no real comprehension of anything they talk about.”

Wounded, terrified animals in clothes.

To add to this evening’s entertainment, Obama will reappoint Bernanke. Didn’t expect anything else. Bernanke saved the world. So did Greenspan in 1987.

And coming in 2012, voodoo candidacy.

What exactly does that make the millions who follow their every word and vote for them at every chance??

Republicans are really just animals in clothes, aren’t they? There’s no real comprehension of anything they talk about.

If it were that simple (and I wish it were), they could be forgiven their willful, never ending dissonance. But when they walk upright, they forfeit all such contrivances.

That’s only because Lloyd Blankfein wasn’t available.

So the Democrats are also making policy based on works of fiction. Dandy. Just peachy, that.

I’m going to start carrying a tinfoil umbrella – the hat simply isn’t enough any more.

Yo, pups. Are we in danger of violating the Sedition Act yet?

Does this mean I no longer need my microwave to make popcorn?

With the new EMP 2000, you will never need to use your microwave again. When you want to make some just call up the Iranians, the North Koreans, the Pakistanis, or possibly the Chinese, they will send over one of their ICBMs and you have your no-hassle popcorn. However, always remember to wear your tinfoil cap until the butter melts.

Gullible. And not terribly bright.

Stupid, wounded, terrified animals in clothes.

Any news on the armored mesospheric zeppelin threat?
That is what I am worried about. Sinister foreign Boy’s Club chapters were working on them, but there has been a cover up. By weak kneed Democrats.

Suckers.

So I am retiring my EMP 1500 soldering iron. Cool.

Score 10 for you!

Everyone does realize that Michael Crichton, bad-science fiction writer (his science was bad), was Bush’s official global warming expert. Right?

Maybe we can mass produce them and sell them to support FDL.

Guess the ol’ rightwing fear-fodder larder must be running a bit lower than usual.

In appointing the Chairman of the Fed both parties kowtow to Wall Street and the Big Banx.

It ought not be that way, but it is. Bernanke is a modest improvement over the Rand-ian Greenspan. Myself, I hold Alan directly responsible for this collapse.

Yup. Early in his first term, Bush also offered Alan Alda a position as a science advisor. Alda wrote him an exceedingly gentle letter explaining that hosting a show about science on PBS really didn’t qualify him for the job.

That’s not quite fair, puppethead. Crichton actually wrote two good spec-fic novels: The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man.

All conservative policy is based on bad science fiction.

I am told he was working on a sequel at his death – Coma II: The meeting in the Oval.

Michael Crichton wrote at least one very good book. (It’s not the one you think.)

You’ve got to be kidding me. I knew Bushie was an idiot, but not at that level.

Like putting Randall Terry in charge of HHS.

This is so stupid…really. The North Koreans, if they eventually get their reactor started again, have the potential to produce about as much fissionable nuclear material to produce the bombs dropped by the US on Japan. Iran maybe twice that down the road. By l950 we were doing atmospheric testing orders of magnitudes above this, and nothing happened to the national power grids. I think by the time atmospheric tests ended in the ’60’s (and well into the days of the telecommunications satellite and transistor era) the effect was still negligible and localized.

Wow, Larry Summers must be crying into his milk. First he isn’t invited to the prom then he isn’t made chairman of the Fed.

Roubini, Krugman, the NYT, and the FT endorsed Bernanke. I mean aside from backing policies that created an $8 trillion housing bubble, failing to see said $8 trillion bubble until it burst, doing almost nothing to react to it, being a major player in the decision to let Lehman go bust precipitating the near collapse of the world’s financial system, and then pouring trillions into an unreformed and unreformable financial system, the guy is gold I tell you.

Silly you. You live in that “quaint” reality based world.

Well, at least you, selise and I gave Krugman a run for his money on Bernanke. Slim pickins, but we have to be satisfied with what we can get.

Sort of like this:

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorn

And one decent historical spec-fic novel: Eaters of the Dead.

Reminds me of “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.”

Huckabee is the guy that’s the passenger in the cropduster, desperately trying to get to that treasure quicker than the rest of the treasuse hunters; but the highway traffic is going faster than the plane!

What a joke.

Watertiger! Oh, how I missed you guys last week when I had to go internet-less (visiting 90-yr old mom, not computer-savvy ;) )

I wish I could think of something clever to say about all this “EMP” crap stuff — all that comes to mind is, fictional novel or not, I couldn’t make this stuff up !

Oh, and although my mother and I managed to avoid politics most of the time, one evening wee accidentally caught some news: when the President appeared on screen, Mom said, “There’s our dictator!”
I was startled, think I managed a “what?” Her reply – he’s a dictator, it’s his way or the high way.” (I think she’s about 8 mos late on that one…).
Further inquiry elicited the comment that “he’s just starting to be bipartisan.”
Nothing I said got through. I don’t know where this stuff comes from, and I don’t know how to bust it up. She wasn’t listening, and she isn’t going to listen. I hate to think how many of her contemporaries are the same.

Yeah, the early ones.
Weren’t a couple of the late ones specifically written to “debunk” global warming?

Bernanke is a modest improvement over the Rand-ian Greenspan

Isn’t this like trying to choose between Larry, Mo, and Curly?

Actually Bush asked Alan Alda to be his science advisor when the war was over. Until then, our wounded soldiers in Korea needed his (surgical) expertise.

Should I read it? I happened on Great Train Robbery by serendipity. They had an audio version at the library.

Enjoy your last week, Dr. D. The students are back, and they’re at least as silly as they were last year.

Today’s gem: A student in my prob theory course asked me after today’s lecture if she was going to be okay in my class: she scarcely understood a thing I said.

I said, “As long as you’ve had calculus through vector calc and some linear algebra you should be fine.”

Student responds, “I had one semester of calculus.”

Says I, “I think you may be in trouble.”

I have gone back to that thread a couple of times to resurrect Krugman’s quote where he says that Bernanke’s decision to hire him at Princeton, and start his career, cloud his mind.

The science was not very good in either of those books. His writing wasn’t bad, just the science. Probably why he became popular.

10 points for you.

Only he didn’t use the phrase “cloud my mind.” As I recall without checking, he merely reminded us that Bernanke was the one who hired him at Princeton, leaving us to draw the obvious conclusion without Krugman having to outloud it.

I recall you doing that. While disquieting, it speaks to Krugman’s persona – admitting his potential biases.

I am not sure what it amounts to, but he is not parroting Bernanke on Sunday mornings.

His last one was. And it was pretty thoroughly debunked in the Real.World.

Of course, in RepublicFantasyLand, it’s taken as the Revealed Word of God. After all, Crichton is an M.D., and everyone knows that M.D. means Medical Diety. He must know more about global climate change than climatologists. He’s a docteh, y’know. Momma Crichton’s Mikey, the docteh!

I said, “As long as you’ve had calculus through vector calc and some linear algebra you should be fine.

4 out of 5 mermaids recommend the agae bra.

Color me dumb, but I’m not sure I get that one….can you ’splain?

Doh! I so look forward to the beginning of the semester, particularly the jocks, sorority girls, and stoners in my intro class. Semester really should not be too bad though. I am teaching a grad seminar in theory, the upper division class on the history of anthropology, and an online course on Indians of the Pacific Northwest (it is full and I know most of the students in there, so it should be pretty good), in addition to intro.

The science in The Terminal Man was better than in Andromeda. The thing to remember is that Crichton was examining social systems (like all good speculative fiction does) more than the raw science.

We’re approaching the point now in neuroscience where some of the things in The Terminal Man are becoming possible. One of the things I find really objectionable in the novel is the way he abuses statistics. He treats it as magic, and it’s anything but. Factor analysis especially is fraught with bullshyte.

Science fiction writing usually have part that becomes true way into the future. Just think how the Repugs have been turning this world into Mad Max/Postman/Terminator replica.

Tired of all the craziness and fell really bad to think I will be leaving this mess to my children & grandchildren…..

You mean the algae bra?

Undergarment comprised of seaweed.

At least they aren’t taking their cues from summer blockbusters.

“Folks, the Iranians are developing nanotechnology that will literally eat our buildings!”

katy,

Don’t give up the faith, woman. We’re doing the best we can to clean up this mess. I just hope we make some progress in the time that remains to me.

Damn, the only thing worse than a bad joke is a bad joke with a typo.

Statistics, used properly, is a powerful tool for exploring relationships in your data. Used improperly and it gives rise to “lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

I had a personal experience that was similar but with the opposite outcome. I was lost in the first lecture of Econometrics in grad school, having already run thousands (or at least hundreds) of regressions. I knew if I were lost, the rest of the students were in deep doo. About the middle of the course, another student burst out: “Why do we need to know this stuff?” To which James Ramsey, the prof, responded: “To get a good job.” (He was theoretical only, and his course had nothing to do with getting a good job in NYC.) So I burst out: “Suppose we already have a good job?” Him: “So you can earn more pay.” Me: “Suppose we already earn more than you do?”

End result: he gave a take home exam with 2 refs. I walked to the library from the lecture when he gave out the exam. He had neglected to put the 2 obscure books on reference, and someone who had run, not walked to the library had borrowed them before I got there. I got a friend to borrow the books from the Columbia library (I was at NYU). Don’t know what the rest of the class did. Even with the books, which I copied without knowing wtf I was doing, I never understood the exam. I think I ended up with some kind of B. I had great pity for the rest of the class. It was a useless disaster.

I have students hanging from the ceiling in one of my intro sections. Class offerings are so tight that I’ve added a few students beyond the agreed cap to my other section. The room’s larger, but I hope I don’t regret it.

Man! I hope Huckabee and Gingrich never read “I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream” by Harlan Ellison, or “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich” by Phillip K. Dick.

Give them time. They’re still settling into this current level of dishonesty.

Hey good news:

Baucus Declares That He Wants “A Public Option, Too”

Bad news is the option he has in mind is for the public to go fuck themselves.

From your comments, it seems you see none of the prominent economists most place on the left are of any worth at all. Unless you like Stiglitz? And if none of these people are worth much in terms of heading an economy and/or a democracy, what do you suggest progressives do?

Absolutely.

What really disgusts me is that our Vice Provost for Research believes that an applied statistician is a scientist with a microcomputer and SAS or SPSS (or both) on said machine.

That seems to be the “universal” public option.

That kind of crap is inexcusable, eCAHN.

At least it is “bipartisan.”

My intro section enrolls about 240 every semester (all the classroom will hold)and we have one guy who teaches a section of 450 each semester. We process about 2000 intro students a year (one other large section and two small sections in fall, wintersession, and two section in summer school). We are one of the, if not the, largest purchasers of intro to anthropology textbooks in the country (with a total university enrollment of about 14K).

I keep forgetting the learning curve…I expect them to be able to lie with impunity, when some of them still can’t manage to do so without snickering a little.

I’m working on reading all of Jasper Fforde’s Tuesday Next books now, on recommendation of an Austrian friend…this was like being back reading the book I had just put aside to see what was going on at FDL.

My new term is “bipartishit”

I’ll horn in. Krugman’s pretty good on general principles and policies, but when it comes to people skills , he’s a dud. Some, like Roubini, who saw it early, are suspect because like all early seers (including myself when I was forecasting on Wall St), too early a forecast has the same effect as crying wolf. No heroes here. Like in every other field, got to buff up on fundamentals, read contemporaries, find those who seem to make sense and test them against evidence.

As I said, no heroes. Never take anyone’s word for anything. (Including this comment.)

Is Anthro on your GenEd requirements list or something?

Hardly surprising. We are currently debating whether the Provost actually considers us human.

That’s good. Accurate AND fun to say.:)

You forgot the other good news:

Rudy is thinking of running for governor of NY.

They’d never read books by those DFHs. Although Ellison is really a pretty straight guy, he’s just too socially liberal for wingnut tastes. As for Philip K. Dick, all his best stuff really was written while on LSD.

Any excuse to say “shit”!

A double dip no less. Covers social science and nonwestern.

Oh, our Provost doesn’t consider us human.

And our VP for Research doesn’t consider my group scientists, either. (”Can you get a PhD in Statistics?” he asked.)

What is inexcusable? My behavior or James Ramsey’s? In retrospect, it’s one of my favorite stories, so unlike my contemporaneous reaction, I’ve become fond of James Ramsey. And our little contretemps obviously did him and me no harm.

I sincerely hope he has been discredited to the point of being inviable.

Why doesn’t somebody put a padlock on his coffin during daylight hours?

Oh kewl. Someone else I can vote against. (Unless his prostrate cancer takes him out of the race.)

I suppose the other way to think about bipartisanshit is that 2 assholes are better than one.

In the Orwellian manner; 2 assholes good – one asshole bad.

*head desk – head desk – head desk*

Where the fuck to they find these cretins and how the fuck did they get Ph.D.s?

A long time ago I realized why one sees a lot of Libertarian views in science fiction. It was the only place they could plausibly get the cockimanie system to work. Libertarianism overlooks a lot of human nature.

Well then let me put it to you this way; if you had the power to replace Summers and Geithner tomorrow, who would you choose and why?

Nice one. I’ll try to remember to credit you.

God loves assholes, that is why she made so many of them.

Libertarianism overlooks a lot all of human nature.

Fixed it for you.

Aha. That explains it.

Although we wonder about their intelligence levels, a significant number of students are able to figure that sort of thing out. That’s especially true of something that frees up a course for something they’d like to take.

I don’t know about the situation there, but we’ve gone way too far down the prescriptive course road here. My son got a BS in Mech Engg here, and in four years he had exactly one elective. And that had to be taken in Engineering. Both of his other nominal electives were Chinese Menu specials.

I have a couple of friends in the College of Engineering, and I asked them about it. They said ABET accreditation requires it of them. Disgusting.

For some unfathomable reason evolution bestowed Republicans with an asshole at both ends.

Ramsey’s behavior was inexcusable. Sorry for the ambiguity.

Bad profs can make for good stories, but they’re still rotten teachers.

Also why Texas is known as “the brown star state.” What, it’s not? Well, maybe it should be.

We are not nearly that bad here (though I cannot speak for the sciences), though there really are a lot more general requirements than when I was an undergraduate. The biggest problem I have seen is a number of programs trying to get around the gen ed system so that their students never have to take classes in any other departments. Business is the worst offender.

One of my favorite things to watch is the behavior of nominal libertarians. One of my economist colleagues is a big freebooter libertarian.

He swapped out his Ford Explorer in the ACES program. I asked him if that wasn’t a leeetle at odds with his philosophy. His response was, “Yeah, but I’m not stupid.”

I think it’s more like that episode of South Park where they shoved food up their ass and shat out of their mouths.

I am an Okie, you won’t get any argument from me about that.

Are you becoming more driven by student credit hour production? We’ve got a hiring system in place that’s almost totally student credit hour driven.

The second part appears to be a prerequisite to hold elected office.

Fabulous Q. A not in evidence. I guess I’d go with Stiglitz (had a runin with him when he was in the Clinton admin, so am gun shy) and/or Krugman only because there doesn’t seem to be anyone better around. Sad to say.

The Stiglitz story, a classic hubris. He was spouting a new tradeoff between unemployment and inflation to the NYC economics group when he was head of Council of Econ Advisors under Clinton. I got the first Q, which was “Why should we regard your model as accurate when all the models of the same phenomenon in the past have been wrong?” (Background: this has been a long and fruitless discussion among policy economists, so my reaction was blah, blah blah.) His A: “Because we know better.” You gotta keep some distance from someone who would ever A a Q that way, no matter how much sense he makes now.

There are no heroes, only least bad choices.

We probably should look at all economists with a certain amount of skepticism. Krugman says some good things but he tends to put the best face on Democratic policies even when they aren’t very good or won’t work. In the past, Krugman was a free trader. He supported the TARP. He backs Bernanke. He talked up recovery but then quickly backed off that for a considerably weaker take on it. Roubini has been accused of going all mainstream. He won his fame by being Dr. Doom and being right about that. But now he hedges his predictions to the point of mush. Dean Baker and Jamie Galbraith are still out there slugging away at the prevailing myths on the economy. Baker is the one that reminds everyone about Bernanke missing the $8 trillion bubble. So not a Bernanke supporter. Stiglitz has been good too. Though both he and Galbraith have been fairly quiet recently. eCahn could tell you some things though about Stiglitz.

There are those of us in the blogospher, eCahn, me, masaccio, Ian, Yves Smith. There is Bill Black. And Robert Johnson, Soros’ former economist. There are actually quite a few of us around but none of us has the Truth so as I said skepticism is in order, and that’s a good thing.

My favorite is all the libertarian ranchers and farmers in Montana who survive off government subsidies and deliberately under priced (official federal policy is to set federal lease rates at 60% of the going commercial rate) federal grazing leases.

katymine, you still here? How are you feeling tonight? Thought about you while I was away – you were starting new treatments last week, right?

I thought Texas was referred to as either, Baja Oklahoma or The Wrong Side of the Red River?

Bad profs can do good. Ramsey taught me a lot. I hope my classmates were as informed as I was. I suspect, since they probably got lower grades, that they learned a LOT more than I did.

We always have been. It is an outgrowth of having the lowest per student state funding for higher education in the country. It is why the anthropology department now has a Ph.D. program and why I have a job.

“Because we know better.” You gotta keep some distance from someone who would ever A a Q that way, no matter how much sense he makes now.

That’s called proof by intimidation. It’s a logical fallacy.

That too.

LSD and wine coolers definitely!

Peyote was really hard to find, though…especially on LSD and wine coolers!

I would have found it way before I came up with what Newt and Huck spew hourly.

It’s causing grief in some of our merged departments (like mine.) Earlier administrations merged departments, appealing to economies-of-scale. So, our ability to hire statisticians is also determined by SCH production by our colleagues in Economics.

Probably not fair to our Tejas lakers. Maybe I should stick to poking fun at Hoosiers.

Heh. You weren’t living in Oklahoma in the ’70s (home of the Native American Church and only a few hundred miles from the harvesting grounds in south Texas and northern Mexico).

‘Evening, all-
Anyone worried about an EMP would be better served worrying about the nuclear weapon that created it going off nearby, or so it seems to me…

I think Molly was the one who got it most correct: Our National Laboratory for Bad Public Policy.

Uh-oh. Then you have me on both counts, and jayt on the hoosiers.

I lived in Kansas for eleven years. I’ve lived in New Mexico for twenty-two. Honestly, it was nice having Oklahoma as a buffer between us and Texas.

Yeah. It is a crazy and often stupid system in many ways. Feel for you being in that position. Do the statistics classes enroll better than the econ classes? Have to say that is an odd pairing. I would have thought maybe in math.

When button-down shirts were made of peyote and feathers.

Absolutely, though Cali is giving them a real run for their money there. Unfortunately the contagion seems to be spreading quite widely.

True dat.

My parents have some slides taken in Hawaii of the artificial aurora from one of the Johnston Island H-bomb tests that first suggested that EMP effects were possible.

Whoops, maybe I’ll just stick to belittling Illinoisans. I have the most experience with them anyway.

It’s a long story. When we got kicked out of the College of Agriculture, Math didn’t want us (they had their own group of tame probabilists and some of us [me among them] had been rather vocal about Statistics is not Mathematics in the past.) Since we were bad people who couldn’t be trusted in their own department, we got folded into Econ.

The pairing is a little odd, but not entirely unprecedented.

But yeah, our SCH production is high, Econ’s is down for various stupid accounting reasons. Basically, we’ve got several faculty in Econ who are bought out by various and sundry soft money projects but they are counted as part of the faculty FTE.

EMP usually need a high altitude airburst so ground effects from the blast should be minimal. Depending on the size of the warhead of course.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse

No, but I lived in AZ in the 70s and 80s and I can’t believe I don’t know shit about peyote! How the fuck does that happen!!?

That’s it, I’m gonna buy some seeds online.

(hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance)

To be sure.

To go back and explain Ramsey in the context of NYU at the time. The University had nearly gone bankrupt less than a decade earlier. Except for artsy subjects, no one wanted to do to university in NYC in the 1980s. Those who did, went to Columbia. NYU’s business model was to attract foreign students, who were full payers. About half my class was foreign (including my tutor who got me thru comps), and the other half was, like me, working as business economists for NYC banks and brokers. In economics, NYU was determined to be intellectually respectable, which meant highly theoretical, and only the foreign students could meet the standards and the tuition. Their domestic market, ie my half of the class, was ignored. Whether it was the right business model or not, or what they did in other disciplines I have not idea. I know only that NYU subsequently became one of the most fashionable schools around. So who can argue with results?

This brought up a few interesting links.

~~~EDITED IN MODERATION: Some browsers react badly to full-search links. It has been disabled. Thanks.~~~

Academic shotgun weddings seldom turn out entirely harmonious, though they sometimes work out. The linguistics program and the Central Asia program got merged into anthropology here. The relationship with linguistics was a bit rocky at first, but has developed a bit of warmth since (the retirement of the head of linguistics helped that). Central Asia, which is more of an interdisciplinary thing with only 2-3 staff people, was really their idea and we have little contact with them for the most part.

But where Tejanos can lay the blame on their venal Lege and regulatory capture of their Commissions, Californians have done it to the themselves through the initiative.

Cool.
EMP’s are possible, but if you’re close enough to a nuclear explosion for the EMP to affect you, your electronic shit not working will be the least of your worries.

Ah, well, when I lived in Indiana the traditional scapegoat was Kentuckians.
(just a joke, kentuckians – I’ve matured since then, really!)

So, from your answer it would seem any combination of Black, Johnson, Baker and Galbraith would have the best chance of success in this climate? And from the way you grouped the four, either a top ticket of Black/Johnson or Baker/Galbraith would be your preference?

Hope you departed the Ag College uncowed.

Splendid evening to all.

Which probably gives them better claim to the title.

Yep. Don’t think you will really be inconvenienced by that.

Night, rf.

Some of my colleagues were getting very unhappy and feeling oppressed by the situation. Myself, I was happy. I was left alone to teach my courses and do what passes for my research. When my colleagues started agitating to try to regain department status again, I said, “Why? What’s in it for me?” One of those colleagues is still not talking to me.

‘night, ratfood. Soft landings to you.

I don’t remember it, myself. But my parents said that it knocked the power grid down in Hawaii for a while. The pictures of the aurora are really cool.

That is also what jayt said. I assured him that our derision of Hoosiers was simply the result of severe NCAA banner envy.

Good night, RF.

Adios RF

I wish I knew statistics. In my attempts to find a job using my “transferable skills” I keep finding ones for which I meet the qualifications well….except for the quantitative/statistical requirements. Sigh.

Well, as Ron White, that noted political philosopher from the Texas Panhandle has noted, “You can’t fix stupid.”

A lot of people’s egos get wrapped up in that whole departmental status and ranking thing. Like you, I a pleased to be able to teach classes I like. Can’t say that I actually have a research agenda any more. Eleven years of 4-7 classes a semester will do that to you.

lol!
(esp. as I am an IU grad ;0 )

Nope.

Good night, everybody. As a working person now I gotta get to bed at a reasonable hour.

Thanks, RonD. Sorry, I didn’t see you come in.

Regarding your earlier comment, it is surprising the NRA has never decided the Second Amendment also applies to nukes. I trust it is probably the result of some clerical error.

Jesus H. Christ.

I feel oppressed by four classes a semester. Of course, I did that because we were backed into a corner, and someone had to do it. But four different course in one term really ate my lunch.

I got screwed on my APR that year, too. DH said, “Your research productivity was way down.” Duh!

Night, tejanarusa.

Michael Nesbitt had a bit he wrote and produced on Neighborhood Nuclear Superiority. Hilarious, as I recall.

Thank you for the Stiglitz story, although it is very disappointing. Were you allowed a follow-up question or did that throwaway answer tell you everything you needed to know?

In prior meetings,conferences/seminars, which economists pleasantly surprised you with their philosophies?

Yep, and here it is.:)

I only did 6-7 a semester for a couple of years and then had a long talk with the chair about sustainablity issues. I currently teach 4 a semester (all different), which I do not mind, but which allows no time for research, particularly as I have a graduate seminar every semester (Theory in fall and Historical Anthropology in spring). Other than Intro, most of my classes are upper division, which is fun.

I once made the argument to a wingnut acquaintance that if the 2nd Amendment was good for individuals, then Iran should be allowed to build nukes if it wants. His head almost exploded.

I learned everything I needed to know from Stiglitz’s A. I could have asked a follow up but it seemed futile.

No economists pleasantly surprised me. I considered it a badge of honor to be constantly at odds with my profession. I’m sure those here are not surprised.

After listening to an evangelical zealot tell me how the Koran preaches murder and mayhem, I interrupted and told him hopefully it is like the Bible, people read the bits they like and ignore the rest. The resulting sputter was quite amusing.

I could teach four a term, provided there was no research expectation. But that isn’t happening, so I’ll write my little papers that three other people in the Universe care about. And one of the three is my wife: not that she can read them, getting them out keeps the bean counters happy.

I usually begin by whistling Onward Christian Soldiers. I like the red faces.

I usuall respond with this sort of thing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGJgyuAu6eo

Ain’t it the truth.

If it was me, I would put Michael Greenberger in to clean up derivatives and Black to put the banks through bankruptcy and direct fraud investigations. Black might favor a Resolution Trust Corporation like for the S&Ls. I’m not sure that would work here. Stiglitz or Galbraith I would put in overall charge. And I would probably hire Baker, Johnson, and Elizabeth Warren as advisers to them. And I would keep Sheila Bair at FDIC. That’s just me.

Think I will call it a night. Successfully did my hike this morning. The trip was 7.5 miles with 1300 feet vertical gain in the first half, 800 feet in the fourth mile alone. This was my reward after I got over the top (it was all down hill from there). I am actually in better shape than I expected, but still am a bit tired and sore.

It’s a cynical view, but when getting letters back from Associate Editors that said the MS was interesting and well-written, but we aren’t publishing that stuff, and I don’t know where you can publish that stuff made me that way.

Seems a tad subtle for most of them but it really says it all.

Texas: The State That Steals Our Water
(speaking from my native New Mexican viewpoint)

Yeah, I’ve got an early morning too.

Good night, ‘pups.

Awesome!!!
Shuttle Discovery undergoing final propulsion checks right now, countdown at T-minus 9:00 min and holding. A scheduled hold, approximately 45 minutes. No problems but threatening weather. Should be visible from my front yard.

Truly inspiring!:)

Bob’s giving me dirty looks, leaving for real now…

That too. Goddam Texans plant salt cedar, it invades NM up the Pecos and Rio Grande systems, and we end up owing them water… not exactly fair, is it?

Thanks!
Love my NASA-TV.

That Is So Cool! I’ve never actually seen a rocket launch to orbit. I would love to. And if you got binoculars handy, Mars is in it’s closest in our lifetimes.

Keep that Millie J link for when you need it RF!
Bye again!

Thank you. I don’t know many here that would be disappointed with that economic team. What would be your alternative to a prospective Resolution Trust Corp?

I’ve always thought the one cool thing about living in FL was stepping outside and watching spacecraft depart….if you’ve never seen one in person, DO IT. It’s like nothing else, and there aren’t many left.
“night, Dr. Dick.

So cool. I hope they get it off tonight. Weather is sucking.

In Huckabee’s case, EMP stands for Evangelical Micro-Penis.

Some claimed the Roman’s suffered from lead poisoning from the aquaducts.

What will historians cite to explain the mass mental meltdown in the US in the 2000’s?

-G

Yeah, but it’s a real narrow system. It really shouldn’t scrub the launch.

Propaganda poisoning. And fluoridated water.

Viagara?

I think the problem is too big for an RTC. I would still go more the Swedish route: restructure and recapitalize the banking system, return it to vanilla only types of activities, re-impose Glass-Steagall, break up the TBTF, effectively outlaw investment banks like Goldman by turning off their credit lines and investigating their investment activities, getting rid of most derivatives and requiring high capital reserves to back any that remained.

to resurrect Glass-Steagall, would it have to go through Congress or could a president simply authorize signing order? And could/would you handle AIG as you would Goldman?

“An EMP could cripple and cause catastrophic consequences to our country’s power grids. Imagine a world with no lights, phones, communications devices, transportation, water food or access to money!”

For hours…possibly even days.. think about that

I’m still getting flashbacks from that 70s EMP concert featuring Brain Salad Surgery

Glass-Steagall was repealed by Gramm-Leach-Bliley in 1999 as I recall. It would take another act of Congress to re-instate it. Glass-Steagall applied both to banks and insurance companies btw. AIG’s insurance operations need to be examined closely. There was funny stuff going on with them especially in the area of re-insurance which may have left them with insufficient reserves. Eventually they should be sold off. The financial arm AIGFP should be closed out. It still has some $200 billion in European bank regulatory relief CDSs, a scam that these banks used to free up more of their reserves for speculative activities. I would wind these up even if it meant sticking the Euro banks with losses.

Interesting on AIG. As I recall, one of the main (supposed) reasons for bailing them out under the”too big to fail” canard was that it would destroy the EU banks.

Thank you for your answers. They are always thought provoking.

I worked in a scientific research center for 33 years, and am aware of various DoD projects to develop high energy lasers for use as weapons. None of these is in a deployable state, I believe. So it is with these “electromagnetic pulse” weapons-there is no such thing as far as I know.

They understand fear, and so fear-mongering is their entree and main course and dessert. After 8 years of Bush-Cheney they have no where else to go. They can’t admit to errors or obfuscations, so they must press on with the fear. They have nothing else of course, but it is a n extremely powerful appeal that they make to this human emotion.

voodoo? voodoo? Alright, alright. I admit I killed papa doc with the voodoo. And Czar nicholas, and Pope Unguentine XXIV, JFK, and Richard, Coeur d’Leon, and the Nicholas Brothers.
I did not mix the joojoo for Groucho.

Actually, EMP “attacks” have already occurred. In 1962, an damaging EMP was an unintended side-effect of Starfish Prime, a US nuclear test in space over the Pacific (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse). The damage was relatively minor because electrical systems were mostly electromechanical and thus relatively immune. Contemporary Soviet tests apparently did more damage in Central Asia, including electrical fires.

Today, such an event could do a lot more damage because of the widespread use of semiconductors. Protecting solid-state equipment is apparently no easy task.

That said, using the possible EMP danger as a reason to attack North Korea or Iran is a bit much.

Either country would have to have a lot more engineering sophistication and resources than it has now. An attacker would need to develop a weapon of sufficient power. The Starfish test used a 1.44-megaton W49 thermonuclear device (a fusion/hydrogen bomb), which is harder to make than a fission weapon. Then they would have to miniaturize it enough to fit on a missile–no easy task in itself (W49s weighed over 1600 pounds, while early US H-bombs weighed 40,000 pounds or more). Finally, they’d need to get the warhead to detonate at the right altitude in space over the central US. In the 1962 test series, four of the five test shots leading up to Starfish failed to go off at all. The North Koreans or Iranians would only get one shot, too–they couldn’t test it the way we did.

So would either country want to go to that level of trouble to insure an annihilting counterstrike? I doubt it. They want to develop nuclear weapons because they fear that we will otherwise use such weapons against them. In short, their rationale is neither more (nor less) evil/irrational than ours was at the height of the Cold War.