J. Bradford DeLong's Blog, page 2292

links for 2010-06-05

James Fallows: Twitter with Chinese Characteristics: 马马虎虎







Nicole Vollweiler et al.: A precisely dated climate record for the last 9 kyr from three high alpine stalagmites, Spannagel Cave, Austria (pdf)







Ian Musgrave: The Roman Warm Period

IM: "Ian Musgrave



EDIT: The The Roman Warm Period really did exist, but was not a global event, rather a largely European/North Atlantic one...

Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps?

It would be a mercy if we just shut Slate down today, for good. Stupid and bullshit attempts to be edgy and contrarian is no way to go through life:

Jack Shafer: Two cheers for nepotism at the New York Times: Why the nepotistic promotion of Times reporter A.G. Sulzberger is a good thing...

Just saying.

New York Times FAIL: Janelle Brown Edition

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?

Ezra Klein writes:

The New York Times owes me a correction: In an article about Mickey Kaus's quixotic Senate candidacy, Janelle Brown writes that I "loathe" Kaus. I don't. I find his apparent interest in me puzzling, but that's about all the thought I give to the matter. Moreover, Brown didn't contact me for the article and I can't remember the last time I wrote about Kaus, so it's hard to see what evidence underpins her description...

Well, Yes, My Hair Is on Fire. Why Do You Ask?

Duncan Black:

Eschaton: Eyeballing the graph, the administration projected in Jan. 2009 that if the stimulus was enacted that unemployment would be at 7.5% now. That didn't happen. I hope lawmakers are sensible enough to get that the key to their jobs are... jobs... and maybe do something about it.

Paul Krugman Hasn't Finished Reading All the Memos: The 10-Year U.S. Treasury Interest Rate Is Not 3.36% But 3.20%...

Paul Krugman of the Krell-like brain writes:

Rashomon In The OECD - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com: by the debt-and-deficit criteria the US, UK, and (as you can’t see) Japan look similar enough to the crisis countries that if you didn’t know better, you might expect them to be in the same boat. But they aren’t. As of right now, the interest rates on 10-year bonds are 3.59% in the UK, 3.36% in the US, 1.29% in Japan. CDS spreads for Japan and the UK are only about a third of the level...

The 10-Year U.S. Treasury Interest Rate Is Not 3.36% But 3.20%...

Paul Krugman:

Rashomon In The OECD - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com: by the debt-and-deficit criteria the US, UK, and (as you can’t see) Japan look similar enough to the crisis countries that if you didn’t know better, you might expect them to be in the same boat. But they aren’t. As of right now, the interest rates on 10-year bonds are 3.59% in the UK, 3.36% in the US, 1.29% in Japan. CDS spreads for Japan and the UK are only about a third of the level for Italy.

So what does one...

What the Gaza Blockade Is

Matthew Yglesias:

Matthew Yglesias » What The Gaza Blockade Means: As I’ve noted before, in the eyes of its defenders the blockade of the Gaza Strip is a security measure aimed at denying rockets to Hamas, while in fact it’s a comprehensive effort to collectively punish Gaza residents—a majority of whom are children—in hopes that this will somehow lead to Hamas being replaced by a more moderate regime. Yousef Munayyer’s rundown of the consequences of the blockade makes the point...

We Remember June 4, 1989...

My brother was part of a group that met Zhao Ziyang once. In the future, he will be acclaimed as one of the founders of the New China: a worthy successor to Sun Yat-Sen.

Global Voices:

Global Voices in English: Lest we forget, Tiananmen Incident 21 years on: On the occasion of the 21st anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Incident (‘June Forth Movement’), Chinese intellectuals, ex-protest leaders, activists, bloggers, writers and ordinary citizens tell us why they refuse to turn their...

Yet Another New York Times FAIL

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?

Mark Leibovich--last seen exalting the village of Washington reporters who compete to know as little as possible about policy--seems to have no idea what "libertarianism" actually is. Rand Paul is a right-wing American religious conservative, not a libertarian:

For the Pauls, Libertarianism Began at Home: In keeping with their position as the First Family of Libertarianism, the Pauls of Lake Jackson, Tex., did not have many rules around...

More New York Times FAIL: More of Abelson and Harris's Sources Reject Their Conclusions

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?

Maggie Maher:

Health Beat: Yet Another Source Distressed By How the NYT’s Presented Its Data In A Story About the Dartmouth Research: Yesterday, I commented on a New York Times story that appeared Wednesday, June 2, attacking the... work that Dartmouth has done over the past two decades suggests that hospitals in some parts of the country are over-treating patients.... In Part 1... I discussed what two of the Times’ sources told me about...