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A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog
 Saturday, September 14, 2002
But It's Not Fair Just to Pick on the Right. But it's not fair just to pick on the right. The quality of economic analysis on the loony left is just as low as--perhaps lower than--the quality of economic analysis in National Review. Larry Kudlow finds his match in Krystal Kyer, for whom all trade is bad, all the time: Krystal Kyer: What Rhymes With NAFTA, But Smells Worse? CAFTA!: ...Since NAFTA, American, Canadian and Mexican independent farmers have seen prices plummet and safety nets removed. Thousands of small farms... [Semi-Daily Journal]
Yeah, this sure sounded believable until he used some real numbers. Domestic food prices were up 20% in the first 7 years of NAFTA. That works out to be something like 2% a year. Wow, that is huge (NOT!) I may be a liberal but free trade is not a problem. It makes markets more effecient and makes war much less likely. When economies intertwine, disruption hurts all of them. That is why any conflict should be carefully chosen and executed. 1:14:25 AM 
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More People Worry About Deflation. The Economist steps up to the "let's worry about deflation" plate. I agree with them. The Federal Reserve, however, does not seem to: the Federal Reserve appears to believe that the NAIRU--the unemployment rate at which inflation is constant--is somewhere near 5.5 percent (rather than the 4.5 to 5.5 percent I would estimate), and that the rate of growth of potential output--which is the rate at which real GDP has to grow to keep the unemployment rate constant--is only a... [Semi-Daily Journal]
I am scared spitless about deflation. I need to find out what sorts of things to do. Because there might be no place to invest if the entire world is fighting deflation. I wish we were hearing more about how the government will prevent this, than whether we should go get Saddam. Because this is going to have a much greater, direct effect on us and the world if our economy gets hosed. 12:57:29 AM
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A simple click stirs a lot of outrage [CNET News.com]
A State Department web site has a direct link to the Republican National Committee, in violation of half a dozen federal laws, and all they can say is that it was a mistake; that they were astounded that anyone ever found the link. What if it had been a link to a porno site? I ran a web site for several years with well over 2000 pages. The software exists to tell you where every link in the site goes to. You can easily get a printout of every external site that your site links to. Who runs these sites, that they would be so clueless as to be amazed these links were found? No wonder they are so afraid of hackers. 12:43:02 AM
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Friday, September 13, 2002
Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.
I have had several people hand/email me this quote, supposedly by Julius Caesar. Sometimes it is from Shakespeare's play. Sometimes directly from Caesar. But a Google search does not uncover this quote from either source. So, is it legitimate or is it just something that fits the mood of some people, me included? ('Well, if he did not say it, he should have.') Wikipedia examines this question and also answers in the negative. Maybe it is from a movie version. There was a version of Julius Caesar made in the '50s. This is the sort of thing someone might have written with an eye towards what the House Unamerican Activities Committee was doing. Anyway, it appears to be something that many people love so much that they do not even do the easy things like checking with Google. It speaks to something they feel, but by saying it came from Julius Caesar, you can say "See. They knew about this 2000 years ago. It is not just my opinion. Julius Caesar for goodness sakes, talked about these dangers. Here's the evidence." I might like to believe he said this,; I might agree with the basic sentiment; but to me, this quote is a fraud and is as misleading as all the Viagra spam I get. 11:56:07 AM
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Thursday, September 12, 2002
Editor Fires Author, Ann Coulter [LISNews.com]
Ann Coulter. What is it about some conservative pundits? Well, it is like any pundit. You get lots of media play if you are one-sided, jaded, outrageous and good-looking. Mean-spirited stuff. Don Rickles made a career out of this as a comedian. Some pundits do the same, only acting as if they have really important things to say. Balanced writing NEVER gets you anywhere in the major media. The Centre Daily editorial provides some of the mouth-dropping things that she has said. I will include one further on. She said this in an interview in the New York Observer: My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building. Or how about this one?We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too. Otherwise they will turn out to be outright traitors. 11:49:20 PM
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Wednesday, September 11, 2002
Another good link from Doc Searls. Blair makes a really good argument. But suppose I had come last year on the same day as this year - September 10. Suppose I had said to you: there is a terrorist network called al-Qaida. It operates out of Afghanistan. It has carried out several attacks and we believe it is planning more. It has been condemned by the UN in the strongest terms. Unless it is stopped, the
threat will grow. And so I want to take action to prevent that. He has some persuasive arguments. This is the sort of debate we should be having. Instability for any of us is instability for all of us. I would feel much better after some good solemn debate, knowing that some awfully smart people (yes, there are some in government) have looked at this from all angles and decided on the best approach, not just the most expedient. 10:10:50 PM
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I want to thank Doc Searls for this link. I had not heard of Bill Biggart but this is an incredible story. He was killed by the collapse of the second tower, yet his digital camera was recovered. It documented the collapse of the first tower, it aftermath and ended with the closest picture of ground zero before the collapse of the 2nd tower took his life. What a record. This is one of the 9/11 items that really got to me today. This was a person who wanted to record this event for everyone and got some pictures that no one else will ever get, that will stick with us forever. I wish he had not. I really wish he had not been so close. 9:58:55 PM
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Terror warning over laptops [EurekAlert!]
Let's get really paranoid. First off, there is no way I am not going to carry my computer on board the plane. There is just too much of a danger I will never get it back. Companies would be worried about the loss of coporate secrets on the PCs. If someone simply wants to bring down a plane, which is what the Dr. postulates, I bet there are all sorts of ways. If it is that simple, they could probably get the necessary electronics on board without anyone noticing (i.e. separate pieces and put them together). Fianlly, terror only works if you know to be terrorized. A plane crash does not do that. Remember Die Hard 2. They messed up the temetry from the planes so that they thought they were 100 feet off the ground as the plane crashed. Everyone knew what they had done. How would this be different from some other sort of 'pilot error'? 9:10:22 PM
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Tuesday, September 10, 2002
Monday, September 9, 2002
When I wrote about niggardly and denigrate the other day, I remembered a Mad Magazine lark that used outlandish sounding words to seemingly implicate the opponent's character.Well, I did a Google search and easily found it. It was written by Bill Garvin in December 1970. Entitled 'Guaranteed Effective All-Occasion Non-Slanderous Political Smear Speech' it is still a hoot. Check it out. One of my favorites:Let us take a very quick look at that childhood: It is a known fact that, on a number of occasions, he emulated older boys at a certain playground. It is also known that his parents not only permitted him to masticate in their presence, but even urged him to do so. Most explicable of all, this man who poses as a paragon of virtue exacerbated his own sister when they were both teenagers! 9:54:15 PM
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Politicians must exploit the Internet to win 'apathetic' young voters [EurekAlert!]
This is from Britain but is pretty relevant. I agree that connecting with young people will be easier if there is an Internet presence. But, since the major parties seem to ignore many of the things that young people find important, I do not see the parties really doing anything to make the connection. See, young people do not have MONEY. Makes a big difference to most politicians. When we can generate leaders who can make connections that are not based on the access that money provides, then 'apathetic' young voters will be engaged. So will most of the rest of us. (I really hate the headline. Look at the words. 'Exploit'. 'Apathetic'. They do not have a clue.) 12:54:47 AM
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Sunday, September 8, 2002
Rolling Requiem.. 
If you sing, this may be cathartic come 9.11.
via Jarrett House North. [diJEST: a journal of extrapreneurial strategy and technology]
This looks like a nice, non-exploitive way to show respect for what happened on 9/11. Mozart's Requiem is an incredibly emotional piece of music and hearing it under these circumstances could go a long way to dealing with the events of 1 year ago. And it started in Seattle. They want to have at least 1 chorale in every time zone in the world get involved. And, by starting each one at 8:46 local time, it will continue for 24 hours, not just once but 24 times. 1:05:27 AM
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