If You Think the NASDAQ's Decline Is Large.... If You Think the NASDAQ's Decline Is Large... David Hudson forwards a piece on the end of Germany's attempt to create an equivalent of the NASDAQ: Subject: Last one to leave... Not only is recess over, they're shutting down the playground. German stock exchange shuts Germany's high-tech Neuer Markt exchange after 96 percent slide | Thu Sep 26, 7:07 AM ET By DAVID McHUGH, AP Business Writer FRANKFURT, Germany - Germany's stock exchange operator said Thursday it will eliminate its... [Semi-Daily Journal]

If you think we have it bad, as investors, just think about losing 96% of your value. Holey moley. And, remember that our Dow and NASDAQ are still highly overvalued compared to hisorical values.I think I might just bury all my money in the backyard until all this blows over.  comment []11:46:04 PM    

I Cannot Stand It. I Cannot Stand It Paul O'Neill "dismissed a wary communiqué from the Federal Open Market Committee on Tuesday that suggested significant downside risks to the economic recovery as 'bureaucratic'." I understand that many Treasury Secretaries believe that if they say that the outlook is "mixed" people will conclude that they think the outlook is horrible. But I would have thought it would be more important for a Treasury Secretary to avoid conveying the message that he just doesn't understand what... [Semi-Daily Journal]

This is eerily reminiscent of Bush pare. I believe a fundamental reason he lost to Clinton was his percieved disconnect from the American economy. He keep stating that things were going great, that all the indications were that things were just fine, at a time where we were in a recession with lots of people out of work. Now we have major dislocations in the stock market, in consumer confidence and the possibility of a double dip recession and the Treasury secretary stating that everything is fine. He responds to concerns about the effect of war on the economy with rhetoric that evades the concerns. It certainly does not make ME feel more confidant.  comment []11:41:40 PM    

Gnomic Utterance (Joke). From Phil Dyson: "There are only 10 types of people in the world: those that understand binary and those that don't. Ha ha ha!"... [Semi-Daily Journal]

Nerd humor. I love it and understand it.  comment []11:34:34 PM    

What Eight Words Do You Say to the President?. What Eight Words Do You Say to the President? The BBC introduced me as "former Clinton adviser Bradford DeLong." I protested that I had "only spoken eight words to the guy in my life." And now people are emailing me with suggestions as to what those eight words must have been, so I figure I might as well make it an open contest. Any more suggestions (keep it clean, please)?... [Semi-Daily Journal]

What eight words would you use? I love the Monty Python line 'Is she a goer? Nudge, nudge, wink, wink!' We could do this forever. What eight words would you say to ... (Lincoln, Carter, Bush, etc.) It would make an interesting parlor game ;-)  comment []11:33:09 PM    

Rome, AD ... Rome, DC: "They came, they saw, they conquered, and now the Americans dominate the world like no nation before. But is the US really the Roman empire of the 21st century? And if so, is it on the rise - or heading for a fall? Jonathan Freedland sifts the evidence." [From the Desktop of Dane Carlson]

What a hyperbolic article. It is a very labored argument to compare the US with Rome. I am sure you could make debating points by comparing it with the British empire or the Mongol hoards or just about anything you want. There is little precedent for what we are. And to act as if Rome was some bogey man, that was the bane of existence, seems to be an underlying current in the article. As if no other society creates myths of its ancestors. Here is my hyperbolic debating point: We have had more self-imposed constraints placed on our imperialism than any other. We are successful because we look for success anywhere we can find it. We fight the tendency of power to corrupt by changing our 'rulers' every 2-6 years. This makes us somewhat forgetful and often neglectful of our previous promises, but, so far, it has also prevented an accumulation of too much power. I will begin to worry if we elect another Bush or do away with most of the constitution. Our form of society has many more correcting safeguards than the Romans. Will it be enough? I am sure we will soon find out.  comment []4:50:03 PM    

The Stanford Prison Experiment

In 5 days, this experiment created bad men from a random pool of college students. This is why I get pessimistic sometimes about the (ab)use of power. It is just so easy to create an environment where decent people do evil things. In 5 days, there was a rapid descent of the participants into a hell that would be easy to dismiss as aberrant, if it was not so true. Humans with power can be utterly ruthless if not constricted by rules, by basic premises that MUST be followed. Anytime a powerful person complains about how they are prevented from doing what they want, I silently say 'good'. It should be very difficult for the powerful to do what they want. That is what the Founding Fathers understood when they devised our government and our constitution. They made it very difficult for our government to DO anything.

In the years since, many politicians have tried to get around those constrictions, and complained in the process. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. Roosevelt tried to pack the Supreme Court. And these are two of my heroes! They were wrong and, luckily, we were able to make sure the constraints stayed in place. Johnson got the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. Watergate and Iran-Contra are two recent attempts by the powerful to ignore these constraints. The argument could be made that almost every attempt to subvert these constraints has led to short-term failures and sometimes to long-term tragedies.

The reason that constant vigilance is the price of freedom is that the powerful find slaves so much easier to manage.

Think how much more difficult it must be in a society without the rules we have, where the powerful and their desires are not restricted. College students became brutal in 5 days. What would years have produced? What have the powerful wrought in those countries where the powerful have no limits to their power? We should not view our role as a policeman, whose job is to remove the criminal. We must be a surgeon, removing a cancerous growth so that the patient can survive. Our job must be to save the patient, not simply destroy the cancer. Because the cancer will return unless proper treatment is in place. Simply cutting out the cancer every time it appears will not save the life of the patient, it only prolongs the inevitable and creates greater misery

It is easy to call the rulers 'mad men' and just dismiss them, or blow them up. They are 'mad men' but they should not be so easily dismissed. They are not aberrations. The Stanford Prison Experiment showed how easy it is to create monsters. Not everyone will succumb. Even some of the guards at Stanford were nice. But the brutal ones will be created, unless constrained. Without changing the environment, you do not prevent the creation of more monsters. There are many more who can fill the position. That is the real hallmark of any civilization. How well it prevents the creation of such monsters and how well it constrains the ones it does create. We have done a good job of this in our history. I pray that we can continue to do this job without creating more monsters in the process.  comment []12:09:54 PM    

Mesh on MX.  Macromedia offered a 10% coupon code on some products on its Radio weblog for weblog readers only (as a test to see the effectiveness of the channel).  Here is what Mike said after some people ran into problems using the code:

ok. it turns out they worked, but we had so many people trying to use it that they were all used up pretty quickly.   we are working on getting some more availiable soon.  sorry for the hassle...

mike chambers    mesh@macromedia.com

 

[John Robb's Radio Weblog]

An example of how rapidly this technology can disperse information.  comment []12:40:30 AM    

Business Week:

In a previously unreleased letter obtained by BusinessWeek, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention admitted that the CDC supplied Iraqi scientists with nearly two dozen viral and bacterial samples in the 1980s, including the plague, West Nile, and dengue fever. The letter, written in 1995 by then-CDC director David Satcher, was in response to a congressional inquiry.

[John Robb's Radio Weblog]

Remember, he was our friend then, fighting those nasty Iranians. Bummer. Hope we did not also ship him some weapons grade uranium ;-)  comment []12:35:54 AM    

Going to watch "Our Man Flint" this weekend.  Watched "In Like Flint" two weeks ago, it was a hoot. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

I am putting together an Austin Powers film festival on DVD. It will have not only all the Austin Powers movies but also every movie that they reference. So, both the Flint movies will be there, as well as the obvious Bond movies (Dr. No, Goldfinger, From Russia With Love, Thunderball). The Ipcress File is another to include as well as the Matt Helm movies with Dean Martin. I'm going to have to watch the Powers movies again in order to get more ideas.  comment []12:32:53 AM    

NYT.  An article on the elimination of walk-ons for college sports.  What a shame, but this report points to a bigger problem with the entire system:  the US sports system from 9th grade on is much too elitist.  We restrict access to athletics like it was a scarce commodity, treating it different than any other basic education.

In contrast, the USAF Academy (my alma matter) had a strong three season intramural program.  They created this program because they felt that every graduate should graduate with some training in sports (and participate in its health benefits).  This great experience is why I am so disheartened at watching my son traverse his large and expensive high school sports program.  While I am confident he will make a team (basketball), he is unlikely to be able to participate in all the other sports he likes because the competition is too fierce for slots.  He is one of the lucky ones.  The overwhelming majority of other kids in school won't be able to play at all.  Given the huge numbers of participants in the jr leagues for almost all sports in my town, there is obviously huge demand for an aggressive intramural program and the support to make it happen. 

Unfortunately, it won't happen.  The entrenched interests of the minority of parents that support the semi-pro elitist culture of high school sports will ensure that all of the towns sports funds get spent on the few and not the many.  This elitism in high school and college sports is a hold over from the bad old days when only a very few were provided access to basic education and most were sent to trade schools (if at all).  The time is ripe for a change in mindset.  The first step is to change how sports are played in high school.  We need to press the point that we would never restrict access to education in math and english education in the same way we restrict access to sports.   We need to create an environment where sports education through three season intramurals is extended to all students as if it was a basic educational requirement.   If we can change the way high school sports are played, college is likely to follow. 

We may find that we like the result. [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

This is so right. A huge amount of money and time is devoted to the few. Why do colleges have great intramural sports programs, enlisting huge numbers of their students, yet public schools have none? Robb pretty much nails it. If I remember my 'Tom Brown's Schooldays' correctly, all the boys participated in rugby, not just the best ones. Physical exertion in team play was something everyone participated in. I think it would be better if we had more opportunity for that today. The mind is not as fully exercised unless the body is also.  comment []12:26:31 AM    

Why I may not ever fly Delta again!

comment []12:13:16 AM    

Ain't it a great country?

comment []9:43:34 PM    

Why No Industrial Revolution in Ancient Greece?. One of the oldest and hardest puzzles in economic history is the failure of Ancient Greek Eastern Mediterranean civilization to make some kind of breakthrough--to more rapid development of labor-saving technology, to faster technological progress, and to an industrial revolution. There have always been three theories as to why this did not happen: The "insufficient density" theory--not enough thinkers, not enough tinkerers, not enough ability to shape metal finely and precisely for the set of those interested in scientific progress... [Semi-Daily Journal]

This sort of discussion reminds me of those Saturday Night Live routines that started 'What if Superman had fought for the Nazi's?' or 'What if Napoleon had a B-52 at Waterloo?'  comment []9:10:49 PM    

The Sunday Herald reports that President Bush planned an Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President. The Herald claims it uncovered a 'blueprint for pax americana' drawn up by veep Dick Cheney.

A choice quote: "The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]

Well, it is nice to know that, as we plan to attack a city with 4 million civilians (about the size of Los Angeles) in a country of 23 million, that it is a well thought out plan, devised by men who fought in no war, with a keen perception of its place in history. I find chilling the recent statements suggesting that we must not allow any nation to ever challenge our hegemony, even if they are our allies today. Look how we treat our former allies (i.e. Saddam) when their purposes no longer align with ours. I am sure China, not to mention India, Pakistan and the EU, finds the reading fascinating. Are we setting ourselves up to go after ANYONE who does not toe the line WE draw in the sand? It seems to me that this is a road to the very tyranny that our Founding Fathers fought against. Of course, by modern definitions, they were terrorists. At least in the eyes of that century's only real superpower. This is such a slippery slope. Who will determine what are legitimate things that a country can do? We have overthrown legitimately elected governments because we did not like the people that were elected. What would we do if Saddam had been elected? Overthrow him and put in a puppet? Now we are making it an open part of US policy. You can read it on the web. Read the security statement. Then reread 1984. No, don't. It will depress you to see the path we are walking. Because the justifications we are making now for legitimate reasons can so easily be used for illegitimate purposes. One of the big lessons from 'The Once and Future King' is that might does not make right. We appear to be acting today with the view that our might does make us right. God, I hope not. Sorry, it is late and I am getting depressed. I've got to look good for the job fair tomorrow.

And anyone who really thinks knocking off Saddam will bring ANY stability in Iraq is dreaming. The area is so large and so fracticious that it will probably burst into a dozen samller states, all fighting for the oil, power, etc. while killing hundreds of thousands of people. Will we just leave the people of Iraq wishing for the relative stability of Saddam? It is already happening in Afghanistan. What is the end game for this whole process going to be?  comment []11:20:04 PM    

New Bill: More Digital TV Limits. A bill up for debate in the Senate could make VCRs obsolete. On the bright side for U.S. consumers, it could force cable companies to adopt open standards. By Brad King. [Wired News]

Don't you love it. The government will mandate that ALL TVs, the broadcasts and cable be digital. The customer is not clammering for this. Why is it happening? Well, the government willalso outlaw any sort of analog output, so VCRs will be obsolete. No one will be able to record ANYTHING unless the government and the media companies say so. Do you really think they will say yes!!   comment []11:03:04 PM