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Blog Shares
Tom Murphy prompted me to check my current blogshares and see how my site is doing. There is something troubling going on here. There are appears to be two listings.
There is this one, which I have claimed, and the one that is linked from this weblog. But I have also come across this one which appears to also cover my weblog, but has not been claimed by me? Whats going on?
12:27:42 PM 
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Tyler Cowen
Tyler Cowen over at Volokh.com believes that Iraq should adopt the Euro as its primary currency.
The Euro for whom? Did you read in today's papers that the U.S. is still printing Iraqi dinars with Saddam's face on them? Otherwise the display of Saddam's face is forbidden, by the way.
What is the best medium-term solution for an Iraqi currency? Probably the Euro. Given Iraq's oil wealth, the necessary reserves wouldn't be a problem. The dollar looks too much like U.S. imperialism. A native Iraqi currency, once stabilization is complete, could be either too weak (hyperinflation?) or too strong (oil wealth). Economists write of "the Dutch disease," when a resource-rich country develops a currency so strong that the other export industries do not prosper. But Iraq needs economic diversification very badly.
Should Britain adopt the Euro? Probably not. Why should they, except for the fact that everyone thinks they should? So far the Euro has turned out to be a "least common denominator" monetary policy. What is so great about that?
12:17:10 PM
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Unacceptable
Horst Prillinger:
There are four things that are completely, totally, utterly unacceptable on an overcrowded underground train on a hot day like today:
Hehehe
12:12:24 PM
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The Future of Copyright, Publishing, Privacy
Dan Gillmor is in Helsinki at the moment, along with it seems Karlin. I hope they are having a nice time out there. Dan is going to be talking about self-publishind and his upcoming book. He envisages three scenarios:
Information locked down by an unholy consortium of Big Media and Big Government; total anarchy, including the demise of even the best of today's major-league journalism organizations; and an evolving world where personal publishing is a valued a part of the ecosystem that includes traditional major journalism organizations. Needless to say, I prefer the third scenario.
12:08:47 PM
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More Pictures From Paradise
Kate has some lovely pictures from Hawaii, where she lives. Lovely stuff Kate, I hope to see more from your part of the world.
11:59:35 AM
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Hitchens gives Bob Woodward a reaming
Jon Ihle over at Back Seat Drivers has a link to the Atlantic, and an article by Christopher Hitchens reviewing Bush at War. He quotes Hitchens:
Well, in the late 1970s Wolfowitz and others identified Saddam Hussein as a megalomaniac with ambitions to dominate the Gulf, and wrote reports that doubted the rightness of deputizing the Shah of Iran as an American proxy. The subsequent Iran-Iraq war did nothing to make them alter their original calculation. Nor did Reagan's decision to back Saddam against the Iranians as the "defender" of a Gulf that the Iraqi openly coveted. Nor did the first Bush Administration's lamentable decision to ignore the warnings of an assault on Kuwait. Nor, after the stench of Desert Storm had dissipated, did the decision to leave Saddam in place lest worse befall. Those who say that Wolfowitz has been fighting an old battle against a long-standing foe are quite right. (I interrupt myself briefly to say that Henry Kissinger, to whom Wolfowitz is often compared as a "policy intellectual," endorsed the Shah to the end, opposed the decision to dump Marcos, defended the Chinese Communist Party's massacre in Tiananmen Square, and regarded the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe as destabilizing.)
11:47:51 AM
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Media Whoring: New Trend or Hallowed Tradition?
Another Gavin's Blog favourite. As ever Deborah Branscum has the best in media analysis. If it were not for her I would be lost, it would take me weeks to find those stories but instead I have Deb there to help me out.
In her latest entry Deborah talks about some interesting stories from the NY Times and on the subject of Broadband. She is off travelling at the moment it seems, I look forward to your return Deb.
11:40:03 AM
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Katrina vanden Heuvel
Just been having a look over at Nick Denton's weblog, linked through from Onlineblog. He has some interesting stuff on there, most recently a debate he went to in New York featuring an old Gavin's Blog favourite, Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the Nation.
He has an interesting take, and I like that he is familer with Karl Popper, one of my favourite philosophers. I think sometimes that leftists like Heuvel get a bit carried away, even if I am inclined to agree with them some of the time. On this occassion I am erring on the side of Denton, Heuvel should really be more pro-active.
11:29:48 AM
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