October 2009
24 posts
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Freakonomics Blog | Is Locavorism for Rich People... →
I’m generally skeptical of the “buy local” movement that has been increasingly gaining momentum in the U.S. McWilliams makes an interesting case that the movement also divides communities along socioeconomic lines and reduces cultural diversity.
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“What state secrets could there be in the sphere of political science?”
– Dr. Igor Gorlinsky, via Daniel W. Drezner
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U.N. to Deliver Food Aid by Text Message →
Keating regarding the news:
We’ve reached a very strange point in human history when it is assumed that people who don’t have access to food will have working cell phones…
Just got invited to a Windows 7 launch happy hour. Didn’t know people were actually doing that….
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I’m hot!
Apparently, I used to be hot, but now I’m hotter. And I’m not talking about the 24-hour low-grade fever I ran two days ago. Social scientists call this ecological inference fallacy, but, hey, I’m hot!
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Moscow to Ban Snow →
City hall estimates that the project will save the city $10.2 million in snow removal. Needless to say, officials in the surrouding region are less than thrilled with the plan. Locals have also criticized Luzhkov’s previous cloud prevention schemes, noting that they make “the cucumbers turn yellow.”
[Via FP Passport]
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“Be like a duck. Remain calm on the surface and paddle like hell underneath.”
– Michael Caine (from sirenssidewalks via sabbatical)
I like this, because I think this is how I am.
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Elinor Ostrom and the Well-Governed Commons →
This is the second time in a week that political science is in the news. I always thought in the absence of a Nobel prize in political science, what political scientists could shoot for was the Nobel prize in peace. We can add economics to the list now! Congratulations to Lin Ostrom!
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WatchCarolyn Steel tells a historical story of how we got separated from the food we eat. The main problem today is how we can effectively produce high-quality food with low environmental impact at the scale necessary to feed cities. I don’t think growing/eating local meaningfully solves the problem.
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Political “Science” under Attack
Yesterday, the world of political science—admittedly not a large world—was stirred up by an amendment that a Senator Coburn proposed to a spending bill. From his summary:
The National Science Foundation (which receives a 6.6% increase in this bill over last year) spent $91.3 million over the last 10 years on political “science.” The purpose of this amendment is not to restrict science, but rather...
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The Failure of Macroeconomics →
Mario Rizzo of NYU economics on macroeconomics:
Therefore, it is not simply a matter of finding the right explanation of the recent financial meltdown and recession. The search by most macroeconomists is constrained by a certain set ofunquestioned methodological precepts. These precepts go to the heart of the conception of Economics as a Science. They are the standards of what constitute...
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Shopping: Keeping It Local →
Whether the reasons are environmental or economic, the movement toward shopping local stuff has both a progressive side and a regressive side. The movement is purportedly for improving local and global welfare but doing so in a way that turns communities less interdependent and more autarkic. [From The Economist]
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Trade and Culinary Adventures: EU, Canada and... →
But Andree Garcia, the owner and chef of Les Iles en Ville, says the EU ban has been “great advertising” - and as a result has moved up seal dishes from occasional specialities to a daily regular.
“Seal has become extremely popular since everybody started talking about it,” she said. “We have Canadian diners who want to support the seal industry and we have tourists who had never heard of it...