RE A REAL SCIENCE OF MIND NYT THE STONE EDITORIAL

'PERCEPTUAL PSYCHOLOGY'

'The difference between functional correlation and representational accuracy is signaled by the fact that scientific explanations of light-sensitivity in plants or bacteria invoke functional correlation, but not states capable of accuracy. Talk of accuracy would be a rhetorical afterthought. States capable of accuracy are what vision science is fundamentally about.'

Helpful distinctions here, for those who can follow it. Implications in many directions. Still a little reductionistic, in subtle ways, it seems to me, but hey, what specialization isn't, and efforts to cross fields are evident.

See also John Cleese, referred to in the article:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M-vnmejwXo

cf also my post re my undergrad thesis re Wittgenstein, psychology of perception, Gombrich, aesthetics, metaphysics, epistemology, mind, etc.

One might 'term search' some of these terms, using Bing at upper left, on this site..............

RE UBS DRESS CODE BBC EDITORIAL CERTAIN BEAUTIFUL OR UGLY INDIVIDUALS AND GODS EXEMPTED

Creatures such as Thurston Macaire, or the Maverick Executive, and some others, gods mostly, such as those below,

would of course be exempt from the dress code for obvious reasons:

Julius Caesar, descended from the goddess Venus, and Aeneas,

would also have been exempted, of course.

Question:

What about a complexion code?

Or, say, a bone structure one?

How about a soft tissue configuration one, too?

Why not?

RE GONE WITH THE MYTHS EDWARD BALL PATHETIC EDITORIAL

He and his acolytes might want to read something like Nevins, which I am reading, too. Volume 1 has been especially helpful.

It paints a rather more densely textured canvas.

One might review what many citizens, North and South, were saying, what they were worrying about, in the 1850s, regarding proposals for abolition and its possible consequences, to see that the looming problem of race relations underlay the disagreement over slavery; and it was this deeper issue which prevented a solution going forward, and ultimately lead, after decades of ferment, to secession when the abolitionist North increasingly forced the slavery issue (with accruing frontier political preponderance).

If he has read it, and he is now, as so often with journalists,

just stirring the pot, then too bad.

the menu

Cumin, turmeric, clove, cardamom,

cinnamon, pepper, rosemary, bay leaf,

and garam masala ground spices,

in a roast diced Australian lamb shank potato onion garlic Persian lime

curry,

basmati rice,

kosher dill pickle,

Dutch anise cookies,

Red Truck, organic zinfandel, 2006

Yes, I am a global economy hypocrite,

regarding certain ingredients unobtainable here.

In answer to this legitimate minor charge,

an audio reference for the day:

Miles Davis

Kind of Blue,

"So What"

RE REPUBLICAN FINANCIAL REPORT EDITORIALS TOO BIG TO BLAME SEE MICHAEL LEWIS' BOOK THE BIG SHORT

"...Wallison’s theory... not...reality....Fannie and Freddie...spent most of the housing bubble avoiding subprimes.... finally did get in... very late in the game... pressure from the marketplace... the subprime companies and Wall Street had long used subprime loans as a way to do an end-run around Fannie and Freddie. By the mid-2000s, subprime underwriting and securitization had become so profitable — and such a large part of the overall mortgage business — that Fannie and Freddie felt they had no choice but to dive in. In other words, the G.S.E.’s were reacting to the realities of the market, not to the government. They were worried about losing market share."

See also Frank Rich's editorial today, touching also on the FCIC report. RICH WRITES A GREAT EDITORIAL EXPOSE,

THE BIPARTISAN RACKET. Readers should follow up Rich's references to other sites; very revealing in the usual way.

I also recommend Michael Lewis' book The Big Short on the subject.

RE S KOREA SLOWING FOREIGN MONEY FLOWS

So much for sparking growth or hiring in the US:

"Of particular worry to developing economies has been the Federal Reserve's move to purchase $600 billion of U.S. government bonds in a bid to spark growth and hiring in the United States, an increase in global liquidity they fear will wash into their markets."

That money won't wash in as growth or hiring in the US.

RE LEPORE'S DISUNION PAUL REVERE'S RIDE LONGFELLOW

I have been reading Nevins.

I recommend it.

RE PELL GRANT LAISSEZ FAIRE

Why worry about financing (subsidizing)American graduates, when foreign grads are so much cheaper to educate?

Laissez faire.

And, why subsidize students in the first place, under laissez faire?

No point.

RE DON'T ASK DON'T TELL

It is symptomatic of deeper political fragmentation problems the US faces, has long faced, will increasingly face, that issues such as this, at a time like this, command so disproportionately great attention.

RE THE HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP FOUR

Apparently, according to David Kaiser, these four are 3 Catholics and a Jew.

I thought this was striking.

It shows something, perhaps, to someone.

I can make hunches.

RE TURN IN YOUR BIN LADENS NYT EDITORIAL

Not very enlightening advice,

going forward, for anyone.

RE VIDEO REFERENCE THE GRACCHI

Rufus Fears Famous Romans LECTURES.

See especially, re nowadays, The Younger Scipio,

and then particularly, The Gracchi.

They should really all be seen in sequence. See especially remarks of one of the Skeptic, tutors,

"we hold these truths to be self evident,...."

Re Rome, in the time of the Gracchi:

(Yes, I criticized Krugman's very essay, from which this (nevertheless quite good) passage comes:

"If you ask how it’s possible that a handful of bad actors can get their way so often, the answer has to be, wasn’t it ever thus? What we call civilization has usually been a form of kleptocracy, varying mainly in its efficiency (the Romans were no nicer than the barbarians, just more orderly). Yes, we’ve had a few generations of government somewhat of, by, for the people in some places — but that’s an outlier in the broader sweep of things."

But what's a little hypocrisy,

or klepticism for that matter,

or Skepticism, even,

among editorialists?

(They didn't have corporations back then, anyway.)

An alternative video reference, for the lecture-challenged, might be,

in memory of Blake Edwards,

The Pink Panther.

See, now, also David Kaiser's blog, post entitled "Two possibilities for 2011",

and my comment.

RE KRUGMAN WALL STREET WHITEWASH EDITORIAL ASK NOT WHAT YOUR BANKER CAN DO FOR YOU; ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR BANKER

THE COMMISSION'S MISSION, “examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States.”

Although the explanation, contrary to Krugman's account, is not limited to banking problems, and doesn't just go back to the 80s,

the GOP does not have a good reply either:

“in Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.”

"Ah! credit,

that is beautiful!"

Robert Macaire

RE DANIEL LITTLE'S SITES

(Re Philosophy of History, Philosophy of Social Science, Globalization)

Although he has three interests in common with mine, that is where the similarities end. Don't bother with his sites, nonsense.

RE A GREEN DETROIT? NO, A GUZZLING ONE NYT EDITORIAL

This is still what very little there is, which passes here, for 'industrial policy', in the US. Foreigners have to laugh hard when they see stuff like this.

Big corporate bail out, utter failure.

Pathetic, really.

RE NEVINS ORDEAL VOLUME ONE

I will have some comments, and excerpts, on this work, shortly.

Wonderful work.

RE TO CONQUER WIND POWER, CHINA WRITES THE RULES

Not that hard to figure out where all this is heading,

is it?

Here is the Wind God, Zephyr, in this case he is now Chinese,

landing in a forest glade en pointe:

Translated from the French: "He sways slightly, Foot barely touching the water:Flora admires in silence Says: Ah! credit that is beautiful! Anacreon translated by Ratapoil, retired police colonel,

a member of society

belles lettres at Chalons sur Marne

and the company's tenth day of December in Paris."

the menu

Cold weather menu:

roast lamb shanks, kartoshka, onion, garlic, rosemary.

sauteed kale, baby field green salad, Fetzer Merlot

strawberry banana ice cream (Why ask why?)

Jojo's Java

NPR REPORT TODAY CHINA INDIA TRADE PARTNERS

The obvious...................old rivals,... new friends.

Each building big ports near each other's borders................

Kind of predictable, really.

The US, talking recently about India, its really big new trading friend;

after geopolitical relations with China have soured, surprisingly enough.

Don't believe the India thing will last.

We 'started it all', in the 20th Century, in a 'really big way'.

RE DAVID MCCULLOUGH

Started reading his biography of Truman.

Ugh.

RE BLOCK THOSE METAPHORS KRUGMAN NYT

'The root of our current troubles lies in the debt American families ran up during the Bush-era housing bubble.'

This is not the root of our current troubles.

The roots of our current troubles lie deeper than that.

They have to do with:

1. the permanent structure of our political system (from the beginning), and political and economic practices in light of that political system;

2. most notably our post WWII laissez faire Am/Com ideology ; and

3. the fact that the rest of the world has not stood still while we tinker with isolated tax or spend or morality issues, but rather has taken advantage of our weaknesses to accrue power.

The fix for these problems does not lie in economics alone.

Americans have long needed a more strategically 'able' political system, a more consolidated not more fragmented structure, one that favors and fosters domestic development over foreign development. This aspect of the problem has become critical going forward.

A few people have begun to realize that developed countries cannot merely even further globalize their way out of malaise by use of cheaper labor and skills abroad;

or by trying to use foreign sites for manufacturing or services without soon losing the very reasons for doing so in the first place.

RE TOWN AND COUNTRY ETC

Lester Thurow did an interesting talk, saw it recently, re the Chinese industrialization break through in the 80s.

It apparently, according to Thurow, began quietly with an agricultural reform in the 70s, allowing peasants to work their own small plots, so that a surplus was eventually created; whereas the previous collective system had failed.

He contrasted that with the Russian transition to 'capitalism'.

Very interesting.

RE CHINA'S ARMY OF GRADUATES STRUGGLE FOR JOBS EDITORIAL NYT SUNDAY

More evidence of global 'smelling the coffee'.

RE HIVE-MINDS AND KLEPTOCRATS KRUGMAN MNC BLOBALIZATION BLOG TOPIC SELLING BIG CORPORATE NEWSPAPERS

Commenting on another blog post, he poo poos the notion of the big corporation as bad actor,

fails to impugn the political system, and the bi-partisan understanding, that allowed these very powerful entities to overgrow,

and blames individual bad actors at the tops of the ones most visibly acting bad.

This is not a very helpful image, and wildly distorts what has been going on to drive globalism blobalism in such an unhelpful direction and extent.

Not that corporations themselves initiated the process of accruing too much reach and power, blobalizing everywhere, or are intrinsically bad,

but now that they're there, not very helpful to blame only certain allegedly bad imperial corporate controlling individuals (even if themselves bloblike) manipulating otherwise benevolent MNCS.

The Republicans permanently abandoned the domestic economy, as even someone like Buchanan pointed out in The Great Betrayal, when MNCs, and foreign interests, not imperial American individuals, became so influential in the 70s that there was no going back.

Buchanan's Chapter "Companies Without A Country", contains some passages, which could be multiplied many times in the literature, showing that it is not individual imperial 'bad actors', but the MNC phenomenon itself, which has been allowed to swell and take over politics.

One can find similar history in Prestowitz, Chalmers Johnson, Alfred Eckes, Jr., Gilpin, Gill, Reich, Greider, Batra, and others.

Of course, if you work for a MNC that has a subsidiary corporation that sells newspapers, it's hard to impugn the entity that pays your salary.............

Or, if you are a politician, like say Buchanan, not very popular to attack the corporate powers that be, imperial or not.

the menu

The menu:

sauteed garlic kale;

roast lamb leg in red wine and cumin reduction;

basmati rice from the foothills of the Himalayas, buttered;

beet and cabbage dill vinaigrette salad;

Red Truck Organic California zinfandel 2006.

Breyers vanilla ice cream, with banana crushed in.

Jim's whole bean organic Witch's Brew drip.

Brandy.

RE EUROPE CLAMPS DOWN ON BANKERS' BONUSES WILL THEY EMIGRATE BBC EDITORIAL

Starting the open season on bankers in the EU.

Not that bad an idea.

The US cannot go there, with so much banker power over here.

RE OBAMA'S HOSTAGE DEAL KRUGMAN EDITORIAL

This is probably a fairly accurate depiction of the status.

It is typical of the kinds of small potatoes turnstile politics the US has been engaged in, since the beginning.

The difference is that it is winding down, now that there are no frontiers, or permanent hoards, of really cheap labor or materials, left to awkwardly and inefficiently and ever so gradually absorb.

Want a lot of good ole market competition:

Be careful what you wish for. Cf. Prestowitz'

Three Billion New Capitalists

RE KRUGMAN DECEMBER 2011

At least he is talking 'political economy'.

That is a small relief.

Unfortunately, when you take a close look at American political structures and their workings, together with economics,

you end up just wanting a much better system.

Unfortunately, almost no way that will happen,

and a catastrophe of some kind, either a war or economic further melt down, would likely bring on not necessarily a better structured political/economic system, but worse changes, within the existing one.

RE A SOUND TRADE DEAL WITH SOUTH KOREA EDITORIAL NYT

Don't believe a word of this.

Same old same old, Trading American Interests

RE EUROPE'S LEADERSHIP DEFICIT NYT ARTICLE

Pointing a finger at Europe's leaders is not useful, because the unstable system put in place after WW II, and the EU which we also promoted, are things that have gotten them into this glob alist instability quagmire.

RE THOMAS FRIEDMAN PISA TEST ARTICLE ECONOMICS IS WAR BY OTHER MEANS

Sec of Education says 'wake up call'.

It's really a 'game over' call.

Friedman, still the glob alist, still says ridiculous things like

'economics is not war',

'it can be win-win'............

No, economics,

rather than the peace idea we and our economists have had,

Economics Is War.

It cannot in the long, OR EVEN THE SHORT, run be win-win.

WE SHOULD HAVE ADOPTED A MORE MERCANTILISTIC IDEA FOR OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM LONG AGO.

How well do you think the 'Casanova hand' of the free market would produce better educational standards?

The free market would say, privatize education.We already have, to some extent, 'marketized' it elsewhere, from our end:

subsidizing it by making it pay, in other places, by public order of foreign regimes, because they know they have to do it to live.

The same principle applies to funding education as has been applied to labor costs: if it is cheaper elsewhere, do it there; education therefore is better funded where it is cheaper. Let them be better educated. That's Friedman's win-win.

RE FLORE ET ZEPHYR DE LA MEURTHE DAUMIER

"FLORA AND Zephir (de la Meurthe.)
He sways slightly,
Foot barely touching the water:
Flora admires in silence
Says: Ah! credit that is beautiful!
Anacreon translated by Ratapoil, retired police colonel,

a member of society belles lettres at Chalons sur Marne

and the company's tenth day of December in Paris."

Thurston Robert Macaire Howell,

alias the Maverick Executive,

landing in a forest glade.

(The early ballet, Flore et Zephyr, was the origin of ballerinas going en pointe, as the technology of this ballet allowed them, and their partners, as the above image attests, to fly through the air on wires, and poise momentarily on the tips of their toes. Later dancers developed special shoes and techniques to achieve the effect without the wires.)

RE PAT BUCHANAN

Because some of my comments re economic nationalism are similar to those of such religious right figures as Buchanan,

it may have given some the impression that I am on the religious right.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

RE DAVID BROOKS' COMPLEX CREATURES AND WHAT PASSES FOR SOCIAL SCIENCE AND NAVIGATING PAST NIHILISM SEAN KELLY EDITORIALS

'.... a day without sunshine.'

Perhaps we need a reprise of some recent The Bell Curve - related social science research works, to further raise our spirits, during this holiday season.

Reading random isolated articles on a broad array of picayune topics, as Brooks recommends, is rather idiotic;

and may even qualify as an example, or an expression, or even a proof, of the kind of suburban nihilism Kelly refers to in criticizing Brooks;

and qualifies as a valid and related point, (moving from literature as such to the loosely related fields of the social sciences),

similar in some ways to those implied by Kelly against Brooks' suppositions of an absence of nihilism, or its containment within a literary sub world.

(I LIKE PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE,

BUT NOT MOST OF WHAT PASSES FOR IT NOWADAYS, EITHER.)

One can read Harvard Business School Management articles,

we had a hundred or so of them while I was at BU,

until you are purple,

but I still rather prefer The Maverick Executive,

for 'management social science'.

Terms search various terms for other articles on this site.

RE NATION STATES AND MARKET STATES AND GLOBS AND BLOBALIZATION

This is my new term for 'it':

BLOBALIZATION

I still think I see the spectre of nationalisms, good and bad, and more importantly, civilizationalisms,

hovering above and within  the blobalizations now long under way.

'The world is flat' metaphor, just doesn't 'cut' it,

liposuctionally, or obesity surgery-wise.

RE MARKET STATES VERSUS GLOB STATES AND CIVILIZATIONAL GLOBS OF GLOBS

I have to say, referencing Bobbitt's and others' term, my characterization, glob alization, is probably

'technically' ( I use this term advisedly in this context),

more accurate.

Sure, there are centrifugal 'MARKET STATE' forces, operating on individual 'globs',

and also on different, and antagonistic,

'civilizational globs of globs',

within the larger glob alization,

or 'aggloberation'.

Still, I find my terminology more analytically satisfying.

RE CHINA'S GOLD BUYING SPREE article

Patrick Chovanec, Seekingalpha article, and others.

Wonder why?

RE NOT CRASS, CLASS

"Actually, there’s more crassness in this world than is dreamed of in most professors’ philosophy." Krugmanesque Hamletism

The developing globalist class system, within which a vanishing US middle class Social Security system is not only unnecessary but unaffordable, is a product partly of the 'armchair economics' profession.

people like us

RE THE GLOBALIZATION TRAP

The entire mainstream American government has also, most unfortunately, long been in

the Glob alization Trap.

Both parties have so long touted this panacea of free trade and Cobdenist pacification

(originally, long ago, 1950, in never never land, to fight Communism,

but transformed beyond recognition in the intervening decades),

that now that it is so obviously totally unwinding,

they really don't know what to do, where to run for cover,

except to blame the erstwhile partners in globalization crime,

most notably China, Japan, Korea, even India, will eventually come in for abuse, but also certain Middle East potentates, and others.

Even Russia, because it has bitten from the 'fruit of forbidden knowledge of freer trade', the original sin, is now to be tarred with the same brush of

'traitor to globalization'.

If the international Market State System 'system' somehow fails, it will be blamed on these erstwhile 'partners' not being willing, any longer,

to Glob alize enough for them.

Thomas Friedman in the Globalization trap

"Fifty years ago, the world was shaped..... We have been steadily losing that leverage because....... of our twin addictions......WikiLeaks show just what crow we have to eat because of that."

We have been losing leverage because of the project itself!

He selects just two reasons for the failure of a policy with much broader and complex causes. he fails to attack the project itself, which is where anyone really hoping to understand the problem must begin.

Big globalization advocate has to backpedal, no other direction for him to go now; pundited himself into

the Glob alization Trap

Term search "Trading American Interests", for a short article setting out the highlights of the process, since WW II.

The addictions Friedman talks about were originally instituted as part of a strategic policy.

Re The Menu

The menu, before the symphony, Dvorák's cello concerto; Ugh; was 'borscht':

Cabbage sauteed, diced scallion, 3 minced garlic cloves, dash ba tampt garlic dill pickle juice, organic sauerkraut and dash its juice, boiled potato (mashed), bacon fat, chicken fat and pieces, dash mild pepperoncini juice, black pepper, dash hot sauce. Aged Vermont cheddar cheese and crackers. Beer.

Needless to say, this is not for everyone.

RE WHY ASK WHY GOLD

Here's an account, AND A VIDEO, of what even someone like James Grant recently may have been getting at:

http://www.realecontv.com/page/566.html

He is onto something.

What is it?

RE CHINA, THE ENABLER

Pathetic, really, to overlook the BIG ENABLER, for all of this, for so long,

the US.

Re security leaks

See prior posts re security umbrella, Mary Poppins, etc

RE BOURBON ECONOMICS

'The question we should ask, however, is why the economics profession has been so resistant to the obvious.' Krugman

Amen.

Some explanations are reprised on this site :

The use and manipulation of expert fields.

The compartmentalization of fields, especially politics itself, as well as political economic history, from economics.

EU GLOB ALIZATION ALSO IS NOT FLAT (Thomas Friedman) BUT BULBOUS

The Venus of Willendorf:

The bulbous concatenated EU

'Excess capacity' flopping around everywhere.

Cf other posts, eg fattening things up, etc

RE THE WORLD IS FLAT FRIEDMAN

it is, unfortunately, not flat.

See prior posts:

It is

,

rather,

'glob alized', in fact, not even merely simply spherical, but rather needs

radical obesity surgery as a result of glob alistic 'fattening up',

done by the US mostly.

Merely Mediterranean diet will not do it.

That is, three dimensional venn regime figures, interpenetrating eachother, in varying degrees, in multiple dimensions.

These are not flat images, but are meant to represent three or perhaps four or five dimensional phenomena.

RE GLOBALISTS GLOB ALIZATION BUBBLE BURST TRAP

LIPOSUCTION, OR SURGERY, WILL NOT WORK, EITHER, FOR

'GLOB ALIZATION':

THE PATHOLOGY HAS GONE 'TOO FAR', as when regulation goes 'too far',

here, on the other hand,

deregulation has gone 'too far'

IT IS, PERHAPS, THE LAST

BUBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBLE.

EVEN MARY POPPINS' SECURITY UMBRELLA WILL NOT LANCE THIS BUBBLE BUBBLE TOIL AND TROUBLE BOIL,

OR PROTECT FROM THE FALL OUT

'too big to fail too big to succeed'

Term search security umbrella, Mary Poppins, etc.

RE LIPOSUCTIONING THE GLOBALIST BLOB

Re Obesity Surgery:

The caption above:

Chorus, in rough unison: "I Need Surgery"

The one below:

"Charge It"

RE CARTOONS

NOT HAVING GOTTEN HELP FROM BLITT OR ANYONE ELSE, I AM GOING TO START DOING MY OWN.

GET READY.

re the menu this evening

This is an evening for that increasingly rare thing, leftover smoked mackeral, an almost fished out fish, even down here in Sunny Fishy Florida.

The local Ted Peters Famous Smoked Fish sells it when available, not very often.....too bad.....

I just reheat it with olive oil, lemon juice, and a few capers and raw onion.

Side dishes will include Swiss chard blanched and doctored up, and baby field greens salad with Greek feta cheese.

Red wine; but if I were eating by myself, fino, or even better amontillado, sherry is the ideal accompaniment.

I just make this up as I go along.

RE TOO BIG TO FAIL TOO BIG TO SUCCEED

NYT EDITORIAL RE OBESITY SURGERY, GROWTH INDUSTRY,

OBESITY SURGERY BUBBLE TOO WILL 'POP',

WHEN ITS OUR ONLY 'GROWTH' INDUSTRY LEFT.

SEE PRIOR POST RE VENN DIAGRAMS OF A LOT OF REGIMES GETTING TOO BIG.

THEY HAVE LONG BEEN ALLOWED TO FATTEN THEMSELVES, EACH NOW, FATALLY THREATENS ITS NEIGHBORS, AND OTHERS WITHIN STRIKING DISTANCE.

EVERYONE ALMOST, UNFORTUNATELY, IS WITHIN STRIKING DISTANCE, WITH WMD.

SEE POSTS RE 'FATTENING THINGS UP', Trading Places, Trading American Interests, Japan Who Governs, Thurston Robert Macaire Howell, lazy fare, laissez faire, CIVILIZATIONAL ADVANTAGE, and various cartoon mises en scene, etc. ETC.

RE TOO BIG VENN DIAGRAM GLOBALIZATION HOLIDAY CARTOON

Mise en scene for a Globalist Holiday Cartoon.

Remember the venn diagrams from geometry?

Well, we are showing a picture enveloped with enormous 'Venn' bubbles, cross-intersecting each other. The Caption above:

Holiday Bulbous Globalist Gala

"Soap Gets In Your Eyes"

The one below, "Lebensraum Needed"

A Fate That Narcissists Will Hate: Being Ignored NYT Editorial AVOID MICKEY MOUSE SCIENCE ALSO CALLED JUNK SCIENCE

If 5 categories are eliminated of 10, what does that imply for the previous credibility of this analytic framework, or for its credibility going forward?

Wittgenstein had made some remarks, eg about things like 'experimental methods and conceptual confusion'.

One could perhaps append 'clinical methods, and conceptual confusion' here.....

One needs to avoid the appearance, too often seen in the social sciences, and even many so-called exact ones, of being too 'Mickey Mouse'.

When a so-called 'discipline', see eg recent posts on this topic, goes in, to some extent, for 'more an art rather than a science' rubric, watch out.

Real estate appraisal, just one tiny example, has sometimes been called an 'art', rather than an exact science (whatever that may now be taken to mean).

Thus, it has not been 'susceptible' to certain legalistic standards, otherwise normatively applied, in the legal field, to so-called more 'exact sciences'.............

RE THOMAS FRIEDMAN FROM WIKICHINA EDITORIAL

His editorial is rather good.

The big irony is that Friedman has been an outspoken advocate for the globalization that made China's new role on the world stage, and its perfectly justifiable scorn of backward America, possible in the first place.

He needs to take a hard look in the mirror next time he publishes something like this.

It exposes Friedman's globalist hypocrisy better than anything anyone else could think up.

RE WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD

See David Kaiser's latest post.

Were I a betting man, I would think that the Donald had some chance, given his gross media exposure all these years;

but what do I know?

The Donald, a flesh and blood 'Thurston Robert Macaire Howell', now, late in the game,

just wanting to 'give back' to the great system that made it all possible(eye water).....something like that.

Re the Venus of Willendorf Beauty Versus Ugly Philosophers and Gods The Mediterranean Diet And Other Things

We are going to commence, in dribs and drabs, a discussion of various topics, which I will connect in abstruse ways as we go along.

The title gives a hint of what is to come.

Here is an image to start. this is The Venus of Willendorf:

RE A STALE FOOD FIGHT EDITORIAL NYT MICHAEL POLLAN the menu

Re food safety, and a lot of other things:

Why an Iowa?

For that matter:

Why an Oklahoma?

After all:

Why a fragmented confederacy?

See also, Bing terms search, 'weak governments', etc.

Most Americans don't discover how ill governed they are, 

and long have been.

When examples such as this (regardless really of where, or if, you stand, on this food issue) are pointed out, even if it registers, they quickly forget it again.

RE THE SPANISH PRISONER THE EU AND US THE REAL ROAD TO SERFDOM

It's not just Spain.

We are all, rather, 'The West', on a locked train, heading toward global 'Wage Poverty Siberia'.

The EU has tied the hands of its European captives on this train, precisely as Krugman describes, has happened to Spain.

Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, today,

who else tomorrow?

The US has similar constraints, imposed on it by globalization, not just by a currency union;

lack of control over its separate currency, especially amid fiat currency wars;

no expansionist levers amid globalized environment except ever more globalization..... down 'the slippery slope';

government stimulus ineffectual for the same reasons;

tariff or embargoes, now useless for similar reasons.

I would call this the real

THE ROAD TO SERFDOM

RE LEAVING THE EURO HOW WOULD IT WORK?

Good question. The article gives a few examples.

Perhaps they should start buying gold, and go on a gold standard over a few months?

Say, a Greek or Irish transitioned gold reserve currency.

Sounds quite farfetched for these regimes. They want to leave the euro precisely presumably to print extra money, which the EU won't allow.

Certainly if they go back to their former fiat currencies, they will be crushed, capital flight beats down the value of the fiat currency, and banks fail, etc.