It’s never pleasant to find out bad things about yourself, and I just did.

I occasionally go over to Marginal Revolution, a weblog run by Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen. They are very pro-free-market economics  lecturers and the  weblog attracts a lot of libertarian capitalist types: obviously I disagree with them on just about everything.  I post the odd comment — usually just a short dig at something they say — and then I go again.

So yesterday morning, just before going to work, I took a look, and Alex Tabarrok had just posted a piece on Le problème du pain, asking "why bread isn’t nearly as good in the United States as in Paris". It’s a problem a little bit like why beer was bad in Britain for so long, which is something I recently wrote about. The piece I wrote is called Learning By Drinking, and its point of view is pretty much the opposite of most of those at Marginal Revolution, including Alex T. I was one of the early commenters in the thread, and I put a link to my own piece in my comment. No big deal.

But then Alex Tabarrok added … Continue reading

Saturday saw another post on what is surely the best of all weblogs. There’s so much stuff written about Iraq every day, it consistently amazes me that Riverbend’s material gives both a perspective and basic information that I don’t see anywhere else. Plus, she writes ridiculously well. Whoever she is, she’s a hero.

Link: Baghdad Burning.

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I started this weblog because of the book, thinking that now it is going to be published I might as well do it right, and that means creating a little extra material around it if I can. It (the weblog) has now hobbling along for four months, with a post or two a week (mainly on weekends).

I’ve learned that I am not a natural blogger, which is why I changed the title text to emphasize that this is "an occasional weblog…". I simply don’t have that much to say, and even though I would not call myself busy by many people’s standards, I don’t always have the time to post something when I do think of something to say, or to find the article that prompted my thought again. There are plenty of weblogs out there which are updated multiple times a day.  Such people are some combination of (a) well organized, (b) brilliant, or (c) egotistical. Let’s just say there’s a mix, and leave it at that.

There is a mismatch between blogging and other kinds of writing anyway. I wrote a book because it is a quiet occupation that suits me. It is a way of arguing … Continue reading

Is this true? And does it apply in Canada? I will have to find out…

Another little tidbit gleaned from April’s Food & Wine:
those sticker numbers on your fruit actually mean something. Here in
the US, fruit often comes with stickers on it, sometimes telling you
where it’s from and/or what it is. There’s also a number, but I never
paid attention to that. But on p. 72 I spotted this interesting bit of
information:

"[T]he sticker labels on fruit: The numbers tell you how
the fruit was grown. Conventionally grown fruit has four digits;
organically grown fruit has five and starts with a nine; genetically
engineered has five numbers and starts with an eight."

Yesterday I checked out the organic apples at the market, and yes,
the numbers did indeed have five digits and started with a nine.

Link: Read the numbers on your fruit, via Boing Boing.

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Jeremy Zawodny draws my attention to a technical conference called Waterfall 2006 coming up at the beginning of next month. It tackles the thorny question of software development methodolgies, and should be compulsory for all serious technical people. Sign up now.

Link: Attending Waterfall 2006 (by Jeremy Zawodny).

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From Mark Thoma yet again, an example of just how entrenched the unrealistic picture of perfect markets is. A lot of my book is spent arguing that the simplistic free-market picture of the world is too influential and that we really need to get rid of it from public debate. From time to time I wonder if I am being unfair and setting up a straw man. Then I look around and it really does seem that even (or especially?) influential, high-profile people do have this simplistic view of the way the world works stuck firmly in their brains. Greg Mankiw was Chairman of the President’s Council of
Economic Advisers from 2003 and 2005.

In Mankiw on Globalization: People Should Move Mark Thoma reports a panel discussion chaired by now ex-Harvard president Larry Summers:

Summers urged the economists, who kept returning to nuanced policy
discussions, to come up with more practical political advice. Referring to
Flint, Mich., where workers’ jobs are being outsourced, he challenged the
academics to come up with a realistic suggestion for the Buick-city mayor.

“That’s the political reality,” said Summers, pointing to … Continue reading