Alex Jones... interesting... intelligent... paranoid

So I discovered the typhoon of paranoia that is Alex Jones yesterday, and I had to share. Jones runs a radio show/website/news nexus called "Info Wars" out of Austin, TX. He primarily writes and speaks about "New World Order" plans for world domination, the establishment of a police state, and a variety of Ron Paul stuff (the gold standard, tainted food, 9/11 conspiracy theories, etc.). So I kinda approach him like a Ron Paul on steroids - I'm totally with him on a lot of basic stuff... but he goes a little over the edge with it. For example - I totally buy the idea that the Bush administration deliberately twisted the evidence to start a war in Iraq... but the idea that they orchestrated 9/11 (which Jones and others on his show suggest), is obviously ludicrous.

Its the same way that I approach a lot of alien/UFO research that's out there, or the Templar stuff. They make really interesting points that we don't have good answers for (UFO people in particular), but they mix in a lot of unfounded assertions in there as well. So you just can't join the list serve -you can't even order their book... its just too out-there to touch. But I do enjoy tuning in and listening to a You Tube post every once in a while.

I also think someone out there needs to be suspicious and digging this stuff up. Its important to know that if Alex Jones ever uncovered a document that was credible, he might actually get the word out.

Speaking of credible documents... Ron Suskind has provided evidence that the CIA was directed by the White House to forge letters that (1.) connected Mohammed Atta to Iraq, and (2.) suggested that Iraq was buying uranium. In other words, this isn't just "bad intelligence"... this was "forged intelligence". Big deal - if this came out a year or two ago they might even be talking about impeachment... its awfully late, so I wouldn't be surprised if that doesn't happen now, but this is still a big deal (and more credible than Alex Jones's pronouncements, I'm guessing).

Some are contesting this... perhaps we'll get more info in the future.

Veepstakes

So the BBC is reporting that Obama's VP selection will come within hours. This is smart - it would be crazy for him to miss a day or two of press. Now, all the online news sources will have it on the front page all day, nightly news will have it tonight, and the print news sources will still have to print it front page tomorrow morning, even if the news is "old" by then. Then the convention starts and Obama will get coverage all over again.

Anyway - the other thing the BBC reports is that he says he has chosen someone who will help him to strengthen the economy. That almost certainly means no Biden, which is interesting. Probably safe too - Biden has a lot of baggage. It could definitely mean a Kaine selection. Bacon's Rebellion had a post up today talking about how Obama's economic advisor, Austan Goolsbee (I saw him speak at the Urban Institute) considers Virginia to be a model for modern economic development - a pro-market, pro-business state with a government that is still willing to make strategic investments (except for infrastructure now, it seems). That bodes well too.

But someone like Hillary Clinton - who would also strengthen him on the economy - is also not ruled out by this new announcement. I don't think she's got a snowball's chance in hell, but there has been chatter about her lately, so I have to bring it up.

The other front runner is Indiana Senator Evan Bayh. I don't know much about him, but I looked at some of his background and he has no record that I can tell on the economy.

I think this little tidbit that Obama announced makes Kaine significantly more likely as the VP choice, especially because it will be today.

The Washington Post reports that Obama has no campaign events today - nothing until his appearance in Springfield, Illinois tomorrow where he says he will appear for the first time with his VP. That means Obama spends 48 hours in Virginia, takes a much deserved Friday rest before announcing his VP and then appearing in Illinois with him or her. No visiting Indiana or Delaware in the interim. Interesting...

By the way - I checked Kaine's schedule. Unfortunately I didn't find any clues like "Appearing in Springfield Illinois with Obama"... oh well :)

Well, I've said this before folks. If this happens that means Kaine in the White House, and Webb and Warner both in the Senate. What a boon for Virginia!!!!

I should really work on and write that "Job Flows and Unemployment in the Upper Tidewater" paper... give the Obama team some more insights into Virginia's economy.

Short Meeting with Kaine

Obama had a 15 minute meeting with Kaine in Richmond today... good or bad for his prospects? The Post seems to think bad. Who the hell knows - we'll find out soon.

VP Thought

So Obama's VP selection sounds like it's iminent... but perhaps could wait until as late as the weekend. Of course I'm pulling for Kaine, but would also be happy with Biden.

I had another thought today... what about a surprise selection of Wesley Clark? Nobody is talking about him anymore, but everyone was very impressed with him previously. He would bring the foreign policy experience that Biden offers, but without the "old politics" sort of baggage that Biden would bring to this ostensibly post-partisan campaign.

Plus he's an old white man - which would reassure some people.

Not sure if this is even on the radar, but Clark is one of those guys I forget about and then happen to see him on TV again and remember how great he is.

Interaction effects

Interesting new post in a really uncreatively named blog ("Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science") that I found recently on interaction effects. The author is critiquing a post by Jeremy Freese that essentially cautions against over-interpretation of interactions.

I think the point the author makes is obvious - you never want to go fishing for significant terms and stake your claim on whatever pops up out of the hundreds of regressions that you run. Of course this applies as readily to interaction effects as it does to anything else included in the model. But I think the author misses a major point that Freese makes - and that is understanding when to expect insignificant interaction effects. Freese suggests that when the categories you are interacting involve very small groups, the risk of pulling out spurious effects increases dramatically. This is because any single sub-group member with an unusual outcome can skew the effect much more easily.

I also find it interesting that they're only talking about interaction effects as a method of sub-group analysis. I've always been most interested in interactions of two continuous variables, rather than a dichotomous and a dummy variable - looking at a sort of cross-effect. I know if you want to look at the difference of an effect between men and women or blacks and whites, that's just not appropriate - but I imagine that the significance of these interactions is substantially more reliable.

We're working on a report for the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation right now, that not only has a host of interactions - but also has interactions in a two stage model. Now that is REALLY tough to get your head around. You'd think it would be easy - just an extension of a one-stage model... not really.

Samuelson on China

Robert Samuelson has a great op-ed out today on what we should really worry about when it comes to China. He argues that concerns that the Chinese economy will surpass ours are silly - there is no possible way they can't surpass us, and they'll probably do it by the 2020's. That doesn't mean that Chinese per capita income will exceed that of the U.S. - we will probably lead there indefinitely.

More importantly, though, China risks destabilizing the global economy, rather than dominating it. Samuelson parades the usual suspects: trade, oil, and exchange rates. For the most part, I think he's dead on. He's a little timid when it comes to trade - pointing out that the ones China hurts most with its trade policies are other low-cost labor economies that can't compete with the Chinese. I'm not so sure they're the only victims, but OK.

He also highlights the risk posed by Chinese energy consumption - and that's the important thing to consider. The rise in oil prices in the last couple years hasn't really been a symptom of decreased supply (although my understanding is that we're flat-lining) - its that demand has been propelled by developing countries - particularly China. Now I agree with those who are calling for safe offshore drilling - there's no reason we shouldn't benefit from higher oil prices by producing more ourselves. But that alone is not the solution to the problem. If China's demand for energy shows no sign of quitting, we can't just beat them at their own game - we need to get into other energy markets that are not threatened by this increase in demand. I'm personally intrigued by the prospects of wind farming in the U.S., and the so-called Pickens Plan.

Samuelson also brings up China's currency reserves which have developed over years of aggressive exporting. He only really raises the issue of the Chinese buying up U.S. companies and a nationalistic U.S. response... I find it odd that he doesn't highlight the possibility of currency instability in general caused by China's massive reserves and our massive debt. Samuelson raises the prospect of a "resource war" (to which I'm forced to respond "sure - what's new?"), but he doesn't even consider the possibility of a "debt war". Could that ever happen? Let's say McCain is elected and we dig in deeper in Iraq and Afghanistan while cutting taxes and not doing much of anything about Social Security or Medicare - and lets say this current slump lasts a little longer than we expected. Suppose we start to have trouble paying off our debt - and some coalition of lending nations demands our compliance with a strict payment plan... and we refuse. The value of the dollar drops even farther than it has over the last couple months, and the Chinese reserves begin to evaporate. If the U.S. is sufficiently weakened, could there be a debt war, where the Chinese insist on a part in the management of the most valuable asset they own - a sizable chunk of the U.S. government? Probably unlikely. China is more likely to implode than explode on the world scene. But the risks involved in the U.S. national debt can't be stressed enough. And I'm a fan of both Hamilton and Keynes - I think there are very valuable uses for a government debt... but even then, you can go too far.

Finally - I was absolutely shocked by a statistic that Samuelson cited. Apparently, 17 million people a year move from the country to the cities in China. Urbanization is progressing at break-neck pace. 17 million! That's like a new New York City popping up in China every single year. That is absolutely unbelievable!

Rick Warren and the Candidates

Just listened to the first part of Rick Warren's forum - where he interviewed/questioned Obama and McCain. The first part was Obama. It was really good - I was impressed with both Obama, and also Warren. Warren put to rest all fears that the forum would be inappropriate, or that he would be a demagogue, etc. He asked the regular questions you'd expect him to, but then he also asked some questions that were very personal to him. It was great, because they were questions that won't ever be asked by anyone else - so it was good to hear him ask them.

Here's the link for the first of six videos for the Obama interview. You can follow each subsequent part from there. Obama made a few good jokes... I'm already 3 minutes into McCain, and he's already made two bad jokes. But that's ok! Humor isn't everything :)

.... update

So it's interesting - McCain's style is very different from Obama's here. Obama was conversational, detailed, and "long-winded". Not in a bad way - he just gave more of an essay. McCain was much quicker and forceful with his answers. I guess it sounded more like a traditional debate response for him than for Obama. And that's not bad either. For one thing, it was easier to figure out what McCain's answer was! It will be interesting to see how both those responses play. McCain's is more accessible, but I felt like I didn't hear anything new. You had to pay a little more attention to Obama, but he had some really great, sincere things to say.

... update 2

GAAAAH I thought I was over blogging about South Ossetia. So McCain just finished talking about that. He's so manipulative in how he talks about it. For example: "there's an oil pipeline that goes across Georgia that up until now was not controlled by the Russians, and energy, my friends, is a tremendous lever that the Russians are using against the Europeans"

On one hand this is true - up until now the pipeline was not controlled by the Russians. However, the pipeline is STILL not controlled by the Russians... go figure. And nice mention of Russia playing hardball with Europe's supply of oil. Too bad to date they've been playing hardball with other pipelines that don't even go through Georgia!

He also cites villages being burned in South Ossetia and people being killed... never mind that its the Georgians that are doing the killings inside South Ossetia. Good Lord! I was liking this forum for awhile...

... more South Ossetia

OK - so now there are claims that the Russians violated the ceasefire (crossing the border, not actual shooting from what I've heard). Dan Froomkin reports (although I didn't read the whole article) that Bush responded by agreeing to send in aid. This is potentially an explosive situation, again, if an accident were to occur. If something happened to our military while they were distributing aid we could get much more involved than we are now. And Saakasvili is bitching that this isn't enough.

BBC reports a little more detail on breaking the ceasefire... sounds like its unclear whether they are still trying to stabilize Gori, or moving toward Tbilisi or what. Some reports of looting, but not confirmed and who knows how bad this is.

I imagine if they are doing anything other than stabilizing the area, we'll find out soon.

So the "accidental war" possibility is rearing its ugly head again. I can't emphasize enough how bad this would be. We can have arguments about whether Russia was justified or not - but there is a huge difference between an unjustified Russia and a Russia that needs to be met by the U.S. military.

WaPost blogging on Russia

OK, I understand if you think Russia was unjustified in its attack on Georgian troops in South Ossetia. I respect that opinion, although I disagree with it.

But the national security blogger at the Washington Post is writing as if Russia unilaterally invaded Georgia without any provocation. The moderator's post DOESN'T EVEN MENTION THE WORDS "South Ossetia" or "Abkhazia". I was absolutely dumbfounded.

Anyway - feel free to tear them a new one. This is ridiculous.

Even people I have had disagreements with - such as my brother, who has posted on this blog - have an understanding that this has been a protracted conflict with a history of violence between Georgia and separatistist regions with strong ties to Russia. Not sure what the disconnect is at the Washington Post.

More on South Ossetia

I'm really starting to worry about this situation.

Recent reports suggest that Russian troops are pushing beyond South Ossetia, into central Georgia - perhaps towards the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. I think it's notable that the first city to be seiged outside of South Ossetia is Gori, which lies between Ossetia and Tbilisi - not Ossetia and Abkhazia - Georgia's other breakaway republic.

It seems like Medvedev is preparing to defend against an assault from or prepare for an attack on Tbilisi, rather than solidify his advances into the separatist regions. That's disconcerting for two reasons -

1. It would mean that this really is an invasion of Georgia, rather than a crackdown on Georgian interference in the breakaway republics, and

2. The U.S. is currently transporting Georgian troops from Iraq to Georgia to fight the Russians.

So Russia is invading Georgia proper, and the U.S. military is going to be in Georgia too... bringing Georgian troops so that they can fight Russian troops. Is it just me, or is this a recipe for disaster??? Why the hell are we getting involved in this??? What if there's a stray bomb that kills American troops helping the Georgians out? How many options is Bush really going to have to respond to something like that? And even if it doesn't come to that, what will Medvedev and Putin think? How are they going to interpret us transporting Georgian troops to the battlefield?

I don't know if this will mean war with Russia. Even I have enough faith in Bush and Medvedev and Putin to think that this is probably a slim possibility. But why are we toying with it? Why can't the Georgians transport their own damned troops. I know they've provided a bunch of troops in Iraq, but who cares! We're the United States of America - we're not obligated to play chauffeur to a Central Asian republic that sent 2,000 soldiers to Iraq. I applaud their enthusiasm, but I hardly think it qualifies them to ask anything of us.

I don't know for sure if the Russian move on South Ossetia is justified or not. My impression is that there is substantial justification for what Russia is doing in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. That does not justify an invasion of Georgia. The United States needs to think straight on this conflict and not treat Russia like another Hitler in the Sudetenland - we need to treat them like the Greaet Power that they are. And maybe they overstepped their bounds here, but we can't just blunder our way into this war - we need to proceed cautiously.

We also need to remember that Russia has something in South Ossetia that we never had in Iraq - an actual smoking gun. Whoever started it several iterations back, the fact is Georgia moved troops against South Ossetia on August 7th. I know this was disputed at first, but it seems to be reported universally now. I don't want to see Saakashvili fall, and I don't want to see a Russian occupation of Georgia. But tell me - how the hell is that different from what we did in Iraq? It's different for one reason - in Georgia, Saakashvili made the first move and Russia responded. In Iraq we made the first move and Saddam responded. I would rather watch Russia take Georgia than get the U.S. into a direct conflict with Russia over a standard of international relations that we can't even hold ourselves to. If we try to do that, we're going to have egg on our face - I guarantee.

Call for Papers

Urban Affairs Association, Spring 2009 in Chicago

Southern Sociological Society, Spring 2009 in New Orleans

Chinese Wine

An interesting Slate article on the demand for and supply of wine in China.

In other news:

We opened a Merlot from Prince Michel yesterday - a confidence booster for Kate's job interview today. Very smooth merlot.

About a week ago we also opened a Viognier from La Grange. It was a 2007 - very good year for Virginia wines. Viogniers are on the sweeter side - "grapefruits and honeysuckle" is what you usually hear, but I tasted some pineappley notes in this as well. Definitely a honey quality to it, too.

In beer news, about a week ago I got a six-pack of Gold Ale from Clipper City Brewing Company, based in Baltimore. A pretty standard ale - very malty. Not too dark or heavy. I like their McHenry Ale better.

China Data

So as I often do, I was trolling the internet for interesting data sources today, and came across China's national statistics site. They are surprisingly up front with a lot of statistics going back over a decade. I was really impressed and interested. Not sure how accurate the stats are - that probably merits a little investigation - but they have neat stuff.

I'm especially interested in data they have on "scienitifc research institutions", number of staff at these institutions, funding of the institutions, and % government expenditures on the institutions for each province each year since 1995. I'm kind of curious to see how balanced their investment in science and technology is - because a criticism often leveled against China is that it does not balance development between the country and the urban areas. I wonder if that holds true in science and tech too.

Russia in South Ossetia

So Russia has tanks on the roads and boots on the ground in South Ossetia, Georgia's northern breakaway province. My wife, a Russia expert, alerted me to this. She also points out that the Russian stock market is not taking the news well . Oil prices have also been dropping, which can't make the Russians happy either - but their dollar reserves are doing better.

A frequent poster on my blog who has his own blog about security issues seems to be writing about this as well.

I don't know the background of this conflict, so I can't really support or scold Russia... I just know I really don't want another armed conflict in Central Asia. Feel free to share your thoughts - having talked about this with my wife, I've been familiar with the issue - but I still don't feel like I know enough to have any firm thoughts on it.

New Research 2

OK, so the second paper that's been emerging is going to be called something like "Unemployment in the Upper Tidewater: A Job Flows Approach".

Background: Northern Virginia and Southern Maryland have had impressively low unemployment rates for the last two decades or so. I've read reports in the business press (which I should really track down again for this paper) refering to the region as "recession-proof". Oft-cited reasons are government contracts and the IT boom in the region, and the explosive population growth which keeps construction and service workers employed as well. It's very insightful to look at the BLS's LAUS (local area unemployment statistics) maps. Maps for 1999 and 2000 - before the last recession - are especially instructive. Northern Virginia is one big patch of white on the map's color scale - under 2% unemployment. The largest area of land in the country that had unemployment under 2% at the time. Not far to the west, West Virginia is dark purple - one of the largest contiguous areas of high unemployment in the country.

So lots of justifications for why Northern Virginia does so well have been forthcoming - one other explanation I want to explore is the relationship between job flows and unemployment. There are two job flows that people look at: job creation, and job destruction. Job creation occurs when a firm expands its workforce. Job creation statistics are different from hiring and firing statistics. A firm of 50 employs can hire 25 employees and fire 25 employees, and they've added nothing to job creation statistics. Job destruction is just the opposite - the number of positions a company has eliminated. So job creation and job destruction tell a slightly different story from employment, hiring, firing, and unemployment statistics. Net change in employment has to equal job creation minus job destruction - but the job flow dynamics in an economy may differ from their employment dynamics.

John Haltiwanger, of the University of Maryland, has lead the way in research on job creation and destruction. In his most famous book on the subject (creatively called "Job Creation and Destruction"), Haltiwanger identifies many properites of job flows, and in one chapter explores the relationship between job flows and unemployment. The overarching conclusion is that during periods of high unemployment, job destruction spikes and job creation remains relatively constant. It sounds fairly straightforward, but it's an important finding with policy implications. The policy response to this finding would be different, for example, from the policy response if job destruction stayed relatively constant during recessions, and job creation declined significantly.

The problem with Haltiwanger's research is that he primarily looks at aggregate job flow and unemployment statistics. However, the Census's Quarterly Workforce Indicators provide county level job flow data to track whether these relationships occur at the local level. The problem is, these data are only available for certain states at certain times. Very important states - like Massachusetts, Ohio, and New York haven't even produced any. Some, like Maryland, produce the statistics as far back as 1990. So it's a crapshoot. I've been poking around each state's website to see how good their statistics are, and I've discovered that every state in the Fifth Federal Reserve District (Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, DC, North Carolina, and South Carolina) have data going back to at least 1998 - in other words, covering the last recession.

My plan is to run Haltiwanger's basic analysis on every state in these counties, and determine whether high unemployment counties have a different relationship between job flows and unemployment than low unemployment counties in the district. In other words, does the Upper Tidewater behave just like Haltiwanger's national statistics - only with a smaller increase in job destruction - or does it show different patterns entirely? Perhaps the Upper Tidewater sees a spike of job creation and job destruction during recessions - a sort of "creative destruction" a la Schumpeter. I think it should be interesting.

If things work out, all these stats are available by industry as well.

I envision this being presented at a brown bag at work, where I'll refine it, and then submitted to a minor labor economics journal. Perhaps the Journal of Labor Research, which is published by George Mason. I want a good shot of getting in and publishing something in a journal for once - that's all. I think it's a decent idea - and it would be useful for policymakers in schizophrenic states with areas of very high and very low unemployment. Or even for whole countries where this occurs, like Belgium... in fact, I wonder if Belgium publishes gross job flow statistics....

New Research

OK, I'm far enough along on two "back burner" research projects that I think it's worth talking about them here.

The first is a paper that I'll be presenting at the Southern Economic Association conference in D.C. this November. It addresses the issue of "skills mismatch" in the United States, or more accurately - it computes an index of skills mismatch suggested by Petrongolo and Pissarides (2001) that I haven't seen estimated empirically anywhere and was curious about.

There are lots of "matching functions" out there that try to describe frictions involved with matching one party to another in any of a variety of transactions. The matching I'm concerned with is job matching. A job matching function is usually of the form: M = z(U, V). The number of matches is a function of the number of unemployed workers, the number of job vacancies, and a matching technology z. I won't get into the weeds here, but there is a variation on this model called the "ball-urn model" that looks like this: M = V(1-e^(U/V)). Petrongolo and Pissarides (2001) mention a variation of the ball-urn model that includes "K" - an index of skills mismatch: M = V(1-e^(KU/V)). With a little math, you can solve for K (although they don't). K is the percent of unemployed workers who are qualified for a job vacancy. As K goes up, the second equation I presented converges to the first equation. Anyway, its a nifty, easy little index they suggest that even this public policy grad student can understand - so I thought, why not calculate it for the U.S., and see what I can say about (1.) whether this is even a valuable index, and (2.) trends in skills mismatch in the U.S.

I use the Job Opening and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) data produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, along with unemployment figures. The JOLTS data are relatively new - going back only to 2000 - but it is produced monthly, so there's a fair amount of data points. My calculations for K are below:
Conclusions so far? K is clearly very cyclical - it goes up in the summer and down in the winter. Not sure why this could be yet - I don't know much about the seasonality of unemployment. But basically that says that unemployed workers are more qualified for summer jobs than they are for other jobs. I guess that's believable... What is kind of neat is that K is not responsive to the U/V ratio (the red line above). The U/V ratio (also known as the Beveridge Curve) is an index of labor market tightness. When the ratio is high, it means that there are a lot of workers chasing very few jobs. If it is low, it means that there are a lot of jobs out there available for workers. U/V is also the denominator of K when you solve the matching function I presented above. So you would expect that when U/V increases dramatically (as it does in the first few months of the graph), K will decrease. Maybe you could convince me there's a slight drop at that period in time, but not really. K stays very consistent. This is probably a good thing. I don't think many people would be covinced by the idea that skills shortages in the US economy swing dramatically over time. If there are too many workers chasing too few jobs or too few workers chasing too many jobs, you would think the skills ratios among workers and jobs should stay pretty constant.

Next on the list:

(1.) measuring a standard Cobb-Douglas matching function (M = b0 + b1ln(U) + b2ln(V)), allowing b0 to vary over time. b0 is equivalent to the matching technology "z", that I mentioned above. It's an index of general frictions in matching. I'll then chart K against z to determine whether K is really picking up skills mismatch, or whether its just "the share of workers who have a tough time matching to jobs."

(2.) The American Community Survey collects information on the time it takes to travel to work, which could be a proxy for spatial mismatch - one of the most common types of mismatch discussed in the literature. Its an annual survey, unfortunately, so I won't get nearly as many data points - but I want to compare changes in spatial mismatch to K to make sure K isn't picking up those changes accidentally.

(3.) I'm going to reestimate K after differentiating between full time and part time job seekers. In effect, the equation will look like this: M = V(1-e^((-KFT + PT)/V)). This version of K assumes that all part-time job seekers are qualified for whatever jobs they may seek, but some full time job seekers may not be. High paid consultants aside, this seems like a reasonable assumption... and it may get some different dynamics for K.

OK, I need to get a few things ready for work now, so I won't talk about my second research project right now - but here's a teaser title for you:

"Unemployment in the Upper Tidewater: A Job Flows Explanation"... using Quarterly Workforce Indicators data from Census.

Virginia in the News

Virginia has been in the news lately. The Washington Post is once again touting it as a battleground state in the presidential election. A new fact I was not aware of is that McCain is apparently considering Rep. Eric Cantor as his running mate. Cantor is a four term Congressman from Virginia, and (like the author of this blog) a graduate of both The College of William and Mary and George Washington University. Seems like a small fish to me - I doubt he'll get picked - but that's an interesting tidbit. It's notable that McCain isn't going near any of Virginia's bigger name Republicans - like George Allen.

Forbes magazine also reported its annual ranking of states in terms of their competitiveness. For the third year in a row Virginia ranked first, but the runners up closed the gap from last year. In fact, the first two paragraphs are dedicated to the fifth-place state - Georgia - without mentioning Virginia at all until the third paragraph! The Bacon's Rebellion blog, on my blog roll, reports on this as well.

You have to take these rankings with a grain of salt - the underlying point is that we're doing well. Lots of rankings like this exist (maybe I'll do a blog post on it some day), so you have to look at where you fall out in the distribution across several of them.

Finally, yesterday's Post reported on a number of new wind energy projects that are set to go up in the western part of Virginia over the next several years. This is very exciting, but there seems to be some opposition from... not Big Coal... not state Republicans... but ENVIRONMENTALISTS! Yes folks, wind turbines can kill birds and destroy the tranquility of the mountain forests where they will be built. Good grief. I fancy myself an environmentalist for all intents and purposes - but these people are going to have us living in caves pretty soon. An environmentalist opposing wind energy? I was dumbfounded.

Apparently Virginia passed a law in 2007 that made the state very friendly to the development of wind energy, which got a lot of firms interested in new projects. Kudos to Richmond! The article did not talk much about the state's coal options. We have a lot of coal left in Virginia, and we really need to look into how to burn it AND extract it cleanly. A lot of people scoff at the idea of "clean coal", but my understanding is there's something to it. It's certainly worth checking it out since we're sitting on so much of the stuff.

"America's Decline" in Becker and Posner's Blog

Becker and Posner have a new blog post up on "America's Decline". Becker leads, and Posner responds. It doesn't delve too deeply into anything, but these are smart guys, so it's always interesting to hear what they have to say.

I responded to Posner's comment - which I think is a little better - with much the same argument that I use in my "Folk Economics" post from a couple weeks back.

In other news, "The Dark Knight" is an amazing movie - I highly recommend you see it in theaters. Very dark, as everyone is saying. I've also heard people say that it wouldn't be as big of a deal if Heath Ledger hadn't died. This is not true either, by any stretch. This movie would have launched Ledger's career out of the "pretty boy" roles he's used to and into a whole new range of potential characters. They said that "Brokeback Mountain" demonstrated that Ledger could play weightier roles than he had in the past, but trust me - gay cowboys don't hold a candle to this new Joker. He stole the show.

I also saw the preview for "The Watchmen". I've never read the graphic novel, but now I'm intrigued. It's really confusing to understand exactly what's going on from the preview, though. I'll need to educate myself.

Brewing Updates

So there has been some activity on the beer brewing front - thought some of you might be interested...


I'm down to my last two bottles of Czech Pilsner, which I brewed two or three months ago at this point. The last time I had a bottle was about a month ago, and the flavor had really matured and melded by then, so these two bottles should be great. My brother had a bottle of it last week and seemed to think it was good as well. We're having a crock-pot BBQ farewell party to a friend who was in D.C. for a law internship this summer, and I'll serve up the last two bottles there.


I just bottled a classic American lager last week - the plastic bottles I put it in are already rock-solid, which bodes well for good carbonation and a substantial head. It looks a little darker than I would like, but that's not surprising with the homebrew ingredients I've been using. They've always turned out darker than pictured. Oh well - should be on the lighter side in terms of taste, which is the idea. I'm going to bring all two gallons of it to the Outer Banks, where I'll be lazing on the beach with my wife, sister in law, her fiance, and two other friends for the last week of August. It's my birthday week and you're allowed to bring plastic bottles on the beach, so I plan on enjoying my homebrewed American lager on the hot sand.


Last night I brewed my next batch - "Blonde Bombshell" - a honey wheat beer that my brother and his wife got me for Christmas. I have high hopes for this one. It has a wheat base to the wort, plus the recipe called for adding honey which means it will be nice and sweet. It also called for additional hops, which means it should be a moderately spicey beer. I think the spice, with the softness of the wheat and the sweetness of the sugar will make for a really great Autumn beer combination (it should be ready to drink at the end of September... I've found that four weeks of fermenting and four weeks of carbonation is ideal to get things fully fermented without any odd residual sweetness or yeastiness).


When this is done fermenting, at the end of August, I'm going to start brewing two other Autumn batches I just got from my homebrew supplier: "Dutch Apple Ale" and "Full Moon Marzen". Dutch Apple Ale is a cider, with an English Nut Brown wort. The recipe calls for brown sugar and cinnamon to be added, which should taste great. The other neat thing about this recipe is that instead of adding water to the wort, it calls for adding apple juice! The yeast will eat that in addition to the brown sugar and wort, and give it a really great apple taste. My wife loves hard cider - one of the few beers she'll drink - so we like to have cider on hand in the Fall.


Marzen is another typical Autumn beer, despite it's name. The beer is called "Marzen", because it would be the last batch of beer the German brewers would make, in the month of March. After that, it would be too warm to brew. They would brew their Marzen, and then store it in cool cellars all summer. The casks wouldn't be cracked open until September or October, making it a traditional Autumn brew with strong associations to Oktoberfest, especially.


So I'm torn on which to brew first of these - the Marzen or the cider. The wheat ale should be done at the end of September, which means one batch would be done at the end of October and one at the end of November. After both these I'll brew a darker winter/Christmas batch.

I also got equipment to bottle the beer in glass bottles with crimped caps! - none of this plastic coke bottle stuff any more (despite its convenience for drinking on the beach).

We're going off to the store soon, and I need to restock beer anyway. Now that I'm in a beer mood I think I'm going to get something good... no JW Dundees, despite the fact that its a really tastey value-buy.

Misleading Washington Times Article

The Washington Times published an article this morning by Stephen Dinan discussing how the campaign has turned nasty - with both candidates trading insults...

What's telling is that in every McCain example, he actually accuses Obama of "playing the race card", and being a lightweight celebrity like Paris Hilton.

And what is the Washington Times' Obama example? "Obama ridiculed McCain for depicting him as a lightweight celebrity". Ridiculed him indeed... what Obama said was:

"So far, all we've been hearing about is Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. I mean, I do, I do have to ask my opponent, is that the best you can come up with? Is that really what this election's about? Is that what is worthy of the American people?"

... not really ridiculing John McCain here, is he? Certainly not in a way that could be construed as an "insult".

The worst thing Obama is catalogued as saying is:

"Nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me: You know, he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He's risky. That's essentially the argument they're making."

But that's not really accusing McCain of anything! He's not saying "you're a racist, McCain", as the McCain campaign suggests he is.

So basically we have a situation where McCain has been running some strange - and I would argue uncharacteristic - negative ads that are heaping insult and name-calling on Obama. Obama is responding and saying they are ridiculous without accusing McCain of anything. When Obama speaks the worst he does is say "McCain called me [blank], and that's wrong". He never says anything like "McCain is [blank]". And yet the Washington Times and lots of other media sources are saying that insults are coming from both sides!

Strange...

I've been amazed at Obama's restraint. I really hope he doesn't go negative.