Pillow Talk

Mrs. A: What's the name of that show again?

Me: Eastbound & Down

Mrs. A: That's a weird name, hard to remember

Me: Not if you've seen Smoky & the Bandit, "Eastbound & Down, loaded up and trucking, we're gonna do what they say can't be done" (yes I was singing this part. Pluto got up and went to lay down in the hallway).

Mrs. A: I never saw that movie. Wasn't the Bandit a chimp or something?

Me: uh, well, the Bandit was Burt Reynolds.

Mrs. A: So yes, then!

Which made me remember exactly why I'd married her lo these 14 years ago!

I offered that she might be thinking of "Every which way but loose" where Clint Eastwood drove around with Clyde the orangutan, but she said she was thinking of a TV show, then I came up with "BJ and the Bear" but I couldn't remember whether it had an ape or a monkey or even which title character was the simian.

Just Plain Strange

This is just plain strange. That's all I've got. No commentary.

N. Gregory breaks it down for us

Mankiw in the NY Times gives 4 things he learned from reading Team Obama's budget proposal. Here they are in brief:

1. "They are economic optimists."

2. "They like to spend."

3. "They are serious about climate change."

4. "They are deficit doves."

It's actually #3 that scares me.

Separated at Birth: Hoops edition

Check it out right here!!

KPC's choice for NEA head

I Guess I'm Not a Republican

I guess I am (still) not a Republican.

The surprising thing is that Michael Steele may not be a Republican. Who knew?

Entropy

"I think we in government have great capacity, but we are constrained, as your questions suggests, by the Second Law of Thermodynamics when it comes to entropy." [Larry Summers, in response today to a question from a representative of the LaRouche Youth Movement]

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Economic Profitability Versus Ecological Entropy

Martin Weitzman
Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 2000, Pages 237-263

Abstract:
There is a long-standing trade-off in bioculture between concentrating on high-yield varieties and maintaining sufficient diversity to lower the risks of catastrophic infection. The paper uses a simple ecology-based model of endogenous disease to indicate how a local decision to plant more of a widely grown crop creates negative externalities by increasing the probability that new pathogens will evolve to attack the crop globally. Society's basic issue concerns where to locate on an efficiency frontier between economic profitability and a standard formula for ecological entropy-proved here to be a rigorous measure of "generalized resistance" to crop-ecosystem failure.

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The Changing Relationship between Theory and Experiment in Economics

Robert Sugden
Philosophy of Science, December 2008, Pages 621-632

Abstract:
Until recently, economics was generally understood to be a nonexperimental science with a hypothetico-deductive methodology. This article considers how the methodology of economics has changed with the spread of experimental methods. Initially, most experimental economists saw their work as testing pre-existing theories. However, a method of systematic inductive enquiry in which theory plays a less central role is now evolving. This method is structured around the discovery and progressive refinement of regularities. "Exhibits" - experimental designs that generate significant regularities - are taking over some of the functions formerly performed by theoretical models.

(nod to Kevin L)

It Sucks to Be Allen Craig....

My Cardinals invited 20 guys as non-roster invitees this spring. One of them is Allen Craig, a 25 year old who has banged around the low minors for nearly five years.

This spring, here is his line: AB: 20 SO: 3 BB: 4 OBP .583 SLG .750 AVG.500

So....he's 10 for 20, slugging .750, with 2 doubles, a homer, and 8 RBIs.

Oh, and they are showcasing him....at first freakin' base. The kid is having as a good a spring as anyone could ever have, and as a reward they are putting him at first behind...who is that guy? The first baseman for the Cards? A Latino name..... I'll think of it.

Anyway, it sucks to be Allen Craig. He has to hope that somebody notices, and they can trade him.

You know who is having an amazingly good spring? Our new shortstop, Khalil Greene.

You know who is really, really sucking? Ryan Ludwick. Yikes.
OBP .267 SLG .160 AVG .120

The "Mungowitz line*": If your slugging average is less than the weight of Mungowitz, you are not going to be playing in the majors for very long. I just went and weighed myself: 262. Careful, Ryan. Get your SLG back above the Mungowitz line before the end of spring training. And I'm only about two barbecue dinners away from catching your OBP. Sad, really.

And if your batting average is below the "Angus line" (I think Angus weighs in at about 135, but that's a guess)....well, you should follow the advice in the old Uranium Savages song: kill yourself, before someone does it for you. Poor Ludwick is below the Angus line.

*Yes, yes, like the Mendoza line. Exactly. What did you think I meant? Jeez...

From the department of... WTF?

I got the following email from the Dean's office yesterday:

I want to make you aware of two recent classroom disruptions. On Wednesday afternoon, two groups of men entered two large adjacent lecture rooms in Dale Hall during classes. Seven to eight men entered each room, walked in a uniform manner and sat down in unison in seats, and two men stood at the back doors to the classrooms. They refused to leave when requested to do so by the instructor and eventually left the room in the same manner as they entered it. OUPD is investigating this matter.

For the curious, OUPD is the University of Oklahoma Police Department (yes we abbreviate the University of Oklahoma as OU 'round here!).

Christy Romer kicks it old school

Check out her "Lessons from the Great Depression" here.

Here are the bullet points:

"One crucial lesson from the 1930s is that a small fiscal expansion has only small effects."

"A second key lesson from the 1930s is that monetary expansion can help to heal an economy even when interest rates are near zero."

"This discussion of fiscal and monetary policy in the 1930s leads me to a third lesson from the Great Depression: beware of cutting back on stimulus too soon."

"The fourth lesson we can draw from the recovery of the 1930s is that financial recovery and real recovery go together."

"The fifth lesson from the Great Depression is that worldwide expansionary policy shares the burdens and the benefits of recovery."

"The final lesson that I want to draw from the 1930s is perhaps the most crucial. A key feature of the Great Depression is that it did eventually end."

The whole thing is worth reading, interesting and well documented, but what ultimately stayed with me is how politicized it is, essentially trying to justify all the Administration's moves as being drawn from "the lessons of history". Also, I am not sure how the final lesson is supposed to be any sort of actual lesson or even source of comfort.