krebscycle

Category: Uncategorized

  • Why our intelligence agencies suck: Part gazillion

    When I told one of my children that I was sure he would finish his homework, both of us, as native speakers of English, understood that I was suggesting a course of action, not declaring a belief. But this subtlety is perhaps too much for General Michael Hayden: “Here our…

  • Economics is phrenology plus calculus: part 2

    Engine of what? Mainstream economics fails to help us with good policy decisions on our critical problems because, as a discipline, it does not practice anything close to the radical skepticism that is necessary for real science, social or not. Microfoundations, which is about as scientifically rigorous as eugenics or…

  • Economics is phrenology plus calculus

    Much of mainstream economics is based on mathematical models which, it is claimed, represent the “utility” of various economic policies. Utility  is often described as a number – the higher the number, the more successful the economy. And that number is often calculated in a way  that depends on two…

  • Krugman starts to realize Geithner was right.

    And policy responded pretty effectively, too: the financial crisis may have come as a shock, but it was more or less contained by the spring of 2009. – Paul Krugman, February 2014.  Oh, really. Well, Dr. Krugman thought differently at the end of February 2009  An important article by Gillian…

  • What’s wrong with the left?

    At some point shortly after the end of the Second World War, democracy reached its apex in countries such as Britain and the US. Before the civil rights movement, before feminism, before Stonewall, we had  the golden age of Democracy in the West – the opinion you’d expect from some…

  • Liberals do everything wrong

    It is, plainly, the longstanding failure to protect nature that powers Lakoff’s exasperation with liberals. “They don’t understand their own moral system or the other guy’s, they don’t know what’s at stake, they don’t know about framing, they don’t know about metaphors, they don’t understand the extent to which emotion is…

  • Taft Hartley and Tough Talk Harry Truman

    Originally published (to mass teeth gnashing and denunciation) on DailyKos in 2009. Handwringing complaints about Obama’s failure to talk-tough to Republicans have been a stock-in-trade of a large number of “progressive” critics since early in the primaries. Since Harry Truman, a master of punchy rhetoric is often cited as an…

  • Expert advice and Hew Strachan

    Part of the problem, Strachan contends, is that politicians are unduly worried about allowing military leaders to give frank and open advice. He criticized the way General Stanley McCrystal was forced to resign after making unflattering remarks about his political bosses in Washington. “The concern about the military speaking out…

  • A short note on expertise and the US War in Afghanistan

    1. “How many soldiers will it take to over-run Taliban soldiers in this village?” is a highly technical military question where the officer corps provides expertise. 2. “What will it take to rally civilian support in that village and build a stable anti-Taliban community/government? ” is a very different question…

  • Why President Obama appointed Bob Gates Sec. Defense

    Bob Gates appointment as Secretary of Defense is a perfect example of Barack Obama’s deft and cold blooded governing style. The three Democratic Presidents who preceded Obama were defeated by the enormous power of the Pentagon Princes, their Congressional allies, their military industrial corporate sponsors/clients, and the captive media. Clinton…