A blog written for those whose interests more or less match mine.
Ezra:
Jamie Galbraith spoke before the House Democratic Caucus yesterday, and The Prospect has published the notes from his remarks. I’d suggest reading the whole thing, but the portion I want to focus on comes near the end:
[N]either this program nor my FDIC proposal will prove sufficient to restore economic growth and high employment. For that purpose, resolution of the underlying housing problem, of the revenue problem of state and local governments, and of the wealth and income problems of retirees and other asset-dependent parts of the population are all essential. Those measures lie ahead; they will not be part of this bill.However, the fate of this program will depend on the willingness of Congress to solve these problems at a later date. If the economy is allowed to stagnate, foreclosures will multiply and the financial system will continue to implode. Only a comprehensive approach to deal with the deeper issues of jobs, wages, pensions, and housing can generate the income streams necessary to make the mortgage burdens sustainable over time…Given the choice between approving or defeating the bill as it stands, I would urge supporting the bill. I do so without illusions. There need be no pretense that it will solve our underlying financial and economic problems. It will not. The purpose, in my view, is to get the financial system and the economy through the year, and into the hands of the next administration. That is a limited purpose, but a legitimate purpose. And it may be the most that can be accomplished for the time being.
To put it slightly differently, there are a lot of different economic problems in play right now. One is that we have a bad economy, with rising unemployment, stagnating wages, anemic demand, weak consumer confidence, and broad housing insecurity. Another is that we are having a crisis in our financial sector. If our financial sector collapses, these is some possibility (no one has been quite clear on how large this possibility is) that our credit markets will seize up and our bad economy will become a nightmare economy. That can’t be allowed to happen. But even if the financial sector is saved, the economy is still weak, and will require significant attention — probably in the form of a large and well-targeted stimulus. That will, in all likelihood, be the next president’s job. Hopefully, that will be the entirety of his job. The aim for Congress right now is to increase the likelihood that the next president faces a troubled economy with traditional afflictions rather than an economic catastrophe driven by a complex collapse in credit.
Since the earlier post quoting Dr. Charles Martin on the importance of dental care for diabetics, I’ve become a dental hygiene fanatic. And today I ordered one of these.
Iceland has just bailed out Glitnir Bank, with the government putting in 600 million euros — $859 million — in return for a 75% stake.
Iceland has only a bit more than 300,000 people, about 1/1000th the population of the United States. So this was, per capita, the equivalent of an $850 billion bailout here.
Notice, by the way, that it was an equity injection rather than a purchase of bad debt; I approve.
The video (less than 4 minutes) was made the Alaska Daily News. Excellent summary. I can’t paste it here, but please watch it.
I’m making this, but I will (sensibly) buy lamb stew meat rather than work on cutting up a lamb shoulder. UPDATE: Not so sensible as I thought: just back from the store, where I discovered that lamb stew meat is $10/lb and boneless lamb shoulder is $7/lb. I went with the shoulder after all.
Stir-Fried Lamb With Chili, Cumin and Garlic
Yield 4 servings
Time At least 30 minutesYou absolutely need cumin seeds, not ground cumin. It’s worth the two or three minutes it takes to toast the seeds before marinating the meat. You can grind them if you like, but I like the little bit of crunch the seeds add.
- 1 1/2 pounds lamb shoulder
- 1 tablespoon cumin seeds
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed red chili flakes, or to taste
- 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- Peanut or neutral oil, like grapeseed or corn, to film the bottom of the skillet
- 1 cup trimmed and roughly chopped scallions, optional
- Chopped fresh cilantro leaves for garnish, optional
1. Cut lamb into 1/2-inch cubes (easier if meat is firmed in the freezer for 15 to 45 minutes). Toast cumin seeds in dry skillet over medium heat, shaking pan occasionally, until fragrant, a minute or two. Toss together lamb with cumin, chili, garlic, soy sauce, a large pinch of salt and a healthy grinding of pepper. If you like, cover and refrigerate until ready to cook, up to 24 hours.
2. When ready to cook, put a tablespoon of oil in a large skillet (ideally, it will hold the lamb in one layer, or nearly so) and turn heat to high. When hot, add lamb. Cook, undisturbed, for about a minute, then stir once or twice to loosen lamb from skillet. Cook another minute, then stir again. Add scallions, if using, and cook, stirring occasionally, until scallions glisten and shrink a bit and the meat is about medium.
3. If you want a slightly saucier mixture, stir in 1/4 cup water and cook another minute. Serve hot over rice, garnished, if you like, with cilantro.
Edward Schneider tells us how. The Eldest will like this tip—she loves her pressure cookers.
Tasteless vegetable stock: you’ve probably bought it; you’ve probably made it; and you’ve surely wondered why you’ve bothered. It has always puzzled me that a pot of vegetables and herbs have so much flavor when you eat them or use them in a stew, but when simmered in water yield such an insipid broth — even if you brown them first. But it never puzzled me enough to investigate the problem: most of the time I prefer to use chicken or veal stock.
There are, however, those dishes or occasions that call out for vegetable stock — a light risotto, a vegetarian guest — and salted water is a poor substitute.
A couple of years ago Jackie and I, having overcome our parent-instilled fear of improvised explosive devices, bought ourselves a pressure cooker, which we use mainly for dried beans. I noticed that the broth from pressure-cooked beans was considerably more flavorful than what I was used to, and I began to add additional water to the pot so that there would be extra broth.
Then the penny dropped: use the pressure cooker to make vegetable stock, and it would get more of the goodness out of those onions, carrots, leeks and whatever else went into the pot.
It really works. Typically, I lightly brown the vegetables — making sure there are a few onions and numerous carrots and a little celery; leeks are desirable and the tiniest mite of garlic not unwelcome — then add plenty of water and some herbs. I always use parsley, and lots of it, but I’m more judicious with thyme and bay because their intrusive flavors seem to be intensified under pressure. Same goes for pepper — just a half teaspoon of whole black peppercorns is ample. Use whatever vegetables you want: tomato peelings, a bit of bell pepper, the odd celery root or parsnip, scraps of lemongrass. But bear in mind that distinctive flavors will circumscribe the stock’s versatility.
And put in some salt, just a little.
Clamp on the lid and bring the cooker up to full pressure. Turn down the heat and let it cook dangerously away for twenty or twenty-five minutes (read the instructions). Then, don’t release the pressure unless you need the stock right away: let it cool on its own. Strain, chill and store or freeze.
It really will taste of the vegetables rather than the shopping bag you brought them home in.
Ari J. Officer has completed his master of science degree in financial mathematics at Stanford University, and Lawrence H. Officer is a professor of economics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The two have written an argument against the bailout in TIME. It begins:
The Administration and Congress have felt compelled to do something about the “financial meltdown,” so an inefficient and inequitable “bailout plan” has been rushed through the legislature despite harsh criticism from the right and left. That’s unfortunate. Both presidential candidates were stalling by qualifying the plan. Whichever candidate had had the courage to reject outright this proposal would have had the better claim to be President.
Do not be fooled. The $700 billion (ultimately $1 trillion or more) bailout is not predominantly for mortgages and homeowners. Instead, the bailout is for mortgage-backed securities. In fact, some versions of these instruments are imaginary derivatives. These claims overlap on the same types of mortgages. Many financial institutions wrote claims over the same mortgages, and these are the majority of claims that have “gone bad.”
At this point, such claims have no bearing on the mortgage or housing crisis; they have bearing only on the holders of these securities themselves. These are ridiculously risky claims with little value for society. It is as if many financial institutions sold “earthquake insurance” on the same house: when the quake hits, all these claims become close to worthless — but the claims are simply bets disconnected from reality.
Follow the money. …
Take a look. Post begins:
One time, I suggested in a list-serve that science teachers make more use of primary scientific literature. Naturally, I learned all the reasons why teachers don’t do this-lack of access being one of the biggies- but I also learned something surprising.
One teacher wrote that she re-writes a lot of research articles to make them easier for her students to read. I can understand that notion, in principle. My students struggle with scientific language, too, even those that have bachelor’s degrees in biology.
What surprised me was thinking about the amount of time that activity would take! Yikes! When would you find time for teaching if you were busy re-writing articles?
Still, the idea of having students read articles that have been pre-chewed and digested a bit, plus summarized in easier language is attractive.
Well, now we’re in luck. Researchblogging.org is there to help. This is a wonderful resource created by Dave Munger, and assisted by several others, and powered by technology donated from Seed Media Group.
How does this work?
Bloggers who write about scientific literature use a special icon to identify those posts. They also register at the Researchblogging web site with their credentials and favorite topics. When those bloggers write about a research paper, the information gets referenced in Researchblogging.How would I use this in my class? …
Certainly there are cases of media bias here and there, but in general, Editor & Publisher reports, there’s no evidence of overall media bias:
For the past two months, the database LexisNexis people have been analyzing the massive number of articles it handles for election campaign coverage. It turns out that media coverage of GOP vice-presidential Sarah Palin has actually been quite balanced, with 26% of some 6,000 articles and TV/radio reports last week deemed positive, 22% negative and 52% “neutral.”
Not to mention the McCain ticket getting 60% more coverage than the Obama team last week.
Rex Huppke, writing in the Chicago Tribune today, adds, “Since the media tracking began, the tone of coverage has been almost identical for each top-of-the-ticket candidate, LexisNexis has found, again flying in the face of widespread claims that the media favor Obama over McCain.”
And: “While Palin and McCain spent last week atop the media charts, Obama running mate Sen. Joe Biden was tossed in the discount bin, receiving only 683 stories to Palin’s 6,027.”
Is there a sign someplace saying “US Representatives For Sale – Inquire Within”? ThinkProgress:
According to research produced by MAPLight.org, House members who voted yes on the proposed bailout package received 54 percent more money from banks and securities than members who voted no:
[O]ver the past five years, banks and securities firms gave an average of $231,877 in campaign contributions to each Representative voting in favor of the bailout, compared with an average of $150,982 to each Representative voting against the bailout – 54 percent more money given to those who voted Yes.
Democrats who voted yes received “an average of $212,700 each, about twice as much as those voting No, $107,993.” Republicans who voted yes “received an average of $273,181 each, 50% more than those voting No, $181,688.”
Same route as yesterday, rather warm, no breeze. 1 hour 1 minute 47.92 seconds.
From The Public Record:
An Alaska woman who owns a company that processes workers’ compensation claims in the state has told an independent investigator that she was urged by the office of Gov. Sarah Palin to deny a benefits claim for Palin’s ex brother-in-law, a state trooper who was involved in an ugly divorce and child custody dispute with Palin’s sister, despite evidence that the claim appeared to be legitimate, according to state officials who were briefed about the conversation.
Murlene Wilkes, the proprietor of Harbor Adjusting Services in Anchorage, had originally denied that she was pressured by Gov. Palin’s office to deny state trooper Mike Wooten’s claim for workers compensation benefits.
But Wilkes changed her story two weeks ago when she was subpoenaed by Steven Branchflower, the former federal prosecutor who was appointed in July to probe allegations Gov. Palin, Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s running mate, abused her office by abruptly ousting Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, state officials knowledgeable about her conversation with Branchflower said.
…
The workers’ compensation issue is likely to be a major focus of Branchflower’s report, according to state officials knowledgeable about the course of the investigation.
Wilkes has a $1.2 million contract with the state to handle workers compensation claims. Her contract with the state was up but her firm was recently given a new contract despite the fact that there were others who provided the state with a lower bid than Wilkes’s firm. One of the other applicants who submitted a lower bid has appealed the decision.
Wilkes told Branchflower she believed it was impressed upon her from Palin’s office that she would lose the contract if she did not deny the claim, state officials knowledgeable about her testimony said.
Although Wooten did receive worker’s compensation benefits for about three months, his claim was suddenly denied and he was forced to hire a lawyer and appeal the issue, which dragged on for more than six months. It’s unknown if Wilkes played any role in denying Wooten worker’s compensation benefits.
According to John Cyr, the executive director of the Public Safety Employees Association, the union that represents Wooten and other state troopers, Wooten was approved for workers compensation benefits in January 2007. He filed for benefits due to a back injury he suffered when he pulled a dead body from a wrecked automobile and slipped on icy pavement. …
One issue that I don’t think has been adequately explored yet is the extent to which our current predicament is attributable to Hank Paulson’s mismanagement of the situation ten days ago. After underreacting to problems at Lehman Brothers and bringing us close to brink, Paulson abruptly reversed months of (false) reassurance that everything was fine and decided that dramatic action was needed. The smart thing to do would have been to privately alert key congressional leaders that he thought the ad hoc approach wasn’t sustainable and they and their staffs should expect to spend the weekend in sequestered talks with him and Ben Bernanke to work something out. They could have announced to the public that bipartisan discussions were underway to think out a comprehensive approach to problems in the financial system. I bet something could have been worked out.
Instead, Paulson unilaterally unveiled a plan that, in its initial form, was completely unacceptable to legislative leaders in either party. And then, in a misguided effort to ramrod a bad bill through congress, he did the equivalent of strapping a bomb to the entire US economy by dramatically announcing that the entire banking system was on the verge of imminent failure.
Naturally, this had the effect of taking whatever real problems were growing and making them much more severe by creating a sense of panic. It did not, however, have the effect of transforming an unacceptable plan into an acceptable one. So congressional leaders wound up needing to meet privately and negotiate with Paulson anyway. Which is what he should have done in the first place. But in the interim, justified criticism of Paulson’s initial plan helped poison opinion against the (better) bill that eventually emerged. Had Paulson proceeded in a more reasonable manner from the get-go, I think it’s very possible that we wouldn’t be in this situation.
Very interesting article by William Deresiewicz, which begins:
It didn’t dawn on me that there might be a few holes in my education until I was about 35. I’d just bought a house, the pipes needed fixing, and the plumber was standing in my kitchen. There he was, a short, beefy guy with a goatee and a Red Sox cap and a thick Boston accent, and I suddenly learned that I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say to someone like him. So alien was his experience to me, so unguessable his values, so mysterious his very language, that I couldn’t succeed in engaging him in a few minutes of small talk before he got down to work. Fourteen years of higher education and a handful of Ivy League degrees, and there I was, stiff and stupid, struck dumb by my own dumbness. “Ivy retardation,” a friend of mine calls this. I could carry on conversations with people from other countries, in other languages, but I couldn’t talk to the man who was standing in my own house.
It’s not surprising that it took me so long to discover the extent of my miseducation, because the last thing an elite education will teach you is its own inadequacy. As two dozen years at Yale and Columbia have shown me, elite colleges relentlessly encourage their students to flatter themselves for being there, and for what being there can do for them. The advantages of an elite education are indeed undeniable. You learn to think, at least in certain ways, and you make the contacts needed to launch yourself into a life rich in all of society’s most cherished rewards. To consider that while some opportunities are being created, others are being cancelled and that while some abilities are being developed, others are being crippled is, within this context, not only outrageous, but inconceivable.
I’m not talking about curricula or the culture wars, the closing or opening of the American mind, political correctness, canon formation, or what have you. I’m talking about the whole system in which these skirmishes play out. Not just the Ivy League and its peer institutions, but also the mechanisms that get you there in the first place: the private and affluent public “feeder” schools, the ever-growing parastructure of tutors and test-prep courses and enrichment programs, the whole admissions frenzy and everything that leads up to and away from it. The message, as always, is the medium. Before, after, and around the elite college classroom, a constellation of values is ceaselessly inculcated. As globalization sharpens economic insecurity, we are increasingly committing ourselves—as students, as parents, as a society—to a vast apparatus of educational advantage. With so many resources devoted to the business of elite academics and so many people scrambling for the limited space at the top of the ladder, it is worth asking what exactly it is you get in the end—what it is we all get, because the elite students of today, as their institutions never tire of reminding them, are the leaders of tomorrow. …
I found this article and interview particularly interesting, given how much boneless pork shoulder I ate last night. The article begins:
Jennifer McLagan is on a mission: to dispel the myth that fat is a “greasy killer.” Or, as she writes in her new book, “Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes”: “Human nutrition is complex, and no two bodies function the same way, but for the majority of us, eating animal fat is not the death sentence we have been led to believe.”
The book tackles the controversies that have long been swirling around fat, from the fact that doctors praised the wonders of a low-fat diet only to watch as that wisdom was contradicted by a major 2006 study to the more recent study that indicated there may not, after all, be a direct link between obesity and heart attacks. On the other end of the spectrum, of course, there is Dr. Atkins and his contrarian high-fat-diet approach to getting healthy.
But McLagan’s book is about more than mere science. It is divided into sections based on types of fat: butter, pork fat, poultry fat, and beef and lamb fats. Since many of these fats (except butter) are not easily available commercially, McLagan teaches the reader how to render each one specifically. A skilled writer, McLagan presents her case for the armchair reader at the same time she offers enticing recipes for the seasoned cook: bacon baklava, marrow rice pudding, and lamb fat and spinach chapati.
“Fat” is an unapologetic celebration of its title ingredient and a compelling argument that explains not only why fat is a fundamental flavor but also fundamental to our health.
Salon interviewed Jennifer McLagan, who lives in Toronto.
There has been a huge movement against the consumption of fatty foods over the past 30 years or so. So why is obesity such a challenge in America today?
Eating less animal fat hasn’t made us healthier or thinner. We have reduced the amount of animal fat we eat, but statistics show the total amount of fat in our diet has increased. Vegetable fats have replaced animal fats, which has resulted in a huge increase in polyunsaturated fat in our diet, which has resulted in a huge increase in polyunsaturated fat in our diet (which can depress your immune system). We’ve also added man-made trans fats to the mix, which everyone now agrees are not good for us.
It’s difficult to blame obesity on one thing. But it is definitely not consumption of animal fats. I think there are many causes — the way we eat, alone, in the car, walking down the street, the constant snacking. Increased consumption of low-fat, fat-free “foods” results in us eating more sugars and carbohydrates. These products don’t satisfy our hunger and leave us wanting to eat more. Eating good animal fat does, so you eat less.
It’s also how we relate to our food. We consume large portions of prepared foods, huge portions. Food is relatively cheap: We spend less than 10 percent of our income on it. Consequently, we don’t value it. Many see it simply as fuel or a medicine, not a pleasure. Because people have become so disconnected from their food, they fear it and continually break it down into good and bad elements.
There’s also a widespread myth that making food from scratch takes too much time and is expensive. It may not always be quicker, but it is better for you and cheaper when all the costs are considered.
If we cooked our food, sat down at a table with friends and family and enjoyed eating it, we would be healthier, happier and probably thinner.
My impression during the RNC was that there was much more unjustified violence by police against protesters and journalists than there was by protesters against delegates. This is based on what I was reading at the time, not careful research, so it’s just an impression. But now 8 protesters are facing trial, and the National Lawyers Guild of Minnesota has an interesting report, which begins:
In what appears to be the first use of criminal charges under the 2002 Minnesota version of the Federal Patriot Act, Ramsey County Prosecutors have formally charged 8 alleged leaders of the RNC Welcoming Committee (“RNCWC “) with Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism. Monica Bicking (DOB: 6/23/85), Eryn Trimmer, Luce Guillen Givins (DOB: 9/19/84), Erik Oseland (DOB: 4/11/1987), Nathanael Secor, Robert Czernik, Garrett Fitzgerald, and Max Spector, face up to 7 1/2 years in prison under the terrorism enhancement charge which allows for a 50% increase in the maximum penalty.
Affidavits released by law enforcement which were filed in support of the search warrants used in raids over the weekend, and used to support probable cause for the arrest warrants, are based on paid, confidential informants who infiltrated the RNCWC on behalf of law enforcement. They allege that members of the group sought to kidnap delegates to the RNC, assault police officers with firebombs and explosives, and sabotage airports in St. Paul. Evidence released to date does not corroborate these allegations with physical evidence or provide any other evidence for these allegations than the claims of the informants. Based on past abuses of such informants by law enforcement, the National Lawyers Guild is concerned that such police informants have incentives to lie and exaggerate threats of violence and to also act as provocateurs in raising and urging support for acts of violence.”
These charges are an effort to equate publicly stated plans to blockade traffic and disrupt the RNC as being the same as acts of terrorism. This both trivializes real violence and attempts to place the stated political views of the Defendants on trial,” said Bruce Nestor, President of the Minnesota Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. “The charges represent an abuse of the criminal justice system and seek to intimidate any person organizing large scale public demonstrations potentially involving civil disobedience, he said.”
The criminal complaints filed by the Ramsey County Attorney do not allege that any of the Defendants personally have engaged in any act of violence or damage to property. The complaints list all of alleged violations of law during the last few days of the RNC — other than violations of human rights carried out by law enforcement — and seeks to hold the 8 defendants responsible for acts committed by other individuals. None of the defendants have any prior criminal history involving acts of violence. Searches conducted in connection with the raids failed to turn up any physical evidence to support the allegations of organized attacks on law enforcement. Although claiming probable cause to believe that gunpowder, acids, and assembled incendiary devices would be found, no such items were seized by police. As a result, police sought to claim that the seizure of common household items such as glass bottles, charcoal lighter, nails, a rusty machete, and two hatchets, supported the allegations of the confidential informants. “Police found what they claim was a single plastic shield, a rusty machete, and two hatchets used in Minnesota to split wood. This doesn’t amount to evidence of an organized insurrection, particularly when over 3,500 police are present in the Twin Cities, armed with assault rifles, concussion grenades, chemical weapons and full riot gear,” said Nestor. In addition, the National Lawyers Guild has previously pointed out how law enforcement has fabricated evidence such as the claims that urine was seized which demonstrators intended to throw at police.
From the intro to the Website:
Doing What Works is a website dedicated to assisting teachers in the implementation of effective educational practices. The Doing What Works website contains practice guides developed by the Department’s Institute of Education Sciences that evaluate research on the effectiveness of teaching practices described in the guides. The website also contains examples of possible ways this research may be used, but not necessarily the only ways to implement these teaching practices.
The examples provided on the Doing What Works website – including any product names included in materials from schools – should not be construed as an endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education of any products, programs, or curricula.
Kevin Kelly, of Cool Tools:
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Later On 