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links for 2008-09-16

  • 16 Sep 2008
  • 1:35am EDT
  • Politics, Technology
  • This post contains political opinions. Reader discretion is advised.

on computer literacy and the presidency

You may have heard about the latest “McCain’s so old…” joke: McCain’s so old, he doesn’t even know how to send email! Well, it turns out the Oval Office doesn’t even have a computer, for starters. As for the last two presidents to serve during the era of email, Washington Wire has a surprise for you:

President Clinton, who oversaw the 90s tech boom, sent just two emails during his time in office, and doesn’t own a blackberry, according to a nugget in a Vanity Fair article on his wife’s failed presidential bid.

President Bush said last year in an interview that he refrained from using email as president, even though he enjoyed using it to keep in touch with friends, because of potential political risks.

“I don’t want to receive emails because, you know, there’s no telling what somebody’s email may — it would show up as, you know, a part of some kind of a story, and I wouldn’t be able to say, `Well, I didn’t read the email,’” Bush said in a 2006 interview with CNBC. “So, in other words, I’m very cautious about emailing.”

So I wouldn’t expect Obama to be personally replying to your Facebook pokes (does anyone use those anymore?) or Twitter @replies. And I know this will crush your spirits, but Obama does not actually post all those tweets himself. Nor does he actually friend you on Twitter. That whole bit about his holiness Barack Obama living in your heart? It’s sort of a figure of speech. Sorry about that.

I wonder what Merlin Mann would think about the president spending half his day staring at a Blackberry.

on oil "speculators"

One of the many economic bogeymen of the left (and of national socialists, FWIW) has been the “speculator”. That evil fellow, who drives up prices during times of extreme scarcity while twirling his well-waxed mustache, has been the faceless evil that economic leftists have used to justify massive economic regulation for decades. (Say what you will for Republican foreign policy strawmen, at least they are based on an actual terrorist organization.) Well, those traders engaging in arbitrage (buying low in one market, selling high in another market, inevitably bringing both markets to the same price) don’t seem to be the evil speculators you’re looking for:

Lo and behold, the CFTC found that index traders and swap dealers actually reduced their stake in crude oil futures as prices spiked. The number of contracts held by these investors betting that prices would increase — the net long position — fell by 11%, and more were shorting oil than going long over the six-month period. In other words, index traders and swap dealers were driving the future price of oil down.

But they weren’t hired by the government? How could they possibly be doing good through their own self interest? That’s unpossible! Ooooor maybe we should stop using commodities traders as scapegoats for misfortune and bad policy.

links for 2008-09-13

  • 12 Sep 2008
  • 4:45pm EDT
  • Economics, Politics
  • This post contains political opinions. Reader discretion is advised.

on the "which party is better" economic stories

In the wake of dozens of economically dubious “the Democrats manage the economy better!” stories, veteran economist and investment analyst Donald Lufkin says things are a bit more complicated. He adds Congress to the equation, and finds that White House-Congress combinations since 1948 shook out as follows: [After the jump. Yeah, I'm mean.]
(more…)

works better for some than for others

Merlin Mann posts a useful life hack:

Here’s a life hack.
To determine within 75% confidence whether you were incredibly frustrated at the time you named a document, project, setting, or client file: check whether the name you chose begins with the adjective, “Fucking.”

Quite true. I still have a Word document, a checklist from college of the AFI Top 100 (which we never finished) titled “GODDAMMIT SHERMAN, JUST ONE MORE YARD.doc” or something to that effect from one Eric Nies

links for 2008-09-12

t. boone pickpocket

Gee, why would an oilman like T. Boone Pickens, who owns one of the largest natural gas refueling networks in the country, be spending so much of his money to start a dialogue on renewable energy–particularly wind? Out of the goodness of his heart, right? Let’s ask an energy industry expert:

Wind turbines generate electricity very irregularly, because the wind itself is inconsistent. Therefore wind turbines always need backup power from fossil fuels to keep the electricity grid in balance. Gas turbines are the best way to do this. They are able to respond quickly and push power production when wind generators stop suddenly. They can be turned on and off almost instantly, whereas traditional coal-fired plants need to be maintained in a very inefficient standby mode if they are to respond to large fluctuations in power demand.

A proliferation of windmills, then, can become a windfall for gas sellers. Just look at the cases of Spain and Germany, Europe’s leading producers of wind power.
. . .
These gas players can afford to lose money on wind power in the short term to reap huge profits in the long term. In fact, this was the strategy first implemented by Ken Lay of Enron in 1990s. Enron was the power and gas company that started the first large-scale manufacturing of wind power in the U.S. It also brought up the ideas for a cap-and-trade system, to increase the competitive edge of gas over coal.

An ulterior motive? I’m shocked. Shocked!

seven

Richard Sadowy, a father-in-law of a police officer who died on the 20th floor of the South Tower, Paul Talty, has come every year. Asked if the services ever got easier, he answered in one word, “No,” and crumpled into tears. He was carrying a white wooden cross with an American flag and his son-in-law’s picture.

From the NYT City Room liveblog of the ceremony at Ground Zero.

links for 2008-09-11

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