23 years that almost never were

It seems that many of us owe a great deal to Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who on this day in 1983 trusted his intuition more than his radar, thus averting nuclear catastrophe. We ought think about the peril in which we place the world by our political decisions, that we might not need another Stanislav Petrov to guard against accidental annihilation.

Econ homework

Question: given that the equilibrium price and quantity of AIDS drugs does not meet the needed quantity for universal access to treatment, what's the best way to distort the market to deliver essential medicines to the world?



Note: the price elasticity of the need curve for AIDS drugs is zero, while the quantity of need is constantly increasing over time.

It may also be necessary to take into account the effects of patent monopolies.

Saving Africa

It always strikes me just how many people seem incapable of grasping the concept of satire.

Moral outrages with which I am currently complicit

by virtue of my material participation in, financial support of, or failure to stop them, in no particular order:

US torture of prisoners in the Great War on Terror
Continuing US military presence in Iraq
The AIDS pandemic
The structures of international debt and the IMF
No Child Left Behind
Global climate change
Displacement of the urban poor to ill-resourced suburbs
Brain drain from the rust belt, and its continued descent into political insanity
Normative gender roles
Racism
Postmodern vampires Free trade agreements

Good thing we're all so sick and homeless

If not for Americans' willingness to pay loads of money to treat their various ailments and house themselves, the US economy would be in a dismal state, according to BusinessWeek:

...the very real problems with the health-care system mask a simple fact: Without it the nation's labor market would be in a deep coma. Since 2001, 1.7 million new jobs have been added in the health-care sector, which includes related industries such as pharmaceuticals and health insurance. Meanwhile, the number of private-sector jobs outside of health care is no higher than it was five years ago.

Sure, housing has been a bonanza for homebuilders, real estate agents, and mortgage brokers. Together they have added more than 900,000 jobs since 2001. But the pressures of globalization and new technology have wreaked havoc on the rest of the labor market: Factories are still closing, retailers are shrinking, and the finance and insurance sector, outside of real estate lending and health insurers, has generated few additional jobs.

So, if not for healthcare and home-building, we'd have no more jobs than we did in 2001. Great - I can't wait for the housing bubble to burst and our too-expensive medical system to price itself out of affordability. That's going to be so much fun.

Why people still come here

It's been two weeks since my last post here, so what keeps people coming back? Mostly google searches, it seems:

06 Sep, Wed, 11:36:29 Google: facebook stockholders nsa
07 Sep, Thu, 12:35:33 Google: "West End Guide" Washington, D.C.
07 Sep, Thu, 20:59:20 Google: sgac devil dogs
09 Sep, Sat, 07:17:54 Google: "tradition family property" racist
09 Sep, Sat, 19:56:39 Google: tHE INTERNET IS A ASERIES OF TUBES
09 Sep, Sat, 22:28:40 Google: c-span buttar
11 Sep, Mon, 15:14:50 Google: pot webcomics
11 Sep, Mon, 18:50:04 Google: alookaskance
12 Sep, Tue, 12:45:16 Google: ny pics
13 Sep, Wed, 20:07:15 Google: How much is standford tuition for 2006
15 Sep, Fri, 14:28:32 Google: Katania council washington
16 Sep, Sat, 18:52:18 Google: metro map superimposed on google map of dc
17 Sep, Sun, 10:11:09 Google: stephen r. Kappes
18 Sep, Mon, 12:45:12 Google: "mazadek"
19 Sep, Tue, 01:19:45 Google: lewie anderson labor

Most of those visitors were surely disappointed, though I suppose my writings about Ted Stevens, bagpipe-playing conservatives, and the DCist Google Maps API implementation helped some people. One user even seemed to be looking for me; why, given my apparent disinterest in posting, I'm not sure.

Facebook on the campaign trail

Looks like college students are in for a more engaged future as we ramp up for the 2006 election cycle. Facebook has an all-new political campaign tool, with which candidates can post profiles and issue groups can create, well, issue groups.

For instance, check out Evan Bayh's profile.

Notice that candidates can join Election 2006 groups to show off their issue interests, just as any other use can. Their profiles are also open to comments and picture links, posing some real options for issue advocates to get involved, perhaps engaging in some online birddogging until a candidate joins their group. It's not like getting a campaign promise, but probably a good way to get your issue out there to the candidate's supporters.

I see lots of interesting things ahead.

Pain

This map of median income change, 1999 to 2005, scares the crap out of me:

Disturbing trends

The BBC has an interesting set of graphs up about the greater fallout of 9/11. The fourth tab, which shows the direct relationship between 9/11 and hate crimes perpetrated against Muslims, is quite troubling.

Quite nefarious

Josh Marshall is a stitch:

The idea here is that absent the US military, we would be handing Iraq over to some nefarious -- and, admittedly, it would be quite nefarious -- coalition of Baathists, Iranians, and al-Qaedists, presumably joined by Dr. Evil and the Cobra Commander.

I think we're all caught in an episode of G. I. George: A Real American Hero®.