The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Sado-Monetarism

Krugman says bailing out Spanish banks doesn't change the fundamentals:

[T]he whole story is starting to feel like a comedy routine: yet again the economy slides, unemployment soars, banks get into trouble, governments rush to the rescue — but somehow it’s only the banks that get rescued, not the unemployed.

Just to be clear, Spanish banks did indeed need a bailout. Spain was clearly on the edge of a “doom loop” — a well-understood process in which concern about banks’ solvency forces the banks to sell assets, which drives down the prices of those assets, which makes people even more worried about solvency.

Meanwhile, senior officials are asserting that austerity and internal devaluation really would work if only people truly believed in their necessity.

Put all of this together and you get a picture of a European policy elite always ready to spring into action to defend the banks, but otherwise completely unwilling to admit that its policies are failing the people the economy is supposed to serve.

It's depressing, watching Europe make the same mistakes they made in the early 1930s. It's happening in the US as well, thanks to a craven, almost-criminal effort by the GOP to kill anything that would help our economy before the election. I sincerely hope President Obama becomes FDR after his re-election. The other two possibilities—he stays the same, cautious guy, or Romney gets elected—will mean years more depression in the US.

Ribfest 2012

Parker never really likes the walk up to Ribfest. It's about 5 km, and yesterday the temperature hit 33°C, making him a very hot dog. He did, however, get a few bits of ribs, and when we stopped in the Urban Pooch booth, two entire elk jerky sticks he stole from the display case.

This year's results:

  • Mrs. Murphy's Irish Bistro, again my favorite;
  • Itinerant Chicago BBQ, again my second-favorite;
  • Corner 41, who had a good, hot vinegar sauce and fall-off-the-bone ribs (with a little too much fat, though); and
  • Perennial Chicago fixture Smoke Daddy ("Ribs so good you'll slap your pappy!"), whose ribs had the smokiest flavor and also the most fat.

Smoke Daddy gave Parker a free pig's ear, so they get points for that.

All of the ribs this year fell off the bone, with no tug, which disappointed me a little. I might have to go back this evening to find some tug-off-the-bone ribs, maybe with a nice, thick tomato-based tangy sauce...yeah...

The end of NPR as we know it

Time to rend the clothing and tear the hair. Click and Clack are retiring:

TOM: And with Car Talk celebrating its 25th anniversary on NPR this fall (35th year overall, including our local years at WBUR)…

RAY: …and my brother turning over the birthday odometer to 75, we’ve decided that it’s time to stop and smell the cappuccino.

TOM: So as of October, we’re not going to be recording any more new shows. That’s right, we’re retiring.

RAY: So, we can finally answer the question, if my brother retired, how would he know?

The show will continue indefinitely as an endless "best of" reel, which won't be the same.

Very sad. Inevitable, but sad.

How foreign guidebooks view the US

The Atlantic's Max Fisher has a roundup:

Flipping through a few of the many English-language tourist guides provides a fascinating, if non-scientific and narrow, window into how people from the outside world perceive America, Americans, and the surprises and pitfalls of spending time here.

Of the many pieces of advice proffered, four of the most common are: eat with your fingers (sometimes), arrive on time (always), don't drink and drive (they take it seriously here!), and be careful about talking politics (unless you've got some time to spare). But they say more than that.

In many ways, the tour books say as much about the world as they do about the U.S., by highlighting the ways in which American practices and standards deviate. Anyone who's traveled widely, particularly in the developing world, will understand why these books are so emphatic about, for example, punctuality, personal space, and the unreliability of our trains.

All of them, of course, have sections on tipping. It's difficult to overstate how confusing that can be to foreign visitors.

Must be a full moon

It turns out, the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva gets a little out-of-sorts because of it:

The moon’s own gravitational field was pulling more strongly one side of the Large Hadron Collider, every-so slightly deforming the tunnel through which the proton beams pass.

The deformation also changed as the Moon rose and fell in the night sky. In order to keep the proton beams on track, the operator at the LHC’s control center had to subtly alter the direction of the proton beams to accomodate the Moon’s pull, “every hour or two,” [Indiana University physics professor Dr. Pauline] Gagnon explained in an email to TPM.

The Daily Parker could not confirm reports that some of the near-light-speed protons were later seen running naked through the lab.

Afternoon link round-up

I've got a deadline, which didn't stop me reading these articles (but did stop me posting thoughts about them):

Back to the mines...

Why office dogs are awesome, cont'd

Because they improved downtown L.A. immensely:

In 1999, Los Angeles passed its Adaptive Reuse Ordinance, making it easier and cheaper for real estate developers to convert old offices to new housing. While the ordinance arguably jump-started the revitalization of downtown L.A., a key (though overlooked) element was pet-friendly policies in these newly converted lofts.

Walking dogs drove residents out of their homes and into the street at least twice each day. Elsewhere in Los Angeles, where single-family homes predominate, dog owners often have the luxury of sending Fido out to the yard to do his business. But downtown, dogs and their owners have become a crucial component of the rebounding neighborhood's culture.

Of course, if the office dog poops on the CEO's carpet, he'll still get fired.

Pigs, lipstick, and reactionary right-wing governors

Assuming the polls are correct, the contest in Wisconsin today will be close. Whatever the result, Scott Walker can hardly claim a mandate with somewhere around half the state wanting to take the unprecedented (for Wisconsin) step of yanking him from office. This is not trivial: voters have to overcome their natural disinclination to end a governor's term early, and then they have to select someone who lost an election just two years ago.

I look forward to the results.

I'm not the only one

Apparently it's more common than I thought to gag on raw tomatoes even while having no problem with tomato sauce:

People like me just lack certain key taste receptors, preventing us from appreciating the rich, sweet, meaty flavor of raw tomatoes that the rest of you are always rhapsodizing about. The problem is that tomatoes have something on the order of 400 volatile compounds and who knows which one of those (or combination thereof) might be responsible for the harsh reaction many of us experience in response to raw tomatoes?

Frankly, the scientific community has been sadly remiss in getting to the bottom of the mystery of why raw tomatoes make some of us gag, despite a few scattered flavor studies. But they’re hot on the case of cilantro, an even more polarizing herb. I love cilantro. To me, it tastes fresh and citrusy with just a tinge of an herbal edge to it. But to some people, it just tastes like soap. Or worse. They have as strong a visceral reaction to cilantro as I have to fresh raw tomatoes.

Of course, it could be the gloppy, lumpen nature of tomatoes that makes us gag, too. I'll stick with purée.