A Summary of Summaries on the S&P “Downgrade”

Posted on by in Markets

James Fallows summarizes two thoughts that pretty much summarize my thoughts on the topic: I agree with Clive Crook’s puzzlement about the S&P downgrade “bombshell” today: “S&P adduces no new information that I can see. Competent ratings of opaque instruments such as, oh, mortgage-backed securities would be very useful to investors (not that ratings agencies troubled to provide competent ratings in that case, obviously). But why should anybody need that kind of help in judging the soundness of US government bonds? S&P knows nothing about them that you or I don’t know.” And I like James K. Galbraith’s derisive guffaw, as reported by Dave Lindorff: At least one economist burst out laughing on hearing about the S&P announcement. “They did what?” exclaimed James Galbraith, a

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Something’s Brewing (In the Garden)

Posted on by in Garden

Since I’ll be out of town for most of the Summer, I’m taking a risk this year and am starting our deck garden fairly early, betting there won’t be any more frosts. Here’s what I planted this morning: A bit less ambitious than last year, with fewer large plants such as cucumbers, snap peas, and tomatoes. Nonetheless, if all goes well, we’ll have plenty. The Chinook hops plant is three years old, and the Cascade plant is two. Both have already started growing new vines for the season. Each year these plants shoot up vines that reach 20-25 feet (we string them up to the roof). The hops flowers mature in the late summer can can be picked and dried for beer

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Y’arrr!

Posted on by in Cartoons

Via James Fallows, Taiwan’s Next Media Animation has a mock-news cartoon on Facebook’s legal issues. If you never seen one of these, they’re hysterical:

Alcohol Helps the Brain Remember, Says New Study

Posted on by in Beer

From Science Daily: Drinking alcohol primes certain areas of our brain to learn and remember better, says a new study from the Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research at The University of Texas at Austin. The common view that drinking is bad for learning and memory isn’t wrong, says neurobiologist Hitoshi Morikawa, but it highlights only one side of what ethanol consumption does to the brain. “Usually, when we talk about learning and memory, we’re talking about conscious memory,” says Morikawa, whose results were published last month in The Journal of Neuroscience. “Alcohol diminishes our ability to hold on to pieces of information like your colleague’s name, or the definition of a word, or where you parked your car

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Good News for Coffee Drinkers

Posted on by in Current Events

Given that I drink about five cups of coffee per day, I welcome this news: Numerous studies in recent years have reported that drinking coffee may be good for the cardiovascular system and might even help prevent strokes. Just last month, Swedish researchers announced results of a large study showing that coffee seemed to reduce the risk of stroke in women by up to 25%. But what about men?

More on the NYT Paywall

Posted on by in Current Events

I previously mentioned that I probably wouldn’t be subscribing to the NYT, as the prices are fairly inflated compared with other digital subscriptions. A couple additional thoughts: I’m surprisingly satisfied with the BBC iPhone app. It’s completely replaced the NYT as my mobile news source, and with a few exceptions (mostly the op-eds), it’s been just a good. I’m a little annoyed that individual blog posts count as articles on the NYT site. Some of the blogs I follow have as many as ten posts a day. If I read them all, I hit the maximum number of 20 articles/month within two days. This is causing me to (grudgingly) rethink my decision about whether or not to subscribe. I’m well aware that

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