Our Word is Our Weapon

An extraordinary and very moving story

Self-organising NIMBYism:

"Over the holidays, I have learned from my parents that there are homeowners associations that ban drying clothes on clotheslines and make it difficult to place solar panels on houses. I did a google search on the issue, and learned to such hostility toward environmentally friendly practices is fairly widespread.

This sort of thing has got to stop. While apparently some states have passed laws that ban homeowners associations from prohibiting solar, the laws are sufficiently vague that they can be circumvented. "

A man with numerous convictions for speeding, going at 60mph in a 30mph area, drives into a married couple, killing the man instantly and permanently disabling his wife. He is jailed for four years and banned from driving for five.

This is disgusting. At the very least, he should never be allowed to drive again. He has demonstrated again and again that he's not capable of using a car responsibly.

"Personally, I doubt aid regressions more than aid."

"There is one important source of information on the effectiveness of monetary and fiscal stimulus in an environment of near-zero interest rates, dysfunctional banking systems and heightened risk aversion that has not been fully exploited: the 1930s. This column gathers data on growth, budgets and central bank policy rates for 27 countries covering the period 1925-39 … we employ a battery of empirical methods … The details of the results differ, but the overall conclusions do not. They show that where fiscal policy was tried, it was effective … the multiplier is as large as 2 in the first year, before declining significantly in subsequent years … This is, in fact, what one should expect if one believes that the effectiveness of fiscal policy is greatest when interest rates are at the zero bound, leading to little crowding out of private spending … The results for monetary policy are less robust but point in the same direction.

LOL - well done to the BBC for not managing to understand that the Local Government Association was complaining about wasteful spending by *central* government, not councils.

"we find that national permits are a better leading indicator for a city’s employment than a city’s own permits. This suggest the possibility that housing is merely a proxy for other consumption or wealth indicators."

Thoughts on the implications of (some) free Ordance Survey data for OpenStreetMap in the UK.

"Rand tried applying rational principles to things that aren't rational at all, including musical and artistic tastes. She deemed her own likes and dislikes for painters, composers and writers the only opinions a rational person could hold. In Fountainhead she spent many pages hammering home the point: "People who enjoy old-fashioned architectural flourishes, like Greek columns, are freedom-crushing haters of the human spirit." (Ironically, the functional modern architecture she espoused in their stead looks pretty much like the modernist style embraced by the Soviets.)"

A profoundly moving page of words and little pictures from Alison Bechdel, reviewing Jane Vandenburgh.

Beautiful story by Nabokov and analysis by Pamuk.

The regeneration dilemma. Cheap housing or a nice, attractive neighbourhood - pick one.

Fascinating report of a talk by Oliver Green of the London Transport Museum on the impact of the growth of the Underground on London's new suburbs.

"The top 10 per cent owned 71 per cent of world wealth, and the Gini coefficient for the global distribution of wealth is estimated to be 0.802, indicating greater inequality than that observed in the global distribution of consumption or income. "

I am strangely chuffed to know that Frank Jacobs, the guy behind Strange Maps, is a Londoner.

"As one might guess, in 1970, the center of Co2 emissions gravity was located between Europe and the United States, just off the coast of Iceland. Since then it has moved steadily to the east, toward Asia. More troublingly, the rate at which greenhouse gas emissions are moving is faster than the rate at which the center of GDP growth is moving, suggesting that "Asian production is getting more CO2 intensive than Western production." That's not good news, because it means that industrial production is getting less efficient and worse for the environment as it migrates to Asia.

A side note: The satellite photos of the globe with their little pink and yellow balloons superimposed on the planet emphasize, quite strongly, the truth of North-South relations, at least insofar as industrial production is concerned. Because the center of gravity may be moving on the East-West axis at a brisk pace, but it's going absolutely nowhere on the North-South axis …"

"However some critics question whether high-speed rail will deliver the benefits claimed for it.

Professor Stephen Glaister of Imperial College, London, told the Politics Show that despite costing £20bn or £30 bn, it was doubtful whether it would reduce both carbon emissions and journey times by enough to justify spending that amount of taxpayers' money. "

Gosh, you would think the BBC could have mentioned that Stephen Glaister is also president of the RAC Foundation - in other words, a fully paid-up member of the motorist lobby.

Lovely retro-inspired designs

Pinker zings Gladwell: "An eclectic essayist is necessarily a dilettante, which is not in itself a bad thing. But Gladwell frequently holds forth about statistics and psychology, and his lack of technical grounding in these subjects can be jarring. He provides misleading definitions of “homology,” “saggital plane” and “power law” and quotes an expert speaking about an “igon value” (that’s eigenvalue, a basic concept in linear algebra). In the spirit of Gladwell, who likes to give portentous names to his aperçus, I will call this the Igon Value Problem: when a writer’s education on a topic consists in interviewing an expert, he is apt to offer generalizations that are banal, obtuse or flat wrong."

I like the comment here from 'ao':

"Why should homeowners buy a home as a bundle of consumption and investment goods rather than rent a home and invest traditional investments? In the long run, the asset value of a house owned by the occupant should be greater than the asset value of that same house owned by a landlord and then rented to the that same occupant. This is because the landlord/renter relationship is a principal-agent problem, wherein the full costs of wear and tear aren’t borne by the renter, and the level of wear and tear isn’t perfectly observable.

It’s the classic solution to a principal-agent problem where the owner of a company can’t fully observe the managers efforts: you sell the company to the manager."

Whoever takes credit for it, the introduction of 'green wave' traffic lights timed to encourage/enforce a 20mph speed limit on Camden High Street is very good news, and something that will hopefully be rolled out on a wider basis in the near future.

"Using previously collected data from the late 1970s, the researchers looked at almost 200 children ages 3 to 9 in Belize, Kenya, Nepal, and American Samoa. When the data were collected, these four communities differed in the availability of resources that are typically associated with modernity, such as having writing tablets and books, electricity, a home-based water supply, a radio and TV set, and a car.

Children in communities with more modern resources performed better in some areas of cognitive functioning, such as certain types of memory and pattern recognition, and they took part in more complex sequences of play. The researchers note that these differences don't mean that children from more modern communities are more advanced intellectually; rather, the findings reflect the cognitive skills that are valued and promoted in the communities where the children live."

"Over the last thirty years, China's major cities have experienced significant income and population growth. Much of this growth has been fueled by urban production spurred by world demand. Using a unique cross-city panel data set, we test several hypotheses concerning the relationship between home prices, wages, foreign direct investment and ambient air pollution across major Chinese cities. Home prices are lower in cities with higher ambient pollution levels, and the marginal valuation for green amenities is rising over time. Cities featuring higher per-capita FDI flows have lower pollution levels. These findings may indicate that major Chinese cities are making the transition from “producer cities” to “consumer cities”, which raises the prospects of sustainable economic development in China."

"Paris is no Amsterdam either, but the Velib has been a success because DelaNoe has given a clear message to all Parisians that cycling was being made safe; many boulevards had the right hand lane transformed into a segregated cycle lane. People riding a bus can see cyclists passing them safely.

I don’t see any of this happening in London: Boris has done nothing to convince people waiting at a bus stop, that cycling is safer. And unless something is done soon, I fear that the number of Londoners who regularly cycle, will plateau at present mediocre levels."

"If Boris really is as passionate about cycling in the city as he makes out to be I’d expect this draft to have lots of proposals (at least proposals, even if they aren’t followed through!) on advance traffic lights sequences for cyclists, upgrades of existing cycle lane infrastructure to segregated cycle ways, stricter penalties for infringing motorists and much more that seems to be sadly lacking from the draft in it’s current form."

Stunning infographic showing unemployment trends for different segments of the population.

"It’s worth taking a moment to appreciate the fact that in a unicameral United States of America, we would now have passed both a comprehensive health care reform bill and also the most important piece of environmental legislation in the history of the world. Now that’s not the world we live in. Instead we live in a world where neither of those things have passed and where their prospects aren’t clear. But think back on this point the next time you hear someone say Obama is struggling with his agenda because he’s not centrist enough, or else that Obama is struggling with his agenda because he’s not left-wing enough.

The reality is that he’s struggling with his agenda because of the way our political institutions are structured."

Cyclists on pavements: the facts

On an average day, two pedestrians are killed by motor vehicles in the UK.

Only two pedestrian per year are killed by bicycles, almost always on the road.

On pavements and verges, motor vehicles kill around 40 pedestrians every year, nearly one per week.

Only three pedestrians have been killed by pavement cyclists in the last 10 years.

This is quite a change of tone from the Ed Glaeser who said that the size of the average US home showed that Americans have the best housing in the world:

"the tax code encourages Americans to live in big, energy-guzzling homes, instead of thrifty apartments… the real problem with the credit is that it continues the long-standing federal push toward far-flung McMansions and away from dense, apartment living … This pro-suburb, pro-big home policy push helps keep America’s households consuming plenty of energy, both inside the home and in the car."

Matthew Kahn: "Geoengineering options should certainly be explored but the likely lulling effect it will cause —that voters will rebel against carbon mitigation because they will anticipate that ex-post geo-engineering will save us — should not be discounted."

Cyclists on pavements: the facts

On an average day, two pedestrians are killed by motor vehicles in the UK.

Only two pedestrian per year are killed by bicycles, almost always on the road.

On pavements and verges, motor vehicles kill around 40 pedestrians every year, nearly one per week.

Only three pedestrians have been killed by pavement cyclists in the last 10 years.

This is quite a change of tone from the Ed Glaeser who said that the size of the average US home showed that Americans have the best housing in the world:

"the tax code encourages Americans to live in big, energy-guzzling homes, instead of thrifty apartments… the real problem with the credit is that it continues the long-standing federal push toward far-flung McMansions and away from dense, apartment living … This pro-suburb, pro-big home policy push helps keep America’s households consuming plenty of energy, both inside the home and in the car."

Matthew Kahn: "Geoengineering options should certainly be explored but the likely lulling effect it will cause —that voters will rebel against carbon mitigation because they will anticipate that ex-post geo-engineering will save us — should not be discounted."

Cyclists on pavements: the facts

On an average day, two pedestrians are killed by motor vehicles in the UK.

Only two pedestrian per year are killed by bicycles, almost always on the road.

On pavements and verges, motor vehicles kill around 40 pedestrians every year, nearly one per week.

Only three pedestrians have been killed by pavement cyclists in the last 10 years.

This is quite a change of tone from the Ed Glaeser who said that the size of the average US home showed that Americans have the best housing in the world:

"the tax code encourages Americans to live in big, energy-guzzling homes, instead of thrifty apartments… the real problem with the credit is that it continues the long-standing federal push toward far-flung McMansions and away from dense, apartment living … This pro-suburb, pro-big home policy push helps keep America’s households consuming plenty of energy, both inside the home and in the car."

Matthew Kahn: "Geoengineering options should certainly be explored but the likely lulling effect it will cause —that voters will rebel against carbon mitigation because they will anticipate that ex-post geo-engineering will save us — should not be discounted."

Cyclists on pavements: the facts

On an average day, two pedestrians are killed by motor vehicles in the UK.

Only two pedestrian per year are killed by bicycles, almost always on the road.

On pavements and verges, motor vehicles kill around 40 pedestrians every year, nearly one per week.

Only three pedestrians have been killed by pavement cyclists in the last 10 years.

This is quite a change of tone from the Ed Glaeser who said that the size of the average US home showed that Americans have the best housing in the world:

"the tax code encourages Americans to live in big, energy-guzzling homes, instead of thrifty apartments… the real problem with the credit is that it continues the long-standing federal push toward far-flung McMansions and away from dense, apartment living … This pro-suburb, pro-big home policy push helps keep America’s households consuming plenty of energy, both inside the home and in the car."

Matthew Kahn: "Geoengineering options should certainly be explored but the likely lulling effect it will cause —that voters will rebel against carbon mitigation because they will anticipate that ex-post geo-engineering will save us — should not be discounted."

Cyclists on pavements: the facts

On an average day, two pedestrians are killed by motor vehicles in the UK.

Only two pedestrian per year are killed by bicycles, almost always on the road.

On pavements and verges, motor vehicles kill around 40 pedestrians every year, nearly one per week.

Only three pedestrians have been killed by pavement cyclists in the last 10 years.

This is quite a change of tone from the Ed Glaeser who said that the size of the average US home showed that Americans have the best housing in the world:

"the tax code encourages Americans to live in big, energy-guzzling homes, instead of thrifty apartments… the real problem with the credit is that it continues the long-standing federal push toward far-flung McMansions and away from dense, apartment living … This pro-suburb, pro-big home policy push helps keep America’s households consuming plenty of energy, both inside the home and in the car."

Matthew Kahn: "Geoengineering options should certainly be explored but the likely lulling effect it will cause —that voters will rebel against carbon mitigation because they will anticipate that ex-post geo-engineering will save us — should not be discounted."

Cyclists on pavements: the facts

On an average day, two pedestrians are killed by motor vehicles in the UK.

Only two pedestrian per year are killed by bicycles, almost always on the road.

On pavements and verges, motor vehicles kill around 40 pedestrians every year, nearly one per week.

Only three pedestrians have been killed by pavement cyclists in the last 10 years.

This is quite a change of tone from the Ed Glaeser who said that the size of the average US home showed that Americans have the best housing in the world:

"the tax code encourages Americans to live in big, energy-guzzling homes, instead of thrifty apartments… the real problem with the credit is that it continues the long-standing federal push toward far-flung McMansions and away from dense, apartment living … This pro-suburb, pro-big home policy push helps keep America’s households consuming plenty of energy, both inside the home and in the car."

Matthew Kahn: "Geoengineering options should certainly be explored but the likely lulling effect it will cause —that voters will rebel against carbon mitigation because they will anticipate that ex-post geo-engineering will save us — should not be discounted."

Cyclists on pavements: the facts

On an average day, two pedestrians are killed by motor vehicles in the UK.

Only two pedestrian per year are killed by bicycles, almost always on the road.

On pavements and verges, motor vehicles kill around 40 pedestrians every year, nearly one per week.

Only three pedestrians have been killed by pavement cyclists in the last 10 years.

This is quite a change of tone from the Ed Glaeser who said that the size of the average US home showed that Americans have the best housing in the world:

"the tax code encourages Americans to live in big, energy-guzzling homes, instead of thrifty apartments… the real problem with the credit is that it continues the long-standing federal push toward far-flung McMansions and away from dense, apartment living … This pro-suburb, pro-big home policy push helps keep America’s households consuming plenty of energy, both inside the home and in the car."

Matthew Kahn: "Geoengineering options should certainly be explored but the likely lulling effect it will cause —that voters will rebel against carbon mitigation because they will anticipate that ex-post geo-engineering will save us — should not be discounted."