Actually, the trouble in the U.S. economy is that we have, for the last 20 years, subsidized the most unproductive form of capital accommodation. This housing capital gives you some, you know, utility services, but it's not productive in terms of increasing the productivity. We've not invested enough in machinery and other stuff and more in housing stock.

And I think to try artificially to prop up the housing market doesn't make sense. There's still a huge excess inventory of homes.

And I think we at some point realize that probably continuing subsidizing of property is not going to be the right solution. There has to be a price adjustment. The inventory has to be worked out. This housing recession is going to continue for a while. Home prices have fallen from the peak already 25 percent. My own work suggests they're going to fall another 15 percent, 14 percent, just to bring it back to what the real home prices were before this bubble started.

So we have a huge bubble, and we should not do things essentially artificially to try to prevent that market process from occurring. And I think that, over time, actually, if we have less homes and less investment in housing and more investment in productive capital, that's going to be good for the U.S. economy.

Recently:

Chop, baby, chop, and chop now.

And before:

"Soy! Soy! Soy! Soy! Soy!"

Where Do We Go from Here?

Thomas Finchum, an American diver competing in Beijing, describes the view from the 10-meter platform at the Water Cube.

Put it in full screen on a big display.

The Diver’s View

Barack is making America cool again!

All you people want is more, more, more, more, more!

(pnsfw audio)

From last year:

Leave Britney Alone!

Leave Barack Alone!!!

This paper focuses on how leaders in Western countries talk about the “war on terrorism.”

The paper discusses the difficulties of defining “terrorism,” because, unlike Marxism or capitalism, “terrorism” is not an ideology. Instead the term may be used to designate actions that are used by members of non-governmental organizations against civilian targets. In the case of the “war on terrorism,” the signifier, “terrorism,” is used widely. However, the signified, the perpetrators and what they do, are quite different. Because the designation of the signified depends upon the speaker, the concept of terrorism seems to be subjective and fluid. The signified switches radically both by context and over time, while the only aspect that is stable is the signifier, “terrorism.”

The paper goes on to analyze the “war on terrorism” as an ontological metaphor.

The paper concludes by arguing that although figures of speech contribute to the cognitive dimension of meaning by helping us to recognize the equivalence to which we are committed and suggesting new equivalences, metaphors like the “war on terrorism” raise problems and do little to increase our understanding.

Considering different cultural codes and world views, this type of metaphor is highly counterproductive for communication on the global level.

How We Talk about the 'War on Terrorism'

Does anyone know anything about the Capitol IP network infrastructure?

Use this site to search the publicly released phone records of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, proprietor of Pamela Martin and Associates in Washington, DC.

dcphonelist.com

... they have all experienced tensions in their personal lives, or were faced with deep and sustained crises of identity ...

... [they] frequently experience a tension between traditional [culture] ... and ... [contemporary] society. Extremism gives them an identity that allows them to rebel against both.

The op-ed author is right when he says, "None of this will be of much help ..."

Jihad is the new punk

This op-ed may be OBE:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said Sunday he was ordering a halt to construction of the wall around the Adhamiya neighborhood. And American officials, who did not immediately concur, indicated today they would go along with Mr. Maliki.

I had flagged this news in my Sunday NYT sampler. This is an op-ed in today's Washington Post; he's lamenting the short attention span theater that is the contemporary news media.

Meanwhile, back in Baghdad, we're building a wall. Actually, quite a few walls.

...

Basically, we're turning Baghdad into Belfast.

Mr. Robinson may favor the IRA analogy. Meanwhile, Iraqis are comparing themselves to Native Americans:

A doctor in Adhamiya, Abu Hassan, said the wall would transform the residents into caged animals.

“It’s unbelievable that they treat us in such an inhumane manner,” he said in a telephone interview. “They’re trying to isolate us from other parts of Baghdad. The hatred will be much greater between the two sects.”

“The Native Americans were treated better than us,” he added.

I don't know about that ... at least the Iraqi population isn't dying of "germs" ... (which is actually surprising, since most of them don't have regular access to clean water.)

For their part, the soldiers are comparing it to China:

The wall is one of the centerpieces of a new strategy by coalition and Iraqi forces to break the cycle of sectarian violence. ... The soldiers jokingly call it "The Great Wall of Adhamiya."

Residents are comparing themselves to Palestinians:

Some Adhamiya residents have compared the wall to barriers erected by Israel in the occupied West Bank.

The reaction on the street was pretty clear:

Eighteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, history seems to be moving backwards here in the Middle East. More than a single wall of separation and suppression are now in demand for each country, once in the name of sects, and another time in the name of extremism and moderation, but always with the aim of redrawing maps.

Walled City

Ms. Shaima said her two sons now carried guns at night to protect her and her neighbors. The Shiite-led Iraqi government will not protect them because the Shiites "want to finish us," she said. "They will start breaking into our houses, raping us in front of our children, then killing us with our kids," she added. "They will let Iraq reach a point where Palestinian misery will seem like a picnic."

... Some Iraqis draw the border at their own doorsteps.

Saadi Khazaal Jawad, 60, a Shiite former government worker and restaurateur, said his neighborhood was so dangerous, he was a virtual shut-in.

On most days, Mr. Jawad said, he prays, eats, naps, reads newspapers and watches television. Oprah Winfrey and Rachael Ray are among his favorites.

... Iraqis all across Baghdad said it could take years ...

In Baghdad, Sectarian Lines Too Deadly to Cross

"We do not need to implement security measures except against those who reject the language of reconciliation and dialogue ..."

"We present in our hand a green olive branch, and in the other hand we present the law."

Do these statements strike you as misguided? How do you selectively implement security measures? What does it mean to "reject language"? Is the civil war a debate over semantics? Why is "the law" presented as being in opposition to peace? Shouldn't the law be consistent with peace?

Maliki Warns Insurgents of Wider Crackdown

The United States Army was planning to maintain current troop levels in Iraq through 2010, and to replace its advertising slogan, “An Army of One,” with a new slogan, “Army Strong.”

A Virginia couple were trying to give back their fifteen-year-old adopted son, who turned out to be a sexual predator. “They just told me he was hyperactive,” said the boy's mother.

A Minnesota school principal resigned after shooting two orphaned kittens on school property.

Dubai's ruling family was sued for enslaving children as camel jockeys.

Thousands of Indian villagers fled their homes in order to avoid a herd of rampaging elephants. “The elephants,” said a forestry official, “are out to avenge.”

Apparently this vengeance goes both ways. Contrast that last item with this story from Science in 1998 (subscription required for full text):

Survival Test for Kenya's Wildlife

Two years ago, while working in Kenya's Amboseli National Park, elephant expert Joyce Poole encountered a gang of 28 Maasai tribesmen. Adorned in bright red shukas and carrying spears, the men told Poole they were out to avenge the loss of a fellow Maasai gored to death by an elephant. The vigilantes were out to get the attention of the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), too: "They told me they were going to kill 1000 elephants that day," Poole recalls.

You know what they say about the memory of an elephant.

I predict that Chan-wook Park's next vengeance trilogy will feature elephants and tribal peoples. In the first film, set in Africa, the elephants will face off against the Maasi; the second will be set in India, in the vicinity of Betla National Park; and the third, in Asia, perhaps near Park's home of Korea.

Weekly Review for 17 October 2006 | Harper's