Link Banana

It’s not that this is an exceptionally well-researched or argued essay, or one that transfers any intellectual heft by a link, it’s just that I agree with it and felt a desire to make that clear.

In the category of bogus scientific-sounding conclusions, NYU professer Ken Maymin claims that the popularity of Beyonce’s “Put a ring on it” — with its regular beat — indicates coming stock market volitility. Or said psuedoscientifically:

After studying decades of Billboard’s Hot 100 hits, Maymin found that songs with low “beat variance” had an inverse correlation with market turbulence.

(via Passport; Apologies if this post got that infernal song stick in your head. You can take some solace in the fact that it’s presently stuck in mine.)

In a further effort to lessen my — and your — ignorance of current events: The Cliff Notes version of the recent Guinean coup.

There’s no doubt in my mind that this doesn’t capture everyone, but this seems like a reasonable explanation of most of the opposition to the auto industry bailout:

Most Americans simply no longer identify with the domestic auto industry (or with the states of Michigan and Ohio). To the Southerners who now make up the core constituency of the Republican Party, it’s a bunch of coddled, unionized workers trying to get handouts that the South’s auto industry (Toyota, Hyundai, Nissan, Mercedes, BMW …) doesn’t need. To the coastal urbanites and suburbanites who now make up the core constituency of the Democratic Party, it’s an industry that makes crappy big cars and fights against higher fuel efficiency standards. And to the business press it’s the worst thing of all: a trio of companies that are neither exciting nor financially successful.

(via Passport)

The Financial Times confirms the good new (assuming of course, that you’re not invested in corn-based ethanol):

Six of the biggest publicly traded US ethanol producers have lost more than $8.7bn in market value since the peak of the boom in mid-2006 and the beginning of this month, according to an analysis by the Financial Times. The boom followed a 2005 law requiring refiners to mix billions of gallons of the biofuel with petrol.

(via Passport)

Blake Hounshell is quite right, this is a gem. An exiting hedge fund manager — who made 866% profit last year — manages to sound like a reasonable but bitter guy until he lapses into two paragraph I’ve heard from every pothead I’ve ever known:

Lastly, while I still have an audience, I would like to bring attention to an alternative food and energy source. You won’t see it included in BP’s, “Feel good. We are working on sustainable solutions,” television commercials, nor is it mentioned in ADM’s similar commercials. But hemp has been used for at least 5,000 years for cloth and food, as well as just about everything that is produced from petroleum products. Hemp is not marijuana and vice versa. …

After having fallen asleep while watching the last two, I can’t really disagree with Mr. Keating (who wrote this before Wednesday’s debate. Yes, I’m behind.):

The “media elites,” as Sarah Palin would say, are hungry for the candidates to make news at the debates and seem perpetually disappointed when they just hear the same talking points they’ve been reporting for months.

As I wrote near the end of the Democratic primary, the candidate’s positions on nearly every conceivable issue are so well-refined and publicized at this point, that the only way to generate news at a debate is to go the George Stephanapolous route of asking pop quiz questions and emphasizing personal scandal. There’s really no way for Schieffer to win. If he asks good substantive questions, the candidates will recite their talking points and the debate will be boring. If he presses them on “character” issues and personal attacks, he’ll (rightly) be accused of descending into tabloidism.

So why have debates at all? What would we lose without them?

There’s also a follow-up.

Elizabeth Dickenson has her list of campaign cliches she could do without. #1 is an ax I’ve been grinding myself.

1)  Wall Street to Main Street. I know the financial crisis affects me and that bashing bankers wins you applause. What I’d rather hear? A solid explanation of how the bailout will work (or won’t), how it will be paid for, and how it will affect government spending in the next administration.

Lloyd points to an interesting slideshow from Scientific American profiling those who should have received (science) Nobel Prizes but didn’t.

On a related note: some analysis of this year’s so-far and likely winners.

Lebanon has announced plans to sue Israel over the food copyright for tabouleh, kubbeh, hummus, falafel and fattoush. The suit relies on the absurdly named feta precedent; as David Kenner describes:

Six years ago, Greece was able to win a monopoly on the production of feta cheese from the European Parliament by proving that the cheese and had been produced in Greece under that name for several millennia.

Speaking of international figures doing unexpected things, Demitry Medvedev has a video blog.

(via Passport)

The headline may be better than the video, but the video is still good for a laugh.

I recently heard — I wish I remembered where — Bill Clinton make the point that a moratorium on the use of the word “Africa” would likely make people see the continent as a little less bleak. While there are still big problems in places like Somolia, Chad, Sudan, and the DRC, there are a number of good and improving governments and economies.

The Ibrahim Index, a quantification of a sub-Saharan government’s quality, highlights the differences. While the aforementioned contries have the lowest scores, places you rarely hear about — Mauritius, Seychelles, Cape Verde, Botswana, Namibia — are relatively well run. (South Africa’s pretty good too, but we constantly hear about it.)

(via Passport)

Blake Hounshell points to a handful of images of the DAX — Germany’s stock exchange — in decline that all feature the same woman. The Independent even interviewed her.

I think this chart gives the one mentioned here a run for it’s money. There’s nothing like a well-made graph to make reveal the utter silliness of many political issues.

I was torn between linking to this post about what Passport bloggers are reading, which contains a number of interesting suggestions, and this very approachable article from Fareed Zakaria that one mention. Obviously Zakaria won the coin toss; a sample:

It’s also worth noting that ever since World War II, the United States has tended to make its strategic missteps by exaggerating dangers. During the 1950s, conservatives argued that Dwight Eisenhower was guilty of appeasement because he was willing to contain rather than roll back communism. The paranoia about communism helped fuel McCarthyism at home and support for dubious regimes abroad. John Kennedy chose to outflank Nixon on the right by arguing that there was a dangerous missile gap between the Soviets and the United States (when in fact the United States had almost 20,000 missiles and the Soviets had fewer than 2,000). The 1970s witnessed a frenzied argument that the Soviet Union was surpassing the United States militarily and was about to “Finlandize” Europe. The reality, of course, was that when neoconservatives were arguing that the U.S.S.R. was about to conquer the world, it was on the verge of total collapse.

The Paralympics are now occurring in Beijing, and among their events is the new-to-me five-a-side soccer, a version of the sport for the visually impaired. As Passport explains:

Each team has five players on the field — all of whom are blind or visually impaired, with the exception of the goalkeeper, who may be sighted. All except the goalkeepers wear eyeshades to ensure fairness. The ball makes a noise when it moves, and each team has a guide behind the opponent’s goal to direct players. The field is surrounded by walls, so there are no throw-ins.

I’d love to see a game. The photos of people playing soccer blindfolded are themselves intriguing.

Passport has put together a list of 20. Jack Shafer has ten more.

And, somewhat related, Kevin Drum is sick of the lies about Ms. Palin and the Bridge to Nowhere and thinks the fact that the McCain campaign is still able to talk about it is an indictment of the press.

Another coincidence worth noting:

• The Big Picture has a great set of photos of life in Rio de Jinaro.
• While at Passport, Patrick Fitzgerald argues that the IOC should make Rio the host of the 2016 Summer Olympics. Though his argument is at times tepid, I find myself in agreement.

Though this quiz is a tad on the detail-oriented side, I did enjoy it. I’m guessing you can do better than 23, but you’ll need to be able to tell an Estonian accents from a Lithuanian. Or a Canadian from an American.

(via Passport)