UN racism, Card, Diamond, Bear, Krugman

* UN racism conference news. Libya gets called out.
* Polarized voting index
* The First Earth Day. Condom witches in Bloomington.
* Article mentions that Orson Scott Card is on the board of the National Organization for Marriage (nom nom nom), which seems to be the new front of gay-marriage bigotry.
* Jared Diamond sued for making shit up. LJ comments here. carloshasanax and Doug M. traditionally criticize Diamond for abusing his citations; William Hyde seems a good climatologist and rejects Doug M's source.
* Greg Bear to write Halo novels.

* Krugman on "too many banks" and a Bush-like shifting of narratives for the bank policy -- Bushlike in how tax cuts were a good idea when the economy was booming (give back money) and failing (stimulus!) and wartime (...).

swing, Card, Kindle, Krugman^n

* Bananas at Sahara Mart have jumped to 79 cents a pound, but apples are down to $1.99.
* Whee, swing dance! Finally I've learned some more lindy hop variations.

More news and links
* Civilians have too many rights and can't be forced into hardship positions, so reservists may be called up based on their civilian jobs to fill posts in Afghanistan.
* More on Card joining NOM, including his call to overthrow the government is Prop 8 didn't pass, and his attempt to actually argue how gay marriage would hurt his marriage. (Commendable in a way, since most opponent mumble incoherent at that point.)
* Cheap shots: Republicans less popular than Venezuela Or China. Or France.
* Chavez has problems, but Colombia is worse, yet not reported on as much.
* How the Kindle might transform reading books. Friends snarked that it read like a Thomas Friedman essay or some 1996 gush about the Web, but I'm not sure it's wrong.

Krugman, the Dismal Scientist
* Banks are reporting profit because the market value of their debt is going down -- because creditors think the bank is likely to fail.
* Bush admin torture sought to establish link between Iraq and 9/11, which of course was non-existent. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in a month. 6 times a day! And with 'real' waterboarding, e.g. water dumped into the nose and mouth, beyond what passed for safety guidelines. Petition for a special prosecutor.
* Since 1995, European productivity allegedly lagged that of the US. Half due to Wal-Mart, half due to financial services. Perhaps we'd like to reconsider. A comment adds that in-house software development is 'investment' in the US but 'expense' in Europe. Same activity, different accounting.
* Notes that conservative economist Greg Mankiw says we need inflation.
* Texas: rich or poor? -- posting for the links and numbers; he doesn't really make a case for median vs. average income, and cost of living would seem to matter, and be higher (at least in housing) than in NJ. OTOH, the numbers do mean that employers in NJ (or NYC) are willing to pay that much for the labor there, vs. what Texans can command.

Krugman columns, not blog posts
* False hope
* The Irish model
* Tea parties and the craziness of the GOP (And the tea party sponsors)
* If banking isn't boring, someone's stealing your money.
* America the tarnished (finance, not torture. That I have to say that...)
* Obama: hypnotized by capital markets