– Unamused on Detroit – probably the most interesting story in the news right now
– I am always tempted to agree that economic growth is the god metric, as Aretae likes to say. But then I go to Tokyo. Tokyo’s been stagnant for more than and a decade, and it still feels way nicer than any American city (inspired by this Sailer post).
– Elusive Wapiti on cultural decline in the UK (don’t miss the photos from the article he links to)
– If you "predict" something 5 years too early, did you really predict it? I made about $90,000 buying and selling a place between 2003 and the end of the housing bubble, was I wrong?
– Those Who Can See on Germans and Greeks.
– Hail on white ruralism
– Enjoy some fiction from a fellow reactionary blogger while I’m quiet for a bit
Foseti 
Are we sure that’s Britain in those photos? Everyone is white…
Measured economic growth and even GDP are only loosely tied to the “condition of England” question. It won’t hlep you compare this year to last year and I really don’t need it to know that Liberia isn’t very nice.
“Tokyo’s been stagnant for more than and a decade, and it still feels way nicer than any American city”
To refine the point…
“As far as we know, growth is instrumental to health, happiness, longevity, the development of basic and not-so-basic human capacities, and peace.”
Hey…then let’s measure health, happiness, longevity, peace, and human capacities. Any policy or event that causes those is good. Growth is just a by-product. Critically, this metric captures any non-growth related peace, health, etc…
Name two sociologically similar countries where you feel growth or gdp illustrates important differences. I defy you.
Thank you for the link.
Went out for drinks with a friend last night. Ordered an old fashioned. Within minutes, four other guys were drinking them.
Next time try a Rob Roy. From an Old Fashioned – sweet vermouth instead of sugar gets you to a Manhattan and I think it adds depth to the cocktail, and using Scotch makes it a Rob Roy. The martini glass gives it a little flair, and I love it when they add the sour cherry on the stick.
Will do. Thanks.
And thanks, Foseti, for the Veil War plug.
Interesting to compare Unamused’s with Aretae’s. If the future is more Detroit than Germany, how does one get the economic growth Aretae champions?
OT: I mentioned SOPA here recently, and here is someone who understands the real motivation behind the legislation.
Quote:
“So yes, on the surface, the notion that the government might via SOPA shut down any website that doesn’t police content to the government’s satisfaction seems insane—as insane as penalizing kitchen knife manufacturers for stabbings or automotive companies for drunken driving or telcos for crank calls. But when you consider that SOPA will not only grant content providers enormous power to intimidate and disable content outlets of which they disapprove—a shortcoming that has been extensively covered here on Techdirt and elsewhere—but also that SOPA will give the government, too, unprecedented power to police Internet content, you start to understand that from a certain nefarious perspective, SOPA begins to make a great deal of sense indeed. And for anyone who values Internet freedom, such a purpose and result should be extremely disturbing and worthy of a fight.”
I’ve noticed that although the bill has attracted a great outcry on the internet as a whole, most have gone for the rag and not the matador. SOPA is not ultimately about enforcing copyright law; this is the usual incremental, plausibly deniable means by which a Universalist state establishes control over something. Hopefully it won’t pass.
Speaking of Detroit, this story is getting a lot of coverage in the Aussie
press.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/mcnicol-murder-trial-opens-20120111-1pvg0.html
After one day the judge called a mistrial “Judge Linda Parker declared the mistrial on Thursday after a witness, being questioned by prosecutor Steven Kaplan, answered a question in a way that Young’s legal team argued was prejudicial.”
“Disrespect” not allowed in Detroit, and don’t forget it.