Gov 2.0* is an interesting exercise in trying to use new communications technology (Web 2.0) to promote the public good. Blogger and economist Nicholas Gruen is running the show (or playing a big role anyway) and is looking for tenders on a variety of issues. Take a look.
* To anticipate the standard joke, I’ll be waiting until the 2.1 release.
A combination of work, travel and my book commitment means that blogging here will be light for the next few months. I plan to post excerpts from the book in progress, and I’ll try to put up open threads from time to time.
I’ve had an increase in disruptive troll comments here and at Crooked Timber, and have now discovered that a large number of them appear to be from someone who has posted here and elsewhere in the past as “John/Jack Greenfield”. I discovered it when “Greenfield” put up a comment at Catallaxy identical to one posted by a trollish commenter here posting as “S. Haines”. I challenged Haines on the point and he/she/it promptly disappeared. An IP check has now revealed numerous similar trolls several of whom had already been banned. The list includes:
Greenfield
S. Haines
Phyllis P.
Jake Bowden
Belgian Dentist
Methusela
Milton Keynes
Myron
Mark Milankovitch
Ian. Mc
IP numbers vary, but all begin with 203.171.192 or 203.171.195. If any of the above want to dispute their sock puppet status, they are welcome to email me. Bloggers who don’t wish to encourage trolls, sockpuppets and other such lowlifes are welcome to contact me for further details, and are urged to ban “Greenfield” and associated socks.
Blogs kill books. At least, that’s what I always thought. Between 1988 and 2000, I wrote four1 books and edited a couple of volumes. In 2002, I started blogging, and I haven’t done a book since then.
But, in the mysterious way of things, it turns out that blogs generate books, or at least book contracts. In comments at Crooked Timber not long ago, Miracle Max wrote
The discredited ideas theme really needs a book, and JQ appears to be the ideal person to write it.
I will even contribute the title: “Dead Ideas from New Economists.” No charge.
Brad DeLong picked it up, and a couple of days later I got an email from Seth Ditchik at Princeton University Press suggesting that it really would be a good idea. Now, we have a contract, and we’re going to use Max’s suggested title.
The sacking of Dan Froomkin by the Washington Post reminds me a remark attributed (IIRC) to Auberon Waugh on being told that Randolph Churchill had undergone the surgical removal of a tumour that turned out not to be malignant.
It is a marvel of medical science that they could first locate the one part of Randolph that was not malignant, and, having found it, immediately remove it
After suffering from a particularly insidious spam attack, the blog is back on air, still with the iNove theme, and with comments preview now restored, I hope. Thanks to reader Randall Hicks who detected the links injected into my themes, to Martin Ellison who fixed the problems and to Jacques Marnoweck from Joyent who gave some extra help, outside normal support.
One thing I did during my period of enforced absence was to update my complete list of Financial Review articles, published here. Journal articles should be updated soon.
Testing
My hosting service is having some problems with the server at present. I’m hoping they will be fixed soon, and I will then try to deal with the problems affecting the theme, previews and so on. Posting may continue light for a while longer, partly because addressing this takes up time and partly because I’ve been busy generally.
BTW, Brisbane readers might catch me on the history segment of Sunday’s Seven News, talking about Budgets and similar.
The site went down this morning and my hosts at Joyent diagnosed a problem with the red theme I was using, so I’ve temporarily switched to blue.
Quite by chance, this matches some words of a song I wrote a long time ago, which, I just found out were sung by Warren Fahey on Radio National Breakfast this AM. You can listen here (near the end).
I’ve added a caching plug-in to speed up performance. Please advise if you notice any benefit, or any adverse side effects. If you are locked out altogether, you can email me or reach me on Facebookfinal conflict the download
John Quiggin 