Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
current event 6
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsMaps/idUSTRE59I55S20091019
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai will announce on Tuesday how he plans to proceed in the Afghan elections, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, adding she was encouraged by the direction of events.
Clinton said she did not wish to preempt Karzai's announcement but her comments suggested she expected the Afghan president to accept a run-off in the August 20 election, which has been marred by allegations of widespread fraud.
"He is going to announce his intentions. I am going to let him do that but I am encouraged at the direction that the situation is moving," Clinton told reporters.
"I am very hopeful that we will see a resolution in line with the constitutional order in the next several days."
International observers called for an election run-off in Afghanistan after a U.N.-backed fraud watchdog on Monday invalidated tens of thousands of votes for Karzai.
The disputed election has fanned tensions between Karzai and Western governments whose troops are fighting a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.
The protracted voting process has complicated U.S. President Barack Obama's deliberations on whether to send thousands more troops to turn the tide in the eight-year war.
Clinton said she believed it was possible to hold a second round of voting before winter sets in. If the election is not concluded by winter, this would extend the political uncertainty in Afghanistan.
(Editing by John O'Callaghan)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai will announce on Tuesday how he plans to proceed in the Afghan elections, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, adding she was encouraged by the direction of events.
Clinton said she did not wish to preempt Karzai's announcement but her comments suggested she expected the Afghan president to accept a run-off in the August 20 election, which has been marred by allegations of widespread fraud.
"He is going to announce his intentions. I am going to let him do that but I am encouraged at the direction that the situation is moving," Clinton told reporters.
"I am very hopeful that we will see a resolution in line with the constitutional order in the next several days."
International observers called for an election run-off in Afghanistan after a U.N.-backed fraud watchdog on Monday invalidated tens of thousands of votes for Karzai.
The disputed election has fanned tensions between Karzai and Western governments whose troops are fighting a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.
The protracted voting process has complicated U.S. President Barack Obama's deliberations on whether to send thousands more troops to turn the tide in the eight-year war.
Clinton said she believed it was possible to hold a second round of voting before winter sets in. If the election is not concluded by winter, this would extend the political uncertainty in Afghanistan.
(Editing by John O'Callaghan)
current event 5
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/the-economics-club/
The Economics Club
Did a female economist just win a Nobel?
It depends on how you define “economist.” Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, describes herself as a political economist. She is a political scientist by training and by official department of employment.
Some economists got huffy about this. Not that it is the first time the economics prize committee has ignored traditional disciplinary boundaries.
But Professor Ostrom’s work covers territory unfamiliar to many economists — the way groups devise institutional rules for themselves. As Steven Levitt pointed out on the Freakonomics blog, “economists want this to be an economists’ prize.”
One thread of discussion at econjobrumors.com, a blog frequented by graduate students seeking jobs in economics, referred to Professor Ostrom disrespectfully as a girl. On the other hand, some women in the profession e-mailed me their concerns that the choice of winners implied that none of our official number merited the prize.
What strikes me is the way Professor Ostrom — an outsider in terms of both disciplinary background and gender — helps us understand the importance of group dynamics, including in the economic profession.
Professor Ostrom’s research on collective efforts to protect common resources by developing rules of access applies to academic disciplines. In this case, the common property is collective reputation — the disciplinary “brand.”
The American Economics Association (like lobstermen’s associations in Maine) sets rules that constrain individual behavior. Its governance shapes participation in the meetings and publication in the journals that influence professional success. The association’s most salutary goal is to maximize research quality, and with good reason: poor quality research spills over on the reputation of the discipline, like a form of pollution.
But the very forms of collective action that help protect the commons can create opportunities for aggrandizement — efforts by in-group members to protect themselves from competition and to reinforce their own priorities (including their own definitions of quality). Successful associations must remain open, flexible and democratic enough to sustain their legitimacy.
The history of debates over gender inequality in the economics discipline provides a fascinating example of institutional evolution.
In 1971, an informal women’s caucus within the American Economics Association actively strategized to overcome opposition to the establishment of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession. This group began to move actively to challenge discrimination against women and monitor their participation in the discipline — an effort that continues today.
Professor Ostrom has long taken part in a similar group within the American Political Science Association.
While such efforts met considerable resistance at the time, they are widely regarded today as an important achievement. In 1998, the Nobel laureate and free market advocate Milton Friedman praised the committee’s role in reducing discrimination — before going on to suggest that the pendulum had swung too far in the opposite direction, placing men at a disadvantage.
By that year, another dissident group had emerged: the International Association for Feminist Economics, which publishes the journal Feminist Economics. Its members, myself included, aim to widen the research agenda of the economics discipline by challenging what Barbara Bergmann described as the “attitude still prevalent in the economics profession that there are no aspects of our gender system that are in any way regrettable, that need to be addressed by economic and social policy and that do not result from women’s own incapacities and choices.”
While Professor Ostrom has not (to my knowledge) written about this particular challenge, she has certainly contributed to its study. By revealing the potentially positive impact of collective efforts to improve social institutions, she encourages thoughtful participation in them.
She shows us that economics is a territory whose boundaries can be
The Economics Club
Did a female economist just win a Nobel?
It depends on how you define “economist.” Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, describes herself as a political economist. She is a political scientist by training and by official department of employment.
Some economists got huffy about this. Not that it is the first time the economics prize committee has ignored traditional disciplinary boundaries.
But Professor Ostrom’s work covers territory unfamiliar to many economists — the way groups devise institutional rules for themselves. As Steven Levitt pointed out on the Freakonomics blog, “economists want this to be an economists’ prize.”
One thread of discussion at econjobrumors.com, a blog frequented by graduate students seeking jobs in economics, referred to Professor Ostrom disrespectfully as a girl. On the other hand, some women in the profession e-mailed me their concerns that the choice of winners implied that none of our official number merited the prize.
What strikes me is the way Professor Ostrom — an outsider in terms of both disciplinary background and gender — helps us understand the importance of group dynamics, including in the economic profession.
Professor Ostrom’s research on collective efforts to protect common resources by developing rules of access applies to academic disciplines. In this case, the common property is collective reputation — the disciplinary “brand.”
The American Economics Association (like lobstermen’s associations in Maine) sets rules that constrain individual behavior. Its governance shapes participation in the meetings and publication in the journals that influence professional success. The association’s most salutary goal is to maximize research quality, and with good reason: poor quality research spills over on the reputation of the discipline, like a form of pollution.
But the very forms of collective action that help protect the commons can create opportunities for aggrandizement — efforts by in-group members to protect themselves from competition and to reinforce their own priorities (including their own definitions of quality). Successful associations must remain open, flexible and democratic enough to sustain their legitimacy.
The history of debates over gender inequality in the economics discipline provides a fascinating example of institutional evolution.
In 1971, an informal women’s caucus within the American Economics Association actively strategized to overcome opposition to the establishment of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession. This group began to move actively to challenge discrimination against women and monitor their participation in the discipline — an effort that continues today.
Professor Ostrom has long taken part in a similar group within the American Political Science Association.
While such efforts met considerable resistance at the time, they are widely regarded today as an important achievement. In 1998, the Nobel laureate and free market advocate Milton Friedman praised the committee’s role in reducing discrimination — before going on to suggest that the pendulum had swung too far in the opposite direction, placing men at a disadvantage.
By that year, another dissident group had emerged: the International Association for Feminist Economics, which publishes the journal Feminist Economics. Its members, myself included, aim to widen the research agenda of the economics discipline by challenging what Barbara Bergmann described as the “attitude still prevalent in the economics profession that there are no aspects of our gender system that are in any way regrettable, that need to be addressed by economic and social policy and that do not result from women’s own incapacities and choices.”
While Professor Ostrom has not (to my knowledge) written about this particular challenge, she has certainly contributed to its study. By revealing the potentially positive impact of collective efforts to improve social institutions, she encourages thoughtful participation in them.
She shows us that economics is a territory whose boundaries can be
current event 5
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/the-economics-club/
The Economics Club
Did a female economist just win a Nobel?
It depends on how you define “economist.” Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, describes herself as a political economist. She is a political scientist by training and by official department of employment.
Some economists got huffy about this. Not that it is the first time the economics prize committee has ignored traditional disciplinary boundaries.
But Professor Ostrom’s work covers territory unfamiliar to many economists — the way groups devise institutional rules for themselves. As Steven Levitt pointed out on the Freakonomics blog, “economists want this to be an economists’ prize.”
One thread of discussion at econjobrumors.com, a blog frequented by graduate students seeking jobs in economics, referred to Professor Ostrom disrespectfully as a girl. On the other hand, some women in the profession e-mailed me their concerns that the choice of winners implied that none of our official number merited the prize.
What strikes me is the way Professor Ostrom — an outsider in terms of both disciplinary background and gender — helps us understand the importance of group dynamics, including in the economic profession.
Professor Ostrom’s research on collective efforts to protect common resources by developing rules of access applies to academic disciplines. In this case, the common property is collective reputation — the disciplinary “brand.”
The American Economics Association (like lobstermen’s associations in Maine) sets rules that constrain individual behavior. Its governance shapes participation in the meetings and publication in the journals that influence professional success. The association’s most salutary goal is to maximize research quality, and with good reason: poor quality research spills over on the reputation of the discipline, like a form of pollution.
But the very forms of collective action that help protect the commons can create opportunities for aggrandizement — efforts by in-group members to protect themselves from competition and to reinforce their own priorities (including their own definitions of quality). Successful associations must remain open, flexible and democratic enough to sustain their legitimacy.
The history of debates over gender inequality in the economics discipline provides a fascinating example of institutional evolution.
In 1971, an informal women’s caucus within the American Economics Association actively strategized to overcome opposition to the establishment of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession. This group began to move actively to challenge discrimination against women and monitor their participation in the discipline — an effort that continues today.
Professor Ostrom has long taken part in a similar group within the American Political Science Association.
While such efforts met considerable resistance at the time, they are widely regarded today as an important achievement. In 1998, the Nobel laureate and free market advocate Milton Friedman praised the committee’s role in reducing discrimination — before going on to suggest that the pendulum had swung too far in the opposite direction, placing men at a disadvantage.
By that year, another dissident group had emerged: the International Association for Feminist Economics, which publishes the journal Feminist Economics. Its members, myself included, aim to widen the research agenda of the economics discipline by challenging what Barbara Bergmann described as the “attitude still prevalent in the economics profession that there are no aspects of our gender system that are in any way regrettable, that need to be addressed by economic and social policy and that do not result from women’s own incapacities and choices.”
While Professor Ostrom has not (to my knowledge) written about this particular challenge, she has certainly contributed to its study. By revealing the potentially positive impact of collective efforts to improve social institutions, she encourages thoughtful participation in them.
She shows us that economics is a territory whose boundaries can be
The Economics Club
Did a female economist just win a Nobel?
It depends on how you define “economist.” Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, describes herself as a political economist. She is a political scientist by training and by official department of employment.
Some economists got huffy about this. Not that it is the first time the economics prize committee has ignored traditional disciplinary boundaries.
But Professor Ostrom’s work covers territory unfamiliar to many economists — the way groups devise institutional rules for themselves. As Steven Levitt pointed out on the Freakonomics blog, “economists want this to be an economists’ prize.”
One thread of discussion at econjobrumors.com, a blog frequented by graduate students seeking jobs in economics, referred to Professor Ostrom disrespectfully as a girl. On the other hand, some women in the profession e-mailed me their concerns that the choice of winners implied that none of our official number merited the prize.
What strikes me is the way Professor Ostrom — an outsider in terms of both disciplinary background and gender — helps us understand the importance of group dynamics, including in the economic profession.
Professor Ostrom’s research on collective efforts to protect common resources by developing rules of access applies to academic disciplines. In this case, the common property is collective reputation — the disciplinary “brand.”
The American Economics Association (like lobstermen’s associations in Maine) sets rules that constrain individual behavior. Its governance shapes participation in the meetings and publication in the journals that influence professional success. The association’s most salutary goal is to maximize research quality, and with good reason: poor quality research spills over on the reputation of the discipline, like a form of pollution.
But the very forms of collective action that help protect the commons can create opportunities for aggrandizement — efforts by in-group members to protect themselves from competition and to reinforce their own priorities (including their own definitions of quality). Successful associations must remain open, flexible and democratic enough to sustain their legitimacy.
The history of debates over gender inequality in the economics discipline provides a fascinating example of institutional evolution.
In 1971, an informal women’s caucus within the American Economics Association actively strategized to overcome opposition to the establishment of the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession. This group began to move actively to challenge discrimination against women and monitor their participation in the discipline — an effort that continues today.
Professor Ostrom has long taken part in a similar group within the American Political Science Association.
While such efforts met considerable resistance at the time, they are widely regarded today as an important achievement. In 1998, the Nobel laureate and free market advocate Milton Friedman praised the committee’s role in reducing discrimination — before going on to suggest that the pendulum had swung too far in the opposite direction, placing men at a disadvantage.
By that year, another dissident group had emerged: the International Association for Feminist Economics, which publishes the journal Feminist Economics. Its members, myself included, aim to widen the research agenda of the economics discipline by challenging what Barbara Bergmann described as the “attitude still prevalent in the economics profession that there are no aspects of our gender system that are in any way regrettable, that need to be addressed by economic and social policy and that do not result from women’s own incapacities and choices.”
While Professor Ostrom has not (to my knowledge) written about this particular challenge, she has certainly contributed to its study. By revealing the potentially positive impact of collective efforts to improve social institutions, she encourages thoughtful participation in them.
She shows us that economics is a territory whose boundaries can be
current event 4
http://blogs.wsj.com/capitaljournal/2009/10/19/political-wisdom-are-young-votes-checking-out-on-obama/
A quick tour around politics on the Web this Monday morning…
E.J. Dionne Jr., writing for the Washington Post and New Repulbic, lays out an issue that has been quietly worrying Democratic strategists for weeks: “Will the young and hopeful abandon the political playing field to older voters who are angry?” The question of whether young voters so important to Democrats last year now are complacent or turned-off is “the quiet crisis confronting President Obama and the Democrats. Left unattended, it could become a formidable obstacle for them in next year’s midterm elections.
Moreover, the sour mood that has gripped the nation’s politics could only further turn off the young. This means that the decision of Republican congressional leaders to put up a solid front of opposition to Obama could be highly functional for a party that would rather see younger, more progressive voters ignore Election Day.” Dionne further notes: “More than is often appreciated, the electoral revolution that brought Democrats to power was fueled by a younger generation with a distinctive philosophical outlook. Put starkly: If only Americans 45 and over had cast ballots in 2008, Barack Obama would not be president.”
Walter Shapiro of Politics Daily looks at one of the two hot races of the moment—the New Jersey governor’s race—and thinks Gov. Jon Corzine and his fellow Democrats may be pulling a rabbit out of a hat. “On Monday Joe Biden will appear with Corzine at a noontime rally in Edison and Barack Obama will swoop in to embrace the governor Wednesday afternoon in Hackensack. With billboards and posters featuring the president and the slogan “Keep It Going,” Corzine has been unabashed about trumpeting the Obama connection in a state which the Democrats carried by 600,000 votes last year.” The White House attention is easy to understand: “With Democrat Creigh Deeds falling increasingly behind in the open-seat Virginia governor’s race, Corzine has become the Obama team’s best hope for post-election bragging rights. (Governor’s races in odd-numbered years have shown little predictive power for future elections, but a double Democratic wipeout in New Jersey and Virginia would inevitably create a high-decibel ‘Obama in trouble’ chorus). In short, the better Corzine is doing, the more eager the White House is to lend its full prestige to guarantee victory.” And, Shapiro says, it may be working: “Corzine (whose unfavorable ratings have been over 50 percent in every Quinnipiac University poll since July) has fought his way back to even footing the old-fashioned way – by making (GOP opponent Chris Christie) almost as unpopular as he is.”
Meantime, Larry Thornberry of the American Spectator looks at figure who will be important to Republicans in next year’s mid-term elections, Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida. And he doesn’t like the sight: “Charlie Crist is trying to dress himself in the borrowed robes of a conservative. Even Macbeth, another ambitious guy, knew when the robes weren’t his. It’s a transparent scam. But will Florida Republican primary voters buy it? They’ve given Crist a pass on a lot of things over his career. But he’s asking them to buy some pretty outlandish things now.” And Thornberry actually thinks Florida conservatives aren’t buying it: Marco Rubio of Miami is “doing extremely well” raising money and exciting conservatives: “On top of his financial success, Rubio, a skilled and articulate campaigner who runs on conservative issues, continues to clean Crist’s clock in straw votes being taken by Republican groups, mostly county executive committees, across the state. In the latest, last week, members of the Palm Beach County Republican Executive Committee went for Rubio over Crist by a margin of 90-17. In 11 straw votes so far — eight county executive committees, two Republican women’s clubs, and the Florida Federation of College Republicans — Rubio is 11-0 and has bested Crist by a total of 495 to 58.”
A quick tour around politics on the Web this Monday morning…
E.J. Dionne Jr., writing for the Washington Post and New Repulbic, lays out an issue that has been quietly worrying Democratic strategists for weeks: “Will the young and hopeful abandon the political playing field to older voters who are angry?” The question of whether young voters so important to Democrats last year now are complacent or turned-off is “the quiet crisis confronting President Obama and the Democrats. Left unattended, it could become a formidable obstacle for them in next year’s midterm elections.
Moreover, the sour mood that has gripped the nation’s politics could only further turn off the young. This means that the decision of Republican congressional leaders to put up a solid front of opposition to Obama could be highly functional for a party that would rather see younger, more progressive voters ignore Election Day.” Dionne further notes: “More than is often appreciated, the electoral revolution that brought Democrats to power was fueled by a younger generation with a distinctive philosophical outlook. Put starkly: If only Americans 45 and over had cast ballots in 2008, Barack Obama would not be president.”
Walter Shapiro of Politics Daily looks at one of the two hot races of the moment—the New Jersey governor’s race—and thinks Gov. Jon Corzine and his fellow Democrats may be pulling a rabbit out of a hat. “On Monday Joe Biden will appear with Corzine at a noontime rally in Edison and Barack Obama will swoop in to embrace the governor Wednesday afternoon in Hackensack. With billboards and posters featuring the president and the slogan “Keep It Going,” Corzine has been unabashed about trumpeting the Obama connection in a state which the Democrats carried by 600,000 votes last year.” The White House attention is easy to understand: “With Democrat Creigh Deeds falling increasingly behind in the open-seat Virginia governor’s race, Corzine has become the Obama team’s best hope for post-election bragging rights. (Governor’s races in odd-numbered years have shown little predictive power for future elections, but a double Democratic wipeout in New Jersey and Virginia would inevitably create a high-decibel ‘Obama in trouble’ chorus). In short, the better Corzine is doing, the more eager the White House is to lend its full prestige to guarantee victory.” And, Shapiro says, it may be working: “Corzine (whose unfavorable ratings have been over 50 percent in every Quinnipiac University poll since July) has fought his way back to even footing the old-fashioned way – by making (GOP opponent Chris Christie) almost as unpopular as he is.”
Meantime, Larry Thornberry of the American Spectator looks at figure who will be important to Republicans in next year’s mid-term elections, Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida. And he doesn’t like the sight: “Charlie Crist is trying to dress himself in the borrowed robes of a conservative. Even Macbeth, another ambitious guy, knew when the robes weren’t his. It’s a transparent scam. But will Florida Republican primary voters buy it? They’ve given Crist a pass on a lot of things over his career. But he’s asking them to buy some pretty outlandish things now.” And Thornberry actually thinks Florida conservatives aren’t buying it: Marco Rubio of Miami is “doing extremely well” raising money and exciting conservatives: “On top of his financial success, Rubio, a skilled and articulate campaigner who runs on conservative issues, continues to clean Crist’s clock in straw votes being taken by Republican groups, mostly county executive committees, across the state. In the latest, last week, members of the Palm Beach County Republican Executive Committee went for Rubio over Crist by a margin of 90-17. In 11 straw votes so far — eight county executive committees, two Republican women’s clubs, and the Florida Federation of College Republicans — Rubio is 11-0 and has bested Crist by a total of 495 to 58.”
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