Saturday, December 20, 2008

HOT5 Daily for 12/20/2008

1.  "Have You Driven A Ford Lately? No, Because They Suck"  Interesting & entertaining analysis of the auto bailout & related issues.

Representative Sample:  What happened to the American economy? When did it become such a gold-diggin’ ho?

2.  "Santa vs God"  A comparison of Santa and God complete with original graphic

Representative Sample:  go look at it.

3.  "Franken is Winning, and Coleman Knows It"  Depends on how you define "winning." A serious analysis that illustrates, unintentionally, how ludicrous the entire Minnesota recount situation is and has been.

Representative Sample:  Franken's lead is almost certain to diminish once the Canvassing Board reviews more than 5,000 withdrawn challenges, and defaults them to the rulings originally made at the county level.

4.  "Tragic Clown Al Franken Now Leads in Minnesota Senate Recount"  Read the detailed analysis of post #3, and then read this for a pithy summary of how almost every Republican (incl. myself) views the Minnesota race.

Representative Sample: In at least one precinct the number of ballots discovered exceeds the number of voters who signed in to vote. But who cares?

5.  "A theory on the financial crisis — a science fiction parable"  What's really going on?  Does anyone know? Here's an interesting way of looking at it.

Representative Sample:  at some point high finance truly does become almost magical alchemy. It’s no longer balance sheets and stacks of physical money, it’s more arcane incantations, esoteric handshakes and ephemeral figures

To submit a blog post for HOT5 Daily, please e-mail me at unrright@NOSPAMgmail.com.  Put HOT5 in the subject.

10 comments:

  1. Most of these are just crap. Number 1 is completely incoherent. Number 2 is funny, but I shudder to think some atheists treat it as a serious argument for atheism. Numbers 3 and 4 are pure spin; I'd say 3 is somewhat better, but it could be that Nate Silver's so far been right more often than he's been wrong. And number 5 seems to live in a world in which Paul Krugman and Ben Bernanke don't exist.

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  2. Alon,

    I liked number 1. Yeah, number two was just there for humor.

    Nate Silver's site is very good. I read it often before the election. But 4 is pretty much what I said. Most Republicans think the coming Franken "victory" is a total sham.

    "seems to live in a world in which Paul Krugman and Ben Bernanke don't exist."

    Hmm, we might be better off.

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  3. No, Krugman and Bernanke have both made critical contribution to understanding depressions. My point isn't political. Krugman's insight about liquidity traps predates his New York Times op-eds by a few years; at the time, his columns were mostly about excoriating some non-economist, usually a leftist, who was saying stupid things about mainstream economics.

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  4. Alon,

    Btw, if you see any articles you think would be good links, let me know. I'm trying to find things on different blogs, not necessarily the big popular ones that I often read.

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  5. Thanks, Alon. Nice name by the way. Did you get your ass kicked in Hebrew school for being too Jewish? The name Alon Levy is so Jewish it's transcendent.

    Anyway, thanks for the props, right-wing atheist guy. Though I don't know why I was number one in a list that I think is suppose to be focused on either right-wing ideology or atheism blogging -- or both -- I do appreciate the interest. My article was neither about atheism nor about anything remotely right-wing. I am an atheist, but I am not right-wing at all. In fact, I consider myself deeply influenced by Marx; maybe your list was meant to be intensely ironic?

    You should have asked for my consent to be on a list on your blog out of good manners. I don't mind really that you linked my blog, but it might have been to your benefit as I would have clarified that I shouldn't be on this list.

    Also, why is your blog called "unreligious". Unreligious isn't a word -- irreligious is a word and most likely has the same definition of the "word" you're using. Why coin a word that is no different than an already existing word?

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  6. Brandon,

    "Though I don't know why I was number one in a list "

    Because your post was the first one I decided to link that day.

    "My article was neither about atheism nor about anything remotely right-wing"

    The site is about my opinions on things, which means it can be about pretty much anything I feel like.

    "You should have asked for my consent to be on a list on your blog out of good manners"

    You are joking right? Since when do people ask before they link to articles?

    "I would have clarified that I shouldn't be on this list."

    If I think something should be on the list it should be on there, since I'm the one writing this blog.

    "Also, why is your blog called "unreligious""

    It's a play on the term religious right.

    "Unreligious isn't a word"

    Yeah, it is. And no, I didn't need to ask dictionary.com before I linked to their definition.

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