Daily Ideas

The director of the Office of Management and Budget later likened the cost-cutting effort to fixing broken windows in an urban neighborhood. “Just like a broken window has been shown to lead to increased crime because of the signal it sends, perpetuating inefficient programs with a shrug of the shoulders undermines confidence in government and wastes resources,” Orszag told reporters. “We can no longer afford broken-window budgeting.

…Meanwhile, thanks to the reported suggestion of a World Health Organization spokeswoman—who encouraged the public to come up with a better name for the sickness, Twitter users are trying to solve the problem in their own way. Led by actor Rainn Wilson, the online peanut gallery is engaged in a boisterous game of “Name that Flu” (#namethatflu). The object is not to find the most precise name, but the most ridiculous. Here are a few examples:

• Hamthrax
• Aporkalypse
• Global Hamdemic
• Hamageddon
• Baconsumption (obs.)
• Wilburculosis
• Smallporx

Together with then-Fed chairman and ruthless bastard (I mean that as a compliment) Paul Volcker, Reagan imposed economic pain that no self-respecting Democrat would tolerate in the Age of Obama. Reagan’s attitude was, basically, ‘You’re going out of business? What do you want, a cookie?’ He softened his stance later in his presidency, but not when he was trying to beat back stagflation. Obama’s attitude is very different: if the nation’s biggest banks face the prospect of going under, they’ll be bailed out. The same goes for the Big Three automakers, and the list will go on. There may well be good reasons for Obama’s itchy intervention-finger, but there’s a real danger that we’ll be left with zombie banks, zombie industries, and a zombie economy that limps along, bleeding jobs and growth for years. Think of this as removing a Band-Aid really, really, really slowly.

This narrative is just as manipulative as anything else on reality television, of course. Boyle could have been presented as a winner from the very start, but that would’ve ruined the drama.

But as fabricated as it is, her on-camera arc is undeniably moving.

That’s partially because Boyle herself seems so lovely, but it’s also because this clip enacts a story that we want to be true. No matter how much we mock those we consider beneath us, it’s much more satisfying to be reminded that everyone has dignity.

That’s because when we laugh at someone for being a freak, we’re laughing out of fear. We’re laughing because we want to prove that we are not like that loser over there. If we can shame the people who don’t belong, then we can prove that we do.

When we embrace an outsider, though, we’re paving the way for our own acceptance in the future. Eventually, we’ll all feel like outcasts, and none of us wants to be laughed at. The Susan Boyle Story suggests we won’t be. Instead of fearing for our own eventual shame, we can count on society to hear what’s beautiful in us. We can trust that if we just show our true selves, we will be embraced.

Maureen Dowd: You say the brevity of Twitter enhances creativity. So I wonder if you can keep your answers to 140 characters, like Twitter users must… Is there any thought that doesn’t need to be published?
Twitter Cofounder Biz Stone: The one I’m thinking right now.
Dowd: Did you know you were designing a toy for bored celebrities and high-school girls?
Stone: We definitely didn’t design it for that. If they want to use it for that, it’s great…
Dowd: If you were out with a girl and she started twittering about it in the middle, would that be a deal-breaker or a turn-on?
Stone (dryly): In the middle of what?

If you asked me about the prospects of a Twitter-driven revolution in a low-tech country like Moldova a week ago, my answer would probably be a qualified “no”. Today, however, I am no longer as certain … Technology is playing an important role in facilitating [the current] protests, [with] huge mobilization eforts both on Twitter and Facebook …

Times are tough in the newspaper industry. Its business model is under pressure from the Internet, as more and more people get their news and look for classifieds online. Throw in the sharp downtown in the economy, and the result is that several major papers have folded or filed for Chapter 11.

Senator Ben Cardin wants to stop the bleeding through proposed legislation that would allow papers to become 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organizations. This would give them a competitive advantage against other sources of advertising, and, in effect, be a subsidy. In exchange, newspapers could no longer endorse candidates on the editorial page or through their news coverage.

This is to energy and climate what Freakonomics is to economics: an accessible, meaty, by-the-numbers look at the physics and practicalities of energy. MacKay, a Cambridge Physics prof, approaches the subject of carbon and sustainability with a scientific, numeric eye. First, in a section called “Numbers, not adjectives,” he looks at all the energy and carbon inputs and outputs in Britain and the rest of the world: this is how many kWh of energy are needed to power all of Britain’s vehicles. This is how many kWh you would get if you covered the entire British shore with windmills, or wave-farms. This is Britain’s geothermal potential. Here’s how much carbon vegetarianism offsets. Here’s how much carbon unplugging your idle appliances saves (0.25%, making the campaign to switch off energy vampires into a largely pointless exercise — as MacKay says, “If everyone does a little bit, we’ll get a little bit done”). This is the carbon-footprint of all of Britain’s imports, gadgets, office towers, and so on.