The Real Cost of the Iraq War

in Current Affairs | March 27th, 2008

Dur­ing the run up to the Iraq war, the Bush admin­is­tra­tion esti­mat­ed that the mil­i­tary mis­sion would run around $50 bil­lion, even though experts doubt­ed those num­bers at the time. (In 2002, Yale’s William Nord­haus guessed that the costs could reach $500 bil­lion with­in five years.) Now, here we are in 2008, and new tal­lies sug­gest that the real costs could rise to some­where between $1 tril­lion and $3 tril­lion. This award-win­ning piece — MP3 — iTunes — Feed — delin­eates the mount­ing costs and intro­duces you to some of think­ing in Joseph Stiglitz and Lin­da Bilmes’ new book: The Three Tril­lion Dol­lar War.

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Grateful Dead Free Concert Archive

in Music | March 25th, 2008

A nice lit­tle find for Dead Heads: The Inter­net Archive hosts a large col­lec­tion of the Grate­ful Dead­’s live music. Some con­certs (usu­al­ly record­ed by mem­bers of the audi­ence) can be down­loaded. Oth­er audio (usu­al­ly tak­en from the sound­board) can be streamed. You can access the over­all col­lec­tion here.

A few items worth sam­pling include: Live at the Boston Gar­den (May 7, 1977); Live at the Dane Coun­ty Col­i­se­um (Feb­ru­ary 15, 1973); or Live at Madi­son Square Gar­den (Sep­tem­ber 4, 1979).

Enjoy.

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David Lynch: The Lesser Known Work

in Film | March 24th, 2008

David Lynch fans, here you go. Below (and added to our YouTube playlist), we have Lynch’s anti-lit­ter­ing pub­lic ser­vice announce­ment that has a fair­ly high creepi­ness fac­tor. He’s actu­al­ly not new to the world of com­mer­cials. This site col­lects Lynch’s pre­vi­ous com­mer­cial work, start­ing with his 1988 series of Calvin Klein Obses­sion ads that played on the work of F. Scott Fitzger­ald, Ernest Hem­ing­way, and D.H. Lawrence. And, while we’re at it, let’s not for­get Lynch’s recent anti-iPhone spot, which is usu­al­ly good for a laugh.

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Attack Ad Hall of Fame

in Current Affairs | March 23rd, 2008

Are polit­i­cal attack ads such a bad thing? John G. Geer, author of In Defense of Neg­a­tiv­i­ty: Attack Ads in Pres­i­den­tial Cam­paigns, doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly think so. He main­tains that they often enrich, rather than cor­rode, the polit­i­cal process. And now his pub­lish­er has assem­bled The Attack Ad Hall of Fame. Includ­ed on the list is the most famous/controversial one — the “Daisy ad” from the 1964 John­son-Gold­wa­ter cam­paign. John­son’s ad, which was only aired once, nev­er men­tioned Gold­wa­ter by name, but it raised fears about whether Gold­wa­ter might bring us to the nuclear brink. For more ads, see the Muse­um of the Mov­ing Image, and watch Geer him­self get swift-boat­ed on YouTube.

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The Future of Tibet: Does It Have One?

in Current Affairs, Politics | March 20th, 2008

In response to Chi­na’s vig­or­ous crack­down on Tibet (see this pho­to­jour­nal­ism account), a group of experts were con­vened to dis­cuss Tibet and its future. The pan­elists includ­ed Robert Thur­man (famed Bud­dhism schol­ar at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty), John Ken­neth Knaus (Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty), John Tkacik (Senior Research Fel­low at The Her­itage Foun­da­tion), and Amit A. Pandya (Hen­ry L. Stim­son Cen­ter). You can lis­ten in on the dis­cus­sion here — MP3 — iTunes — Web Site.

On a relat­ed note, Chi­na shut down YouTube dur­ing its Tibetan crack­down, offer­ing proof of a sim­ple point made in MIT’s Tech­nol­o­gy Review: “Web 2.0 tools can seem at times like vehi­cles for the self-absorbed, but the fear that they inspire in oppres­sive gov­ern­ments is a pow­er­ful demon­stra­tion of how use­ful and vital they can be.”

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Web 2.0 and Culture: A Debate

in Media | March 20th, 2008

This week, UC Berke­ley pro­fes­sor Paul Duguid squared off in a debate with provo­ca­teur Andrew Keen (author of the flim­sy best­seller, The Cult of Ama­teur). At issue here is the ques­tion: “Is the Web 2.0 a Threat to Our Cul­ture?” How did the well-attend­ed debate go? Have a lis­ten here and see pho­tos here.

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The Pre-Fab Four

in Music | March 19th, 2008

Below we have an out­take from one of the ear­li­est rock mock­u­men­taries, which paved the way for the ven­er­a­ble This is Spinal Tap. Co-pro­duced by Eric Idle (Mon­ty Python) and Lorne Michaels (Sat­ur­day Night Live), “All You Need is Cash” traced the career of “The Rut­les,” whose resem­blance to The Bea­t­les was “pure­ly – and satir­i­cal­ly – inten­tion­al.” The show aired in 1978 and scored low rat­ings, though some fans still defend it.

via Goings On

Relat­ed Con­tent:

• The Bea­t­les: Pod­casts From Yes­ter­day
• What New York­ers Heard on the Radio the Night John Lennon was Shot
• The Grey Video: Mix­ing The Bea­t­les with Jay‑Z
• The Com­plete Bea­t­les in One Hour (and The Sopra­nos in Sev­en Min­utes)

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Arthur C. Clarke Retrospective

in Sci Fi | March 18th, 2008

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, the futur­ist and sci­ence fic­tion writer most well known for his nov­el 2001: A Space Odyssey, has passed away. (You can read his obit here.) Below, we have post­ed a video record­ed last Decem­ber for his 90th birth­day. Touch­ing in many ways, the video offers a good reminder of how much our world changed dur­ing his 90 years.

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Demystifying the Credit Crisis & the Fed (Serious and Not So Serious)

in Current Affairs | March 18th, 2008

This bit of audio (MP3 — Feed — Web Site) lucid­ly explains what hap­pened at Bear Stearns, and why the Fed act­ed as it did. It’s worth a good lis­ten if you’ve been try­ing to piece togeth­er the log­ic. The audio comes from the News Hour with Jim Lehrer.

[Update: I’d also rec­om­mend this piece from the New York Times. It does a good job of explain­ing the big­ger pic­ture.]

On a less seri­ous note, we also have a video that explains the cred­it cri­sis with the help of a coun­try music jin­gle. More astute view­ers will note the name of the singer, Mer­le Haz­ard, is an allu­sion to the con­cept of “moral haz­ard” that’s men­tioned in the audio above.

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Google Sky, Moon and Mars

in Astronomy, Google, Science | March 17th, 2008

Here’s what you get when Google engi­neers put their heads togeth­er with astronomers from large obser­va­to­ries: With Google Sky, “you can search for plan­ets, lis­ten to Earth & Sky pod­casts, watch some beau­ti­ful Hub­ble tele­scope images, or explore his­tor­i­cal maps of the sky from the com­fort of your brows­er.” The prod­uct was rolled out just last week, and you can get more info on the new release from Google’s offi­cial blog.

The new Sky prod­uct sits com­fort­ably along­side Google Moon and Google Mars, which have been around since 2005–2006. Cre­at­ed in con­junc­tion with sci­en­tists at the NASA Ames Research Cen­ter, Google Moon offers a col­lec­tion of lunar maps and charts and delves into the Apol­lo mis­sions. The Mars prod­uct, mean­while, offers some of the most detailed exist­ing maps of the red plan­et.

For more good sci­ence, see our Sci­ence Pod­cast Col­lec­tion here.

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