Jacob Christensen

It seems that I asked for it. But ok, I may have been an UmU blogger but I am no longer one.

Philip Klinkner of PolySigh compares polls from 2004 and 2008. One of many interesting observations:

Among older voters (the other age categories didn’t exactly match up across the two data sets) McCain is running much stronger than Bush. In 2004, Bush won this group by just 5 points, but McCain is winning by 12 points. This is no surprise since Obama’s support in the primaries was always weakest among this group, due at least in part to his race.

On the other hand, Obama is running no worse among whites overall than Kerry did in 2004, suggesting that if he’s losing any ground among older whites, he’s making it up among younger whites.

Caveats for taking early polls too serious apply.

Via Ezra Klein, a post about it-systems at the US Veterans Administration which is about more than computer software:

Fred Trotter, an open-source medical software programmer and an IT consultant, spoke to Government Health IT about how the VA’s old open system used to work: “historically, each hospital hired programmers to solve that hospital’s needs. Other hospitals then adapted those solutions to their own needs. [But] with the centralization process, all VistA programmers will be working for a central bureau. This could stop 30 years of innovation in which the best local innovations were taken national.”

It’s no exaggeration to say that we’re seeing the corporatization of the VA—not just in the sense of privatization, but also in the broader ethos of highly structured management systems. This means that the features that have made VistA such a success—flexibility, customizability, and openness—are in trouble. The balance between security and innovation is a very sensitive one, but in the past, we have figured out how to keep information secure. What’s harder is figuring out how to foster creativity. Centralized bureaucracy is rarely the answer.

As they say: Read the whole thing if you’re into a) it or b) policy analysis.

• Interfluidity :: Unemployment and the credit cycle
  Much of the chatter surrounding the latest BLS release has focused on a spike in the denominator of the unemployment statistic, the fraction of the population either working or actively looking for work.
  (tags: usa economics economicpolicy labourmarket)
• Indexhibit
  (tags: webdesign cms software)
• Pew Research Center: The Middle Class Blues: Pricey Neighborhoods, High Stress
  (tags: usa economics economicpolicy sociology)
• Bakgrundsinformation till ”Välkomna till Bolognaklubben” – Vetenskapsnyheter, Vetandets värld, Veckomagasinet – P1 – sr.se
  (tags: teaching education university bologna)
• Välkomna till Bolognaklubben – den jämförbara högskolan? – Vetenskapsnyheter, Vetandets värld, Veckomagasinet – P1 – sr.se
  (tags: teaching education university bologna)

Economists David A. Jaeger and Daniele Paserman look at the short term dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship:

First, Israeli violence does not lead to an increase in realized Palestinian violence and has minimal effect on intended Palestinian violence. However, it also does not have any deterrent or incapacitation effect, with the exception in the short run of targeted killings of Palestinian leaders. Second, Israeli violence does make the Palestinians more hostile towards settling disputes at the negotiating table and less likely to support moderate parties, but this effect is short-lived. Third, Palestinian violence induces an Israeli response, leading to subsequent Palestinian fatalities, Finally, Palestinian violence has a small effect on Palestinian public opinion, leading at most to a reshuffling of support among radical factions, but to no shift between moderate and radical factions.

Denmark and even Sweden have had their share of tax revolts – for Denmark, think Glistrup and the present government’s use of the “tax moratorium” and how property taxes are slowly being made politically unsustainable – but the overall development since the 1970s has been different than that of the US. Or has it?

Fabio Rojas points us to a study of the US tax revolt movement, Isaac Martin’s The Permanent Tax Revolt.

Two quotes from the blurb on Amazon:

“The Permanent Tax Revolt” traces the origins of this anti-tax campaign to the 1970s, in particular, to the influence of grassroots tax rebellions as homeowners across the United States rallied to protest their local property taxes.Isaac William Martin advances the provocative new argument that the property tax revolt was not a conservative backlash against big government, but instead a defensive movement for government protection from the market.

but…

In time, American political institutions and the strategic choices made by the protesters channeled the movement toward the kind of tax relief favored by the political right, with dramatic consequences for American politics today.