Eclectic links

I wouldn't call it the "coolest war ever," but the War of 1812 gets an interesting and exuberant writeup from Jonathan Rauch, one of my favorite writers. Here's my recent piece on how the abolition of the U.S. central bank shortly before the war almost caused it to be lost.

Todd Seavey gives Gillespie and Welch's book The Declaration of Independents a glowing review. Here's my comparatively less phosphorescent one.

An extensive new blog network has opened at my sometime employer Scientific American. Among various items that caught my interest, I recommend this sci-fi story by Charles Q. Choi and this post by illustrator Kalliopi Monoyios on science art and what cameras can't capture.

UPDATE: More on 1812.

Modest telescope proposal

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), flagship mission for U.S. astronomy, is in danger of cancellation. If that happens, I hope there's a plan to use the expensive hardware that's already been built as a lawn ornament somewhere, perhaps on the Washington mall as a monument to congressional shortsightedness. After all, the Saturn Vs that never flew have brightened up grassy areas in a few states and there's always a need for new public art.

For more on JWST's travails, see here, here and here. For my piece from a few years ago, on who James Webb was, see here.

Central bank history

I've got a piece at FrumForum on the First Bank of the United States and the first George Clinton.

Fiduciary history

In the July issue of Research, my article "Fiduciary Matters," on the history behind the current controversy over whether brokers and financial advisors should be held to a uniform fiduciary standard requiring them to put their customers' interests before their own. Excerpt:

The word “fiduciary” derives from the Latin words for “faith” (fides) and “trust” (fiducia). Roman law recognized various fiducia contracts in which a person held property in safekeeping or otherwise acted on another’s behalf. Failure to uphold such trust could result not just in monetary penalties but also a formal “infamy” (infamia), in which you lost such rights as to hold public office or be a witness in a legal case.

However, the fiduciary idea arose well before Rome. The Code of Hammurabi, carved into stone in ancient Babylon, required a merchant’s agent to keep receipts and to pay triple damages for failing to provide promised goods (though it allowed an exemption if the loss was due to enemy attack during a journey).

Whole thing here.

Hamilton exhibit

Readers interested in financial history will enjoy the Museum of American Finance's exhibit "Alexander Hamilton: Lineage and Legacy." See the gallery here. On the way out, be sure to catch Lin-Manuel Miranda's performance of "The Hamilton Mixtape" (or see it here), which also closed the recent documentary Rediscovering Alexander Hamilton, which film I also recommend by the way (having a higher opinion of it than found in this review).

Physics, hippy, spacey links

A bit of stream of consciousness: Here's an interesting excerpt of How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival, by David Kaiser. Here's physicist/critic Peter Woit's review. Here's what The Weekly Standard thinks about hippies, as reflected in their covers over the years. Here is the opening of the one piece I ever wrote for the Standard: "Leftists in Orbit," about the Cassini space probe and its leftist opponents. Here is my piece for Reason on Lee Smolin's The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next. Here are my pieces for FrumForum on Reason, physics and space probes. Here's Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit dissing us "Frumites." Here, through the magic of the Internet archive, is the March 2000 piece I commissioned from Reynolds when I ran the opinion page at Space.com: "Satellite Pics Are Free Speech." (I use the term "commissioned" loosely, in that I was not allowed to pay contributors.)

My true-life libertarian story

At FrumForum, I review The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong with America and offer some further thoughts on Reason magazine and libertarianism. Opening:

Last fall, I wrote for FrumForum about “How I Joined the Vast RINO Conspiracy,” tracing how I, a longtime self-described “libertarian conservative,” got out of step with the right as the right moved further right and as I moved toward the center. Some readers applauded my independent thinking and others invited me to drag my backside out of the Republican Party (something I’ve declined to do).

A new book The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What’s Wrong with America, by Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, respectively the editors of Reason.tv and Reason magazine, has given me much to contemplate, on how libertarianism fits into American politics, how Reason fits into libertarianism, and why I, a onetime fairly regular contributor to that magazine, eventually failed to fit in at Reason.

Whole thing here.

UPDATE 6/19: Nick Gillespie has some kind words about my "respectful though mixed" review.

Evolutionary psych Weinergate

A few years ago, I wrote a review for Scientific American Mind of Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters, a not very good book touting evolutionary psychology. (The review's behind a paywall, though the start of it is here.) I still think the book is overly reductionist in its view of human nature, but one assertion strikes me now as meriting more credence than I gave it at the time. That's the assertion that male politicians get caught up in sex scandals not despite their careers, but because their careers are fundamentally aimed at maximizing their reproductive fitness, i.e., attracting lots of women. The same drive that makes them successful politicians is what makes them fall. Still seems something of an overstatement, but less so as I think about it and see scandals that would be hard to explain if this evo psych tendency weren't at least a factor. All of which is to say, soon enough I expect, goodbye Anthony Weiner.

Mexico's stocks

My latest at Research magazine: "Mexico's Resilient Market." Excerpt:

Mexico’s long-ago president, José Porfirio Díaz, is credited with a memorable, though likely apocryphal, quote, which translates as: “Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States!”

Díaz, who as a youth fought against the U.S. in the Mexican-American War, was overthrown in the 1911 Mexican Revolution, but his desire to keep some distance from the giant northern neighbor echoed through the 20th century in Mexican policies that kept a tight rein on cross-border trade and investment.

In recent decades, though, and particularly since the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect in 1994, Mexico’s policymakers have sought to capitalize on their country’s proximity to the U.S. Consequently, Mexico has attracted investor interest for its uncommon identity as both emerging market and member of a vast trade bloc.

UPDATE: I'm slated to talk about this article on the Gabe Wisdom Show on June 6 at 7:30 PM ET.

UPDATE: Here's the podcast.

Absence of blogging

Current reading: Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self, by Marilynne Robinson. I ordered this book after coming across an excerpt and then reading some interesting reviews, including one by the Archbishop of Canterbury. I'm sure it will give me much to contemplate. Meanwhile, posting may continue to be light in the near term, though I expect this blog will perk up a bit in June or so.

Movie note

Saw Black Swan on pay-per-view last night. I wasn't as enthused as some. It was like Fight Club in a tutu.

India brief

A podcast of me on the radio talking about the Indian stock market. My article on the subject is here.

OBL

Looking at this morning's great news. Here's what I wrote on the 5th anniversary of 9/11. I expect to write again on the 10th.

India stocks

I'm slated to be on the Gabe Wisdom Show at 7 pm ET tonight to discuss India's stock market history, and in due course the podcast should appear here. Current research for Research: Mexico's market history.

Hamilton interview...

My latest at FrumForum: "Debt Debate: What Would Hamilton Do? "To get some perspective on current political and economic debates, I attempted to contact the spirit of Alexander Hamilton by resetting the roaming function on my phone near his tombstone at Trinity Church in lower Manhattan." Whole Q&A here.

Varied & misc.

Some items I found of interest, in no particular order:

Salon interview with Barry Eichengreen on "How to Think About Tea Party Economics," particularly regarding monetary policy.

Walter Russell Mead has some ruminations on history and Easter Week: "He Plants His Footsteps on the Sea: Faith Matters."

David Frum's "Two Cheers for the Welfare State."

My debt deal

Exclusively at FrumForum, I provide the Ken Silber Plan for deficit reduction. Audience response is mixed.

Kaboom film

I'm not quite sure what to say about this movie, Kaboom. On one hand, it was hilarous and, unlike say The Sky Has Fallen, is labeled as a comedy. On the other hand, it was creepy and for significant stretches seemed more a horror movie than a comedy. On the third hand, the ending was pretty inane even by the standards of what had transpired before. So, in brief, I recommend it for some readers of this blog, and they will know who they are. Here's the trailer.

Items of interest

Back from France, where I celebrated my sister Denise Silber's Legion of Honor at the splendid venue of the U.S. Embassy's Marshall Center. Posting will likely continue to be light in the near future, though here are a couple more things that caught my attention:

Virginia Postrel takes issue with "The Fantasy of Survivalism," in what turns out to be her last WSJ column as she's moving to a soon-to-be-launched Bloomberg venture.

David Frum argues, correctly I think, that it was "A Great Week for the GOP," in part (and quite counterintuitively) because Donald Trump is gaining some traction, thus giving some absurd ideas an appropriate spokesman.

India's stock market history

My latest at Research magazine: "India's Emergence." I'm slated to discuss it on the Gabe Wisdom Show on April 26 at 7 PM ET.