Wednesday 22 April 2009

Links and updates

  • The Washington Post and New York Times have picked up on the biofuels tax credit story first reported on by Chris Hayes at The Nation (and which I'd blogged on here).
  • NotPC points to a wonderful video of a Formula 1 car doing doughnuts. On snow. On artificial snow. In the desert: Dubai's indoor ski venue. Rand may have preferred the lit cigarette as symbol of man's mastery of nature. I'll take this.
  • Tyler Cowen's review of the film The End of Poverty. Tyler usually walks out of movies he doesn't like. Forcing himself to sit through it would not have been cheap.
  • Lubos Motl recommends a film Roissy would like.
  • KiwiBlog approvingly cites New Zealand's Treaty Negotiations Minister on moves towards compensation. Cowen previously wrote on the impracticability of intergenerational compensation. It's worth reading.
  • Solow on Posner on the economic crisis
  • If ever there were a case for scalping, it would be at Bayreuth. The annual festival of Wagnerian opera has a nine year waiting list for tickets: you have to apply for tickets nine years in a row to have a chance at getting a ticket. Reznor previously discussed anti-scalping mechanisms. At Bayreuth, they go even further:
    If you are wealthy, buy a ticket on the black market. WARNING! In recent years the attitude of the Festival management has hardened not only towards the "scalpers" who trade in black-market tickets but also those who buy such tickets. A "scalper" is anyone who asks more for a ticket than its face value. The Festival management regard such tickets as void and invalid. There have been instances of individuals with black-market tickets being forcibly ejected from the Festspielhaus and in at least one case dragged from their seats. It is reported that offenders are advised to leave Bayreuth immediately and not to return. So if you use a black-market ticket, you must be prepared to be black-listed for life.
    The FAQ also notes that you can buy expensive package tours, including tickets, from approved agents. Sound familiar?

1 comment:

  1. A news story I enjoyed recently was http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10567675

    "Deputy Prime Minister Bill English's hometown of Dipton could be one of the first places to get economic benefits from the national cycleway.

    Prime Minister John Key yesterday confirmed that the cycleway would start as a "network" of initiatives and an already proposed route from Lake Wakatipu to Bluff was likely to be "one of the early cabs off the rank".

    The route runs through Southland and takes in a number of small towns, including Dipton, where Mr English was raised and which he still represents as the Clutha-Southland MP."


    Classic pork-barrel politics? If the cycleway covers the whole country then obviously every MP will benefit from it, but if the Govt only get part way through and then abandon it/run out of money/think it isn't gaining enough votes, the MPs in the first electorates covered might get a boost..

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