FRIDAY MORNING RAMBLE: The ‘Winning & Losing’ Edition

It was a week that started with the Geelong Cats winning their Premiership and ended with news of Steve Jobs losing his battle for his health.  And it’s not finished yet: here’s still some other important things happening in the next two days at the Cake Tin and at Eden Park—and off Tauranga.
Since I’ve been a little busy this week (for which, I hope, my clients will thank me, if not my readers) there’s not much of a Ramble to offer you. Nonetheless, since some of you have been asking for it, here’s your chance for a wee ramble round some of the things that caught my eye online this week:

• The tributes for Steve Jobs are deservedly flowing in. [Please post links to any you enjoyed in the comments.] Here’s a mega mash-up in tweets. [Hat tip Sally O’B.]
  Steve Jobs: A Mega, Meta Mashup in Tweets – F A S T   C O M P A N Y
• And here’s A 1987 piece from Playboy:
  Steve Jobs Lays It Down For Playboy -  G I Z M O D O
• I liked the feeling in Liberty Scott’s piece:
  Steve Jobs: He lived -  L I B E R  T Y  S C O T T
• It was only minutes after Steve Jobs’ death that the jokes started. All of them had a point. “The economy is now so bad that even Apple are losing jobs.” Boom boom. “Man ten years ago we still had Steve Jobs, Bob Hope and Johnny Cash... now we have no jobs no hope and no cash...”  And my favourite, from The Onion:
  Last American Who Knew What the Fuck He Was Doing Dies -  T H E   O N I O N
• "It’s time America reintroduce freedom back into the free market." (HT @PaulHsieh)
  WOLF: Upgrading America – Milton Wolf,  W A S H I N G T O N   T I M E S
• Why Scientists Are Smarter Than Politicians [hat tip Dr Holt]
  Why Scientists Are Smarter than Politicians – T I M E   S C I E N C E
• Why physicists are STILL knocking on heaven's door & can't be smug.
  An insider's guide to modern particle physics -  N E W   S C I E N T I S T
• “Quantum theory is reliable but fraught with paradox. Philip Ball asks if scientists will now find an object
  existing in two places at once.” [HT Geek Press]
  New pursuit of Schrödinger’s cat – P R O S P E C T
• The political backlash to geo-engineering begins.
  Political backlash to geoengineering begins -  N E W   S C I E N T I S T

To quote Hayek v Keynes Rap II: ‘The economy's
not a car. There's no engine to stall. No
expert can fix it. There's no ‘it’ at all.’"
- Russ Roberts & John Papola

• “Keith Ng rightly won an award for this one.”
  CPI visualizer – O F F S E T T I N G    B E H A V I O U R
• “Paul Callaghan cites 20 top technology companies, not one of which is remotely a Clean Tech company, except in as much as they are all environmentally benign. ‘That latter, in my view, is all that matters, that and being the best in the world at what they do and hence viable and profitable. The evidence suggests what we are actually good at is not at all what the Green Party would like us to be good at. What we are good at is a result of brilliant entrepreneurship and business expertise. Such genius does not follow politicians’ prescriptions.’”
  Genius does not follow politicians’ prescriptions -   H O M E  P A D D O C K
• “Like most Keynesians, in the end, Paul Krugman is a one-trick pony who always recommends inflation as the answer to economic problems… So, I see that Krugman now is giving the "Vietnam Strategy" to the Europeans: in order to "save" the euro, you must destroy it -- via inflation.”
  Krugman: "Save" the euro by inflating it to death
  – K R U G M A N   I N   W O N D E R L A N D
• Don’t think it’s just the addle-pated Keynesians either. The followers of Milton Friedman are equally eager to pour inflationary fuel on their fire.
   Inflationists in Wolves' Clothing 
  - Robert Murphy,  M I S E S   E C O N O M I C S    B L O G
• “One reason that some government agencies may be failing is that their attention is directed to the wrong things. High on that list is policing against high prices during emergencies. Basic economic analysis finds that price gouging laws end up wasting state government resources and wasting consumers’ time during emergencies.”
  ‘Price Gouging’ Law: Why Waste State and Consumer Resources during Emergencies?
  - M A S T E R     R E S O U R C E
• “It was recently pointed out to me that certain free market orientated friends dislike policies that fail to restore immediate growth: Basic economic theory posits that as households and businesses...”
  Do nothing: a positive proposal for recovery – C O B D E N C E N T R E

“If there's a way to solve this environmental disaster
[off Tauranga] by giving away public money to
private companies, Steven Joyce will find it.”
- Tweet from Dim Post

• “What peace activists do on their holidays” - publicaddress :
  Revealed: What cops filmed in Ureweras – N Z   H E R A L D
• Don Brash slams Auckland planners for their hamstringing restrictions on land supply.
  ACT's Brash slams Auckland's plan to replace Metropolitan Urban Limit with Rural Urban Boundary as locking out young and poor from housing for 30 years – I N T E R E S T . C O . N Z
• A Powerful Moral Argument to Get Government Out of the Housing Business.
  A Powerful Moral Argument to Get Government Out of the Housing Business 
  – Daniel Mitchell, I N T E R N A T I O N A L   L I B E R T Y
• “Apparently, Police Minister Judith Collins has a law degree. That was not evident during her performance on [the surveillance bill]. Was she deliberately misleading us, or did she simply not know what she was talking about?
  Staggering bunk from Judith Collins over surveillance bill - M E D I A   L A W  J O U R N A L
• A Guaranteed Annual Income cannot simultaneously satisfy three goals. Gareth Morgan either knows this, or … well, you choose the appropriate word.
  Gareth Morgan's impossible trifecta – O F F S E T T I N G B E H A V I O U R
• “National abandons all pretence of having any principles. The party used to have principles [when, pray tell?], but now fraudulently readies itself to secede East Cape (about 20% of North Island) for native votes. Another 'full and final settlement' coming right up.”
  National to give East Cape away for native vote – P M   O F   N Z
• 100 years later, follow Scott and Amundsen on our interactive map, with words from their own diaries to guide you.
  Interactive map: Scott and Amundsen in their own words -  N E W   S C I E N T I S T
  

• “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men, women, and transgendered—and any other human who is able to elude the tyranny of work for a couple of weeks—are created equal…”
  Occupy Wall Street: A Manifesto – R E A S O N
• “Until recently, I haven’t been paying much mind to the Occupy Wall Street protests. They’re a lot like Tea Party protesters. They’re upset with the status quo, and are being quite vocal about it. ...”
  Occupy Wall Street Protesters Make Demands – O P E N  M A R K E T . O R G
• “Quantitative Easing just forcibly redistributes wealth from the poorest in society to the richest. It's immoral….
  Inequality will widen until banking is reformed – Oliver Cooper,
  C O N S E R V A T I V E H O M E B L O G S ( U K )
• “Governor Rick Perry likes to say Texas is experiencing an economic miracle because of small government and low taxes. Another take: [S]mall government still doesn't mean scant government in Texas. It means lots and lots of small government and accompanying taxes...”
  Texas is another word for 'taxes' – M A D D O W   B L O G
• Milestone alert: just one month left to see the Julian and Josie Robertson Promised Gift at the Auckland Art Gallery before it jets back to the US:
  Julian and Josie Robertson Promised Gift – A U C K L A N D   A R T    G A L L E R Y

Image: Paul Cézanne, La route (Le mur d'enceinte) The Road (The Old Wall), 1875-1876,
From the Julian and Josie Robertson Promised Gift

In my mind, I can play the ukelele too…

This is pretty much the highlight of Placido Domingo’s performance you missed in Christchurch last night, filmed in Tokyo on the same tour: the thrilling E Lucevan le Stelle from Tosca, sung beautifully, even at seventy years of age.

Compare with the same piece sung in his prime and filmed on location in Rome: a young man about to have his life ended by firing squad knowing that at this moment he has never loved life so much!

And one of my other favourites from last night (filmed, as before, in Tokyo), from Frank Lehar’s operetta ‘Land of Smiles’

Have a great weekend.
And let’s hope Colin Slade does too.