Sydney Anglicans have an Election

Sydney Anglicans elected a new Archbishop at their Synod the other night.

I thought I might comment firstly on the position and then on the man.

Archbishop

I have always found it strange how Sydney Anglicans can be so biblically literate unlike most other Anglicans and thus fully support reformed theology as the only theology compatible with he bible yet support unreformed church governance.

As the old head of Moore College, Broughton Knox , would say 'Archbishop, I don't recall reading about an archbishop in the bible'!
We see in the New testament a whole lot of house churches which are wholly independent. The only time when there is a meeting of a of them is when a major theological question needs to be answered.

It does seem strange Sydney Anglicans hang on to a structure Catholics copied from the army!

Glenn Davies

I know Glenn Davies from  my time on the board of Robert Menzies college. He is one bright cookie. Indeed one of the brightest cookies I have come across. Having said that I was disappointed in at least two areas he has either spoken on or written about.

Firstly 1 Corinthians 6:9 has nothing to do with male prostitutes. That was a very silly error.
Secondly whilst it is true there is no word from God against being married to more than one wife. Only a complete imbecile could not fail to notice in every story involving more than one women in a marriage there is a lot of grief!

Having said that he should be a good spokesman for the Anglican denomination in Sydney. He speaks clearly , intelligently and without aggression. In this he is clearly similar to Peter Jensen!

Why did the Germans support Hitler?

One of the great mysteries of life is why the Germans gave strong support for Hitler.
(For people who want a quick but accurate read of this period try Ian Kershaw, Robert Gellately, Robert Overy for a start.)
 When Hitler became Chancellor he did what he said he was gong to do. He got rid of a lot of people he thought was detrimental to Germany's future. Neither these executions at the start of his 'reign' nor the night of the long knives caused any problems for most Germans indeed his popularity rose after the night of the long knives!
Most historians measure Hitler's popularity by examining Gestapo reports in tandem with Sopade papers.
( here is a useful guide to opposition to the Nazis). One historian Adam Tooze puts the Gestapo as the equal of the Gallup organization in the USA in knowing the national German mood!)

We must first put Germany into context

• There was a lot of violence in Germany between the wars. Communist and the SA fought each other frequently and deaths were very common. the newspapers of the time put all the blame on the communists hence most Germans blamed them for the deaths
• Concentration camps were not new when the Nazis introduced them for political prisoners.  They had been used to such effect in both 1919 and during the period of hyper-inflation. On both occasions they were temporary
• The Nazis only targeted those 'enemies' which were problems for the state. The vast majority of people were not affected. Most of those targeted people  changed their views after being in concentrations camps. This was so successful it  was recommended all the concentration camps (most of which were temporary) be disbanded in 1934.
• After Hitler was elected therefore people simply wanted piece and quiet after all the violence. Summary executions of detained people was something they were wiling to exchange for this.
• Both unemployment and crime fell dramatically as Hitler was in power ( the Nazis invented the broken window theory before anyone knew of it!) . This made Hitler rather than the Nazi party very popular. The sopade papers were full of exasperation that most  Germans were willing to overlook terror invoked on some people because of improved economic conditions.
• This article shows how the Nazis made use of social capital to destroy democracy.

I could go on but you get the picture. One thing I never knew was that the Nazis supported the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine!  Strange but not strange.

However if one reads The-Wages-of-Destruction-The-Making-and-Breaking-of-the-Nazi-Economy then one comes to the conclusion Germany was always going to lose the war and perhaps a better strategy would have been to appease them and then let Germany and the Soviet Union fight a war of attrition where both lost and the Allies could have allowed both nations to then grow as most nations do!! 

The Big Country

Quite simply The Big Country was the greatest Western ever made. Gregory Peck was magnificent in the starring role.  It is the thinking man's Western!

The theme music matched this completely.

Here is the music and the opening sequence. enjoy!

Castle- Is it about to jump the shark?

The lovely lady from Writing on the Castle Walls stated here her understanding of both Watershed and whether Beckett can go to DC and therefore take the new job she was offered.

I do love this lady. She has a passion for the series you can only admire, She thinks through things well and can write so beautifully I could read her all day if it were possible.However her article left me in great despair.

Watershed
If the last episode of series 5 is to be called Watershed it can only be about a watershed in the Caskett relationship. This is what Castle is all about Castle and Beckett working together and then being together now as a couple. They are interconnected and related. you cannot have one without the other.

The emerging problem as we have observed here and then further here  is that it is Kate Beckett not Richard Castle that is the problem. Castle does have worries and anxieties that she will run away from the relationship but these worries have a firm foundation.Beckett's fears and worries are completely irrational and silly.  She thinks Castle is getting bored with her and he will leave her.
(Think about this for a minute. Here is a man who tried to take a bullet for her, has waited 4 years to be with her and then showed he would rather be dead than alive if she was killed. None of this has registered with her!!)
Thus the watershed moment cannot be the proposal. It matters not whether they are marries or not. If she gets these fears again she will run!

The only watershed moment can be Beckett has realised at long last that her fears and anxieties about the relationship she has with Castle are simply stupid!

DC Job

When Castle first finds out about this job he correctly says that taking such a job would mean the end of their relationship. She cannot understand this. The reason being she is a very immature person emotionally. In crude but accurate terms she is an emotional bimbo!

• At no stage does she ever explain to anyone she talks to why it is a great job. It is simply a great job. This means her friends are not very bright either. Believe me the first thing you tell anyone about discussing a new  'great'job is why it is indeed great. Indeed it is hard not to stop about why it is. But in this instance nothing!
• She at no time thinks to talk about this to the man she is in a committed relationship with. We are led to believe she is doing this to run away from the relationship BUT if she accepts the proposal then there is no reason to accept the job! If she accepts the proposal why would she go to DC?  The job would be detrimental to the relationship. She even admitted this.
• We learnt in the very first episode of Castle of why she became a cop, It was for idealistic and altruistic reasons. If she now accepts the job those reasons are now irrelevant BUT we have been given no information of why this is so and how this happened. Again in real life people do not change from idealistic types to ambitious career driven people overnight. It is a changing experience which everyone can observe but not here?
• Her success as a detective over the last five years has been directly a result of having Castle as a partner. both at building theory and in the field he has been an outstanding partner. He can't be her partner in DC. My brother was a detective and believe me you never ever give up a good partner and it takes forever to 'break' in a new one so they understand your idiosyncrasies and you theirs. 
• The Agency performed poorly when her team dealt with them . Her team solved a murder in a day the agency could not solve for over a year and Stack went outside the law.
• It is said Castle is a writer and he can write anywhere. Any one who has gone to one literary lunch knows that is incorrect.Moreover even though Castle has made a deliberate decision to write less books now because he works with Beckett ( something again she has never recognised) he stills earns a lot more money than she ever will. Why would the higher income earner in the relationship be subservient to the lower income earner?
• Gates has suspended her from duty once so how can she give Becket her highest level of approval? 
• Working in DC means no relationship and thus no children. 
• She was in charge of a team at the 12th, She will not be at DC.
• I think it is pertinent to point out here almost all the stories about post watershed in Castle fanfiction land had Beckett breaking up with Castle if she went to DC. Even the ones where she didn't it,  she then  realises before much time the job is bad for the caskett relationship. One never needed to be Einstein to work that out. It stood out very clearly from the outset.

I could go on and on but the point is if Beckett accepts the job in Dc then she clearly has not thought through the implications very well at all. Indeed if she accepts the job she goes from being an emotional bimbo to a full grown bimbo.

Marlowe

I am now having a lot of trouble seeing any logic or continuity in the last three episodes IF Beckett goes  to DC. 

Marlowe's comments on the disastrous quail episode seems to indicate he has no idea of what a normal relationship is all about.

He has not responded to the criticism of Beckett in the last episode at all.

If he has written that she goes to DC he has just arrogantly dismissed one of the great truisms of life. When you are on a good thing stick to it.

He is changing Castle as a show for the worst.

We watch Castle for the Caskett relationship but we cannot get this if she is in DC for the first three episodes.

He may well have caused Castle to jump the shark as it may not recover from such a radical change.

UPDATE
Castlefan at TV Fanatics site on the  Watershed episode made a great call of saying what if she goes to DC but only for a temporary period. Thus she doesn't accept the job offer. This would make sense and it would mean Beckett does have the intelligence we know she possesses.



Whoopsy obligatory Castle/Coldplay  video which makes one tearful if Beckett goes to DC. It gains greater poignancy!

listen to the lyrics

Federal election

We know now a federal election will be held on September 7. Kevin Rudd has been sensible in holding it before Cricket season starts.

I really do not care who wins the election as very little will actually change.

I do think a party should only be in for two terms this I would like to see a change of Government.

The fact the Opposition has not shown they are clearly not ready for government holds no brook for me.

If they win they will either grow quickly into the job once they realise the difference between reality and  perception or they will flounder and they will be kicked out at the next election.

I used to be a political junkie thriving on election campaigns and their minutiae but now i am completely indifferent to them.

September 23 to me is more important than September 7!

Postscript.

Some people have asked me if the Opposition will impose the austerity policies they are espousing.

I think the opposition , like all oppositions , are having it both ways. They might shout about Austerity policies but that is only for political effect. Once in power reality bites and no-one with an ounce of sense would impose austerity at the present time. It would guarantee a recession and a loss at the next election.
I am unsure of what they may do but they will be advised by sensible bureaucrats so I am not worried about them committing hari kari at this stage!

Further Postscript.

Best result.

Coalition win with 51% of the vote or less and of course do not have a majority in the Senate

Blind Faith

Blind Faith, one of the true Superbands, gave us one of the all time great songs in Can't find my way home.

Enjoy

Around the Traps 3/8/13

It is time for Around the Traps again.

We have a new blog, the third test starting and Dave Giles back at 'work' on his blog! and check out how to  rank wines in voxwonk and David Glasner has an outstanding article re-Milton Friedman!

I will try to update over the weekend but have Refereeing responsibilities and cricket registration so we will see!


Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• John Quiggin on nz-oz-why-it-matters, doublethink-on-triple-a
• Ricardian Ambivalence on is-stevens-80-sure-about-august, rba-still-on-track-for-2%
• Skeptikoi on the-impatient-rba-waiting-for-godot
• Mark the Ballot on how-much-was-kevin-rudd-worth, exploring-non-linear-house-effects-model, weekly-aggregation, further-explorations-in-non-linearity
• The Pollbludger and bludgertrack-50-0-50-0 
• Mumble on the_barrier_to_re_election,what_if_its_not_about_boats
• Kevin Bonham on poll-roundup-and-seat-betting-watch
• Ed Butler on under-siege
• David Walker on infrastructure-no-longer-a-no-brainer
• The Piping Shrike on realignment
• Ross Gittins on we-got-our-cut-from-resources-boom, bowens-statement-fantasy-for-grownups
• Bluntshovels on is-insecure-work-one-of-the-missing-pieces-in-the-cost-of-living-puzzle
• Andrew Elder on go-on, the-news-you-missed-while-reading-news
• Don Arthur on economic-theory-for-thrillseekers
• Gordon's Thoughts on and-all-this-time-ive-been-smoking-not-so-harmless-tobacco
• Nick Gruen on guest-post-by-felix-barbalet-the-productivity-of-the-citizen-developer
• Mark the Graph on economic-statement-in-charts
• Dragonivista on tell-rudd-hes-dreamin
• The THIRD Test join Tony the Teacher and the Gang watching at Old Trafford ( Just watch out for the language sometimes!)

Northern America

• Mark Thoma gives us Tim Duy on fed-watch-fomc-week, fed-watch-while-we-wait, fed-watch-early-3q-data-lifts-off
• Mark Thoma gives us Mark Kleiman on cheating-on-charter-school-evaluationl
• Mark Thoma gives us Owen Zidar on state-governments-are-not-roadblocks-to-federal-stimulus 
• Mark Thoma on fed-watch-early-3q-data-lifts-off
• James Hamilton on the_case_for_Janet_Yellen, econbrowser_recession-indicator-up
• Ricardian Ambivalence on fed-can-still-sep-taper
• Angry Bear on social-security-is-the-most-effective-anti-poverty-program-in-the-u-s-in-one-chart
• Liveo De Matteo on a-brief-retrospective-on-the-public-sector
• Kruggers on for-the-birds, economists-behaving-badly-redux
• Menzie Chinn on why_is_inflation_low, ever_expanding_government_employment
• Edward Lambert on why-is-inflation-so-low-asks-menzie-chinn
• Calculated Risk on graphs-duration-of-unemployment
• Noah Smith on conservative-white-america-you-need-new-grand-strategy 
• Progrowth Liberal on lowest-unemployment-rate-since-obama-took-office-and-Brad-DeLong-is -not-happy
• Jared Bernstein on a-bit-more-on-the-jobs-report-and-gear-shifts

Europe

• buggerall

Asia

• Simon Wren-Lewis on japan-and-consumption-tax
• David Beckworth on abenomics-as-fulfillment-of-milton-friedman Thanks Mark

Wonk

• Edward Lambert on productivity-really-is-demand-constrained
• Tim Johnson on who-are-true-champions-of-science Thanks Mark 
• Simon Wren-Lewis on zlb-models
• Edward Lambert on putting-money-in-the-hands-of-people-without-creating-more-debt
• The Irresistible David Glasner on my-milton-friedman-problem 
• Kruggers on models-and-mechanisms-wonkish

General

• Noah Smith on peter-schiff-trolls-sargent-and-sims, what-is-payoff-structure-of-gold
• Simon Wren-Lewis on advertising-paternalism-information-and-plain-packaging-of-cigarettes
• Menzie Chinn on exchange_rates
• Lord Keynes and hoovers-high-wage-policy-and-great-depression, post-keynesians-and-degrees-of-uncertaintyl
• Kruggers on for-the-birds
• Peter Dorman on obstfeld-on-fiscal-space
• Frances Woolley on why-taxes-should-be-either-inefficient-or-unpopular

Andrew Gelman ( Statistics)

• shades-of-gray-a-research-story
• the-roy-causal-model
• response-by-jessica-tracy-and-alec-beall-to-my-criticism-of-their-paper
• non-topical-blogging
• uncertainty-in-parameter-estimates-using-multilevel-models
• Good Stats Bad Stats on income mobility, Wages, Simpson's paradox and the complexity of statistical analysis
• Kaiser Fong on know-your-data-13-no-tracking-technologies, big-data-and-marketing
• Lord Keynes on sumner-versus-schiff-and-shadowstats

Dave Giles ( Econometrics)

• information-criteria-unveiled
• recent-and-recommended
• francis-diebold-on-gmm
• some-recent-and-transparently-applicable,- Results- in -Time- Series- econometrics
• allocation-models-with-autocorrelated-errors
• unbiased-model-selection-using-adjusted-R2

Brian Banisch ( Climate)

• bugger-the-utilities
• helium-balloons-may-soon-be-out-of-reach
• John Quiggin on ignorant-out-of-touch-crazy
• Philip Lane on green-industrial-policy

Dianne Coyle and Frances Woolley (Quirky)

• Noah Smith on book-review-quants
• Frances on feminist-triumph-or-impending-disaster 
• Tim Harford on have-prisoners-learned-not-to-snitch
• Dianne on modern-feminists, popular-economists
• Don Arthur on french-fries-dont-make-people-fat-says-frijters

voxwonk

• how-much-capital-should-banks-have
• moving-towards-single-contract-pros-cons-and-mixed-feelings
• value-divergent-macroprudential-policies
• who-benefits-aid-trade
• ranking-wines-using-shapley-value
• how-have-financial-markets-reacted-financial-sector-reforms-after-crisis
• did-trade-policy-responses-food-price-spikes-reduce-poverty
• commodities-end-holy-grail