It is strange how some things affect you

Some time ago I went to my regular cricket association monthly meeting.
for some time our Association (NDCA) and the NSCA had a combined turf competition over two grades. I was until last year on the executive committee for that competition. This season given falling teams it was decided to have 4 divisions incorporating artificial turf with trams from the two associations.
Thus there were 6 grades of the NCU competition.
Whereas previously the two umpiring associations provided umpires to matches it had been decided, without any input from me, that the NCU would have its own umpiring association.

After 150 years of tradition the Northern Districts Umpiring Association was no more. given its demise I could see no further use for me being a member of the executive committee of the NDCA.

Hence for the first time in some 18 years I had no cricketing responsibilities. I would simply umpire in Shires competition.

I went home and had a drink and felt very sad. 150 years down the drain was to me a bad thing. I had enjoyed myself as head of the Umpiring Association. Allocating umpires for each round, attempting to find umpires for or all semi-final and final  matches, finding guest speakers each year to address the local umpires to help them etc.

It left a gap in my life I was not expecting. The well-wishes from the local umpires for the work I had done was nice
Nevertheless life goes on.

Moving our Embassy in Israel would be madness

During the last week of the Wentworth by-election  Scott Morrison said he was looking at moving our embassy to Jerusalem.
This was never thought out. Neither the heads of DFAT nor Defence knew anything about it.

Why would this proposed change be such a poor decision.
1) If you believe in a two nation existence in the area then this blows that out of the water. The reason being if Israel moves first it claims all of Jerusalem not West Jerusalem.
2) Terrorists who have enough cause celebres would be given a gift to mobilise their resources as well as targeting Australia.
3) It would hamper our relation both foreign and economic with our near neighbours as well as other nations.

This has not only shown up Scott Morrison's political judgement , he is now in a lose/lose situation, it also shows him up as comically stupid. Very McMahonish actually.

Around the Traps 16/11/18

It is time again for Around the Traps

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,OyOy,Oy

• Adam Triggs on unlocking-australias-productivity-paradox-why-things-arent-that-super
• Greg Barton on morrison-wants-muslim-leaders-to-do-more-to-prevent-terrorism-but-what-more-can-they-do
• Rodger Shanahan on debating-terrorism
• Croaking Cassandra on show-your-workings-kiwibuild-the-reserve-bank-and-the-ombudsman, reserve-bank-whimsy, we-need-better-foundations-for-financial-stability-policy, the-prime-minister-continues-to-shame-us, voices-in-support-of-anne-marie-brady
• Mark the Ballot on update-poll-aggregates
• Kevin Bonham on poll-roundup-well-that-wasnt-much-of-a-honeymoon
• The Kouk on how-labor-s-plans-to-revamp-negative-gearing-could-put-a-floor-on-house-prices-and-lower-rents
• Michael Adam on behind-the-judgment-why-the-federal-court-tore-up-a-35m-settlement-between-asic-and-westpac-over-lending-standards
• Clinton Free et al on in-defence-of-asic-theres-more-to-regulation-than-prosecution
• Ross Gittins on the-price-we-pay-for-funding-schools-based-on-religion
• Greg Jericho on morrison-will-feel-relief-at-this-overdue-wages-growth-but-it-is-still-pathetic

Northern America

• Menzie Chinn on origins-and-challenges-of-a-strong-dollar
• Barkley Rosser on robert-j-samuelson-almost-right
• Open Mind on trump-insults-while-california-burns 
• 538 on the-2018-midterms-in-4-charts
• Menzie Chinn on origins-and-challenges-of-a-strong-dollar
• Cecchetti and Schoenholtz on us-monetary-policy-spillovers Thanks Mark
• Calculated Risk on key-measures-show-inflation-softened-in-October
• Adam Gopnik on wine-war-donald-trump-and-emmanuel-macron
• Ann Lowrey on peter-navarro-trump-trade
• New Deal Democrat on changes-in-labor-bargaining-power-take-up-to-a-decade-to-be-fully-effective
• Kirk Goldsberry on how-beto-orourke-shifted-the-map-in-texas
• Kruggers on the-tax-cut-and-the-balance-of-payments-wonkish Thanks Mark
• FRBSF on why-are-us-workers-not-participating Thanks Mark
• Liberty Street on ten-years-after-the-crisis-is-the-banking-system-safer Thanks Mark
• Mathew Yglesias on donald-trump-daily-caller-interview

Europe

• Mainly Macro on if-may-loses-her-brexit-vote-what-happens-next, governments-of-fools, brexit-of-course-everyone-hates-a-compromise
• stumbling and mumbling on beer-economic-determinism
• Paul Fritjers on second-brexit-referendum-questions

Asia

•  Daniel Woker on endgame-dubai
• Michael Breen on explainer-why-sri-lanka-is-sliding-into-political-turmoil-and-what-could-happen-next
• Sam Roggeveen on more-than-words-needed-meet-China-challenge

Wonk

• Stephen Grenville on trump-and-intellectual-property
• Tim Harford on endofgrowth
• Macromania on smart-contracts-and-asset-tokenization
• stumbling and mumbling on contrarians-in-public-life
• the conversable economist on some-economics-of-world-war-i, what-amazon-said-what-amazon-meant, superstar-firms-and-cities
• Dani Rodrik on economists-focus-on-markets-too-narrow Thanks Mark
• Barry Eichengreen on populism-common-denominator-political-corruption Thanks Mark
• Kruggers on what-the-hell-happened-to-brazil-wonkish Thanks Mark
• Fergus Green on keep-it-in-the-ground-what-we-can-learn-from-anti-fossil-fuel-campaigns
• Jonathan Kaplan on how-anti-semitic-stereotypes-from-a-century-ago-echo-today
• Croaking Cassandra on more-thoughts-on-financial-crises-and-economic-performance
• Institutional Economics on an-open-door-how-globalised-are-the-australian-and-us-economies
• Promarket on obesity-and-globalization-evidence-from-mexico Thanks Mark
• Antonio Fatas on digital-money-and-payments Thanks Mark
• Joseph Gagnon on ten-years-after-the-crisis-is-the-banking-system-safer Thanks Mark

General

• Peter Dorman on the-death-of-shame
• John Cook on work-smarter

Climate

• David Appell on have-co2-emissions-declined-under-trump
• Moyhu on october-global-surface-templs-up-0166-since-september
• Tyler Cowen on 2018-midterm-results-is-the-carbon-tax-dead
• the grumpy economist on carbon-tax
• and Then Theres Physics on limits-to-growth
• Real Climate on resplandy-et-al-correction-and-response
• Helen Phillips et al on explainer-why-the-antarctic-circumpolar-current-is-so-important-for-keeping-antarctica-frozen

Andrew Gelman ( mainly statistics)

• 2018-what-really-happened
• matching-discarding-non-matches-deal-lack-complete-overlap-regression-adjust-imbalance-treatment-control-groups
• 2018-who-actually-voted
• hey-heres-two-surveys-population
• trashed
• chocolate-milk-another-stunning-discovery-experiment-24-people
• robustness-checks-joke
• the-state-of-the-art
• 2018-how-did-people-actually-vote-the-real-story-not-the-exit-polls
• using-numbers-replace-judgment
• Fleur Johns et al on the-promise-and-problems-of-including-big-data-in-official-government-statistics
• Mayo on tour-guide-mementos-and-quiz-2-1-excursion-2-tour-i-induction-and-confirmation
• Kaiser Fung on its-hard-to-tell-apart-business-journalism-and-pr-the-wework-edition

Genial Dave Giles (econometrics)

• more-sandwiches-anyone
• No Hesitations on jfec-special-issue-for-peter-christofferson

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

• humanitys-future
• Brad De Long on review-of-capitalism-in-america-a-history-by-alan-greenspan-and-adrian-wooldridge

Vox Wonk

• market-expanding-network-effects-bike-sharing
• cryptocurrencies-financial-stability-and-fairness
• sovereign-debt-banks-and-firms-investment-italy
• minimum-wage-income-tax-credits-and-criminal-recidivism
• aggregating-labour-supply-elasticities
• lasting-impact-taiping-rebellion
• commuting-time-and-family-labour-supply-decisions
• abortion-laws-and-women-s-health
• global-trends-interest-rates
• automation-and-job-displacement-emerging-markets
• firm-sorting-and-agglomeration
• risk-and-black-swans-emerging-markets
• firm-sorting-and-agglomeration
• relative-valuation-distributed-ledger-technologies
• taxation-and-labour-supply-married-couples
• rising-brexit-uncertainty-has-reduced-investment-and-employment
• real-effects-mitigating-counterparty-risk
• learning-your-peers-import

Woeful TV Writing

Time off from serious stuff and i am finding as I graduate into being a grumpy old man I am needing more escapism thus needing more enjoyable TV shows.

What makes this impossible is very poor writing. I initially thought this the province of the USA. In this I was influenced by CASTLE. What should have been the greatest series of all time turned into a complete joke.
Just a few things to highlight very poor and lazy writing.

• A mere detective is promoted to Captain. She leapfrogs every Sergeant and Lieutenant in New York
• This detective resigned from the NYPD to pursue a career in a National Security agency ( which was given not one but THREE different names ). 
• She was given a hefty suspension for going rogue only three years hence. She was sacked by the same national security agency.
• On her first day as Captain she does not turn up to work but no-one does a thing.
• A hit squad who has killed all of the people Beckett worked with at the said Agency fall for the oldest trick in the game broken glass!

however to my horror I have recently found a few british series where the writing are equally poor.

Bancroft. Here we have a detective murdering people tampering with evidence. Even when her story constantly changes ( always a problem) her Boss still does nothing.I could not help but compare with Line of Duty  ( season 4) where there are some similarities but done very well.

The Split was simply terrible. Here a woman rails against her father who left the family. Yet this woman had sex with a man on the night BEFORE her wedding. It ends with her continuing this adulterous affair despite her waxing lyrical against her  husband who had done the same. Indeed the only consistent theme of this series was that everyone lied.

What is the common denominator here.

Firstly the writing needs to be as accurate as possible and thus true to life. When poetic licence is used it must be made explicit.

Secondly in a series the writers must be cognisant of what has occurred in previous programs.

Poll Roundup

The inimitable Kevin Bonham has his first poll round up since the coup and it aint pretty.

What I find interesting is that most people expect the LNP coalition to get a thumping.

• Scott Morrison does. He is campaigning as an Opposition Leader and each strategy gets shot down in flames. The moving of the Australian embassy to Jerusalem is merely an example of a government attempting to do anything to try and get a lift in the polls
• Bill Shorten does and he earnestly ties to show a confident but not smug face.
• 'Conservative' commentators believe a landslide is on and are saying hyperbolic things about Shorten and the ALP

And there is two state elections before the Federal election.

What can Muslim leaders do?

Every time I have a great idea about something to write something much better does it.
Greg Barton who had made a reputation on terrorism amongst other matters has a very good article on morrison-wants-muslim-leaders-to-do-more-to-prevent-terrorism-but-what-more-can-they-do.

Let's face it when politicians say things like the above it is for political reasons usually gross political reasons.

That they never think they maybe putting in danger the relationships various intelligence and security organisations have with the Islamic community never enters their heads or they simply do not care!!

Rodger Shanahan on a related issue.

The Mid term elections

Okay the serious people have examined the results and they are following
Andrew Gelman

• 2018-what-really-happened
• 2018-who-actually-voted

Nate Silver

• the-2018-map-looked-a-lot-like-2012-and-that-got-me-thinking-about-2020