Ezra Klein

For a couple hours, at least. We’re adding a server, so the back end will lock up between 3pm and about 8pm. You should still be able to see the site, but I won’t be able to get into the platform. So after that, no new posts from me, even though I love you all, […]

There are a couple useful tidbits in EJ Dionne’s column on Nancy Pelosi. First, he asks Pelosi why health reform is being considered for the reconciliation process but cap and trade is not. “The priority, of course, is to pass health care,” Pelosi replies. To my knowledge, Pelosi hasn’t said that before. More to the […]

This post is basically going to be a roundabout way to link to Hilzoy’s explication of John Rawls’ views on merit. Blog posts are rarely so smart. So I’m just going to put the link up near the top. See? Here it is. Hilzoy is in conversation with Bill Galston, who is trying to prove […]

Daniel Drezner extracts a nice set of lessons that Passover teaches us about international relations. But one of them simply isn’t true: 2) Sanctions against an autocratic regime will rarely yield significant concessions. To get the Pharaoh to let the Jews go, God imposes an escalating series of sanctions against Egypt. These sanctions crippled Egyptian […]

I’d missed this post when Noam Scheiber first wrote it, but he agrees with Annie Lowrey: It might be a good thing for banks to “game” the Geithner plan. The basic argument is that if banks are recapitalizing themselves, even at taxpayer expense, and segregating the toxic assets, even at personal profit, then that’s “working.” […]

Eric Crampton kept hearing that we were entering a “Randian moment,” and so he decided to check it out. Using Google Insights, he tracked searches for “Rand” and “Marx. “Marx,” he finds, “is by far the more popular search term.” But that’s not universal. Rand edges out Marx in the United States and, somewhat strangely, […]

To be honest, I just wrote that headline to freak Michelle Bachmann out. But I have, in recent days, been posting on the possibility that Congress would need to pass Obama’s promised infusion of cash into the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights fund, thus rendering a crucial source of help to emerging markets wildly unlikely. I […]

Most columnists use their editorial page perch to weigh in on the major issues of the day. That’s nice. It’s sort of like what bloggers do. But some columnists use their editorial page perch to challenge large audiences to consider the implications of more marginal topics that they won’t hear about anywhere else. Nick Kristof […]

Atrios looks pretty fly.

I went with the roasted vegetable version suggested by Scott. Added dried dates and a couple prunes, both of which crisped nicely in the oven. Also used a lot of Rancho Gordo chile powder. Now my problem is confined to not eating the damn thing before Seder…