Centrist left blogger David Osler will have to go to court next month to defend himself against libel charges brought against him by Johanna Kaschke, over whether or not, as David puts it, “simply listing her affiliations, entirely accurately, denies her the right to freedom of association under the European Convention on Human Rights”. Also, a commenter on his site called her “one cherry short of a Schwarzwalderkirschtorte” which she maintains is also libelous. It sounds layughable to bring a case on these grounds, but she did and now David has to defend himself, with the danger that if Kaschke wins the trial, this will bankrupt David. It would also set a nasty precedent, making it easier for nutcases to sue bloggers over nasty things they said about them. So wish him luck.
Meta
Pigs fly
Daniel “D-Squared” Davies finishes
We stopped doing economics and started doing awful amateur-hour sociology, basically, because we believed that all the major problems had been solved, that some form of dynamic general equilibrium was all that there was to be said about the economy considered as a system, and that the only interesting things to do were growth theory and finance. It is no coincidence that Freakonomics began in Chicago; for a guy like Levitt who doesn’t possess the engineering-maths to be a finance theorist or the empirical skills to do endogenous growth, there was literally nothing to do.
Your Happening World (1)
A semi-regular roundup of interesting blogposts and other ephemera.
Owen Hatherley is annoyed by the view of “Nazism essentially as a continuation of German modernism” and the casual slurs against Kraftwerk and other Krautrock bands with an interest in futurism as cryptonazist.
Kpunk’s follow-up.
The ghost fleet of the recession off the coast of Singapore, though it can also been seen closer to home, near Rotterdam. Hundreds of empty ships waiting for better time and higher freight tariffs.
The A-Z of socialism.
Via Louis Proyect comes the 1973 film “Distant Thunder” by Satyajit Ray, about the effects of the 1943 Bengali famine on one village caught in it:
It is the work of a director who has learned the value of narrative economy to such an extent that “Distant Thunder,” which is set against the backdrop of the “manmade” famine that wiped out 5 million people in 1943, has the simplicity of a fable.
Though its field of vision is narrow, more or less confined to the social awakening of a young village Brahmin and his pretty, naive wife, the sweep of the film is so vast that, at the end, you feel as if you’d witnessed the events from a satellite. You’ve somehow been able to see simultaneously the curvature of the earth and the insects on the blades of field grass.
The Bengal famine is one of the dirty little secrets of World War II, as millions of people starved yet part of their harvests were used to feed British soldiers.
Exeutnt Exit The Chipmunk Queen
Hazel Blears has resigned, to spend more time with her family. Poor bloody family.
Update
That was very well timed of her, to go just as the breakfast media had pretty much concluded that all that was needed to shift Brown was one last heave. The sisterhood are getting their revenge – Hewitt, Smith and Beverly Hughes yesterday, Blears today. But will it be enough? Will Harriet Harman also have to go before someone close to Brown has the guts to stop threatening and actually stick the knife in?
II
I predict the next to jump overboard will be either Tessa Jowell or Caroline Flint. Come on, then, ladies.
III
I’ve changed the blogpost title; was trying to be clever. Fail.
Sounds Useful
Hugo Rifkind in the Times spots a handy new German word:
technishererfolgangabemangelsfrust. That is to say, “the frustration caused by having a sense of achievement for completing a technical task but being unable to boast about it because it is too boringâ€.