Left Center Left

I took an internet breather this weekend. My email server has even been acting up so apologies if I’ve not responded to you. Anyway, here’s what I missed.

Brad Delong on national income accounting: “The national income accounting tells us that what is going on with benefits and their distribution has a profound effect on how we understand the recent economic history of the distribution of income between labor and capital, and I don’t think I have a good grasp of what is going on with benefits and their distribution.” Meanwhile, Delong brings to my attention that Robert Reich is heading to Berkeley. Is this common knowledge in MA?

Hill Hotties: Matt Yglesias wonders about the "one of the more ill-conceived adventures in political journalism that I’ve ever come across."

Left in Lowell and WonkNot! offer their interviews with Deval Patrick. Frederick Clarkson considers the rising momentum of the Patrick campaign, then engages in what has to be either brilliant anti-CW prescience or absurd overstatement: “Deval Patrick’s race for governor of Massachusetts will be one of the most talked about, reported on and influential races for any office anywhere in the United States in 2006. He is progressive, prochoice, pro-marriage equality, antideath penalty — and he has a good shot at being the next Democratic governor of Massachusetts.” Let me venture this: no race in Massachusetts this time around will be influential, talked about or heavily reported on outside our borders.

Gun Tort Law: Michael Lind has a great post at TPMCafe arguing that gun manufacturer lawsuits are the way to go: “it’s a dangerous perversion of the rule of law to use tort litigation to make public policy, merely because your party is so unpopular among the American electorate that you lack the votes to achieve your goals through legislation.”

Be A Design Group considers some design misfires, and tracks the Gradient Craze as it sweeps the designers of the new NHL logo.

Christian Rock: Via Universal Hub, I see there’s some glowing reaction to the Proud2BCatholic rock/pop concert. Keiran Healy has the opposite reaction to Christian rock: “I suppose something has to counterbalance the fact that a large chunk of the best music ever written is Christian music.”