The gently arched blue street name signs in downtown Bethesda are quite attractive, and the street names are fairly readable, but the block number information is so small that you nearly have to be standing in the middle of the intersection to make it out.

posted: 11:07:02 AM  

The economics textbook that I'm recording at the studio called my attention to the Genuine Progress Indicator, a macroeconomic index that serves as an alternate to GNP (Gross National Product) for measuring the health of an economy. Like Tobin and Nordhaus's Net Economic Welfare, which was introduced when I was a lad studying macro, GPI adjusts GNP in several ways: downward to account for environmental damage, upward to account for volunteer work and unpaid work in the home, and so on. I might quibble with one or two of the adjustments. For instance, counting net changes to the capital stock seems to be mixing apples and oranges. But on the whole, it's a good idea. Social conservatives would even find something to like about it, as the index adjusts for the costs of crime and the breakdown of the family.

posted: 10:57:06 AM  

Richard Conniff reviews Alan Burdick's Out of Eden, profiles of researchers confronting invasive species.

posted: 9:38:08 AM