Read Stuff, You Should

Happy Birthday to Khandi Alexander, 55. I've come close to starting Treme twice, and still intend to watch it...just haven't quite actually done it, yet. Doesn't matter; I know she's gone on to bigger and better, or at least different, but she's always going to be Catherine Duke. Just too bad they never gave her enough to do; when they did, she was excellent. And of course, obviously spelled with a "C."

On to the good stuff:


1. Nice David Karol review of where convention acceptance speeches -- and the kind we get now -- come from.

2. Sarah Binder on the Fed and NGDP targeting. Remember: it's hardly just a question of economics. The politics (intergovernmental, institutional) matters a lot.

3. Digby correctly points out that Ross Perot's drop-out had more than a little to do with Bill Clinton's convention bounce, something which I neglected to mention in my post yesterday.

4. Andrew Sprung realizes what the WSJ doesn't about the Romney agenda.

5. Pregnancy is complicated. Public policy can make it easier or harder. I can't write well about such things, but Martha Bayne can.

6. And a good point from David S. Bernstein about the "four years ago" question. To translate what he says: is it possible that one reason that Republicans are so sure that the "four years" question works for them is because they still think everything was just fine up until September 2008? See also Josh Marshall.