A collective noun is:

a subject-specific word used to define a grouping of people, animals, objects or concepts. For example, in the phrase “a pride of lions”, pride is a collective noun.

I have searched in vain for an accepted collective noun for emails. Leaping into the breach I’ve decided to come up with an appropriate collective noun. I’m taking suggestions. I already have my own candidate but I’m keeping it close to my vest. I’ll post the results.

The recent events in Fallujah are very distressing. I’ve been posting comments on a number of blogs, trying to instill some sense of proportion and reason.

I just can’t say it any better than Ali, an Iraqi blogger writing from Baghdad:

This is not between Isalmists and the west, not between Saddam loyalists and America this is between good and evil, light and darkness and I can’t sit and watch or explain anymore. You can say, “Nuke Mecca” or “nuke Fallujah” and you can chose the Spanish government’s attitude and submit to terror, or you can join us (Iraqis and coalition) in fighting dictatorship, terrorism and their-no less evil and damaging- propaganda machine. I call for serious measures upon such channels that provoke hatred and celebrate terror and show it as a heroic action. I say, “‘nuke’ Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabia, the terrorists and all dictators in the world. It’s either us or them”. The evil TV channels should be prevented from entering Iraq and spew their poisons into the minds of simple people. They’re more dangerous than the terrorists themselves and no rigid concepts such as ‘freedom of speech’ should stop us here. This is not journalism, its terror propaganda.

Read the whole thing.

Steven Den Beste has written an important post on how European leaders misunderstand Americans.

I’ve long thought that rather than taking visiting European leaders to see the sights in Washington, DC, New York, or Los Angeles our presidents should take a driving tour with them. Get off the Interstate and take the old, more picturesque highway system. Start in New York, by all means, but go from there through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California. The visiting dignitary would pass mile after mile of farmland and hundreds of small and medium sized towns. And nearly every one of these towns would have local government buildings, courthouses, churches, colleges, and factories.
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I liked Glenn Reynold’s recent article “Good Drugs” on Tech Central Station. However (just love that word), I don’t think he comes to terms with the fundamental conundrum about drugs, prices, and research: what would appear to be the best policy on pharmaceuticals requires a careful weighing of competing interests that are all valid.
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Dan Drezner points to this press release and this executive summary as more support for his conviction that offshore outsourcing is an unalloyed good for the U. S. economy. Read the comments to his post–they’re interesting.

I don’t think this study means what he thinks it means.
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My wife is off on spring break. The other day a colleague of hers and her two children came over for lunch. We all had a lovely time. I served corn chowder and was asked for the recipe. Here it is!

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Glenn Reynolds notes:

INTERESTING BIT from the IOWA ELECTRONIC MARKETS: The graphic at the right is a crop from their graph showing Kerry vs. Bush since February 1st of this year (follow the link and scroll down for the whole thing). Despite the general sense that it’s been a rough period for Bush, his lead over Kerry has grown steadily since about the time it looked as if Kerry was going to get the nomination.

Green is for Kerry. Blue for Bush. Mr. Reynolds goes on to ask “What information are the market participants taking into account that the conventional widom is missing?” How about econometric models not only predicting that Bush will win but that the economy probably just can’t get bad enough fast enough for Kerry to win.

I’ve read John Graham’s article Bitter Medicine on NRO three times now and, frankly, I’m puzzled. I can’t tell whether he favors or opposes free trade.
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The sun came up that late summer morning in the beautiful little Italian resort town as it always had and always would. People ate their breakfasts and went about their normal daily activities. As the morning turned into afternoon some people sunned themselves, others took cold baths to escape the heat of the day.

On August 24, 79 C.E. Vesuvius erupted and the sun never rose over the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum ever again. Everything had changed.

While the persistence theory or the notion that whatever happened today will probably happen tomorrow, is an adequate rule of thumb it’s violated every day. Yesterday was sunny. Today it rained. Things change. Sometimes you catch the bear. Sometimes the bear catches you.

Quite a few people who know a lot more than I do–Daniel Drezner, Virginia Postrel, and Bruce Bartlett among others–have been writing about the virtues of offshore outsourcing and why we shouldn’t be concerned about the four or five quarters of zero net private sector job growth in the U. S. Now, I agree with them that we shouldn’t panic or adopt protectionist measures to fight offshore outsourcing: the cure would be worse than the disease.

But it seems to me the stock bubble of the ’90s, the enormous increases in productivity in this country, and the rise of the World Wide Web are volcanoes enough for anyone. Here’s my question. Is there any possibility that the combination of increasing productivity in this country and insufficient business investment in this country could lead to a chronic shortfall in private sector job creation? And, if so, what should we do about it?

Just because something has always happened that way before is not proof positive that it always will. Sometimes the sun doesn’t come up again.