Grasping Reality by Brad DeLong

• David Weigel: The Odd, Painful, and Bizarre Final Days of Ken Cuccinelli
• Daniel Little: Understanding Society: Why a War on Poor People?: Noted: The View from the Roasterie XXII: October 30, 2013:
• Joshua Bloom: Wealth and Labor in the Cognitive Automation Era
• Jim Tankersley: More About the False Consciousness of the Poor Benighted SOBs Who Are the False-Consciousness Victims of the Republican Party in Tea-Party Land

And:

1. "I’m concerned about the fact there seems to be a war on the poor--that if you’re poor, somehow you’re shiftless and lazy. You know what? The very people who complain ought to ask their grandparents if they worked at the W.P.A": John Kasich: There Seems To Be A War On The Poor
2. "Despite former Vice President Dick Cheney's claim to the contrary, Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) on Tuesday stood by his story that the two are 'fishing buddies'.... 'I anchored the One Fly Fishing Contest with him one time, and I was asked to speak at his induction in the fly fishing Hall of Fame. And we’ve talked about fishing when we’ve been together. We have a relationship thing": Catherine Thompson: Mike Enzi Stands by Dick Cheney 'Fishing Buddies' Story
3. "'In your lifetime, much of your potential — or lack thereof--can be known simply by swabbing the inside of your cheek', Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) said at Liberty University on Monday, during a rally for the Virginia GOP’s nominee for governor, Ken Cuccinelli. 'Are we prepared to select out the imperfect among us?' The senator was making an argument against abortion rights by conjuring eugenics.... And he was possibly plagiarizing from Wikipedia to do it. If Cuccinelli were leading... appealing to the far right with abstruse arguments that have almost no appeal to swing voters probably wouldn’t be a very good idea.... But [Rand] Paul--a Tea Party favorite — was in Virginia to shore up Cuccinelli’s support among libertarians currently trending to the Libertarian Party nominee Robert Sarvis, who refuses to identify as anti-abortion": Jason Sattler: If This Is What 2016 Is Going To Look Like, The GOP Is In Big Trouble
4. "A non-economics, non-policy post; I just want to give a shoutout to a book I’m reading, and really enjoying: Tom Standage’s Writing on the Wall: Social Media--The First 2,000 Years. I’ve been a big fan of Standage’s ever since his book The Victorian Internet, about the rise of the telegraph, which shed a lot of light on network technologies while also being great fun. Now he’s done it again. Standage’s argument is that the essential aspects of social media... have been pervasive through history, with the industrial age’s news media only a temporary episode of disruption": Paul Krugman: Poetry and Blogging

Plus: Long:

Taylor Clark: Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture | Highlights and insights from inaugural Uncharted | Jim Tankersley: At the source of the shutdown, the economy falters--and anger at Obama runs high | Interview with Richard Thaler |