Steven Levitt gave an admirable performance on the Daily Show. I would argue that an economist being funny is even more of a feat than getting an economics book to #3 on the Amazon sales chart. Well, may that’s a stretch. Levitt regales us with the tale on the freakonomics blog

Yes, that’s right, the Steves are blogging. Some of the posts are initialled, some aren’t. I’m starting to think of the two Steve’s as a single organism, kind of Norman-Batesy Econojournalist (in a nice way, though) or perhaps a better analogy would be a symbiotic relationship such as the oxpecker and the hippopotamus (I’ll tactfully skirt the issue of who is which;-). It’s a very necessary relationship, I think. Levitt can certainly write well enough for an economist, as evidenced by his papers, but economists are evolutionarily inclined to be enamored of details the rest of us generally find inane (we rather prefer just to consume the stunning conclusions that inevitably result from giving those seemingly inane details a good working over). Journalists are think are the hermit crabs of this little ecology metaphor (I really should have paid more attention in biology) and need someone’s ideas to crawl into and inhabit for a while. What results is a beautiful synthesis of ideas and communication rarely achieved by either on their own. Did I mention you should buy Freakonomics? You should.