MEGAN MCARDLE HAS LEFT THE ECONOMIST and is now blogging for The Atlantic Monthly. But is there a sinister undertone to this move? “I am trying not to read any significance into the fact that just as I leave The Economist for this shiny new blog at The Atlantic Monthly, the financial markets melt down. Sure, the timing may be correct . . . the market began tanking about a week before my last day, which is par for insider trading deals. But it would be paranoid to take this as any sort of an omen. Wouldn’t it?”

To blame a drop in The Economist’s stock would be entirely reasonable. But would the entire market drop? . . . From “butterfly effect” to “blogger effect”!