You are here

Bruce's blog

Weekend Reads 12/5/15

Please don’t suddenly pretend you care about homeless veterans for just as long as it allows you to oppose helping refugees

People who genuinely care about one good thing do not treat every other good thing as competition that must be crushed and stopped.

up
356 users have voted.

Why Are Middle-Aged White Americans Killing Themselves?

A new study (pdf) released by Princeton University researchers Anne Case and Angus Deaton shows a steady long-term increase in the mortality rate of non-Hispanic white Americans aged 45-54. This runs counter to the trend we see among other industrialized nations and even among U.S. Hispanics.

Mortality rates

up
341 users have voted.

A Thanksgiving Prayer

Sometimes I take things for granted. I have a roof over my head. I have a stable job that provides me with decent wages and a good health insurance plan.

up
359 users have voted.

In Denial about Denial

Last month Senator Ted Cruz discussed climate change with Glen Beck:

up
412 users have voted.

Progressive Taxation

Prager "University" is a website created in 2012 by radio talk show host and columnist Dennis Prager. The website offers a series of five-minute videos on a wide range of social, political, and economic topics, and is intended to provide an alternative to a "liberal bias" which Prager believes is common in university settings.

A typical video is the following attack on the progressive income tax.

up
396 users have voted.

Weekend Reads 11/14/15

Science Isn't Broken

Which political party is best for the economy seems like a pretty straightforward question. But as you saw, it’s much easier to get a result than it is to get an answer. The variables in the data sets you used to test your hypothesis had 1,800 possible combinations. Of these, 1,078 yielded a publishable p-value, but that doesn’t mean they showed that which party was in office had a strong effect on the economy. Most of them didn’t.

up
308 users have voted.

Furor Over Starbucks Holiday Cups: Poe's Law in Action

It started last week with a breitbart.com article by Raheem Kassam. Though he claims he doesn't even like Starbucks coffee, Kassam looks forward to Starbucks' annual tradition of red cups for the holidays.

up
400 users have voted.

Pages

Theme by Danetsoft and Danang Probo Sayekti inspired by Maksimer