Economics and Replicability The key element of any true empirical result is replicability. If a result is not reproducible, then the purported effect was almost surely the result of either random chance, error, or fraud. This is not limited to the social sciences, of course. Two fairly famous incidents from the natural sciences highlight the […]

Clear Channel Entertainment Compares Bush to Hitler    You may recall the castigation MoveOn.org recieved after two entries to its Bush in Thirty Seconds ad contest compared Bush to Hitler. For the record, the entries were simply uploaded to MoveOn’s site without any screening; when MoveOn was alerted to the entries in question, they were […]

Typos Are Fine Apparently, the human eye and brain don’t really care what order the letters of a word are in: Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit […]

Anti-Terrorism History Repeating Itself?   The FBI is apparently adopting some new tactics in the fight against terror.  From a front page story in today’s Washington Post: Interviews Of Muslims To Broaden FBI Hopes to Avert a Terrorist Attack   FBI agents have launched a series of interviews of Muslims and Arab Americans in the […]

Sloppy Reporting from the New York Times   The New York Times is having difficulty correctly reporting the results of their own poll today.  The headline of the article reads “No Poll Boost from Edwards.”  Yet the poll results show the Kerry/Bush numbers (including Nader as an option) changing from 42/ 43 to 45/42 between […]

Kerry’s Cabinet Bruce Bartlett, a conservative columnist for The National Review, ponders who should comprise the economic team in a Kerry cabinet. Typically, I disregard or at least heavily discount advice from conservatives on what Democrats should do. For example, conservative NYT columnist David Brooks often waxes on about what Democrats should do to appeal […]

New Inflation Data   Yesterday’s PPI release and today’s CPI release from the BLS suggest that the growth in inflation (excluding the effects of oil prices) may already be tapering off in the economy.  Prices of producer fell in June thanks to lower energy prices, while consumers continued seeing higher prices for both energy and […]

Rick Santorum (R-PA) is a Jackass Regular readers know that I mostly try to avoid invective and ad hominem at this blog. But occasionally the complete and utter imbecility of a public figure leaves me with no choice. This time, and not for the first time, it’s Senator Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum. To be […]

Anti-Bush Protester Sent to Guantanamo Not really — they’re only ticketed and released. But if (and only if) this does happen, then I’ll start to consider seriously the idea that the Bush administration is planning to cancel the November election. In the meantime, I’ll just view the planning as something the government actually should be […]

Another Conservative Endorses Kerry If I were more cynical, I’d read this post by Dan Drezner (rational conservative, free trader, Bush-Cheney 2000 advisor) as an indication that he’ll eventually endorse Kerry but hopes in the meantime to create more suspense and interest (and traffic?) by maintaining his perch atop the fence for a while longer. […]