Towards a modern “History of Republics”: a consideration of William Everdell’s “The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicans” In view of the horrific damage that the Trump Administration has done to the American Republic, during the past year I have done extensive reading of the histories of a number of the most […]
The Art of Juxtaposition Seen in today’s New York Times in Print:
Oil prices are collapsing as West Texas intermediate is now trading at just over $11/bbl Oil prices move to the point where the marginal supply is profitable or unprofitable. In today’s world the marginal oil supply is US fracked oil. But the economics of fracked oil differs from traditional oil in that the current cost […]
Coronavirus dashboard for April 20: a few positive development Here is the update through yesterday (April 19) As usual, significant developments are in italics. Yesterday saw the biggest number of daily tests, and ratio of total vs. positive tests so far, both positive developments. The number and rate of daily infections and deaths also declined, but […]
The Usual Deficit Blather from the New York Times The Times today ran a truly execrable article warning us that, once the virus has passed, we will suffer dire consequences from the runup of government debt. As most readers know, this argument is theoretically illiterate, derived from the false comparison between household and government debt. We’ve been […]
This note was published on April 17, 2020, at NEJM.org. As a chief physician executive, I rarely get involved in my health system’s supply-chain activities. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed that. Protecting our caregivers is essential so that these talented professionals can safely provide compassionate care to our patients. Yet we continue to be stymied by […]
I want to try to punch above my weight (and be a troll) and contest this Dr. Kathryn Hibbert, director of the medical intensive care unit at Massachusetts General Hospital … said it will take weeks or months to get results and doctors and patients will need to wait for the results of the clinical […]
A bit of a post-mortem on my last post. Andrew Gelman discusses the Santa Clara county study here. He focuses on sample imbalances, selection bias, and especially the way the authors deal with the specificity of the test. See his post for the gory details, but he is quite critical of the study, to the […]
(Dan here…I know its long, broad, … but I think it says somethings that need be said. Another look??) by reader Ken Melvin The Anthropocene and Global Warming Anthropocene: geological epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth’s geology and ecosystems. Someday, anthropologists and historians will look again at the possible causes […]