Monthly Archives: March 2007
Friday fun with Freakonomics
I can’t shake a cold; I’m supposed to be going on vacation in two days and the British spring has lasted all of 2 days. But this made me laugh a lot this morning. The comments are particularly amusing. (HT … Continue reading
Anecdotes, Econ 101 and the French labour market
A debate on Free exchange has centred around the use of Economics 101 models, and a related threads at Jane Galt and Ezra Klein centre around the use of anecdote versus data. The two are clearly connected. If the point … Continue reading
Smaller chocolate and competitive paternalism.
Tim Worstall is irate because the Government appears to be suggesting that chocolate is sold in smaller sizes to tackle the obesity ‘crisis’. He said that surveys and food production statistics suggested that total calorie intakes had not increased. So, … Continue reading
Guido Fawkes is wrong
Last night, Newsnight featured a story by Guido Fawkes on bloggers vs Establishment News and included an exchange with Paxo, Michael White of the Guardian, and Guido himself (in an rather hilarious attempt at ‘anonymity’) – update here is the … Continue reading
Part III of The Trap
In the last part of his documentary, Adam Curtis completed his thesis illustrating how a particular idea of freedom (Berlin’s negative freedom) led to the pursuit of over-zealous policies in post-Communist Russia and Iraq. The idea is fairly cogent; negative … Continue reading
A load of Pony
Was there ever a more appropriate title for Adam Curtis’ slickly edited follow up to the Power of Nightmares? His thesis, that the failure of political society and democracy is due to our enthusiastic embrace of free markets and the hyper-rational seflish … Continue reading
Genes not Gina. Or why bringing up baby is like investing in a volatile stock market
A glance at the bookshelves reveals that baby-rearing theories change more often than the environment into which babies are born, and of course, far more frequently than humans evolve. Similarly there’s never a shortage of new investment guides from the … Continue reading
Burnham et al – the plot thickens
The Times runs a story on the latest developments querying Burnham et al. I’m one of the people that supported the study, not as a flawless piece of work, but as an important contribution to the study of mortality in … Continue reading