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February 2015

February 20, 2015

Who pays for mass transit?

This is somewhat long-winded and it takes a while to get to my point (to...

February 19, 2015

Obama seems to think that ISIS is a new incarnation of the People’s Temple. Is he right?

Spoiler alert: no.But here's what I'm thinking:Obama repeatedly insists that ISIS is "not Islamic" and...

February 18, 2015

It’s Ash Wednesday

And I'm going to ramble a bit to see if anything interesting comes out.If you're...

February 18, 2015

Making sense of Obama’s Op-Ed

Is Obama just stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the connection between Islamic terror groups and, well,...

February 18, 2015

“Final resting place”

Here's an article (somewhat older, but the story's still the same) on Germany burial practices....

February 18, 2015

Parking a link: labor force participation

This map, from the New York Times, claims to be about how many women are...

February 18, 2015

Free Range Parenting

Here's a link to an NPR article on the subject, citing cases of parents in...

February 18, 2015

Parking a link: Boris Johnson and the IRS

Nothing particularly new in this news item out of The Atlantic, but worth a read...

February 17, 2015

From a reader: a question for my fellow actuaries (updated)

To be updated with my own reply later today, but I know I have other...

February 16, 2015

ISIS: have you seen these links?

"What ISIS really wants," from The Atlantic, is a pretty in-depth profile of ISIS and...

February 15, 2015

Just a reminder. . .

Please don't interpret the fact that I'm not writing about such developments as the latest...

February 15, 2015

Exhibit A on why we need tax reform

No, not nonsense about per-child or other kids of tax credits.But instead, a change in...

February 15, 2015

So I finally saw American Sniper. . .

It was a Valentine's Day outing with my husband. Yeah, not a standard Date Night...

February 13, 2015

From the library: Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created its Own Lost Generation, by Michael Zielenziger

This is actually an old book, dating from 2006. I strayed from the new book...

February 13, 2015

More on the Chapel Hill shooter, and anger

(For context, see my post from Wednesday.)I just wrote the text below as a comment...

February 12, 2015

What we’re missing about the Jackie Robinson West scandal

First of all, the reporting:Per the Chicago Tribune:Little League International stripped Jackie Robinson West of...

February 11, 2015

On the Chapel Hill shootings (first reactions) (plus updates)

(Update: see more reflections here.)For those in a cave, three people were shot in their...

February 11, 2015

Obama calls ISIS a “brutal, vicious death cult” – can we work with that?

(What's good, and bad, about blogging on your own is that it requires no self-discipline....

February 10, 2015

Obama, the Crusades, and the Jews

So right now lots of conservatives are flipping out that Obama compared ISIS to the...

February 10, 2015

Thinking about Obama’s denial of Radical Islamism, and his “anti-Crusades” speech

What does Obama really think about ISIS and radical Islam? And about the Crusades, for...

February 10, 2015

Agree or disagree? Tax credits, especially refundable tax credits, are nothing other than government benefits which happen to be provided through the tax code

The above pretty much says it all. I keep meaning to write more on tax...

February 10, 2015

From twitter: an interview with al-Sisi

Very interesting. And reading up on the situation in Egypt is on the to-do list.

February 10, 2015

Data exploring: the Census Explorer

Did you know that you can look at household income by census data, mapped? It's...

February 09, 2015

From the library: Whatever Happened to the Metric System? How America Kept its Feet, by John Bemelmans Marciano

I guess I'm being particularly nerdy lately, what with throwing various kinds of stats at...

February 09, 2015