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Mitt Romney just discovered that he can’t get the nomination without endorsing vicious union-busting measures. But the reason he ducked on Measure 5 in Ohio is that Ohio voters hate it. And he can’t win the election without carrying Ohio.
Archive for October, 2011
October 26th, 2011
Category: public health, Public management
The leading substance use-related cause of death in Mexico is smoking, which claims over 40,000 lives per year. But it is violent deaths, particularly among the young, which claim the most popular and media attention. We thus should be deeply concerned about the more than 24,000 violent deaths that happen each year in Mexico because [...]
October 26th, 2011
Let’s put it plainly. The demands of Occupy Wall Street are both valid and popular. The people occupying Wall Street are total flakes. The second fact in no way discredits the first. The people in Zuccotti Park aren’t the best people to carry forth their message—but they don’t need to be. They’ve already catalyzed others to do the job.
October 25th, 2011
Category: Public management
I was born and reared in West Virginia but now live in California. The contrast between the economies of the two states could not be more stark. West Virginians (who thank God that Arkansas and Mississippi sometimes keep us from being 50th on lists of economic and social indicators) rank nearly dead last on median [...]
October 25th, 2011
Category: Uncategorized
A cross-post on some steps that can be taken to improve U.S undergraduate education at research universities.
October 25th, 2011
Category: Psychology
Human beings are far from rational and perhaps particularly so when we think about things that scare us. Two conversations this week: (1) A colleague tells of a couple he knew who fled a firestorm that ravaged a large section of the city. The husband and wife drove their own individual cars and got separated [...]
October 24th, 2011
Category: Watching Conservatives
To be well positioned in a Republican primary, a candidate needs to want children brought to this country by their undocumented parents to remain both ignorant and sick. In this country’s long history, has there ever before been a major party so flat-out morally depraved?
October 24th, 2011
Take it from someone on a plane: guns in *checked* baggage are not a security threat. The mental metonymy that makes them seem so is a liberty threat, and one that I hope our institutions will forestall.
October 22nd, 2011
Category: Uncategorized
The Wall Street Journals’ bloggers have shared their pessimism about rising global GHG emissions. Here is their piece’s last paragraph; “But the fact remains that all that lies between us and “a long-term global temperature increase of more than 3.5 Celsuis with dangerous consequences for the global environment and human welfare,” is a hoped-for technological miracle.” But, [...]