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We Win!
John Kitzhaber appears to have won the Oregon governor's race by about 10,000 votes. Major media outlets are calling him the winner, and his Republican opponent has conceded. Regular readers may now breathe a sigh of relief ( Read more... ) -
Making Sense of American Politics
A lot of American politics can be understood with the help of a few observations:- Americans are profoundly ignorant of economics. In particular, they do not understand how government deficit spending can trigger a recovery from a recession like one we're currently experiencing. This means that their judgments about what should and should not be ( Read more... )
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Yay...?
It looks like John Kitzhaber may very narrowly edge out Chris Dudley in the Oregon governor's race ( Read more... ) -
Election Day!
Election day is upon us! Oregon ballots must be received by 8:00 pm Tuesday, so if you haven't voted yet, you'll need to hand-deliver your ballot.
Pester your friends. Nag your family. Harangue strangers on the street.
The Oregon governor's race remains -- inexplicably! -- too close to call. Your vote does matter. -
About that deficit
If you don't keep track of the interest rates on government debt, you might not know that investors are willing to pay the Treasury to take their money. That's right: for the last couple of weeks, the real interest rate on five-year Treasuries (i.e. the five year TIPS yield) has been negative. And the real rate on ten-year debt was a minuscule 0. ( Read more... ) -
More on the Oregon Governors Race
Recent polling data suggests that the Kitzhaber - Dudley race is basically a coin toss. FiveThirtyEight is estimating a 0.6% margin for Kitzhaber and gives him only a 55% chance of winning. Tim Hibbitts's outfit finds a three point lead for Dudley ( Read more... ) -
Voting
athenian_abroad has mailed in his Oregon ballot. Have you? Has everyone you know? Go vote! Then leave a comment here! -
Some Death Rates
The other day, I happened to be looking at 2007 death rates published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. (Yes, I'm a peculiar sort of fellow.) I was looking for something else, but the figures for homicide and suicide happened to catch my eye, so I thought I'd share a few with my lucky readers. (Source: National Vital Statistics Reports, ( Read more... ) -
Shameless Plug
Yet another friend of mine has co-authored and edited a book: Queen of the Great Below: An Anthology in Honor of Ereshkigal. Order your copy today!
ETA: Galina Krasskova interviews the author: Janet: Spirituality has been very important to me since I was a little girl. I was raised non-denominational Protestant, and church was a very important ( Read more... ) -
Tempting!
I may have to go to Berkeley after all....
http://ineteconomics.org/grant/berkeley-economics-history-lab