A public service announcement about grad school (via Brad, I think).

"This would be a better country if the new administrator of our public goods jurisdiction were ushered into office with all the fanfare of a shift change at Target."
-- Kerry Howley

This is pith I can only humbly aspire to. Also, I'm pleased to see that at least Chris Rock has decisively broken ranks with the celebrity caste* of narcissistic ( Read more... )

This tickles several of my happy places (via Will), and while I could quibble with some details of the account of the etymology of "fair" -- e.g. that the aesthetic origins of "fair" and "foul", if you go all the way back to the Middle Ages, can tell you a lot about the origins of morality and shouldn't be ignored -- the whole thing is pretty good ( Read more... )

". . . as long as managers are paid a percentage for managing other people's money, they will compete with each other based on the returns they appear to generate. The pressure to create out-sized returns will eventually force them to invent the latest complex scheme which will have the same effect: eventually the investors lose it all. Complex ( Read more... )

I've said before that drug companies owe much of their profitability to their spectacular marketing departments, but have perhaps not emphasized enough that this is true on almost every level of decision-making between development and consumption; people make a big deal about DTC ads, but that's perhaps the least insidious route. Far, far more ( Read more... )

This is one of those posts that I know deep in my bones that I'm going to regret, but what the hell: reverend_kate recently brought up one of everyone's favorite topics -- the Arab-Israeli conflict -- and I can't resist tonguing a sore tooth. There are at least three Damned Facts about this situation that I think are undeniable ( Read more... )

Most changes don't turn out to be revolutions, and actual revolutionary changes don't usually go around announcing their presence for all to hear.

So, my ceiling is leaking in the face of rather tame rain. And not just one quaint little isolated drip per minute, either -- which is what it was the last time this happened, and I mentioned it to the derelict gits downstairs ( Read more... )

While I'm brushing the remaining dust kicked up by the election out of my hair, here's another analysis by Andrew Gelman to follow up the one that I linked to before -- by the numbers, this election was a swing toward the Democratic party and not Obama in particular. Also, he has posts on voting patterns and census size and income levels by county ( Read more... )

Belatedly, I want to point out that soulchanger made roughly the election post I'd have made if I hadn't been hiding under a rock waiting for the collective madness to blow over. I endorse nearly the whole thing, but I'm lifting the really choice bit because it deserves to be read:
I'm not asking you all to change your minds. I'm not demanding you all become ( Read more... )