Monthly Archives: July 2012

How Much Math is Enough?

Posted on July 30, 2012 by

Regular readers know that education policy is not my forte (although I have expressed some opinions), but there was a confluence of articles over the weekend that I feel the need to discuss here. The first was Andrew Hacker’s outrageous … Continue reading →

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Cigarette Taxes and Unintended Consequences

Posted on July 27, 2012 by

One of the best questions you can ask a social scientist is, “and then what?” Thinking about second-order effects is essential to smart research and policy-making. Research on the unintended consequences of cigarette taxes helps to illustrate this point: Besides … Continue reading →

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Wednesday Nerd Fun: How to Win at Jeopardy

Posted on July 25, 2012 by

Alex: “You know Roger, you could set a new one day record.” Roger: “What’s the old one?” Roger Craig should have known the answer, because he held the old record. Craig says it works like Moneyball — a reference to … Continue reading →

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PolMeth 2012 Round-Up, Part 2

Posted on July 24, 2012 by

Yesterday I discussed Thursday’s papers and posters from the 2012 Meeting of the Political Methodology Society. Today I’ll describe the projects I saw on Friday, again in the order listed in the program. Any attendees who chose a different set … Continue reading →

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PolMeth 2012 Round-Up, Part 1

Posted on July 23, 2012 by

Duke and UNC jointly hosted the 2012 Meeting of the Society for Political Methodology (“PolMeth”) this past weekend. I had the pleasure of attending, and it ranked highly among my limited conference experiences. Below I present the papers and posters … Continue reading →

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Micro-Institutions Everywhere: Walking Paths

Posted on July 20, 2012 by

I was delighted to discover an example of micro-institutions at work this week right in my own backyard, er, campus. Several of my classes have been held in the Social Psychology building on Duke’s West Campus. Most traffic to this … Continue reading →

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Wednesday Nerd Fun: TV Writers Podcast

Posted on July 18, 2012 by

From June Thomas: The format of the Nerdist Writers Panel is pretty straightforward. Host Ben Blacker, a writer with credits on Supah Ninjas and Supernatural, interviews TV writers—often in groups of three, but occasionally one-on-one—about how they broke into the … Continue reading →

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Does State Spending on Mental Health Lower Suicide Rates?

Posted on July 16, 2012 by

That’s the title of a new paper (gated) in the Journal of Socio-Economics by Justin Ross, Pavel Yakovlev, and Fatima Carson. Here’s the abstract: Using recently released data on public mental health expenditures by U.S. states from 1997 to 2005, … Continue reading →

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Petition for TSA to Obey the Law

Posted on July 13, 2012 by

From Jim Harper (via Josh Cutler): A year ago this coming Sunday, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ordered the Transportation Security Administration to do a notice-and-comment rulemaking on its use of Advanced Imaging Technology (aka “body-scanners” … Continue reading →

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Wednesday Nerd Fun: Python for iOS

Posted on July 11, 2012 by

This one is short and sweet. Would you like to be able to write Python code on an iOS device? Now you can, with this app. I have spent some time playing around with the app this week, and it … Continue reading →

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