In the Coursera class Behavioral Economics taught by Duke Professor Dan Ariely, all the students had to write a mid-term essay in which they described the ideas of Behavioral Economics and how the methods of the discipline could be used to solve an economic problem. Despite the fact, that most of the methods in the class to date applied to individual economic decision making, the…
Image from Streetlog For the past five years, the GOP has been able to marshall block votes against most Democratic critical legislation in Congress. Given the continued exploitation of the filibuster rule in the Senate where a 60-40 vote is required to pass any legislation that Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell cares to oppose. Because the GOP has 46 Senators and leader McConnell can rely…
WhatNowCartoons The GOP has been attacking President Obama for all the Wrong Reasons: Benghazi Libyan embassy fight when the GOP had previously cut the State Departments defense funding. Or No New Taxes when there is general consensus that tax revenues have dried up and tax reform is way overdue. Or the constant return to Obama’s birth certificate. Yet for the past four years, the Obama administration…
Only in the USA could a majority vote for Gun Reform be turned upside down in the US Senate. This is on Universal Gun Buyer Background checks which currently have majority popular support reaching as high as 91% of the US electorate in over a half dozen polls. No matter how you ask the question, a majority of the Public supports background checks. But because it…
The US Job Creators are doing critical things very right by many Business standards. First and foremost, US Job Creators are making big , yes record profits. As seen in this chart for 2012. US Job Creators profits reached a new record level as a 11.3% of the total output of the economy: US Corporate Profits in 2012 as a Percentage of Total US GDP…
The Sunday Morning News Talk Shows on the major networks have been courting disater. ABCTV’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos has moved up to a new level of competence The formula for the Sunday News Shows in which two talking heads from the major parties are brought on the show to debate an issue but actually a)demonstrate they are indeed artful dodgers by not responding…
The occasion of President Obama’s trip to Israel has triggered a number of different articles across Web news media. Remarkably, the topic continues to center on one issue – the ever expanding Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank territory. Now some will take exception to the notion of Palestinian West bank territory despite the many UN resolutions in Palestine’s favor on the subject, so…
The Daily Beast is covering the AIPAC – America Israel Public Affiars Committee conference where Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren advanced the notion that Likud partty leader and Israeli Prime Minister had been willing to stick his neck out for a two-state solution. TheDailyBeast sets the record straight in no uncertain terms: Netanyahu’s Likud party has shown through its follow-up that it’s never really taken the…
The DailyBeast has helped create and promote the following Gun Control infographic on a website called ThisIsYourRepOnGuns: Every Senator and member of the House of Representatives is listed. Their own words on gun control are available – and what voting actions and financial support they have taken on the issue. There are ratings of the members by the two largest gun control lobby groups –…
In an importnat posting in the DailyBeast Republican pundit David Frum takes direct aim at the NRA for their attack ads against Obama and daughters in the name of the NRA’s Armed Guards in Schools. This is the nasty swill that permeated the Presidential election and which an electorate in bipartisan fashion has rejected for going well beyond civil decency. But Frum goes beyond the…
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Captain Jack Aubrey and Spymaster Stephen Maturin are the matching pieces in this historical novel. It is remarkable that English literature has two series, Horatio Hornblower and Aubrey + Maturin both set in the same era and of such great quality. Desolation Island tells you why the era of the dawning Enlightenment, European Wars and Industrial Revolution was so tempestuous... and on a prison ship voyage to Australia. Such drama!