Megan McArdle

Reported errors are multiples of the percentage expected, even with the most generous interpretation of how mistakes are made. More »

I hardly know what to say about the latest developments in the Heartland document dump. Profanity seems too weak, and incredulity too tame.To recap for those who weren't following along at home, last week, someone emailed a bunch of climate bloggers documents that purportedly came from the Heartland Institute, a think tank which has been active in promoting skepticism about global warming:Dear Friends (15 of you): In the interest of transparency, I think you… More »

After yesterday's post on why I thought that one of the documents in the Heartland leak was a fake, I discovered that David Appell had been investigating along the same lines. Appell, however, looked at one thing that hadn't occurred to me: where the PDF was created. One of his commenters elaborates:I used a pdfinfo script to analyse the memos. The info I got is that all the meta data dates changed on the day of the leak in the Pacific time zone (-8 GMT). This is… More »

The climate blogs have been swept by quite a scoop in the past few days. An anonymous leaker identified only as "Heartland Insider" has dumped a cache of documents on climate blogs purporting to reveal the inner workings of the Heartland Institute, a vigorous promoter of skepticism about anthropogenic global warming.Over the course of a few days, details have emerged. According to Heartland, someone contacted them pretending to be a board member, and requested… More »

Upper East Siders don't want the proles lingering around the Metropolitan Museum of Art:"I don't think it's appropriate," Community Board 8 member Peggy Price said. "This is a neighborhood, not a place to hang out."Shift back to renting isn't working out so well for the very poor:"What we've seen is a decline in the homeownership rate since 2008, and we've seen rent being pushed up," pushing market-rate housing out of reach for an increasing number of people, said… More »

Is it just noise, congestion, and traffic? Who your neighbors are affects taxes, available services, and community culture. More »

Less than a century after we conquered syphilis and gonorrhea, the CDC warns that 100 percent antibiotic resistance is on its way. How will that change our modern sexual customs? More »

Yahoo has an interview with someone who writes greeting cards for a living. The section on word choice is fascinating:We tried to avoid 'soul mate terminology' because you don't know how well a couple is going to know each other or how well they're getting along. Some one might not feel comfortable using the word 'love' which is where the word 'special' comes in. You'll see that again and again on greeting cards: "for a special mom" or "for a special person." The… More »

Julian Sanchez calls for better regulation of meatspace:But what about all these hippy-dippy Real World anarchists who think meatspace can remain immune to the rules any well-managed virtual community understands to be essential? How is it, for instance, that citizens are physically capable of injuring each other, regardless of whether they've opted in to player-versus-player? And what fool designed it so that my image is visible to other all other users in the… More »

MIT is going to offer certificates for completion of low-cost online coursework, an offering the university is calling MITx. Stephen Gordon ponders the implications:Now, imagine a personnel manager at a mid-sized corporation who's looking for an employee with some particular knowledge. There are two candidates: one with an appropriate college degree from the local state school, a second with relevant MITx certificates. Let's say all other things between the… More »

BusinessWeek speculates that the attacks on Romney's work at Bain may cause pension funds to pull out of private equity deals:With public scrutiny focused on private equity funds, pension funds are more reluctant to invest and may ask for more details on job creation and push for lower fees, according to officials and trustees at public pensions. "Pension funds have boards. They don't want to be giving money to an industry that has a taint," says Tony James,… More »

The standard figure for drug discovery thrown around by the industry's most avid critics is the Light and Warburton estimate of roughly $43 million. Most serious analysts think that's way too low (I agree--their assumptions were bizarre, and their attempt to defend them in the comments to this Tim Noah piece is painful to read).The industry, and its supporters, prefer Joseph DiMasi's figure of around $800 million. But critics point out that it was derived using… More »

It looks like the Obama administration is pretty much completely caving on the rule forcing religious organizations to provide free contraception coverage for employees at facilities with a secular purpose (hospitals, schools, etc.). The onus has been shifted to insurance companies, which will contact women separately and offer them the optional coverage, which they will pay for. The insurers aren't happy, of course, but they never are these days. The… More »

We still don't really know what happened at MF Global, but Reuters is reporting that--much to the surprise of many involved--there is so far not much evidence of criminality.Lawyers and people familiar with the MF Global investigation of the firm that was run by former Goldman Sachs head Jon Corzine say that even though the hunt is still on to find out whether or not officials at MF Global intended to pilfer customer money in a desperate bid to keep the brokerage… More »

The history of Ireland in 100 excuses:34. Come all ye young rebels, and list while I sing/For the love of one's country is a terrible thing/It banishes fear with the speed of a flame/And it makes us all part of the patriot game. 35. He must have got it from his father's side - it couldn't have been from us. 36. "Your health!" 37. "Cheers!" 38. "Sláinte!" 39. "Is it your round or mine?" 40. "Last orders!" 41. "I suppose we might as well have one for the road… More »

Last October, after a conversation with Chicago Booth professor Steve Kaplan, I posted this graph showing that the share of national income going to the top 1% had fallen dramatically.This confirmed what I had expected--the taxable income of the wealthy generally tends to fall in recessions. But since earlier census data had seemingly contradicted that expectation, I thought it was worth blogging. As I explained: The larger question is "how much does it matter"?… More »

Kevin Drum reacts to a bill which aims to limit the stuff that welfare recipients can buy with their food stamps:What a dilemma. On the one hand, this bill promotes the exact same nanny-state behavior that Republicans howl about when Michelle Obama or Michael Bloomberg starts nattering on about salt consumption or fatty foods. On the other hand, it punishes welfare recipients, something that's always good for a round of applause from right-wing audiences. What's a… More »

Adventures in health care reform, via the Angry Pharmacist, who is very angry, and a wee bit profane:Usual reimbursement from MediCal is our drug cost (give or take a few percent to account for wholesaler markups, etc) plus a dispensing fee of a single digit number (less than 10 bucks for those drunk at home). If I dispense, say, Fukitol, with a ballpark (yet entirely reasonable) price of $200, I can expect to make about $210 bucks. Those slow out there may be… More »

It's far better to discover important truths that never leave the Ivory Tower than propagate errors that take the world by storm.Still no deal in Greece. A twitter correspondent suggests that maybe the Troika now think markets are strong enough to just let Greece go, and I'm starting to wonder if he's right:A meeting among Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos, the parties supporting his coalition, and New Democracy, the opposition conservative party, broke up… More »

Last year, we bought a house for two main reasons: we were sick of moving, and I wanted a better kitchen. We were living in a flip house that had been designed by a contractor with a rather spotty work ethic, and some very strange ideas about what makes for gracious living. (Wine fridge in the kitchen--and less than three feet of total counter space. Two jacuzzi tubs--and a hot water heater the size of a thimble. Frightful things going on in the walls, which… More »