Sunday, June 28, 2009

Jim Manzi and Conor Clarke just had a great debate on whether Waxman-Markey is a net good or net bad. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Dihydrogen monoxide, the silent killer.
How bad is our infrastructure, really?
For those of us who track infrastructure madness in the press, the current round is mighty familiar. As deplorable as our bridges may be, they're better than they were a generation ago. Today, the government classifies about 25 percent of U.S. bridges as structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. A July 18, 1982, New York Times article headlined "Alarm Rise Over Decay in U.S. Public Works" cites government statistics that classify 45 percent of U.S. bridges deficient or obsolete.
Go, night owls!
Each person was given two rounds of fMRIs and cognitive tests, one day in the morning (1.5 hours after they woke up) and the other day in the evening (10.5 hours after they woke up). The evening test showed statistically different measures for the two groups: night owls maintained their response times better than the early birds. The morning test found the two results to be statistically identical.
Health Reform's Savings Myth:
Health-care costs grow at a faster rate than the economy by two percentage points per year. So it's true that if we could get them back in line with overall economic growth, government spending on health care would be so much lower than projected over time that long-term budget woes would ease.

Unfortunately, though many ideas are tossed around, no one really knows how to slow that cost growth.

Government rationing is the most probable end state.
Who runs Wikipedia and how. (HT: Geekpress)