I think I’ve posted about this Dan Ariely study before but this is a great video that explains it clearly and adds some analysis. It’s also only the first part of a series of videos from PBS on wealth inequality in the U.S.? It’s nice to know that topic isn’t completely taboo. Watch the [...]
You never give me your money–The Beatles Today, one good global health read and one good global health listen: 1) Paul Farmer writes this great article in Foreign Affairs called Partners in Help about why charity or foreign aid should be called accompaniment (via Karen Grepin’s Global Health Blog): “Accompaniment” is an elastic term. It [...]
I love big questions and big ideas. Here are 70 academics talking about one of the biggest questions and one of the biggest ideas in human history: is there a god? The first video has 50 atheists and the second video has 20 believers. I love listening to brilliant minds contemplate this type of question. [...]
Itchy Fingers–Junior Boys Yesterday, while putting together my data set for my thesis, I realized that if the Canadian long-form census had always been voluntary, my research would have been severely compromised. And it set my off. Most of you will probably remember the controversy recently over replacing the mandatory long-form census with a [...]
You may be right–Billy Joel I haven’t been posting much recently on health. I think it might be because I spend the entire rest of my day thinking about health so I’ve been avoiding reading about it in the morning. And today is going to be no different. Once again, I’ve been dazzled by [...]
Schoolin’ Life–Beyonce If I weren’t wrapped up in my thesis I would write a much longer post about this. I’ll admit it’s not what some would call a thrilling read but, in the grand scheme of things, I think I’m much better off having read this post by Ian Pollock at Rationally Speaking about [...]
Every time I hear Matt Damon’s name I always think of how he was portrayed in South Park and I feel compelled to say his name that way. I always knew he was really intelligent and that he stood up for really good causes but I couldn’t stop saying his name like that. This video [...]
Too Wild — Love Inks Did you ever stop to think that every single one of your ancestors had to survive long enough to reproduce? Every single one going back to the beginning of life almost four billion years ago? Abstruse Goose has a testament to this in webcomic form. Here’s part of it. [...]
I study and work in epidemiology and it’s really bad for small talk. When people ask me what I do sometimes I answer, “medical research” just to dull the blow. When I do say epidemiology people either change the subject because they have no idea what epidemiology is, or they change the subject because they [...]
Helplessness Blues — Fleet Foxes Monbiot has a short article up on why Tea Partiers in the US continue to vote against their own interests: There are two ways of cutting a deficit: raising taxes or reducing spending. Raising taxes means taking money from the rich. Cutting spending means taking money from the poor. [...]
