(German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck) It might surprise most of you that Germany has only been a country since 1871. By the mid-19th century Germany was a series of states, thirty nine to be exact. The dominant principalities were Prussia and Bavaria, one dominated the Lutheran north, the other the Catholic south. The question must […]
The headline obviously raises the question of the origin of such a pulse and of its suggested frequency. On the other hand a damp squib (from a spectator point of view) can’t be ruled out entirely at this stage, although some of the cracks already appearing on the surface do look quite large and other […]
The rebel-controlled Yemeni rial is made up entirely of a fixed supply of notes printed prior to 2016. In the chart below you can see it appreciating in value (the blue line) against the dollar, issued by the world’s most powerful state. pic.twitter.com/vioXHmz2wQ — John Paul Koning (@jp_koning) November 15, 2023
Here’s a remarkable graph from the Council of Economic Advisers report on incarceration and the criminal justice system. The graph shows that the United States employs many more prison guards per-capita than does the rest of the world. Given our prison population that isn’t surprising. What is surprising is that on a per-capita basis we employ 35% […]
As the first Word War was drawing to a close, throughout the month of November 1918, all 22 monarchs within the German Empire were either forced to abdicate, or stepped down of their own accord. After the Oberste Heeresleitung stated the German front was about to collapse and asked for immediate negotiation of an armistice, […]
There are quite a few book-length studies of the Syrian Civil War. The distinctive thing about this one is that academic and author Christopher Phillips insists that other regional countries weren’t ‘drawn into’ the conflict once it had got going but, on the contrary, were involved right from the start, helped to exacerbate the initial […]
Two days ago at Texas Christian University, I debated Scott Sehon, chair of Bowdoin College’s Philosophy Department, on Capitalism versus Socialism. (Video forthcoming eventually). My opening statement was a slight variation on the one I wrote for an earlier debate on the same topic with Elizabeth Bruenig. Sehon’s opening statement was adapted from his Socialism:…
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
In Hume’s spirit, I will attempt to serve as an ambassador from my world of economics, and help in “finding topics of conversation fit for the entertainment of rational creatures.”
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.
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