Briggs

Two Open Letters To Congress On Climate Change, And A New Third

There are two open letters shot off to Congress these last days, one from "alarmist" scientists and the other from "denialist" scientists1. Those pejoratives were not picked by me, but…

Statistics

In Their Own Words: Obama On Health, Holder On Race

Pay for your own damn health care In an interview with Bill O'Reilly, President O'bama said What I hear you saying is that the notion that us saying to people…

Culture

Music Not So Super At Super Bowl: Faked Cheering?

Oh, say, can you see, by the field's klieg lights, what so proudly we hailed? And proudly hailed to the world over in full Dolby surround-sound HD. What an embarrassment!…

Statistics

A Correction: I’ve Been Misquoted

On Thursday, 3 February of this year I was called by Saginaw News reporter Deborah Brown, who asked me, among other things, about claims made by folks like Al Gore…

Fun Statistics

Super Bowl Indicator Busted: A Sports/Markets Indicator for the Next Century—Guest Post by Doug Magowan

Doug Magowan spends his days poring over financial numbers. Today he offers us, tongue firmly in cheek, a new way to get rich quick. All you have to do is…

Statistics

Planet Earth Al Gore Explains ‘Snowmageddon’: Fox News Story

I was quoted by Gene Koprowski in his Fox News story "Planet Earth Al Gore Explains 'Snowmageddon'". (This accounted for the several hundred Google and other search engine redirects to…

Culture

New York City Democrats Remove Yet Another Right: No Smoking In Parks

The party that ever has "Rights!" on its lips, the party with the mania about diversity, the party that is most anxious that religious fundamentalists will take over and impose…

Statistics

Are Tree Rings Low Pass Temperature Filters?

I don't know the answer to this question: I am not an expert in this area, and I haven't the time or resources to track down the data to discover…

PonderPoints on A New Physics Arises: Irreducible by Federico Faggin ReviewedJuly 17, 2026
You argue that Faggin is right to reject mechanistic emergence but wrong to award consciousness to every field or “seity,”…
John Pate on University of California Prof Tries To Save System From DIEingJuly 15, 2026
I don't believe China to be hampered by such nonsense or, for that matter, much of S.E.A. in general.
Rudolph Harrier on My Horrible Interaction With AIJuly 15, 2026
I don't find LLMs to be particular bad at D&D in comparison to other things. For example, I queried an…
JohnK on Hume’s Guillotine, Euclid’s Catapult: Induction, Axioms, and Objective EthicsJuly 15, 2026
Does one detect the sea-captain's lurking circularity in this "we" who "need air, gravity, food..." etc.? And don't "we" also…
hudbwu on Hume’s Guillotine, Euclid’s Catapult: Induction, Axioms, and Objective EthicsJuly 15, 2026
Hume: "People saying things doesn't translate into rules for living." Stultes: "OMG I can do whatever I want!" If only…