Briggs

Why Global Warming Won’t Go Away: Inertia

Rajendra Pachauri---chairman of the IPCC, railway engineer, and the man who penned these words, "Sanjay saw a shapely dark-skinned girl lying on Vinay's bed. He was overcome by a lust…

Culture Philosophy

Tim Tebow’s Super Bowl Ad and the Washington Post Editorial

Very delicate ground, here. I want to be as precise as I know how in discussing the language used in today's Washington Post editorial about the upcoming Tim Tebow ad,…

Culture Statistics

Welcome-to-Saturday Links

My heart soared like a hawk this week after several readers sent in fascinating stories. Here are a few of them. Reader Sara C sent in a wonderful example of…

Statistics

R Lecture 4: Help & Plotting

This is the fourth in a series of lectures on R. 10 minutes is a shockingly short period of time! Today, we learn the R way to create comments: start…

Statistics

R Lecture 3: Our First Program!

This is the third in a series of lectures on R. (DAV, I kept the intro for one last time.) Open the myRcode.R file we saved in our myR folder.…

Culture

Two-and-a-Half Millennia Don’t Change Much

Herodotus begins his history by telling us that some Phoenician traders came to Argos, Greece and, on a whim, abducted the king's daughter Io and took her to Egypt. Later,…

Statistics

Create Tax Refunds That Must Be Donated To Political Parties?

In the State of the Union address, President Obama thought it would be pleasant to slam the Supreme Court, shaming them for their recent Citizens United v. FEC decision. Our…

Statistics

R Lecture 2: Prepping a Folder

Main page for R Lectures. This is the second in a series of lectures on R. R is command-line software. We need to type in commands. These commands should be…

spaceranger on Antichrist, by Saint Robert BellarmineNovember 27, 2025
The online world is our graven image and celebrity culture our false idol.
Brian (bulaoren) on Old Lodge Skins’ Prayer Of ThanksgivingNovember 27, 2025
One thing I am always grateful for (well, 4 days a week) is being able to enjoy your posts. Thank…
Uncle Mike on Old Lodge Skins’ Prayer Of ThanksgivingNovember 27, 2025
Gratitude (n.) mid-15c., "good will," from Latin gratus "thankful, pleasing, agreeable" related to Latin gratis "favor, mercy, virtue" (source of…
Tracy Platt on The Apples In A Sack Paradox: Solve It Or You Get No Pie TomorrowNovember 26, 2025
I think Rudolf comes closest except for this being a garbage problem. My guess is we will see similar arguments…
John Pate on The Apples In A Sack Paradox: Solve It Or You Get No Pie TomorrowNovember 26, 2025
Mr Harrier is on the right lines: see previous blog where I was berating sundry for worrying about using probability…