January 2010 – William M. Briggs

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,…

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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…

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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…

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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,…

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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…

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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…

Culture

State of the Union Snippets: Live Blog (update continuously)

Started by intimating: It's bad now, but when it was bad before, it got good. "Answer history's call." "These struggles are why I ran for President." Thought: It's tough to…

Cary Cotterman on Do Dogs Poop In Alignment With The Earth’s Magnetic Field?September 3, 2026
More than seventy years of experience with dog ownership has made the fact clear to me that dogs squat pointing…
Uncle Mike on Do Dogs Poop In Alignment With The Earth’s Magnetic Field?September 3, 2026
The afterstory: three of the authors are now university presidents, and one is head of NSA.
shawn marshall on Do Dogs Poop In Alignment With The Earth’s Magnetic Field?September 3, 2026
for sure you have identified a scienterrific study full of dog poop
Brian (bulaoren) on Do Dogs Poop In Alignment With The Earth’s Magnetic Field?September 3, 2026
Well, a lot of current research product orients toward the left.
McChuck on Do Dogs Poop In Alignment With The Earth’s Magnetic Field?September 3, 2026
Perhaps the dogs prefer not to stare into the morning and evening sun? How does one measure the "calmness" of…