Thomas Jefferson on Political Disagreements
“Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.”
“Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.”
When people mention Bayes’ Theorem, the cornerstone of much of modern probability thinking, most do not realize that much of the thinking to develop this theorem was done by Pierre-Simon Laplace, a French astronomer and mathematician. As if his work on that theorem was not enough to make him one of my heroes, I recently…
We Americans are notoriously bad at saving money. While people in Germany, Sweden and even France save about 10% of the money they make, folks in the U.S. save closer to 3 or 4% of their earnings. With so little money saved, Americans face difficulty absorbing economic shocks like recessions and layoffs, and also find…
Here is a quick summary from the Wall Street Journal of what the U.S. Federal Debt looks like now that we have avoided, at least for now, the fiscal cliff. As you will see, we didn’t do much to balance the budget. In the short run, that is ok. Too much balancing, too quickly, and…
Here’s the opening paragraph from a New York Times magazine article published in May of this year, about monk seals. What a great way to open the piece: The Hawaiian monk seal has wiry whiskers and the deep, round eyes of an apologetic child. The animals will eat a variety of fish and selfish, or…
I was recently struck by two news headlines that hit my email inbox on the same day: “Most Doctors Don’t Meet U.S. Push for Electronic Records” and “Sebelius touts new emphasis on healthcare data“. Do you see the problem here? If we really want to leverage “big data” to improve health care, we need physicians…
I have written a couple blog posts recently based on reflections inspired by Daniel Okrent’s wonderful book, Last Call. But there are so many wonderful tidbits from this book, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite quotes. First there is William Jennings Bryan, a prominent force in the Democratic Party at the end…