James Stimson Answers My Questions About the Stimson Mood Index
Yesterday I wrote a post about the latest results of James Stimson’s national mood index, and I had a couple of questions about it. First, I wondered what it meant to say that a lot of people had a “liberal” view on something like inflation or the deficit. Second, I wondered if the increasing liberalness…
The Images Coming out of Hong Kong Are Simply Jawdropping
Hong Kong, Sunday, June 9, 2019. Vincent Yu/AP Photo More than a million people took to the streets in Hong Kong Sunday to protest a proposed law that would allow extraditions from the city to mainland China, a move critics say would give China power to remove political dissidents without input from local authorities and judges.…
Trump Finally Admits His Behavior Is “Not at All ‘Presidential’”
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before leaving the White House in Washington, Wednesday, March 20, 2019.Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo Late Saturday night, President Donald Trump acknowledged that “it is not at all ‘Presidential’” to attack the media the way he had when he criticized MSNBC’s Donny Deutsch, after the news host called Trump a criminal…
Are We Too Pessimistic About Happiness?
I was diddling around with some stuff after reading that New Zealand will henceforth be prioritizing happiness—“well-being and life satisfaction”—over economic growth, and came across this scatterplot about perceived happiness vs. actual happiness: In every single country, the average estimate of happiness is far lower than actual reported happiness. Every single country! In the US,…
Watch the Comedy Stylings of Rep. Katie Porter
Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for my representative in the United States Congress! Wow @RepKatiePorter out-funnied Bill Maher on his own show. Maher said he’s “squishy” on choice because his mom almost didn’t have him, and Porter absolutely brought down the house with this response pic.twitter.com/F6WDDfYSqQ — Tommy Xtophernobyl (@tommyxtopher) June 8, 2019
How US Government Funds Meant to Stop Poaching May Have Ended up Funding Torture
This story was originally published by HuffPost and is shared here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The House Natural Resources Committee has launched a bipartisan investigation into whether federal conservation grants support organizations linked to alleged human rights abuses overseas. The probe follows a BuzzFeed News investigation in March that found the World Wide Fund for Nature,…