Robert's Stochastic thoughts

Now *This* is a Washington Post Headline I Can Believe In Topless Women, Headless Prime Minister Mouthpiece Theater | Silvio Berlusconi'...

Classic Ballance "Opinions on Shape of Earth Differ" has been surpassed. The current top parody of Ballance in the Washington Pos...

In the days before the vote, my Iranian contacts breathlessly compared the atmosphere in Iran to that of 1979, the year of the Islamic Revol...

Rule number 1 Nate Silver is always right Rule number 2 If Nate Silver is wrong consult rule number 1 Andrew Sullivan says the almost perfec...

Iranian Interior Ministry Insults World's Intelligence It is absolutely clear that the official vote count in the Iranian presidential ...

Shorter Sokratic Dialogue I am aware of all internet traditions, but I will make the character "Sokrates" created by Brad DeLong ...

Senate Ethics Fantasy Paul Kane notes that many legislators who will be reforming the health care sector have personal stakes being shareho...

Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia and the Iranian supreme leader has always been more powerful that the Iranian president. I am e...

March 8th Now has three meanings Once it was just a day in the year. Then it was declared to be international women's day by the first ...

Europe in more trouble than I thought Just when I thought it was safe to get my mind back to this continent, I received an e-mail from some ...

Politics, the English Language, the New York Senate coup and The New York Times's copy editing. I am trying to figure out whether the Ne...

The Second Time as Farce: Reflections on Looking Into a Four Day old "la Repubblica" Facing the always unpleasant prospect of act...

Scare quotes matter for once. Update: I am totally full of fecal material. Not only does the post below add nothing *Nothing* to the posts...

Rest of Europe not so good. My general impression of the European elections is that Europeans are very angry (no surprise) and alarmingly wi...

Total Humiliation Avoided For Now Just when I thought it was safe to read polls in my native country, Italy my country of residence began sc...

The Big Picture The biggest picture -- that large scale structure of the universe. Once I was in an airport and I met someone I vaguely kne...

Stop the Presses. Something important happened. Barack Obama declared this month to be "LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER PRIDE...

Last Throes Bob Herbert actually hopes that the absurd argument that dumb people graduate Summa from Princeton to be the last throes of US ...

Going Back to the Poisoned Well House Republicans, hoping to put Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) back on defense, are weighing whether to ta...

NIMBY arguments against closing Guantanamo explained Many bloggers are mystified by the argument that closing Guantanamo will bring (suspect...