Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Monday, March 16, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Belligerent chimp proves animals make plans
According to a report in the journal Current Biology, the 31-year-old alpha male started building his weapons cache in the morning before the zoo opened, collecting rocks and knocking out disks from concrete boulders inside his enclosure. He waited until around midday before he unleashed a "hailstorm" of rocks against visitors, the study said.Meanwhile, Bush's lack of planning proves some primates don't.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
MoveOn from a greed to a green economy?
Obama addresses congress and focuses on a green economy
Full speech here
Looks like MoveOn wants to help out:
Full speech here
Looks like MoveOn wants to help out:
MoveOn members voted overwhelmingly that we should hire more organizers, run ads, and launch a huge volunteer campaign to create a clean-energy economy and create millions of green jobs. Now, we need to know we'll have the resources to pull it off. Can you make a monthly contribution to support our massive campaign? We'll bill your credit card today and on the 3rd of every month going forward. You can stop at any time. You can also make a one-time contribution but your monthly gift will make a big difference.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
EPA to Issue Carbon Dioxide Rule, Obama Climate Czar Says
That would start the ball rolling...
"The next step is a notice of proposed rulemaking," for new regulations on CO2 emissions, Ms. Browner said one the sidelines of the National Governors Association meeting, one of her first public appearances since inauguration.
Ms. Browner declined to say exactly when the EPA would issue the finding or rulemaking, but EPA chief Lisa Jackson has indicated it could be on April 2, the anniversary of Mass Vs. EPA.
Officially recognizing that carbon dioxide is a danger to the public sets would trigger regulation of the greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants, refineries, chemical plants, cement firms, vehicles and any other emitting sectors across the economy.
Industry fears it could shut down the economy, not only preventing plants to operate and a drastic retooling of the energy sector but also pushing costs up uncompetitively, while environmentalists say that Administration action is required by law and to pressure lawmakers to act.
But Ms. Browner said the Administration would prefer that Congress would draft legislation rather than co2 to be regulation under the Clean Air Act because lawmakers could develop a bill that could more deftly regulate the greenhouse gas through a cap-and-trade system.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said Friday he aimed to pass a climate change bill by the end of the summer, and Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.) head of the panel responsible for drafting a co2 bill, said he wanted a bill approved by Memorial Day.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
What would the poor say?
Recently NYU held a conference entitled "What Would the Poor Say? Debates in Aid Evaluation". You can find many of the ppts of the talks here at William Easterly's new blog "Aid Watch".
I've only looked at a few of them, but I thought I'd highlight two of them who take fairly (although not entirely) contrasting positions. First is Esther Duflo's talk that focuses on the benefits of experimental design for improving aid interventions. The other is William Duggan's short piece arguing against just using statistical evaluation. He suggest two other methodological techniques: historical political economy and qualitative investigation. What I find interesting about both of these is that ultimately they are both asking the same question: what works? but with a very important difference in terms of what the explanation looks like. In other words, they are both looking to test and generate theory, but theory of very different types.
I think Chris Blattman's notion of Evaluation 2.0* nicely captures the means that these two seemingly contrasting approaches can be combined, namely by defining explanation as the identification of the working causal mechanisms. The answer to what works? is the itetification of the active causal mechanism (ideally the intervention), its structure, what its causal tendency is, and how it interacts with particular aspects of the context. In other words, relevant research question is: what works (or not), how, for whom, and in what contexts? From that we can move to the methodological design that provides the best possible answer given the research opportunities the intervention affords.
I've only looked at a few of them, but I thought I'd highlight two of them who take fairly (although not entirely) contrasting positions. First is Esther Duflo's talk that focuses on the benefits of experimental design for improving aid interventions. The other is William Duggan's short piece arguing against just using statistical evaluation. He suggest two other methodological techniques: historical political economy and qualitative investigation. What I find interesting about both of these is that ultimately they are both asking the same question: what works? but with a very important difference in terms of what the explanation looks like. In other words, they are both looking to test and generate theory, but theory of very different types.
I think Chris Blattman's notion of Evaluation 2.0* nicely captures the means that these two seemingly contrasting approaches can be combined, namely by defining explanation as the identification of the working causal mechanisms. The answer to what works? is the itetification of the active causal mechanism (ideally the intervention), its structure, what its causal tendency is, and how it interacts with particular aspects of the context. In other words, relevant research question is: what works (or not), how, for whom, and in what contexts? From that we can move to the methodological design that provides the best possible answer given the research opportunities the intervention affords.
* This notion of a causal mechanism has been around a while in the phil. of social science, but Blattman's example is nice and clear. This type of theory is applicable at both the macro and micro level.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
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