Reading

Created
Fri, 26/12/2025 - 21:41
After mastering the technicalities of regression analysis and econometrics, students often feel as though they are masters of the universe. I usually bring them back down to earth by assigning Christopher Achen’s modern classic Interpreting and Using Regression. This tends to put them back on track, helping them to understand that “no increase in methodological […]
Created
Fri, 26/12/2025 - 05:14
When a liberal society faces the question of granting special privileges, immunities, and political autonomy to one cultural group … it cannot compromise on fundamental human rights. Furthermore, those who understand liberal democracy as itself a way of life grounded in a distinct moral faith cannot in good conscience agree to allow schools or the government […]
Created
Thu, 25/12/2025 - 15:52
My blog is on holiday until Tuesday, January 6, 2026. We are planning to finish the manuscript for the Second Edition of our Macroeconomics textbook by year’s end and that is what I am working fervently on in the next week. I am also preparing for a conversation next week with the Post-Neoliberalism Oral History…
Created
Thu, 25/12/2025 - 05:00

It’s that magical time of year again. Candles and poinsettias decorate every surface, small children are dressed as sheep, angels are telling people to “Fear not.” So, really, with Christmas just hours away, what do any of us have to fear?

Me, bitch.

I’m the high A flat at the end of “O Holy Night,” and I’m not optional. I’m printed right there in the second ending after the coda, soaring above the treble clef line. I will be sung.

Were you thinking about presents? The ham defrosting at home? The birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the most humble and abject of circumstances? Not anymore!

It says “Special Music: O Holy Night” right there in the bulletin, between the sermon and the offering, and now you’re not going to be able to think about anything else. You’ll be on the edge of your seat waiting for me, because you’ve heard way too many singers screech and waver and get me all wrong. What catastrophe awaits this time?

And just like that, I’ve hijacked the whole service.

Created
Thu, 25/12/2025 - 00:00

First, let’s get one thing clear, Santa: I ain’t a scab. The collective bargaining agreement clearly mandates the sleigh be led by a union-approved eight-reindeer team. Your little “won’t you guide my sleigh tonight” routine is a bald attempt to dilute the team’s negotiating power.

No matter how hurtful their teasing about my shiny red nose, I continue to stand in solidarity with my fellow reindeer.

It’s an open secret among the elves that you’re guilty of gross negligence regarding reindeer safety. True, this is an especially foggy Christmas Eve, but the sleigh ride takes place in the dead of night every single year. No one can see a thing. Dasher, Dancer, et. al. have begged you to equip the sleigh with proper lighting. Instead of headlights, all they get is gaslight: your snide remarks about antler length, your expectation that we should be satisfied with carrots and melted snow-water while you hoard the supply of cookies and milk, your use of mistletoe to sanction sexual misconduct.

Created
Wed, 24/12/2025 - 20:30

Hundreds joined protest vigils in Sydney and Melbourne on 22 December to reject the effort to blame the Palestine movement for the horrific antisemitic terror attack at Bondi, and to oppose further restrictions on protest.

The post Protest vigils reject efforts to hijack Bondi grief to smear Palestine movement first appeared on Solidarity Online.

Created
Wed, 24/12/2025 - 20:00

In 1979, the cultural theorist Stuart Hall wrote with reference to Britain’s impending shift to the Right that political restructuring doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Rather, he argued, ‘[I]t works on the ground of already constituted social practices and lived ideologies … it wins space by constantly drawing on these elements which have secured over time […]

Created
Wed, 24/12/2025 - 10:03
I en uppmärksammad intervju med SVT:s Agenda (22/12) understryker riksbankschef Erik Thedéen att han har farhågor om hur framtida underskott i statsbudgeten framledes ska kunna komma att hanteras. Han kritiserar hanteringen av det finanspolitiska ramverket och efterlyser en återgång till balans i de offentliga finanserna. Detta är ett flagrant överskridande av det mandat han har […]