Tag Archives Evidence Based Planning
There's nothing like evidenced-based public policy... News that the CSIRO plan to cut over 100 jobs from the agency’s climate science staff. Wide-spread opinion fears cuts to the CSIRO’s climate modelling and measuring research will breach Australia’s obligations under the recent Paris agreement and will result in huge costs to the economy. News reports here, here, here, here and here . Australia’s Climate Council has published…
There’s a lot riding on how Earth spins...
In the week that we noted the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, I can't say I ever imagined I would find myself combining the thoughts of Papa Francesco [the Catholic Pope] in his second encyclical letter [LAUDATO SI’] and the assessment of "Mordy Pressing" - Australian Immigration Policy Interpreter and his views on the new sliding scale of ethics. Yet here…
GDELT is the largest, most comprehensive, and highest resolution open database of human society ever created. Yes, REALLY Big! GDELT is 100 percent free, with the entire dataset available for immediate download and a set of tools available to work with it. Creating a platform that monitors the world's news media from nearly every corner of every country in print, broadcast,…
The vaccination "debate" continues/exists. I checked, it is February 2015. This is the 21st century [by most calendars] Another outstanding contribution to the public-health policy debate [sadly] by the Guardian US interactive team of Rich Harris, Nadja Popovich and Kenton Powell Reason and the public good appear less a component of modern society than I was aware. In response to those that wish to open…
Confirmation bias, idealogical/doctrinaire policy "imperatives" or good-old special interests are all part of what contributes to our sense of progress in the human condition. Max Roser is a James Martin Fellow researching income inequality and inclusive growth at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Oxford Martin School. Roser asks the question: Is it actually true that we are building a better…
If you were playing to win [or perhaps not loose your house], perhaps in a casino, playing a coin-toss game, would you suspect anything was wrong if the coin-toss turned up heads 353 times in a row? What are the chances of that? Would you bet your house on the next throw? July 2014 was the 353rd consecutive month in…