Peter Ellis

I don't think it's necessarily unethical to push for policy change while personally benefiting from the status quo. For example, someone advocating for increased taxation isn't expected to voluntarily pay the extra themselves while the increase is still being debated.

These particular missiles are for shooting down drones and missiles, not killing people. As I understand it. So "you don't protect people with missiles, you only kill them" is literally incorrect in this case.

If you refuse to share your code, I refuse to take your results seriously.

Could the oil price hike cause the AI bubble to burst? Actually not implausible.

Time series line chart of price of Brent Crude oil from May 2021 to March 2026, showing current price at $117 and rising almost vertically, and the peak in 2022 at about $128.

Brent Crude has nearly reached the 2022 peak.

The difference is just a labour force survey. Higher income countries run one continuously that can report each month or quarter. Small, lower income countries can only afford one occasionally (which also means they miss out on economies of scale, as have to stand up from scratch each time).

Has Iran actually done anything to earn the term "blockade" - attacked ships, put their own ships in the way, laid mines? I think so far it's just a (very effective) threat isn't it? Or maybe there were a couple of drone attacks on ships?

Basically when they run a Census (every 5 or 10 years), Household Income and Expenditure Survey (ad hoc, every 5 years if going well) or Labour Force Survey (roughly every 5 years but most aren't really in a cycle).

You couldn't get by as a deaf person in an English speaking country able to read ASL but not English, surely. Do they not read the news, subtitles, books, street signs in English?

Did I say that it should? I'm just saying it's naive to imagine some earnest world of 17th, 18th, 19th century scholars who were purely driven by love of humanistic learning.

Yes. And most of the countries I work with only get an unemployment estimate once every few years.

If global prices go to $200 per barrel, that will be everywhere not just importing countries.

Did they, though? Or was it mostly a class marker?

Not quite nothing but nearly. These are as % of GDP. But it's not impossible that PNG's stats aren't being collected as well as some of the other countries.

Bar chart showing remittanes as a % of GDP, very high for Tonga (>40%), Samoa, Vanuatu, Marshall Islands and other Pacific countries, compared to much lower levels for low income countries gloablly, small states, etc.

Remittances - payments from relatives or other contacts abroad - are astonishingly high in some Pacific island countries. I round out my series creating visuals related to Pacific #demography issues with a blog post with #rstats code at freerangestats.info/blog/2026/03...

Why do the Ms not interview you after the book deal? Are you 'too good' or 'too researchy' for them now? Complete outsider to the system here.

I loved the David Eddings Belgariad books as a teenager, but now can't get past the racial essentialism. Also heard he abused his foster children, but this is separate.

Essentially impossible to identify (easily generated) fake regression results, unless data and code are available.

Sinking the ship is clearly legal, so long as it is agreed the USA and Iran are at war (whether that war is legal being a different question). Sub may not have done enough for survivors though.

Well yes, of course. Both sides get a go in war. Only now does it occur to me some people may not have realised this.

The only "unless" is if it is attempting to surrender.

I think they should be referred to by something other than 'Obama bros', if they are not actually part of the Obama circle.

What is a 'policy spiral'? Is that when each improvised policy creates new problems, leading to new improvised policies? Is this a known thing?

Yellow bird with black face and red eye, all puffed out and slightly damp.

Let me start a belated thread of Aotearoa New Zealand silvan birds.

To lead things off, a New Zealand Bellbird photographed on Kapiti Island.

Yeah this would only work with a very broad definition of 'decision' i think. Not just 'what shall I have for dinner' but also 'shall I look up first, or just get off the couch'

I wonder what Canadians would say if asked the same question but about USA citizens, rather than their own.

Increased exports from internarional tourism is really the only thing that should feature as the benefits for a country hosting a big sporting event. Everything else is just redirected domestic spend.

Yes, and these are of course often outside the direct "health" system - firearms, whatever it is that leads to deadly vehicle accidents, drug use, economic inequality, etc.

aren't the "missile and drone attacks down X%" measures of effectiveness (although I can see they could be down for other reasons, it's at least plausibly because launch capacity has been taken out)?

The within-country comparisons are fine, but some of the other comparisons are uninterpetable given this weighting acheme