Source: Brownstone Institute
by Clayton J Baker, MD
“Having yellow-stained fingers is associated with lung cancer, but we know that the association does not reflect causality. Yellow-stained fingers do not cause lung cancer. Rather, the association is explained by smoking — a confounder — a cause of both yellow fingers and lung cancer. Suppose a group of researchers reported that the association in question was not removed after adjustment for smoking status. Obviously, something is wrong, either in the data or in the way it was analyzed. Regardless of the reason, we will not trust any inference from that study, including the estimated effect of smoking. It is equivalent to rejecting a witness’s entire testimony after detecting a single relevant lie. That’s an analogy, of course, not a claim about intentional lying by the researchers.” (11/05/26)
“Obesity in its modern, mass form is surprisingly recent. In America, adult rates were fairly stable at around one in seven from the early 1960s to the late 1970s. Then something changed. From about 1980 the line turned sharply upward, and by 2000 roughly three in ten adults were obese. By 2022 an estimated 107 million American adults, 42.5% of the adult population, were obese, up from 34.7 million (19.3%) in 1990. Britain followed the same curve about a decade behind. … The timing is the most useful clue. Genes did not change in 1980. Willpower did not suddenly collapse across two nations. Something in the environment shifted, and the evidence points mostly at what we eat rather than how much we move.” (11/05/26)
“Alexander Hamilton is well-remembered as a protagonist in America’s founding drama. He is celebrated widely as a war hero, foreign policy genius, architect of the economy, and framer of the Constitution. Even over the yawning distance of years, young Americans are inspired by the romance of his life. Conservatives and progressives alike claim his mantle to justify their pet projects. ‘There is an elegant memorial in Washington to Jefferson, but none to Hamilton,’ columnist George F. Will once observed. ‘However, if you seek Hamilton’s monument, look around. You are living in it.’ Though his Federalist Party failed, America became a deeply Hamiltonian country.” (11/05/26)
“Yesterday, Donald Trump and the Republicans took the proverbial shellacking. We’ve seen this sort of thing before. It’s not unheard of. Americans repudiate failed programs, and Trump, who promised to keep the American people out of war did the precise opposite of what got him elected in the first place. Only by grace extended from the American people could the application of the varnish be withheld. … This could be a warning to all: the awfulness of your opponents will not stay the hand of shellac . . . er, citizen correction.” (11/05/26)
“As we survey the wreckage of Republican political fortunes, it’s clear what comes next. Payback is the first priority of Democrats who want to use their victories to grind Republicans into the mud. You saw it in the gloating, Mamdani-esque victory speech from Michigan Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed, in which he sarcastically referred to Vice President JD Vance as ‘habibi’ who will have to eat crow when the VP swears him in. You saw it in Minnesota Sen.-elect Peggy Flanagan’s speech: ‘We will rip ICE apart.’ You saw it in the salivating from Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) about impeaching Trump. You saw it in the ugly threats against Elon Musk and ‘greedy billionaires’.” (11/05/26)
“Housing is less affordable, governments are drowning in debt, and workers feel stuck. Has technological progress stopped translating into better lives?” (11/05/26)
Source: The Daily Economy
by Logan Tantibanchachai
“Markets bring together people who otherwise have little reason to cooperate. The voluntary economic relationships critics dismiss may help sustain civil society.” (11/05/26)
“Americans made it to our country’s 250th birthday without agreeing on whether the occasion calls for celebration or indictment. Some of our most influential institutions regard the Declaration of Independence as evidence for the prosecution. The men who proclaimed human equality owned slaves, don’t ya know, so the principles they proclaimed were fraudulent and the country they founded must spend its remaining days confessing its illegitimacy. A Nation Born in a Day: Visions of the American Founding offers a splendid corrective.” (11/05/26)
“If foreign policy could decide an election, then 1992 upended expectations. Barely eight months after the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time, President George H. W. Bush found himself reminding Americans that he had led the USSR peacefully into history’s dustbin while also liberating Kuwait from the clutches of Saddam Hussein.” (11/05/26)
