Choose one:
a) This reassuring, because our algorithmic overlords are still mostly quite stupid, or b) they are lulling us into a false sense of security until it is too late?
Interview with Kathimerini on Merkel’s legacy
Believe it or not, today, Angela Merkel is travelling to Athens again, and this time, she will be discussing …. her autobiography, which has been translated into Greek. Over at Kathimerini (organising the event), Xenia Kounalaki kindly asked for my opinion on various matters connected in one way or another to Merkel’s tenure. We had…
nlcom and the Delta Method in Stata
The delta method approximates the expectation of some function of a random variable by relying on a (truncated) Taylor series expansion. In plain words, that means that one can use the delta method to calculate confidence intervals and perform hypothesis tests on just about every linear or nonlinear transformation of a vector of parameter estimates. Stata’s procedure nlcom is a particularly versatile and powerful implementation of the delta method. If you can write down the formula of the transformation, nlcom will spit out the result. And that means that you can abuse Stata’s built in procedures to implement your own estimators.
ME at the Margins: Average Marginal Effects, Marginal Effects at the Mean, and margins in Stata
Stata’s margins command can be a bit confusing Stata’s margins is a postestimation command which does all sorts of amazing things. Margins is incredibly powerful, and the accompanying marginsplot command nearly always does just the right thing. Margins and marginsplot have almost singlehandedly changed the way people interpret the way model estimates (particularly estimates from…
More from the manosphere, Christian weirdos, more biopolitics, and why Middle England should care about the climate crisis: four links I liked
I read this the way it was intended: with gory fascination. It’s almost as if capitalism was part of the problem. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/25/nick-wanted-to-drop-bodyfat-and-build-his-own-micro-harem-of-women-how-my-friend-fell-for-the-red-pill-hucksters-of-the-manosphere Interesting that there is now a book about this. Even more interesting that this should be the only book. Blaming America’s religious beginnings for America ‘s weirdness has been a reasonably popular folk…
Germany’s 2025 election and its aftermath
Germany’s 2025 early election was a political earthquake. How did we end up in this mess, and what does it mean for Germany and Europe? Here is my attempt at an answer.
May is the new April: the Spring 2025 update of the radical right bibliography
Life is full of unforeseen, yet entirely predictable obstacles: over-committing, over-optimism, and yes, occasionally, over-indulgence. As a result, this year’s spring edition of the Eclectic, Erratic Bibliography on the Extreme Right (in (Western) Europe)™ is late, but here it comes. With 180 new titles, this is the second-biggest update ever, which just goes to show…
I Can’t Believe It’s Not B̶u̶t̶t̶e̶r̶ Academic Spam
I get a lot of Academic Spam. Is this the next level?
Seymour Martin Lipset wrote about the Radical Right – in 1955
In this house, every day is S.M. Lipset Appreciation Day. Most of what we do and think today is not much more than an elaboration of the old stuff, plus some new data and fancy methods. And still, I took some sort of mental double take when I stumbled across this article. Somewhat depressingly, he…
Interview mit Deutschlandfunk Kultur zur Kanzlerwahl von Friedrich Merz
Die Ereignisse im Bundestag heute waren spannend, aber was sagen sie über die Erfolgsaussichten der neuen Regierung aus? Ich glaube: nicht allzu viel 📻👇🏼 https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/affront-gegen-merz-im-ersten-wahlgang-nur-ein-daempfer-fuer-schwarz-rot-100.html