Mike Ball » World

Why Crack Dealers Live With Their Mothers

Mike — Wed, 21 May 2008 02:51:55 +0000

A couple of years ago I read a great book by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics. It was a great book, applying economic principals in day-to-day situations. I heartily recommend it. This posting was inspired by a video of a talk by Steven Levitt on a topic from the book. One of them lived [...]

A Sad Commentary

Mike — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 15:43:55 +0000

Morning Edition carried a very sad story this morning. It was a commentary by a soon-to-be new father in Baghdad. His final words were

Why would I want to bring an innocent child into a bloody savage world? I don’t. I regret what I did. I got my wife pregnent in Baghdad

It made me cry.

Book: What Terrorists Want

Mike — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 03:40:33 +0000

I’ve often argued that terrorism is a poor tactic because it doesn’t achieve its political ends. My son Kevin, one of the smartest people I know, argued that terrorists really weren’t trying to achieve political ends, but were trying for glory within their group. After we talked about it for a while, we decided that [...]

I knew things were getting better!

Mike — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 21:10:51 +0000

Finally some reports that indicate that I’m right. Check out The Peace Epidemic from a recent blog entry. It quotes from a piece in the Washington Post

By 2003, there were 40 percent fewer conflicts than in 1992. The deadliest conflicts — those with 1,000 or more battle-deaths — fell by some 80 percent. The [...]