Robert (Bob) Kubinec

Rubio Deletes Calibri as the State Department’s Official Typeface

Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/u...

I think a lot of elites have little idea what "AI" is. This lack of knowledge will likely manifest in under/over-investment in the years ahead.

Rubio replaces Calibri with Times New Roman at the state dept

This is New York Times, not the Onion.

Lost in Transformation: The Horror and Wonder of Logit – Homepage The logit model for binary outcomes is poorly understood because it involves thinking in non-linear spaces. In this post, I illustrate what logit is using maps–and why people who resist logit are a bi...

I used it to discuss how logit works (i.e. flight paths are curved), see www.robertkubinec.com/post/flat_ea...

yes, but it exists *in expectation*, I don't see what the problem is here

Check out our new data visualization platform to explore local economic conditions and policies targeting place in the US: "The Economy in Place." economyinplace.com

Fantastic, looking forward to hearing your original spoken word poetry that you will compose for the occasion.

Seriously - wow! So cool

Post from Columbia SC FB group where a woman announces her husband just lost his job at a factory when it closed down

Looks like the tariffs are hitting South Carolina... 😬

The only way out of this dystopia is to start doing open reviews (non-anonymous). We have to get over our obsession with doing everything anonymously like some kind of secret society.

Yes, open reviews have drawbacks. But the alternatives are bad and getting worse.

In our research on socioeconomic background in academia, we ran a survey. Over 2,000 faculty members responded (thanks if you were one!)

Social & cultural capital showed up time and again as key issues.

A few findings you might be interested in...🧵

funnily enough, if the votes were misrecorded, the ideal point/measurement model would probably account for it (assuming it was approximately ignorable etc)

measurement error yet again 😬

Texas Methods Conference 2026 Please answer the following questions to indicate your interest in attending and/or participating at our conference, which is scheduled to take place on Friday and Saturday, February 20-21, at Texas A...

TexMeth (Texas Methods) conference is February 20-21 at Texas A&M. Nice warm place to discuss the latest in methodologically adventurous political science -- and I hope to be attending if you want all my bad takes in person.

#polisky #econsky

Conference app link: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

This coming from the folks that destroyed USAID is something else. Incoherent is right.

statement of the DOJ's filing from linked Forbes article

The DOJ's arguments in its H1B case reveal what Trump wants the $100,000 visa fee for: it is the new ICE slush fund.

The money will be "paid into a general account for miscellaneous payments"--USCIS/ICE can spend it on whatever they want.

Yeah, OK, sure...

www.forbes.com/sites/stuart...

Sure, but if we artificially cut off one of Nvidia's markets, we could erode the lead we have in AI chips.

Economic coercion doesn't work all that well when it comes to fulfilling very specific policy goals.

It would not surprise me if the Fed today decided no rate cuts.

All of this Fed bullying and the Supreme Court decision could backfire--if the Fed thinks it will be forced to accept a high inflation policy before long, then hold the line for now.

Play down the game tree...

MAGA political rhetoric is sounding more and more like the USSR. Every day we are told there are new enemies and we should ignore the old ones. Apparently China is no longer the threat, they are the paragon we should be following.

It's deeply incoherent and why this movement is going nowhere fast.

ABD grad student receiving R&R on job market paper from a top journal

See America, we're not the only country with impossible immigration policies!

They're still doing sociology? That's so cool. Who knew!

BJPolS abstract discussing the influence of high inflation on recent elections, voting behavior, and potential impacts on different political parties in the United States.

From October 2025 -

Inflation and Incumbent Support: Experimental Evidence from the 2024 US Presidential Election - cup.org/3JaiZYj

"priming Americans to think about inflation reduced support for the incumbent"

- Selim Erdem Aytaç, @danielmcdowell.bsky.social & David A. Steinberg

#OpenAccess

Lord have mercy

Torture Techniques from CIA Black Sites Were Used at Alligator Alcatraz Amnesty International, interviewing migrant detainees, identifies use of the confinement box. There can be no denying it is a torture prison

They're using the confinement box, one of the most horrific methods of CIA torture in the post-9/11 black sites, against migrants now. This is the direct result of the lack of consequences for the architects of the torture program. Either there will be criminal penalties for this or it will expand.

Senior PI attending talk of junior scholar who is critiquing their oft-cited method

Congress to withhold Pentagon travel funds until it sees boat strike videos Lawmakers quietly stuck the requirement into their must-pass annual defense policy bill.

Good

www.politico.com/news/2025/12...

However, we cannot evaluate the counterfactual paper trend in which DiD never occurs.

A.I. Videos Have Flooded Social Media. No One Was Ready.

Yes, this is bad, but not all bad.

People should never have trusted video posted to social media. Even without AI, it's easy to produce misleading content. We should only ever trust video from known sources.

Maybe #AI will bring a system collapse we need...

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/b...

This has nothing to do with a novel legal theory and everything to do with a partisan faction seeking to institutionalize its power.

Around a million Syrians have returned since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024.
And every day at Damascus airport, families separated by years of war and dictatorship, are finally being reunited.