We're All Doing It Wrong

-- Writing at Five Thirty-Eight, Christie Aschwanden describes some research about brain function that suggests our brains are almost designed to reach false conclusions.

The study she writes about looks pretty complicated, but at least we now have some concrete explanations for a lot of election results.

-- The absence of the local team in the NBA postseason means that the amount of time I will spend following said post-season is a function of several variables, all of which approach zero.

-- The Minnesota state legislature put the kibosh on using sales taxes to build a sports stadium, with lawmakers pointing out that the scheme basically made visitors to the town where the stadium was to be built pay for it. Not bad for a state that elected Al Franken.

-- New York City is going to spend ten billion dollars for a bus station. I got nothin'; I'm just flipping out over the idea of building costs that require eleven digits.

-- Correlation, as we know, does not equal causation. But what's causation? Nick Barrowman at New Atlantis does some digging, and surprise, it's not as simple as people seem to like to say.