Well, that didn’t take long. I just bought what will probably be my last reasonably priced fill-up for a while. It happens every time we start a war in the Middle East. I topped off…

A few months ago, I was eating lunch at Rookies Iola and a man around 50 years old was talking in a rather loud voice about his wife’s experience trying to get a REAL ID. …

Silence is never deafening, so let’s just say that the lack of Iran commentary from Missouri Sens. Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt this weekend was pretty noticeable.  By Monday morning — more than two days…

As political scientists who study Kansas politics, election administration, and political participation — and as the coauthors of a recent statistical analysis of Kansas’ special elections — we are compelled to speak out against Kansas…

Imagine that you walk into a courtroom and find that the judge about to hear your case is also the regional chairman of the ruling party. You might be imagining China, maybe North Korea, perhaps…

Candidates for quantitative jobs — like those on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley — are sometimes asked offbeat questions such as: How many Ping-Pong balls fit in a 747?  Called Fermi problems, these questions…

Every morning over buckwheat pancakes and sausage, my father and grandfather would decide which fields to work that day and share an update about their cattle. Then, inevitably, the talk would move on to the…

Tesla’s factory in Shanghai produces far more cars per worker as its plant in California. The gap reflects something unsettling about China’s broader edge in manufacturing: It has figured out how to organize production around…

The world moves on different wavelengths. Some are high-frequency shocks — wars, emerging technologies, market panics — that spike quickly and dominate our attention. Others are low-frequency forces that move slowly but relentlessly: demographics, globalization,…

A great-uncle of mine survived Auschwitz. He had been a lawyer in Germany.  After the war, he made his way to America and Brockton, Mass., where he took a job as a salesman in a…