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Freakonomics Blog





Bars Without Women

A friend writes: My girlfriend was in the Hamptons and could not get into a particular bar because she said that their strategy has gone from letting as many hot girls into the bar to letting as many guys in. It struck me as perhaps a change in thinking. Hot places in Vegas and Atlantic City still let a disproportionate . . .






How Much Does the President Really Matter?

Studies show that individual CEOs and baseball managers have less of an effect on their organization’s performance than conventional wisdom assumes. So couldn’t the same logic be applied to the President?




Leisure Squared

More on Dubner and Levitt’s discussion of work v. leisure: Stitch ‘N Pitch, a group of knitters at baseball games



The Science of Insulting Women

While VH1 debuts a reality show on picking up women, researchers gather data on the psychology of retaining your partner once she’s safely hooked.





Terrorism, Part II

Levitt responds to the fiery criticism of his previous post, “If You Were a Terrorist, How Would You Attack?”







Dear Feed Readers

We hear you. And we are trying to work out a solution. There have been a lot of changes in the migration to NYTimes.com, there are a lot of details to work out, and things don’t always move fast. Thanks for your patience.



From Migrant Worker to Neurosurgeon

Dubner discusses an excellent article in the New England Journal of Medicine by Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, a former illegal immigrant who is now the director of the brain-tumor stem-cell laboratory at Johns Hopkins.




If You Were a Terrorist, How Would You Attack?

In the wake of changes in airport security technology, Levitt lists his own ideas for a fear-maximizing terror plot, and solicits other ideas from readers as a means of bringing possible scenarios into discussion before they actually happen.





Moving Day

Freakonomics.com announces its move to the New York Times Online.



No Comment(s)

For the next several hours, while this blog undergoes some rehabilitation — no, not that kind of rehabilitation; we are fine, thanks — comments will be shut down. If all goes well, this condition won’t last past nightfall (in New York)..



Bad Timing for These Two Hurricane Experts

The 2005 Hurricane season was the most active and destructive in recorded history. The devastation from hurricanes like Katrina, Rita, and Wilma was powerful evidence that man-made global warming had triggered an onslaught of unforeseen consequences — at least, that was the way the media tended to portray it. Maybe I am wrong, but I think the current focus on . . .



Why Spend Time on Second Life?

We got an e-mail the other day from a certain Sara in Chicago. She had a question about the virtual world Second Life, but it could be asked of many pursuits, virtual and otherwise. (Even though I’ve never visited Second Life, I have been thinking about this issue lately since I have become a gold farmer for my own kids, . . .



This Blog: Almost Famous

If all goes as planned, I will be appearing on Good Morning America tomorrow (Wed., 8/8 — lucky in China!) at about 8:30 a.m. EDT to talk about this very blog, and to announce a fairly significant change. Hope to see you there. As one result of this change, comments on the blog will be temporarily suspended today, starting in . . .