Political Intelligence Industry....hmmm. Is there such thing as a triple oxymoron?

Congratulations on your publication in the Freakonomics blog. I couldn't help but notice the entry right above your article related to deaths from drunk walking, particularly on Halloween. Hmm, does demand one day a year a strong business plan make? http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/11/02/drunk-walking-halloween-edition/ Drunk Walking, Halloween Edition Freakonomics 11/02/2011 | 1:59 pm Freakonomics has reported at length on the human tendency to worry about rare problems that are unlikely to happen versus more common problems that we tend to ignore. And perhaps because of this, we’ve also been in the vanguard of the campaign against drunk walking, which is 8 times more likely to result in your death than drunk driving. And so a recent story from Christopher Shea at the WSJ Ideas Blog caught our eye, because it so perfectly combines these two obsessions. Shea writes that a razor blade in an apple on Halloween is a myth, and has probably never happened. Pedestrian deaths, however, are four times higher on October 31st than an average day, because so many more people are wandering around outside. We at Freakonomics would like to add that some of those Halloween revelers (the adults at least) are also more likely to be inebriated, which no doubt explains some of the accidents.

This sentence is false. -Bertrand Russell

One of the more recent reasons health insurance costs have been rising is the insurance companies' claim that recent reforms (or attempts at reform) in healthcare mean it is going to cost them much more to insure most individuals. This certainly hit home when I was paying $633/month for COBRA this summer! That's more than a car payment and almost rent!! Of course, the insurance companies have yet to substantiate their claims, and indeed, few of the reforms are even active, but that certainly has not stopped them from significant hikes in cost of insurance. Our healthcare industry (specifically, it's dysfunctionality) could be the sole topic of hundreds of blogs!

To add to Billy's point, I read today that component analysts IHS iSuppli estimated that the price to manufacture each Kindle Fire is $209.63. This definitely reinforces our discussion that Amazon intends to leverage the largely inevitable future purchases Kindle users will make when deciding on the $199 price point. http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2011/09/30/isuppli-amazon-kindle-fire-costs-209-63-to-make-sells-for-199/