Why do people make such poor decisions about politics? Why are they so often distracted by lies, irrelevant alternatives and specious arguments?

https://theconversation.com/3-reasons-why-people-fall-for-politicians-lies-about-statistics-110014

"That leads to cascading questions. Should homeowners be allowed to rebuild in harm’s way? What standards will insurers insist on to minimize future claims? If homeowners decide not to buy insurance, will government backstop their losses? If government does provide the backstop, why would people buy private insurance? And if public institutions are going to step in, what level should be responsible: local governments, often hit by big losses themselves; state governments, with limited pocketbooks; or the federal government, facing soaring deficits and spiraling disaster losses of its own?"
http://www.governing.com/columns/washington-watch/gov-natural-disaster-recovery-rebuild.html

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature

Insects could vanish within a century at current rate of decline, says global review.

The thing that protects global information traffic is the fact that there’s some redundancy built into the system. Since there is more cable capacity than there is traffic, when there is a break, information is automatically rerouted along other cables. Because there are many systems linking to the United States, and a lot of internet infrastructure is located here, a single cable outage is unlikely to cause any noticeable effect for Americans.

http://theconversation.com/in-our-wi-fi-world-the-internet-still-depends-on-undersea-cables-49936

http://theconversation.com/bike-friendly-cities-should-be-designed-for-everyone-not-just-for-wealthy-white-cyclists-1094

Pew Research Center conducts public opinion surveys in the United States over the phone and, increasingly, online. But these two formats don’t always produce identical results. Respondents sometimes answer the same question differently depending on the format of the interview. This is known as a mode effect, and it’s a subject we’ve been studying for a few years now.

In our latest Methods 101 video, we look at mode effects in more detail and go over some of the ways in which survey answers can vary depending on whether respondents are talking to another person over the phone or filling out an online questionnaire by themselves.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/07/phone-vs-online-surveys-why-do-respondents-answers-sometimes-differ-by-mode/

https://pilotonline.com/news/local/transportation/article_b53d36d4-2af1-11e9-a332-432013218e12.html

Note: There’s a bit of civic engagement here by the neighborhood citizens. This would have impacted traffic coming to ODU!

The 2020 U.S. presidential election is rapidly coming into view – and so is the electorate that will determine its outcome.

While demographic changes unfold slowly, it’s already clear that the 2020 electorate will be unique in several ways. Nonwhites will account for a third of eligible voters – their largest share ever – driven by long-term increases among certain groups, especially Hispanics. At the same time, one-in-ten eligible voters will be members of Generation Z, the Americans who will be between the ages 18 and 23 next year. That will occur as Millennials and all other older generations account for a smaller share of eligible voters than they did in 2016.

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/essay/an-early-look-at-the-2020-electorate/

http://theconversation.com/measles-why-its-so-deadly-and-why-vaccination-is-so-vital-110779

"That’s because forgetting the past has precipitated selective amnesia in our post-measles psyche. Ignoring scientific facts has tragically brought us to a place where some people fail to appreciate the values and utility of some of the most phenomenal tools we have created in our historical war on infectious disease. Unsubstantiated claims that vaccines like MMR were associated with autism, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, etc., etc., and ill-informed celebrities have wreaked havoc with vaccination programs. Genuine, caring parents unaware of the realities of diseases they had never seen decided that since the viruses were gone from this part of the world shots were so last millennium. Put simply, some people have given up on vaccines."

http://theconversation.com/whos-smoking-now-and-why-it-matters-109605

"Increasingly, today’s smokers are those with lower education, lower income and – importantly – a higher incidence of mental illness."

Of course, the causal arrow would change on some measures of physical health.