O'Reilly supports AR-15 should be banned.

He's wrong about why gun violence has gone down -- Freakonomics guys looked at the numbers.

You're right, I don't have any specific numbers on how many abused spouses don't press charges, even after calling the cops during an incident. My suspicions are based mostly on what I've heard and read over the years on the subject, I have heard on occasion that this is a problem in abusive relationships, but I cannot point you to a source. I make no claims to being an expert, I'm just another schmuck on the internet with an opinion.
Although now that I think about it, I do remember a Freakonomics podcast that mentioned this issue and how some states were looking at instituting policies where prosecution would proceed even if the victim dropped the charges.
http://freakonomics.com/tag/domestic-violence/

Counterpoint to Yogi's "never give up": http://freakonomics.com/2011/09/30/new-freakonomics-radio-podcast-the-upside-of-quitting/

Nice house, and I also found the lack of sound throughout most of the video a little creepy but I suspect it's supposed to be a contrast to the awful noise outside at the beginning and the end. The Japanese seem to view homes as much more disposable than we do here in the west so they have more construction and more architects to build evermore unique houses.
I didn't know any of that until I heard a recent Freakonomics podcast about it.
For those who might be interested,
http://freakonomics.com/2014/02/27/why-are-japanese-homes-disposable-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast-3/

I seem to recall reading something in Freakonomics that went into detail about how much your average dope seller makes, and it's as bad or worse than what a burger flipper gets paid. It turns out that gangs are structured much like corporate America, the people at the top make huge bank while the typical foot soldier gets all the risk and makes squat.

Could be an ad for abortions, in a Freakonomics kind of way.

Your video, Freakonomics Trailer 2010, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

There have been a number of books that dealt with the subject:

The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker

The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

Freakonomics had a section about how terrible we as humans are in gauging the likelihood of something awful happening. The authors illustrate their point by asking you if your child would be safer visiting a friend who had a swimming pool in the back yard, or a friend whose parents owned a handgun. As you could guess, the swimming pool is 100 times more dangerous than the handgun.

Of course, each of these books have extensive references in the back.

freakonomics was the worst book i've ever read

Here's the thing--after you watch that video, pay particular attention to the pathos being elicited, as we watch the hopes and dreams of thousands of children riding on a particular bingo ball being selected. So much emotion, designed to make the viewer ANGRY that it's come to this. But research (reported in Freakonomics and other places) has shown that every child in that auditorium is just as likely to succeed in their respective educational career, whether or not their number is called.

Say what? The authors speculate that, like so much in life, who you are is far more important than what you do. They found positive correlations between the number of books in a home and a child's long term educational success, so Blagojevich, governor at the time, ordered books for every home with children under age six. This is exactly the sort of faulty interpretation of research findings that cause so much consternation in educational reform efforts. It wasn't merely the number of books a child could read--it was the total number of books present in the household. The authors mused that such a collection transmitted a clear set of values to the child. Parents who treasured reading had children who treasured reading, and these children did rather well in testing situations. Similarly, merely the desire to improve one's current state through applying for new educational opportunities seems to be the factor in whether or not a child succeeds. I worked at a magnet high school in Chicago, and I have to be clear--the desire must come from both the parents AND the child. Parents who enrolled in the lottery to place their child in a 'safe' school against that child's wishes were sorely disappointed with the result, which usually included 27 other children (and their parents) annoyed at the disruptive element in their midst.

There are a number of reports from the Consortium of Chicago School Research (based out of the University of Chicago) which finds, quite astonishingly, that the best indicator of a student's long term success is NOT a standardized test score (which in CPS is the Prairie State, which is the ACT plus three other tests) but rather GPA. Think about that for a moment. Here you have BAD teachers in FAILING schools. I mean, that's what the movie's talking about, right? The research shows, though, that these 'bad' teachers are actually fairly good at gauging where the student is at. They're not necessarily dumbing down the material, or handing out C's for having a pulse. You would think that if they were so terrible, they'd avoid the stress of report card pick-up by passing everyone, but they don't. They do the right thing. They pass the ones who are passing, and fail the ones who are failing, and somehow this aggregate does a better job of predicting how well that student will do in life than the standardized test. That one conclusion should be studied at every school in the nation, but it seems to be ignored. Why?

Remember that joke about the guy who finds his best friend frantically looking for his wallet in the street late one night, and helps him out, but after an hour, asks, "Are you sure you lost it here?" The friend replies, "Oh, no. I lost it in the alley over there. The light's better here." That, right there, is most of what's wrong with the current fetishization of accountability in education. In order to hold schools accountable, they've chosen something that's easy to count. However, is what it's counting IMPORTANT? Accountability that doesn't count the right thing shouldn't count at all. The alternative is hard, sticky, prone to errors with few moments of identifiable triumph. In short, it makes the bureaucrats work, and Ghod help us all if they have to do THAT.

A quick statement to establish my bona fides. I was selected to participate in Teachers for Chicago, the spiritual predecessor of Teach for America. I was part of the first group of library media specialists put through the program. We were a different breed of teacher, sent to confront a new breed of student. I have worked 14 years in CPS, six in the elementary school setting, eight in high school. I have watched the rise of charter schools, and know why they're so effective--the Freakonomics folks called it. They do better because they WANT to do better, and that desire manifests with the choice to forego the neighborhood school for the charter school. But the students who wanted into the Charter school and did not are still doing well--they're just drowning in a sea of knuckle-heads, and their successes are being diluted when it comes time to rank schools in how well they prepare their students.

I've written quite a bit, because I have a lot to say. I'll see this movie when it comes out (because I'm that kind of librarian), but I'm almost certain that they'll ignore most of the new evidence that's come out indicating that charter schools don't live up to the hype (read The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education by Diane Ravitch for a comprehensive view of this) and that the problems confronting us seem almost insurmountable. They certainly defy easy metrics that would allow standardized testing to be used to establish accountability. The problem, to me, is plain. When A Nation At Risk came out in the 1980s, the US education system entered triage mode. We've never left it. We've pandered to corporate interests, as they sell us 'proven' tests (the creators of those tests have gone on record as saying that it's useless to test the sort of thing that politicians want tested) and curriculum delivery systems that simply do not work. As anyone will tell you, the entire hospital cannot be run like the ER, and yet we do just that. There is a solution, but it is all but unthinkable in the current climate. I've discussed this with other teachers, and they've rebelled against the notion, even though they later admit that perhaps it's the only way.

One last comment. I am currently working at one of the selective enrollment schools featured in the Freakonomics study. Students merely have to apply, and there's a lottery. There are, as a result, a wide variance of student ability levels, but not 100% bell curved--the very top can score well enough to get into Northside College Prep or Walter Payton College Prep. I arrived at the end of March, when the Prairie State push was in overdrive. Metrics were everywhere, and the pie-in-the-sky target of 18 was pretty much unattainable, if the various practice tests were to be believed. When the school's score came back 19, though, there was the usual jubilant celebration, but undermining this was 'the fear'. One administrator said when asked by a teacher what was done differently this year, he replied, "I don't know." They'd tried a lot of things, and clearly one was the winner, but which? Why is this navel gazing important? Why do I call it "the fear"? Because schools all over the area will be sent to this school, to learn from them. They're a success, after all. They did much better than predicted. Will these schools settle for, "We don't know?" I doubt it.

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I really enjoyed Freakonomics, but I haven't read SuperFreakonomics yet, so I can't say much on the chapter about global warming. The title however suggest something about global cooling. A recent article says: Statistics experts reject global cooling claims. But he doesn't seem to be denying global warming in this interview. So I definitely have to read the book.
Maybe he means global cooling in terms of doing it through geoengineering, then I'm a strong supporter for it as a midterm solution though.
Bjorn Lomborg, the Skeptical Environmentalist, is also a strong supporter of geoengineering:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Skeptical-Environmentalist-s-Solutions-for-Global-Warming

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I've added
Bad Science: A great book about the things that go wrong in the scientific process, and the reporting on that process by the media. It focuses on medicine and diet in particular.

A Short History of Nearly Everything: Really well written and amusing history of scientific progress and understanding.

The Singularity Is Near: About the profound changes that will happen relatively quickly due to the exponential progress in IT technologies. The writing is a bit dry, but the point he is trying to make is profound and supported with convincing arguments.

Freakonomics: Really interesting and amusing book about applying principles of economy to study issues of every day life and human behavior.

Alien Hand Syndrome: A damn interesting collection of great and often humorous articles on interesting and surprising subjects that you probably didn't know about before reading it. Published by the blog www.damninteresting.com