February 2011
79 posts
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Association between muscular strength and... →
Muscular strength is inversely and independently associated with death from all causes and cancer in men, even after adjusting for cardiorespiratory fitness and other potential confounders.
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Gunshow Undercover - Arizona →
Just two weeks after the tragic shooting in Tucson, Arizona, private investigators went to a gun show in Phoenix, Arizona — one of thousands of such shows that occur across the country every year — to test two basic questions:
How easy is it to buy a gun without a background check?
Answer: In a matter of minutes, an investigator purchased a Glock 9 millimeter and two high...
January 2011
108 posts
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“In seven minutes, Mr. Greenhaus ticked off references to Phish songs like...”
– How an economic strategist works in references to Phish every time he appears on CNBC.
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"Nobody Gets Married Any More, Mister" →
Here’s my prediction: the money, the reforms, the gleaming porcelain, the hopeful rhetoric about saving our children—all of it will have a limited impact, at best, on most city schoolchildren. Urban teachers face an intractable problem, one that we cannot spend or even teach our way out of: teen pregnancy.
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Scott Adams on How to Tax the Rich →
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“The critical flaw in our health-care system … is that it was never...”
– Lower Costs and Better Care for Neediest Patients
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“[Our economy] demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert...”
– American retail analyst Victor Lebow, from How to Make Trillions of Dollars
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“I don’t know anything, have no expertise, haven’t even ever looked at the...”
– Paul Krugman, on Egypt
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The Anti-Social Network →
By helping other people look happy, Facebook is making us sad.
There are countless ways to make yourself feel lousy. Here’s one more, according to research out of Stanford: Assume you’re alone in your unhappiness.
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Tussling Over Jesus →
The National Women’s Law Center has just issued a report quoting doctors at Catholic-affiliated hospitals as saying that sometimes they are forced by church doctrine to provide substandard care to women with miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies in ways that can leave the women infertile or even endanger their lives. More clashes are likely as the church hierarchy grows more conservative, and as...
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“To make colleges less restrictive, on a class basis, had the unforeseen effect...”
– n+1: Revolt of the Elites
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State of the Union 2011 | The White House →
For all your State of the Union needs. Thanks, The White House.
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“It’s no secret that those of us here tonight have had our differences over the...”
– An excerpt from a draft of President Barack Obama’s 2011 State of the Union address (full text here).
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“Jersey Shore will have more seasons than Arrested Development. Hope you’re proud...”
– Jason Chen
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“It turns out that any book, no matter how worthy and somber, becomes pleasingly...”
– James Kennedy, on his plans with the New York Public Library to launch the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival.
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“The ecological situation has forever changed our relationship to nature. An...”
– A Point of View: Has our relationship with nature changed?
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Build a Bigger House →
The average House member speaks for about 700,000 Americans. In contrast, in 1913 he represented roughly 200,000, a ratio that today would mean a House with 1,500 members — or 5,000 if we match the ratio the founders awarded themselves.
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Inequality: The rich and the rest →
rather than fretting about inequality itself, policymakers need to differentiate between its causes and focus on ways to increase social mobility. A global market offers far bigger returns to those at the top of their game, be they authors, lawyers or fund managers. Modern technology favours the skilled. These economic changes are themselves often reinforced by social ones: educated men now tend...
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“This is actually a real blind spot for liberals in general — the idea that...”
– John Marshall
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“Culturalists confuse cause and effect, arguing that lack of social mobility...”
– Stephen Steinberg: Poor Reason (culture of poverty)
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Heresy: Education is Not the Cure for Poverty →
We will not educate our nation out of poverty - as seductive as that vision might be for us. Poverty will be reduced when we figure out how to get some of the tremendous wealth our economy is generating flowing back towards those who need it most, and stop throwing it at the wealthy.
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How Billionaires Rule Our Schools →
The cost of K–12 public schooling in the United States comes to well over $500 billion per year. So, how much influence could anyone in the private sector exert by controlling just a few billion dollars of that immense sum? Decisive influence, it turns out. A few billion dollars in private foundation money, strategically invested every year for a decade, has sufficed to define the national...
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“Practicing a piece of music for four hours requires focused attention, but it is...”
– Amy Chua Is a Wimp
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Baking for Beginners: An Introduction to... →
You may read this and think: High maintenance! Picky! Temperamental! But I hope you’ll view it like this: Pastry is logical and consistent and wonderfully fun, and once you understand the importance of various temperatures you’re on the road to becoming a great baker.
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Dog Might Provide Clues on How Language Is... →
Chaser, a border collie who lives in Spartanburg, S.C., has the largest vocabulary of any known dog. She knows 1,022 nouns, a record that displays unexpected depths of the canine mind and may help explain how children acquire language.
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The 1,022 words in Chaser’s vocabulary are all proper nouns. Dr. Pilley also found that Chaser could be trained to recognize categories, in other words...
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Teachers: The recruitment problem →
A teacher can have an enormous effect on a child in his classroom. No school factor—budget, class size, curriculum—is more important. But America does a horrendous job recruiting teachers.
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Lenore Skenazy: Eek! A Male! →
We think we’re protecting our kids by treating all men as potential predators. But that’s not a society that’s safe. Just sick.
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“There’s a great difference between a noble idea, no matter how well conceived,...”
– Robert Sargent Shriver, 11/9/1915 - 1/18/2011
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FACT CHECK: Shaky health care job loss estimate →
Republicans are calling their thumbs-down legislation the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.” Postponed after the mass shootings in Tucson, a House vote on the divisive issue is now expected Wednesday, although Democrats promise they’ll block repeal in the Senate.
A recent report by House GOP leaders says “independent analyses have determined that the...
“We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our God-given and...”
– Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” was published in the August 1963 issue of The Atlantic. Read the whole thing here.
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“84 of the 97 Congressional Reps, who signed a letter urging that the FCC approve...”
– What Corruption Looks Like: 87% Of Congressional Reps Supporting Comcast/NBC Merger Got Money From Comcast
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“The world will change when our children and our women are educated.”
– Maggie Doyne — Why the human family can do better
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“I’m only one guy in a long, beautiful sweeping tradition of Wisconsin and...”
– Russ Feingold Speaks Out
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theeconomist:
Tomorrow’s … North American cover considers the political blame game that has followed the shootings in Tucson. Politer politics would help America in many ways; but it needs sensible gun laws much more.
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“For the nine months prior to Todd’s birth on July 4, 1969, Trudi used no...”
– Todd Marinovich: The Man Who Never Was
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“Not only are people living longer, but so many women across the world are now in...”
– Population 7 Billion
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“We all benefit from the ambition that populates the world with Michael Jordans...”
– On Overconfidence