Links for August 17th

Physorg: Human precursors went to sea, team says130,000 year-old stone tools have been found on Crete. What with being an island, that means that hominids that predate homo sapiens managed to cross open water. That was an ability that researchers had long chalked up to being one of those things that makes us special, but …

Links for August 6th

The Washington Post: Fewer dinners mean meaner politicsSince Gingrich's cohort of Republicans came into office in 1994, there has been a steady decline in bipartisan socialization and, indeed, socialization at all. He exhorted freshmen to return to their districts whenever possible, to be in D.C. only when absolutely necessary. The result is a dangerous loss …

Links for August 4th

journoterrorist: How to Build a Newsroom Time MachineThis group of college journalism students were assigned the task of producing a publication using only thirty-year-old technology. They learned a lot. MSNBC: Firm gives $1 million to pro-Romney group, dissolvesW Spann LLC was formed in March, gave a million dollars to a pro-Romney super PAC, and then …

Links for July 16th

Tabulaw: What Congress Does When it Runs Out of NumbersCongress recently passed a bill that created section 139D of the tax code. But there was already a 139D. No problem—they just kept the existing one. So there are two section 139Ds. Given my work on codes, this makes my head feel all explodey inside. New …

Links for July 14th

Reuters: How I misread News Corp’s taxesPulitzer-prize winning journalist David Cay Johnston broke a story earlier this week about how News Corp had received $4.8B in income tax refunds over the past four years, while paying nothing. Turns out he was entirely wrong. What he'd written was the opposite of the truth. News Corp changed …

Links for July 6th

The Register: Google dumps all 11+ million .co.cc sites from its resultsGood. .co.cc sites are almost uniformly worthless—a hive of malware sites and search engine spam. Andrew Sullivan: Boehner’s Economic Terrorism"For the GOP to use the debt ceiling to put a gun to the head of the US and global economy until they get only …

Links for June 2nd

TPM: ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Opens Fire On Store Because It Ran Out Of Crawfish42-year-old Larry Wayne Kelly—yes, middle name "Wayne"— opened fire on Pensacola's L&T Seafood Market with an AK-47 after they sold out of crawfish. When police tried to arrest them, he tried to run them down with his car. But it's OK, Kelly says, …

Links for May 30th

New York: How Not to Talk to Your KidsPo Bronson summarizes research on self-esteem, praise, and children. Kids who are praised for their intelligence freeze when faced with tasks beyond their intelligence. But kids who are praised for their effort quickly learn to relish challenges, and their learning improves accordingly. I was definitely in the …

Links for May 22nd

Wikipedia: List of predicted dates of the end of the worldI'm pretty sure none of them worked out. New York: The Elephant in the Green RoomThe conditions under which Glenn Beck left Fox News turn out to be pretty fascinating. Roger Ailes brought Beck on to fire up the conservative base after their 2008 defeat, …

Links for May 16th

Discovery Channel: Mike Rowe Senate TestimonyThe host of "Dirty Jobs" provided an important argument to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation about why our education system needs to emphasize skilled trades. College is not for everybody. Way too many kids are going to college—it doesn't make economic sense, for them or for …