Wikipedia: South Asian numbering system

In India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal, they don’t group numbers by three decimals like we do, but by two. That is, while we have thousand (1,000), million (1,000,000), billion (1,000,000,000), etc., they have lakh (1,00,000), crore (1,00,00,000), etc. Sometimes there are two decimals between each comma, sometimes three. Somebody with 10 million rupees would have …

Unsurprising research finds that some homophobia is rooted in homosexuality.

A team spanning three universities has published a study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology finding that people who claim to be straight, but have a strong attraction to people of the same sex, tend to be hostile towards gays because gays remind them of their own repressed tendencies. Those subjects’ parents tended …

Links for July 19th

Sunlight Foundation: Use the Net!Both Sen. Jim Webb and Mark Warner are still filing campaign finance reports with the FEC on paper. They've presumably each got small staffs who do all of their data collection and number crunching on computers, only to them print out their campaign finance reporters, snail-mail them to the FEC, who …

Links for June 7th

Chris Frashure: Virgil Goode Running for President?Remember when Goode was a Democrat? Remember when he was an independent? Remember when he was a Republican? Well, now he's a member of the Constitution Party, and he wants to run for president. This should be hilarious. ThinkProgress: Herman Cain Pledges Not To Sign Any Bill Longer Than …

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 April 22nd

Public Policy Polling: A deeper look at the birthersA 2009 "birther" poll of North Carolina residents found that 6% believe that Hawaii is not part of the United States, while 4% just aren't sure. That's one in ten North Carolinians who are not aware of one of the most fundmental facts of our nation. St. …

Links for February 22nd

Washington Post: Hampton Roads lawyer David McCormick to seek 2012 GOP Senate nominationSome random guy is running for the Republican nomination for Webb's seat. In his announcement, he compared himself to George Washington. New York Times: The Threatening Scent of Fertile WomenMen in stable, long-term relationships rank women as less attractive when they're ovulating than …

Links for February 16th

New York Times: 30 Steps To Better GovernmentAmidst all of the flowery rhetoric about making government more efficient, this op-ed by Comptroller General Gene L. Dodaro seems wonderfully concrete. He describes some of the GAO's successes thus far, and where they see improvement is necessary. Auditing oil and gas leases seems promising. Right now, we …