Around the Web - Tax Day 2011

Jason Collins has been blogging up a storm at Evolving Economics. If you haven't, I suggest adding his RSS feed. Teenager stabs himself to death onstage at open mic night in front of shocked crowd at coffee shop. ""It was really unclear at first what was even happening. Because, you know, it is an open mic and it's a performance," the shop's co-owner Rhonda Ealy told local television station KTVZ. "People at first thought it was some sort of theatre." See why I avoid open mic nights? Finnish Vote Shows Bailouts to Euro-Zone Countries Are Vulnerable to Politics. Europe is not a nation. Isn't it better to start admitting that sooner than later? The Messy Reality Of Judicial Decisions. Also see Ed's take. The limits of human rationality are important to account for in a rational system. Protests in North as Nigerian Incumbent Leads in Vote Tally. There is an implicit supremacist stance on the part of Muslim Hausas in relation the people of southern Nigeria (which includes Muslims, Christians, and animists). The violence is a natural reaction to a "world turned upside down." What Is the Matter With Sociology? One thing that's the matter with sociology is that like economics the discipline's certitude of conclusion outran its methodological rigor. Being less charitable, sociology is just an ideology which occasionally dons the gown of dispassionate objectivity to maintain a semblance of respectability. Minoans in Ancient Canaan. Water was the highway of the pre-modern world. On the one hand it limits casual encounters, but on the other it serves as a major channel for diffusion of elite ideas and migration of elites themselves. Asian admissions in Boston Globe. The "New Jews." The Anti-Immigration Crusader. Interesting to see who John Tanton's early fellow travelers were. Included Warren Buffet (who does have a background in zero-population growth from what I recall). Garett Jones on IQ and Economic Growth. Quote: 'Garett seemed to lean to the former and said that one thing the government could so is, when an immigrant got a Ph.D., "staple a green card to it."' I think this is going to be gamed soon by Ph.D. mills. Since psychometrics is "not cool" anymore, probably the best thing to do would be to auction off immigration slots. That way if you hand an extended family which identified a very promising child they could just pool their money and send that kid to the United States. This was something that occurred in pre-modern China during the era of examinations. Most of the bureaucrats were from prosperous backgrounds, but on occasion someone from a lower station would rise up due to the aggregate investment of their lineage, which recognized brilliance early on. Does Brasilia work? Maybe. Sheilamishra's Blog. Indian pre-history. Evolved structure of language shows lineage-specific trends in word-order universals. Simon Greenhill has been busy! Scientific literacy by belief. No surprises. I've found similar results. Mother's Genome or Maternally-Inherited Genes Acting in the Fetus Influence Gestational Age in Familial Preterm Birth. This is a sort of sex-conditionality which makes total sense. Do Computers Cost Too Little? Looking at median utility is probably not too useful in this case. How do variants outside genes influence disease risk? The genome is a house with many doors. Link Between High-Fat Diet and Type 2 Diabetes Clarified. What isn't linked to type 2? Celery? Social Wasps Show How Bigger Brains Provide Complex Cognition. First Comprehensive Gene Map of the Human Brain: More Than 90 Percent Similarity Among Humans. George Price, Group Selection, and Altruism. David B's conclusion of a series of posts on George Price.