Short Month, Many Tabs

I think I may have more tabs open right now than at any other time since the tab was invented. I have to clear them out or the Earth may suddenly switch poles. I confess haven't read all of these, but they look interesting enough to mention.


A bunch of education deform-related stories:

Finland's "culture of trust" and our culture of testing (Diane Ravitch).

Americans can afford to educate everyone, and three new papers show us how: Indications that the amount of money spent on financial aid, along with other state and federal spending, could cover the cost of public higher ed. I didn't dive into the numbers, but it looks promising.

Federal commission on equity dismisses Bush-Obama reforms. Have you heard about this from the mainstream news media? I haven't.

Sign the national resolution against high-stakes testing.


Climate change, environment, how we do business:

A comparison (from Forbes) of the environmental cost of natural gas fracking vs. coal.

Will graphene and supercapicitors be part of the solution in creating a new kind of battery that makes green energy usable at a large scale?

The case for natural capital accounting

Compost nation: Can we compost our way out of landfills?

Two possibly antithetical posts: Scientists urge the rich world to halve its meat consumption and Plant-Based Diets' Environmental Impact Examined In French Study

Algae lamps absorb as much CO2 in a year as a tree does in its lifetime.

China is going to start taxing carbon. I wonder if they can shame us into it.

Five reasons why the Keystone XL pipeline is bad for the economy. (That's economy — not environment.)

How Obama might find a way to limit carbon emissions in his second term. By Ron Brownstein of the National Journal.


Miscellaneous goodness:

A Twitter-generated map of happiness in the United States. Hawaii is number one, followed by Maine... most unhappy: Louisiana, preceded by Mississippi. Although Portland, Oregon, looks like a very unhappy city. Must be a result of too much irony.

Mitochondrial Eve: From the BioLogos Forum.

New inequality study proves what Democrats have been saying for years. (Which is that tax policy has a lot to do with it.)

Can the Republicans be saved from obsolescence? A New York Times magazine article that includes an devastating description of a couple of focus groups' attitudes toward Republicans. These were Ohioans who had voted for Obama, but weren't committed Democrats. They were thought to be voters who were "within reach" of the Republicans. But the researcher found out otherwise with details that I found startling (and heartening, given my worldview).

NRA padding membership claims while hiding losses

Doctors identify more than 130 tests and treatments they do too often. Also written up by MinnPost's Susan Perry.

New study: religion helps criminals justify their crimes

ICE (the immigration police) have been detaining large numbers of U.S. citizens... which is illegal, by the way.

Listen to Adam Smith: The inheritance tax is good. From the Guardian.

Calorie counts: fatally flawed, or our best defense against pudge? From NPR

Montana Valley Book Store (which I wrote about back in September) is giving away thousands of books to make room for more.

A study on stemming gun violence among young men in Chicago. And if you didn't hear This American Life's two-part series on one Chicago high school's reality, it's definitely worth listening to. Heart-breaking and angrifying. (Part one | Part two)