January 2011
40 posts
4 tags
What's Happening in Egypt, Explained and Updated →
A remarkably concise guide to events in Egypt (with lots of links sources), from Mother Jones.
6 tags
4 tags
The 2010 Census Questionnaire | Population... →
I often use the concept of “race” to illustrate just how difficult it is to define and then operationalize (transform into measurable variables) concepts we may be interested in studying. After all, how can we make empirically falsifiable claims (hypotheses) if we are unsure about the validity of our underlying concepts/variables? A very important point to make early on in any methods...
9 tags
“While undoubtedly important for the Tunisian people, the larger question is...”
– Will 2011 be the next 1989? | The Monkey Cage
An interesting rundown of similarities—and differences—between the ongoing protests across the Middle East in 2011 (which many people suggest may be an “Arab Spring”) & the rapid (and unexpected) collapse of the communist...
5 tags
"Free Trade and Congress: How Washington Isn’t... →
This interesting charticle from Americas Quarterly breaks down US congressional support for free trade agreements by member & vote. The article takes a decidedly pro free trade editorial stance. But even if you (or your students) are skeptical about free trade, any debate over the issue can be improved with some discussion of who in Congress votes for/against these deals.
1 tag
2 tags
Do Social Media Make Protests Possible? →
An interesting debate at Foreign Affairs:
Do the tools of social media make it possible for protesters to challenge their governments? Malcolm Gladwell argues that there is no evidence that they do; Clay Shirky disagrees.
5 tags
3 tags
2 tags
9 tags
5 tags
“Calling Tunisia a “Twitter Revolution” is simplistic, but even skeptics have to...”
– From “Tunisia and the New Arab Media Space,” by Marc Lynch | Foreign Policy
5 tags
““Hosni Mubarak, Barack Obama, and Vladimir Putin are at a meeting together when...”
– From “Three Decades of a Joke that Just Won’t Die,” by Issandr El Amrani | Foreign Policy
3 tags
3 tags
2 tags
College is one of America's worst investments →
Some thought-provoking (or depressing?) news from theweekmagazine:
At least that’s what a new study suggests. The study found that nearly half of students make “no significant gains in learning” in their first two years on campus, and that they spend 50 percent less time studying than their 1970s and 1980s counterparts.
This is “depressing,” but hardly “shocking,” says Matt Kiebus in Death +...
3 tags
2 tags
2 tags
5 tags
ETA timeline: From first blood to ceasefire | The... →
A timeline of the Basque separatist movement ETA, as well as a chart on share of vote for ETA-affiliated parties in Spain and a chart on the number of killings attributed to ETA over the past five decades.
3 tags
Drugs in Mexico: Kicking the hornets’ nest | The... →
An interactive map of drug cartel areas and traffic routes in Mexico.
5 tags
“Together, (Carlos) Slim, (Bill) Gates, (Warren) Buffett, and (Mukesh) Ambani...”
– Terrifying Fact of the Day.
The four richest men share a combined wealth bigger than that of the 57 poorest countries together.
Just to give an idea of the magnitude, I checked the Wikipedia page for the index of poorest countries. To measure this wealth, I used the gross domestic product (GDP) at...
4 tags
9 tags
3 tags
“Communities co-opted into militarized aid efforts can be placed in an impossible...”
– Development at Gunpoint? | Foreign Affairs
3 tags
“Grant me thirty years of equal division of inheritances and a free press, and I...”
– Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1840 (via politicalprof)
2 tags
Hip Hop Invented Modern Music Economics →
An interesting article from The Atlantic that suggests possible analogies for explaining modern economics on a broader scale. Excerpt:
The Web turned songs and albums into commodities — easily downloaded, uploaded and distributed with the free click of a button. These days, to mint what they make, bands have to put their music to use — by hitting the road, by licensing to commercials, by...
3 tags
1 tag
3 tags
3 tags
6 tags
2 tags
3 tags
“Quantitative data is useless by itself. You’ve got to ask the data the right...”
– Brian Graden, MTV Networks [ How We Decide ] (via victoriayoung)
3 tags
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins...”
– Sherlock Holmes, in A scandal in Bohemia, by Arthur Conan Doyle. (via hudizzle)