Category Archives: Blog

Been a while since I did some bonus kat photos, so here it goes….

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1. First, a post from the past: Extremism in defense of precision is no vice.

2. Weird search query of the week: ‘”it’s a jersey thing” gnxp.’
3. Comment of the week, in response to Tariffs, not trade?:
You’re ignoring intergenerational wealth transfer. Grandparents don’t like to see their grandchildren’s parents out of work, or forced to move […]

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The junior Senator from Kentucky, Randal “Rand” Paul, is well known as an icon of the Tea Party movement, son of Ron Paul, and devotee of the “Aqua Buddha.” Paul has already stated that means tests on Medicare and Social Security should be on the table. Additionally, he tipped his hand that he was […]

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A few days ago I was propounding to an old friend my hypothesis that social networks of cultural affinity are determinative in both the nature and trajectory of attitudes and norms within subcultures. In more plain language, you come to an opinion on many issues through your peer-network. The number one predictor of conversion to […]

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1. First, a post from the past: Why the gods will not be defeated.

2. Weird search query of the week: “coon and friends.”
3. Comment of the week, in response to We live in utopia – part n:
I thank Dave @8 for the name of Lewis Kay; I’m almost entirely innocent of television, even in its […]

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Might not post these every day for a few weeks as I’ll be busy, and not on the net as much. So no more “Daily” Data Dump until I’m more assured of my schedule.
In Icy Tip of Afghanistan, War Seems Remote. Profiles the people of the Wakhan Corridor, which is part of Afghanistan mostly because […]

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Oren Harman, author of The Price of Altruism is on BHTV. Recommended.

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This week’s episode of South Park was OK, but I really loved this take off on a scene from A Clockwork Orange:

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1. First, a post from the past: Atheism, Heresy and Hesychasm. I used to post about religion a lot more, especially in the fall of 2006. That was back when ScienceBlogs was small enough and tight enough to have a back & forth discussion among the weblogs pretty easily. I also was working a lot […]

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A very special note: I endorse Christie Wilcox for 2010 Blogging Scholarship.
A map of human genome variation from population-scale sequencing. This paper is getting a lot of play. A taste of things to come from the 1000 Genomes Project. It’s OA, so check it out.
Difficulties in Defining Errors in Case Against Harvard Researcher. I think […]

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In Mideast House of Cards, U.S. Views Lebanon as Shaky. Some of the problems here are structural demographics. The institutions of Lebanon’s democracy were formed when Maronite Christians were the plural majority, followed by Sunni Muslims, then Shia Muslims, and finally minorities such as the Greek Orthodox and Druze. Today the likely plural majority are […]

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Just a heads up, I might be posting less later in the week and into the weekend. So might skip these at some point.
Are Democrats Overachieving in the Senate? Is Nate Silver is having a downward pressure on other political coverage? I don’t even bother checking the other analytical stuff in The New York Times; […]

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Detailed admixture analysis of West Eurasian populations (+ GenomesUnzipped individuals). Dienekes looks at the Genomes Unzipped guys in the context of Eurasian variation. He explains why he prefers bar plots of inferred ancestral quanta over PCA and MDS charts.
A World Upside Down for Greeks. “In Greece, small businesses — defined as stores or workshops […]

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Autumn is here. And winter is coming.
The fresco to the left is the cover jacket illustration for Why we’re all Romans, a new cultural history which attempts to argue for the unique debts of Western civilization to Rome (in particular as a mediator of the wisdom of the Greeks and Hebrews). If you’re on […]

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1. First, a post from the past: The Round-Eyed Buddha.

2. Weird search query of the week: “straight jacket sex.”
3. Comment of the week, in response to Glenn Beck, Evolution, Global Warming & Tea Parties:
People who don’t believe in evolution don’t comprehend evolution. Evolution is a struggle to survive as a species. How else can you […]

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The other day NPR’s Planet Money quipped that the gold bubble was going to burst soon, as they’d decided to buy gold. Well, perhaps Facebook is nearing its bursting point…I created a Gene Expression fan page. I don’t have a good sense of the great utility of this sort of thing…you can after all find […]

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The other day NPR’s Planet Money quipped that the gold bubble was going to burst soon, as they’d decided to buy gold. Well, perhaps Facebook is nearing its bursting point…I created a Gene Expression fan page. I don’t have a good sense of the great utility of this sort of thing…you can after all find […]

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Bob Guccione, Penthouse Founder, Dies at 79. Playboy has been in decline too.
HUMAN GENE COUNT: MORE THAN A CHICKEN, LESS THAN A GRAPE. Going under 20,000. Hey, it’s just a number, not the measure of a man.

Robert Heinlein, We Never Knew Ye. Fred Pohl’s blog is really interesting.
Only You. And You. And You. This is […]

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My DonorsChoose page. Compared to previous years I’m kind of under-performing. I haven’t done any PBS-like incentives before, but perhaps I should. For example, anyone who gives $250 is owed a post from me on a topic of their choice of at least 2,000 words excluding quotations within the next 3 months. Those are just […]

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Use Cash, Not Cards, To Buy Better Food? Another of the upsides of the “pain of paying.” I wonder if the effect will be transferred to debit cards as we move away from cash? Or, perhaps the effect is tied to the concreteness of a currency, and cash is just more concrete than debit cards. […]

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240/358
Razib Khan