1. An old teacher, Michael Dulick, retired several years ago and went to Honduras to live amongst the poor and teach. It is rare to meet a man of such great compassion and intelligence. Thanks to the wonders of modern communications technology you can read his blog here.
2. If you need to escape from a cougar UC Davis scientists recommend running away. Other apparently valid responses include staring it down, buying another shot.
3. The ever popular Nicholas Kristof discusses behavioral differences amongst liberal and conservatively minded people. Liberals are far less likely to respect authority and conservatives are more likely to evince disgust.
4. George Bush defends his record, reveals topics covered in his upcoming book. Money quote:
Bush also revealed the topic of the first chapter in his forthcoming book, which he said will be about “the stories of my administration as I saw them.” That first chapter, he said, will be answer the question: “Why did I run for president?”
5. Nate Silver at FiveThirthyEight debunks the idea that political affliation was used to choose which Chrysler dealerships to close. Jonathan Adler at the Volokh Conspiracy does a similar, less technical analysis and comes to the same conclusion. It turns out that people who own car dealerships are far more likely to vote/donate to Republicans as a whole so the observation that dealerships that are scheduled to close tended to donate disporportionately to Republicans means nothing of substance.
6. The illusion of sex (from RealityCarnival). Also, sex in the Middle Ages and you don’t even have to read any Foucault.
Ducks and Economics 