Roundup – Even World Cup Had a Montage, MONTAGE!

Line O’ the Day:

Maybe I do need to be more of a fan, or at least find more to celebrate. The questions for each of us, I think, are the basic ones: Could I have been more?

And, Is there still time?

– Robert Lipsyte, My Lunches With Costas: A Series Of Frank Encounters With The Journalist And Shill (UPDATE) [via Deadspin]

Best of the Best:

What Price War? Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Costs of Conflict [Anthony Gregory on The Independent Institute]

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been the most expensive and deadly for the United States since the Cold War, and in particular since Vietnam. Many Americans saw this as a consequence of the particular policy approach taken by the George W. Bush administration, and many expected that the trajectory of U.S. foreign policy, especially in Iraq but also in general terms, would change incontrovertibly, if not completely, once Barack Obama became president and had time to implement his changes. Now, more than two years into Obama’s presidency, it is time to examine the new administration’s record in Iraq and Afghanistan and its general approach to foreign policy and the war on terrorism. In doing so, we should compare what has happened to what was promised, as well as to what was undertaken during the last administration.

Gil Scott-Heron, Voice of Black Protest Culture, Dies at 62 [Ben Sisario via The New York Times]

Mr. Scott-Heron often bristled at the suggestion that his work had prefigured rap. “I don’t know if I can take the blame for it,” he said in an interview last year with the music Web site The Daily Swarm. He preferred to call himself a “bluesologist,” drawing on the traditions of blues, jazz and Harlem renaissance poetics. Yet, along with the work of the Last Poets, a group of black nationalist performance poets who emerged alongside him in the late 1960s and early ’70s, Mr. Scott-Heron established much of the attitude and the stylistic vocabulary that would characterize the socially conscious work of early rap groups like Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions. And he has remained part of the DNA of hip-hop by being sampled by stars like Kanye West. “You can go into Ginsberg and the Beat poets and Dylan, but Gil Scott-Heron is the manifestation of the modern word,” Chuck D, the leader of Public Enemy, told The New Yorker in 2010. “He and the Last Poets set the stage for everyone else.”

Brothel industry falls short in desire to pay state taxes [The Las Vegas Sun]

So the industry, at least since the 1990s, has volunteered to pay into the state’s tax coffers. If the brothels pay money to the state, the thinking goes, it’s one more reason that lawmakers won’t ban prostitution. (The industry pays money to counties, tens of thousands of dollars, in privileged business license fees.)

Blanks for the Memories: What’s Your Earliest Childhood Recollection? [Wall Street Journal]

The inability of adults to remember the earliest years of childhood—also known as infantile amnesia—has been the subject of speculation for more than a century. Modern researchers think that storing and retrieving memories require language skills that don’t develop until age 3 or 4. Others believe that while children can recall fragments of scenes from early life, they can’t create autobiographical memories—the episodes that make up one’s life story—until they have a firm concept of “self,” which may take a few more years. Researchers are finding intriguing cultural differences, too. In a study published in Child Development in 2009, Dr. Peterson and colleagues asked 225 Canadian children and 113 Chinese children, aged 8, 11 and 14, to write down as many early memories as they could in four minutes. The Canadian children were able to recall twice as many memories from their early childhoods, going back six months earlier, than Chinese children. What’s more, the Canadian children’s memories were much more likely to be about their own experiences, whereas the Chinese children focused on family or group activities. The difference isn’t in memory skills, experts believe, but in how experiences are encoded in children’s brains, which is greatly affected by the attention adults pay to them. In this case, researchers concluded, the Western parents were more likely to savor and tell stories about moments when a child said something funny or did something unusual, underscoring their individuality, while Asian cultures value collective experiences.

Tyler Cowen, America’s Hottest Economist [Brendan Greeley on Bloomberg Businessweek]

In some ways, Cowen has skipped a step in the normal path of the economist from academy to celebrity, which may explain why three notable economists contacted about Cowen declined to comment. There’s an idea among academic economists that the privilege of writing a narrative argument must be earned through the hard work of modeling and econometrics. “There is a view that what can’t be disproven isn’t science,” says Raghuram Rajan, a former director of research at the International Monetary Fund who now teaches at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He has published his own work for a general audience, most recently Fault Lines, on economic risks the financial crisis has yet to uncover. Rajan doesn’t think that narrative economics is any less difficult than writing models. “I don’t see your having to prove yourself before moving on to something that is ‘less rigorous,'” he says. “Both are hard. Both are important.” Tyler Cowen can do the math, but he works in narrative. “Economists talk of models,” he says. “Is a novel a model? What do you learn about society from novels? They’re false, but so are models.”

Adjusting Wage Disparities for Cost of Living [Joe Light on WSJ Blogs: Real Time Economics]

Where are workers getting a good deal? St. Louis breadwinners take home about the same pay as the U.S. average, according to the Labor Department, but their cost of living is more than 9% cheaper, according to the CCER. Another locale where earners have an advantage: Houston, Texas. The Labor Department says workers there earn about 99% of the U.S. average, but they get about a 7% cost of living discount. Similarly, in Dallas, they get a 7% discount and earn 98 cents on the dollar. And one of the worst-paid cities relative to its cost is Honolulu, Hawaii, where workers only made 5% more than the mean but shell out nearly 68% extra. Maybe that’s just the price you pay for 70-degree winters. In Florida, living in Miami costs 7% extra and Ft. Lauderdale costs an additional 14%, according to the CCER. Meanwhile, pay in that combined metro area is only 97% of the U.S. average. In Orlando, living is only 2% cheaper, but pay is 9% below average.

As Physicians’ Jobs Change, So Do Their Politics [New York Times]

But doctors are changing. They are abandoning their own practices and taking salaried jobs in hospitals, particularly in the North, but increasingly in the South as well. Half of all younger doctors are women, and that share is likely to grow. There are no national surveys that track doctors’ political leanings, but as more doctors move from business owner to shift worker, their historic alliance with the Republican Party is weakening from Maine as well as South Dakota, Arizona and Oregon, according to doctors’ advocates in those and other states. That change could have a profound effect on the nation’s health care debate. Indeed, after opposing almost every major health overhaul proposal for nearly a century, the American Medical Association supported President Obama’s legislation last year because the new law would provide health insurance to the vast majority of the nation’s uninsured, improve competition and choice in insurance, and promote prevention and wellness, the group said. Because so many doctors are no longer in business for themselves, many of the issues that were once priorities for doctors’ groups, like insurance reimbursement, have been displaced by public health and safety concerns, including mandatory seat belt use and chemicals in baby products.

Your Commute Is Killing You: Long commutes cause obesity, neck pain, loneliness, divorce, stress, and insomnia. [Annie Lowery on Slate]

In the past decade or so, researchers have produced a significant body of research measuring the dreadfulness of a long commute. People with long transit times suffer from disproportionate pain, stress, obesity, and dissatisfaction. The joy of living in a big, exurban house, or that extra income left over from your cheap rent? It is almost certainly not worth it.

When Did You Lose Your Dead Body Card? [Big Daddy Drew on Deadspin]

The flowerpot toilet brush exists already. A simple Google search verifies it.. Frankly, I’m stunned there isn’t one in my house as we speak. Because wives are disgusted by toilet brushes. The fact that you have to keep something in the bathroom that has a history of touching the inside of the toilet bowl is almost too much for them to bear. May as well keep a mistress in the basement.

Are Tyler Cowen’s Observations on Economics about as Good as His Observations about Basketball? [Robert Wenzel on Economic Policy Journal]

I think what attracts so many to Keynes is his convoluted way of saying things along with a tendency to throw in an occasional observation that few others have spotted. Because they recognize the interesting observation, they spend most of the time trying to understand the convoluted part of the writing, However, if you have a strong mind and willing to pull Keynes’ writing apart, you realize that although he was very smart, he really only understands things at a surface level. Hayek took the time and fully understood this about Keynes. I think it applies to Cowen as well. Cowen is very observant, tending to present in a convoluted manner, but if you understand the subject Cowen is discussing, you realize that although he observes interesting facts, it is at a very surface level.

Criminalizing free speech [Glenn Greenwald on Salon]

Alex Seitz-Wald of Think Progress rightly takes Sen. Rand Paul to task for going on Sean Hannity’s radio program — one week after commendably leading opposition to the Patriot Act on civil liberties grounds — and advocating the arrest of people who “attend radical political speeches.”  After claiming to be against racial and religious profiling, Paul said:  “But if someone is attending speeches from someone who is promoting the violent overthrow of our government, that’s really an offense that we should be going after — they should be deported or put in prison.”  Seitz-Wald correctly notes the obvious:  “Paul’s suggestion that people be imprisoned or deported for merely attending a political speech would be a fairly egregious violation on the First Amendment, not to mention due process.”

The Rays Have More Or Less Every Pick In Today’s MLB Draft [David Roher on Deadspin]

That’s thirteen picks before the start of the third round. From their first selection to the end of the supplemental round tonight, they’ll get the rights to over a quarter of the players taken. How did this happen? A combination of an antiquated compensation system and a front office smart enough to execute the plan before anyone else did.

Libya has one dictator, but Kosovo has many Gaddafis [Fatos Bytyci on Reuters]

During the socialist era of 1970s and 1980s, dozens of parents in Kosovo named their sons after Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, someone they admired for his non-aligned stance and devotion to Islam. With NATO, a supporter of mainly Muslim Kosovo’s independence, now fighting Gaddafi’s regime and calling for him to leave office, these are awkward times for such children.

Shocking FBI Discovery: Austin Is Weird [Jesse Walker on Reason]

One comes from Michael German, a former FBI agent now doing excellent work for the ACLU. (Read his terrific takedowns of fusion centers here, here, and here.) “You have a bunch of guys and women all over the country sent out to find terrorism,” German tells the Times. “Fortunately, there isn’t a lot of terrorism in many communities. So they end up pursuing people who are critical of the government.”

Obesity — Not Aging — Balloons Health Care Costs [Miller-McCune]

Unfortunately, there’s a giant exception to the rule that the longer life tends to be a healthier one: Obese people are living longer, thanks to factors such as cholesterol-cutting medicines (as is the entire population), but much of their extra time is spent in ill health, and as a result, their annual medical bills are some 42 percent higher than those of normal-weight people. In fact, the obesity epidemic has greatly increased the prevalence of chronic diseases such as diabetes, but contrary to much of the media coverage on the epidemic, it has had little effect on mortality rates. As the title of one study put it, “Smoking kills, obesity disables.”

The ECB’s stealth bailout [Hans-Werner Sinn on VOX]

The longer the cheap money drug is indulged in, the more painful the withdrawal. Wait too long and no cure will be possible.

U.S. subsidizes Brazilian cotton to protect Monsanto’s profits [Think Forward]

In a 2009 WTO “framework agreement,” the U.S. created the Commodity Conservation Corporation (CCC), and Brazil created the Brazilian Cotton Institute (BCI). Rather than eliminating or substantially reforming cotton subsidies, the CCC pays the BCI $147 million dollars a year in “technical assistance,” which happens to be the same amount the WTO authorized for trade retaliation specifically for cotton payments. In essence, then, the U.S. government pays a subsidy to Brazilian cotton farmers every year to protect the U.S. cotton program—and the profits of companies like Monsanto and Pioneer.

Why Grantland Rice Sucked [Tommy Craggs on Deadspin]

Grantland Rice was everything his namesake website should aspire not to be. He was a pandering mythmaker who wrote verse and prose the way Thomas Kinkade paints carriage lanes (“The Hills of Fame still beckon where the Paths of Glory lead …”). Reading him today is not unlike looking at your maiden aunt’s collection of Precious Moments figurines. Moths come flying off every word. He was responsible for a lot of the worst pathologies of sportswriting today, and the fact that a major web site now unironically carries his name tells me we’ve done to Rice what Rice did to so many ballplayers over the years. We’ve godded up the godmaker.

Stay Soft, Dirk Nowitzki [Luke O’Brien on Deadspin]

Even before Dirk Nowitzki lifted a championship trophy on Sunday night, he was being held up as a new man. Nowitzki had reinvented himself, we were told. He’d finally “shed” the Euro-soft label plastered to him throughout his career and, to much adulation, morphed into the sort of rugged warrior that wins titles. The tale of an individual transforming himself to wrestle destiny into submission satisfies a special American yearning. In this case, it’s obscuring an even more fundamentally American story.

The Slow, Sad Death Of A Riot’s Symbol [Barry Petchesky on Deadspin]

In April 2001, just as baseball season started up, Bubba Helms put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. “Helms’ 2-year-old son was in his grandpa’s arms, watching, as his dad pulled the trigger,” the Free Press reported. The shot didn’t kill him, just shattered his jaw, and the hospital eventually sent him on his way with a prescription for painkillers. He took an entire bottle, and died. His nephew found something in Helms’s closet while going through his belongings, the Free Press wrote. It was 1984 Detroit Tigers pennant. The family still had the newspaper clippings of Helms holding it at the riots. It had always been the highlight of his life.

One Night in Bangkok Can Lead to Quite a ‘Hangover’ for Thailand  [The Wall Street Journal]

Thailand’s tourism chief hasn’t seen the Warner Bros. box-office smash “The Hangover: Part II,” which is based in Bangkok. Maybe that’s just as well. “What’s it like?” asked Supol Sripan, general-director of the country’s tourism department, on a recent Thursday afternoon. Well, it shows his nation’s capital as chock-full of drug-dealing mobsters, drunken bar fights and hazily remembered sex in the back rooms of brothels. In the movie there are also car chases through teeming streets, and a chain-smoking monkey. “Hmm,” Mr. Supol sighed. “Well, I suppose it’s true. We have all those things.”

The Dugout by Bill Simmons [Brandon Stroud on WithLeather]

SportsGuy33: b. Derek Jeter stands too close to whatever the baseball sideline reporter equivalent is to Erin Andrews and goes on the DL; calls up his roommate Bill Simmons, who gives up his Clippers season tickets to put on Jeter’s jersey and fills in for a game, or several.

JetersNeverProsper: aren’t you a Red Sox fan?

SportsGuy33: Sure, but in this scenario you’re in first place, so I like you more

Louis C.K. Weighs In On The Tracy Morgan Scandal As All The “Videogum Promises” Crash Into Each Other And Explode [Gabe on Videogum]

In closing: fart noise.

Missing Iraq money may have been stolen, auditors say [Los Angeles Times]

Pentagon officials determined that one giant C-130 Hercules cargo plane could carry $2.4 billion in shrink-wrapped bricks of $100 bills. They sent an initial full planeload of cash, followed by 20 other flights to Iraq by May 2004 in a $12-billion haul that U.S. officials believe to be the biggest international cash airlift of all time. This month, the Pentagon and the Iraqi government are finally closing the books on the program that handled all those Benjamins. But despite years of audits and investigations, U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion in cash…For the first time, federal auditors are suggesting that some or all of the cash may have been stolen, not just mislaid in an accounting error. Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, an office created by Congress, said the missing $6.6 billion may be “the largest theft of funds in national history.”

Why We Shouldn’t Blame Roberto “LeBrongo” [Jack Dickey on Deadspin]

Watching the Bruins play, especially in the playoffs, you knew that their defensemen would shove anyone in front of the net. No one would own the crease against them like Boston’s forwards did against Vancouver in game seven. The Bruins’ triumph resulted from a steely team effort. But we’ve lost that story because the tourists, dropping in for a hockey come-down after basketball, want to make this about a meltdown, because that’s what they know and enjoyed, earlier in the week. LeBrongo, amirite? If they looked harder, though, they would have seen one of the greatest goalies ever fighting in vain to save his underperforming teammates—some of whom quite literally got in his way—from themselves. Does that sound like LeBron to you?

The Crash of 1993: As the great comic-book bubble showed, sometimes there’s no recovery from a speculative boom [Johnathan Last on The Weekly Standard]

I have a comic book like that. In 1984, DC launched what became an immensely popular series, The New Teen Titans. The first issue carried a premium cover price of $1.25, the result of the series being printed not on the usual newsprint but on higher quality “Baxter” paper. I missed the first issue when it debuted, and the back-issue price quickly climbed. In a few months I saved up the scratch to buy a copy.  I paid $25, a not-inconsiderable sum for a 10-year-old. It was the jewel of my collection. Today you can buy a copy in near-mint condition for $1.50.

Sideways Remains:

• Dan Snyder’s Latest Media Blitz Makes Everyone Look Like A Simpering Ass [Luke O’Brien on Deadspin]
• Tim Donaghy On Game 1: How The Refs Set The Tone Of A Game [Tim Donaghy via Deadspin]
• Derek Jeter Leads AL Shortstops in All-Star Voting, NL Responds By Adding Extra Infielder [David Roher on Deadspin]
• Limousine liberals? Number of government-owned limos has soared under Obama [The Center for Public Integrity iWatch news]
• THE PAIN IN SPAIN [Eric Margolis]
• Bentleys and Aston Martins abandoned on streets of Delhi [The Telegraph]
• Ten design lessons from Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of American landscape architecture [37 Signals]
• Move over, Twilight, there’s a new abstinence movie in town [Vince Mancini on FilmDrunk]
• Under an Arizona Plan, Smokers and the Obese Would Pay Medicaid Fee [New York Times]
• The Last Nail by Ron Paul — With Documented Hyperlinks [Thomas Eddlem on The New American]
• Tomgram: Engelhardt, Welcome to Post-Legal America [Tom Englehardt]
• Cyber Combat: Act of War [Wall Street Journal]
• Cellphone Cancer Warning [Wall Street Journal]
• Winning Argument: As a “New” Critique of Reason, Argumentative Theory Is Trite but Useful [John Horgan on Scientific American]
• The U.S. Postal Service Nears Collapse [Devin Leonard on Bloomberg Businessweek]
• Are Taxes in the U.S. High or Low? [Bruce Bartlett on Economix]
• Faith and the markets: The religious rituals of the finance sector [Buttonwood on The Economist]
• Michael Bay demands wingsuits, BASE jumping [Vince Mancini on FilmDrunk]
• A Case Study In Incompetence: Dan Snyder’s PR Guy, Tony Wyllie [Luke O’Brien on Deadspin]
• Exploding watermelons put spotlight on Chinese farming practices [The Guardian]
• A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away … I Was a Star Wars Fan [Will Carlough via Slate]
• Shane Boor, busted for flipping the bird at state trooper, to be defended by ACLU [Denver Westword]
• Maori Angry About Mike Tyson’s Tattoo Artist Claiming To Own Maori-Inspired Design [TechDirt]
• Floppy Disk Style Kodak Film from 1982 [PetaPixel]
• JFK Assassination Photographer Mary Moorman Gives First Interview in 48 Years  [Silber Studios]
• Somin on Gary Johnson and Ron Paul: A Reply [Matt Mortellaro via The Libertarian Standard]
• Egypt’s ‘revolting’ forced ‘virginity tests [The Week]
• Gallup: Young, older Americans divided on issues of sex [MSNBC]
• Can I See Your License, Registration and C.P.U.? [Tyler Cowen via The New York Times]
• Baltimore Officers Make Up Laws and Detain Student for Photography [PetaPixel]
• ‘Global war on drugs has failed,’ key panel says [MSNBC]
• Teen girl shoots dad with arrow because he took away her cell phone [New York Daily News]
• Donnie Walsh Out As Knicks Prez, Fans Begin Zeke Freakout [Jack Dickey on Deadspin]
• Man Gets Wasted At Company Softball Game, Emails Company To Brag About DUI And Getting Kicked Out Of A Bar [Deadspin]
• West Virginia’s Toxic Circus: The Boozer, The Lame Duck, And The Vengeful Coach’s Wife [Barry Petchesky on Deadspin]
• Who’s The Cat And Who’s The Mouse? Carl Froch Vs. Glen Johnson, And Other Pursuits [Hamilton Nolan on Deadspin]
• Sepp Blatter’s “Council of Wisdom” May Include…Placido Domingo? [Luke O’Brien on Deadspin]
• Tim Donaghy On Game 3: How Refs Read The Players [Deadspin]
• Even As A Cub Reporter, Bill Simmons Was Dropping Annoyingly Precious Pop Cultural References [Jason Schwartz on Boston Magazine via Deadspin]
• The Dirty Talk Of The Town: Profanity At “The New Yorker”  [The Awl]
• Market Wisdom [Twitter]
• Pixar’s Motto: Going From Suck to Nonsuck [Peter Sims on Fast Company]
• Who gets Attention on Twitter? [The Network Thinkers]
• A Trader, an F.B.I. Witness, and Then a Suicide [Peter Lattman and William K. Rashbaum on NY Times Dealb%k]
• ‘Intellectual Meat Market’ Makes Washington Long Odds for Women [Bloomberg]
• Al Franken: Not Funny About the 4th Amendment, Either** [Matt Welch on Reason]
• New Mexico High Court Rules Cops Can Seize Guns During Traffic Stops [Reason]
• Racism and the War on Drugs [Reason]
• LeBron James And The Mistaken Case Of The Shrinking Superstar [Emma Carmichael on Deadspin]
• Shaq Calls Dwight Howard Beef “All Marketing,” News paper Wonders If Cop-Out Is Attempt At Marketing [Deadspin]
• OK, For The Last Time: Plaxico Burress Was Not Wearing Sweatpants The Night He Shot Himself [Tommy Craggs on Deadspin]
• Rough Trade [Roger Lowenstein on Online Review at The New Republic]
• Syrian activists fear retaliation after 120 soldiers ‘are shot dead’ [The Independent]
• Facebook Used by Courts to Find Those Who Are ‘Only Online’ [Bloomberg]
• How Hair Extensions Made Me A Casual Sex Goddess [Mihal Freinquel via Jezebel]
• Industry Puts Heat on Schools to Teach Skills Employers Need [Wall Street Journal]
• The Real Cost of the Auto Bailouts [David Skeel on the Wall Street Journal]
• The Revolution Blows Up [Niall Ferguson via Newsweek]
• Star Wars Episode V Retold in Iconoscope [Wayne Dorrington]
• An Interview with Tim Hartford and an Excerpt from his New Book Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure [Cory Doctorow on BoingBoing]
• New Cracks in Oil Cartel [Wall Street Journal]
• What Would Football Look Like If It Were Played With Baseballs? [Drew Magary on Deadspin]
• Facebook Used by Courts to Find Those Who Are ‘Only Online’ [Bloomberg]
• Native Ants Use Chemical Weapons to Turn Back Invading Argentine Ants  [Science Daily]
• The Subterranean Homelessness Blues [Wall Street Journal]
• Decline and fall of the American empire [Larry Elliot on The Guardian]
• A decade of global food prices [The Guardian]
• The Westlake Community Pool Swim Team Gets A Little Extra Motivation [Big Daddy Drew on KSK]
• As A Sox Fan, Peter King Likes His Fiction Awfully Rapey [Big Daddy Drew on KSK]
• How An MLB Umpire Helped This Kalamazoo Wiffleball Team Win Its Game [Deadspin]
• Every Overwrought Thing Adrian Wojnarowski Has Said About LeBron James [Deadspin]
• One Morning In Dirkland: A Game 6 Report From A Bar In Germany [Deadspin]
• Learning To Hate Sugar Ray Leonard All Over Again [Luke O’Brien on Deadspin]
• Tim Donaghy On Game 4: Let’s Marvel At Chris Bosh’s Restless Pivot Foot [Tim Donaghy on Deadspin]
• Why Men Send Dong Shots To People [Drew Magary on Deadspin]
• If A Canadian Team Wins A Title, Will They Visit The White House? [Barry Petchesky on Deadspin]
• LeBron James Is STILL A Cocksucker [Drew Magary on Deadspin]
• Police use tear gas to quell riot in southern China [Reuters]
• Scene Breakdown: Cool As Ice [Danger Guerrero on FilmDrunk]
• How I Tuned The Heartstrings For NBC Olympics Coverage [Emma Carmichael on Deadspin]
• Holding Farts In And You! [Big Daddy Drew on Deadspin]
• Economy’s I-Told-You-So Naysayers Hold a Reunion [Caroline Baum on Bloomberg]
• Black Power Wanes Amid Rising Hispanic Economic Clout in U.S.  [Bloomberg]
• What The Miami Heat Taught Us About Fascism (And Maybe Cat Sex, Too) [Bethlehem Shoals on Free Darko via Deadspin]
• Luongo’s Legacy: Not Tonight [Barry Petchesky on Deadspin]
• Roberto Luongo And The Last Stand Of the Superstar Goalie [Jack Dickey on Deadspin]
• The Canucks Are On The Verge Of Historical Mediocrity [David Roher on Deadspin]
• German Newspaper Credits Dirk, “First White MVP Since Larry Bird,” With Defeating “Ghetto Basketball” [Jack Dickey on Deadspin]
• American Marvel [Edith Zimmerman on Gentlemen’s Quarterly]
• Minnesota Twins Disrespect Lesbian Love And God’s Law [Tom Scocca on Deadspin]
• US Housing Crisis Is Now Worse Than Great Depression [CNBC]
• Renters are next victims of the housing market [MSNBC]
• Porn star says Representative Weiner asked her to lie [Reuters]
• Students Stumble Again on the Basics of History [Wall Street Journal]
• 10 Things Not to Do When Going Back on Gold [Brian Domitrovic on Forbes]
• Wave of Unrest Rocks China: Threats to Social Order Increasingly Hit Cities, Bringing Iron-Fist Response [The Wall Street Journal]
• Can intelligence be boosted by a simple task? For some… [Not Exactly Rocket Science]
• Can Brain Scans Predict Music Sales? [Science Now] and Is There a Scientific Explanation for Justin Bieber? [Wall Street Journal]
• The riot kissers: ‘He’s a bit of a dreamer,’ mom says  [The Globe and Mail]
• Home Prices Exploding in Silicon Valley Amid Millionaires  [Bloomberg]
• Nasty Nancy Nation [William Anderson on LRC]
• Camaro Outruns Mustang as Lost Sales Put Factory in Doubt [Bloomberg]
• “Internet in a Suitcase”: U.S. to aid Arab uprisings [CNBC]

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Roundup – Fascinating Rhythm

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Line O’ the Day:

Red Sox 1, Tigers 0, with the fog and mist rolling in from right field making it seem like March in Scotland.

OW-AH MIST IS BETTAH THAN YOUR-AH MIST!

– Big Daddy Drew, Peter King And Dick Ebersol Are Breakfast Barons [KSK]

Best of the Best:

False Forbearance Obama breaks his promise to respect medical marijuana laws [Jacob Sullum on Reason]

During his presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly said he would call off the Drug Enforcement Administration’s raids on both medical marijuana users and their suppliers. In a March 2008 interview with southern Oregon’s Mail Tribune, he said, “I’m not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue.” Two weeks after Obama took office, a White House spokesman reiterated that position, saying, “The president believes that federal resources should not be used to circumvent state laws.” In October 2009, David Ogden, then the deputy attorney general, sent a memo that seemed to fulfill this promise. “As a general matter,” he told U.S. attorneys, they “should not focus federal resources” on “individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.” Yet the DEA’s medical marijuana raids not only have continued but are more frequent under Obama than they were under George W. Bush. Americans for Safe Access (ASA), which argues that patients who can benefit from marijuana should be able to obtain it legally, counts well over 100 raids in the two years and four months since Obama’s inauguration, compared to about 200 during Bush’s eight years in office. “The Obama administration really is being more aggressive than the administration of his predecessor,” says ASA spokesman Kris Hermes.

Sneak attacks from black bears baffle scientists [Esther Inglis-Akrell on io9]

Fatal black bear attacks occur when people don’t get the chance to get scared away. Over ninety percent of the fatalities have been when bears are hunting, not defending. Attacking bears are almost always young, male, and hunting their victims rather than scaring them. They tend to creep up on people, and then charge them in a surprise attack. Some male bears were sick or injured, which may be why they tried to creep up on slow-moving, foul-smelling humans rather than something tastier, but with the limited number of cases there was no way to be sure that the injury had caused the bear to attack.

The most important defecation-related scientific study ever [NCBI ROFL via io9]

Researchers at the University of Iowa began their 2006 paper for The American Journal of Gastroenterology by explaining their most crucial topic:

Whether defecation is influenced by body position or stool characteristics is unclear. We investigated effects of body position, presence of stool-like sensation, and stool form on defecation patterns and manometric profiles.

This is why people get into science, right here.

You’re living in a computer simulation, and math proves it [Ed Grabianowski on io9]

Questions about the nature of reality weren’t invented by high-as-a-kite college sophomores. Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi noticed sometime around 300 BCE that his dreams of being something other than human (a butterfly, most famously) were indistinguishable from his experience being Zhuangzi. He could not say with certainty that he was Zhuangzi dreaming of being a butterfly rather than a butterfly dreaming of being Zhuangzi.

Ahmadinejad allies charged with sorcery [The Guardian]

Close allies of Iran‘s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been accused of using supernatural powers to further his policies amid an increasingly bitter power struggle between him and the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Several people said to be close to the president and his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, have been arrested in recent days and charged with being “magicians” and invoking djinns (spirits).

Speaking multiple languages can give you multiple personalities [Scientific American via io9]

Psychologists at Hong Kong Polytechnic University discovered that native Chinese students who were also fluent in English seemingly became “more assertive, extroverted, and open to new experiences” when using their second language. The researchers argue those are all traits more typical of English speakers than Cantonese, suggesting a link between language and personality traits.

High-Earning Households Pay Growing Share of Taxes [The Wall Street Journal]

As President Barack Obama pushes to raise income taxes on high earners, opponents are seizing on data that indicates these U.S. households already pay a large and growing share of taxes, even compared with high-tax European countries. And a new congressional study concludes that the percentage of U.S. households owing no federal income tax climbed to 51% for 2009. Republicans are expected to highlight these figures at a congressional hearing Tuesday. They oppose Mr. Obama’s proposal to increase taxes for high earners, defined as families making more than $250,000 per year, as a way to help close large federal budget deficits…For their part, Democrats note that the incomes of higher earners have been growing far more rapidly, so it’s only natural that they would pay a higher share of tax. As for those Americans who pay no federal income tax, most of them still pay Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes that can take a significant share of their income, Democrats said.

HOW TO STEAL LIKE AN ARTIST (AND 9 OTHER THINGS NOBODY TOLD ME) [Austin Kleon]

Marry well.

It’s the most important decision you’ll ever make.

And marry well doesn’t just mean your life partner — it also means who you do business with, who you befriend, who you choose to be around.

Derek Boogaard, The Quintessential Goon [Jack Dickey on Deadspin]

But it’s important to remember that Boogaard’s sport was, for all intents and purposes, fighting. It wasn’t incidental to the hockey. It was the only thing he could do, the only thing that’d take him from that tiny rink with its sad American and Canadian flags to a big rink in the middle of Manhattan. Fighting was the only thing that could make Derek Boogaard famous enough to become the avatar of an anti-fighting movement that would rid hockey of all Derek Boogaards.

Bin Laden’s Death Won’t End His Toll on American Taxpayers [David Lynch on Bloomberg]

Even in death, Osama bin Laden will be taking revenge on American taxpayers for years to come. The U.S. government spent $2 trillion combating bin Laden over the past decade, more than 20 percent of the nation’s $9.68 trillion public debt. That money paid for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as additional military, intelligence and homeland security spending above pre-Sept. 11 trends, according to a Bloomberg analysis.

Iraq dossier drawn up to make case for war – intelligence officer [The Guardian]

A top military intelligence official has said the discredited dossier on Iraq‘s weapons programme was drawn up “to make the case for war”, flatly contradicting persistent claims to the contrary by the Blair government, and in particular by Alastair Campbell, the former prime minister’s chief spin doctor.

The illegal war in Libya [Glenn Greenwald on Salon]

This war, without Congressional authorization, is illegal in every relevant sense:  Constitutionally and statutorily.   That was true from its start but is especially true now.  If one wants to take the position that it’s not particularly important or damaging for a President to illegally start and sustain protracted wars on his own, then it’s hard to see what would be important.  That is the ultimate expression of a lawless empire.

A Night At The Boxing Circus With The Bros, The Modelbots, And Darryl Strawberry [Hamilton Nolan on Deadspin]

Boyd Melson is the Peyton Manning of boxing — he looks like Peyton Manning, he talks like Peyton Manning, and he’s so god damn all-American that you just want him to fail in the most spectacular way possible. He went to West Point, and he gives the prize money from each of his fights to some worthy charity for paralysis victims, even making a speech in the ring after he fights, exhorting the crowd to donate money. I’d seen his act once before, and I was sick of it. If I wanted to see inspirational all-American success stories plugging worthy causes, I’d watch G.I. fucking Joe. This was boxing, where kind men get hurt and dreams get soaked in blood. It just wasn’t right. Boyd Melson is not all that good, so I had high hopes that his opponent, Hector Rivera, might put an end to Melson’s reign of uprightness and cookies and milk.

Dead Wrestler Of The Week: “Macho Man” Randy Savage [The Masked Man on Deadspin]

Odd as this may be, it’s important to note that there was minimal distinction between Randy Savage the wrestling personality and Randy Poffo the real guy. To the extent that other wrestlers knew him personally, Savage was said to be the same person outside the ring as inside, sometimes to a fault. (Dutch Mantel said that he trained his voice to be the Macho Man voice — there was no put-on there either.) But in terms of his on-screen persona, his personal eccentricity was rendered as maniacal psychopathy, and it found a suitable venue in the WWF ring, which was even more an “arena for angry minds” (in Richard Hofstadter’s phrase) than the political realm. The “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy” of the average Savage interview functionally defined the paranoid style in American pro wrestling. He was McCarthy on steroids.

National Sportswriter Of The Year Peter King Cites A Radio Interview That Never Happened [Big Daddy Drew on KSK]

Washington owner Dan Snyder said on Sirius Radio over the weekend that the ‘Skins and Steelers had a deal in place for Washington to trade the 16th overall pick to Pittsburgh for the 31st pick plus other choices … but the Steelers didn’t do the deal when it came time to pull the trigger. Seems the player Pittsburgh wanted was gone by the time the 16th pick rolled around.

Read that paragraph again. Seems like a good nugget, doesn’t it? Except that Dan Steinberg from the Post emailed me this…

Peter King had a long item today based on a Dan Snyder interview on Sirius over the weekend that apparently never happened. The Sirius PR guy says he has no idea what King is talking about. Waiting for more details.

SPORTSWRITER OF THE YEAR, PEOPLE. You try making baseless speculations off of radio interviews that never happened. That takes creativity. The Redskins also deny the interview took place.

In Your Face: The Rise and Fall of Zubaz  [Ethan Trex on mental_floss]

When we think of Zubaz today, “utilitarian” probably isn’t the first word that pops into our heads. However, friends Bob Truax and Dan Stock actually had a practical purpose in mind when they created the garish pants. Truax and Stock owned a Minnesota gym that was popular with bodybuilders. The bodybuilding clientele had a problem: the hardcore weightlifters couldn’t find pants or shorts that comfortably fit their massive thighs while offering the flexibility they needed in workouts. In 1988 Truax and Stock began brainstorming a new kind of shorts for the heavy-lifting man.

Autism Leads Rise of Developmental Disabilities in U.S. Kids [Bloomberg]

Boys were more likely than girls to have developmental disabilities, while low-income families and those on public health insurance had a higher likelihood of having children with the disorders, the study found. Autism varies in severity and symptoms. Those with the condition may have trouble making eye contact, understanding facial expressions, and learning to share and follow instructions. Children with the disorder also may show compulsive interests or behaviors.

Commodity Prices and Paradigm Shifts [Rick Bookstaber]

Given our evolved interests a few decades hence, most of us will be spending a fraction of our income on consumption. There just won’t be a lot that we will demand that requires nonrenewable resources. What we will demand will be in the way of electronic products, which will only consume a few ounces of such commodities. We will basically eat, sleep, work and then veg out. Give us food, plumbing, heat and our two-hundred dollar experience machine games, and we will be happy as a clam. People who are staring at a tsunami of demand for commodities from the developing world and predicting a doomsday of $400 oil and $4000 gold are missing the longer-term retreating tide of demand as citizens of the developed world actually demand decreasing amounts of energy, large goods, and heavy infrastructure. We won’t be packing up and moving to Mars, as the science fiction solutions to resource depletion propose. We will pack up and move into the virtual world.

“We Are Crossing the Boundary Between Knowledge and Belief” [The European Interview of Rolf-Dieter Heuer]

We separate knowledge from belief. Particle physics is asking the question of how did things develop? Religion or philosophy ask about why things develop. But the boundary between the two is very interesting. I call it the interface of knowledge. People start asking questions like “if there was a Big Bang, why was it there?” For us physicists, time begins with the Big Bang. But the question remains whether anything existed before that moment. And was there something even before the thing that was before the Big Bang? Those are questions where knowledge becomes exhausted and belief starts to become important.

TIME TO FACE THE TRUTH ABOUT WORLD WAR II [Eric Margolis]

From this ancient fortress city, allow me, a former instructor of military history, to address three particularly misleading myths still lingering from World War II: First: France’s army did not simply surrender or run away in 1940, as ignorant American conservatives claim…Second myth: the forts of France’s Maginot Line were not tactically outflanked. The Germans struck NW of the Line’s end, through the Belgian/French Ardennes Forest, a route anticipated by the French Army which held war games there in 1939. The immobile French field army failed, not the Maginot Line. The uncompleted Line was too costly, tied down too many men, and came to symbolize France’s defensive attitude.  But it fulfilled its mission to defend France’s vital coal and steel industries in  Lorraine….Third myth:  the US, Britain and Canada defeated Germany.  Not true.  The 66^th anniversary of the Soviet victory in WWII just passed, totally ignored in the west.   We must salute the valor of Russia’s dauntless soldiers and pilots who, like German soldiers, fought magnificently, albeit for criminal regimes.World War II in Europe was not won at D-Day.  Germany’s army and air force were already broken on the Eastern Front’s titanic battles.

On Patriotism: Examining the Firmware of War [Fred Reed]

Of course the Japanese pilots who attacked Pearl Harbor were patriots, as were the German soldiers who murdered millions in the Second World War. The men who brought down the towers in New York were patriots, though of a religious sort. Do we admire their patriotism? Of course not. When we say “John is a patriot,” we mean “John is a reliable member of our dog pack,” nothing more. The pack instinct seems more ancient, and certainly stronger, than morality or any form of human decency. Thus, once the pack—citizenry, I meant to say—have been properly roused to a pitch of patriotism, they will, under cover of the most diaphanous pretexts, rape Nanking, bomb Hiroshima, kill the Jews or, if they are Jews, Palestinians. We are animals of the pack. We don’t admire patriotism. We admire loyalty to ourselves.

Is The Human Race Doomed? Deutsche Bank On “One The Most Important (Future) Turning Points In History” [Sanjeev Sanyal on Deutsche Bank via Zero Hedge]

One useful way to think about trends in birth rates is to look at what is called the Total Fertility Rate (TFR). This is the average number of live births per woman over her lifetime. It is usually estimated by sampling women of child bearing age (usually defined as 15-44 years). In the long run, a population is said to be stable if the TFR is at the “replacement rate”. This is usually said to be 2.1 births per woman but in reality only developed countries can hope to keep their population stable with such a level. For developing countries, the required replacement rate is much higher because factors such as infant mortality and maternal deaths at childbirth. Thus, the replacement level of TFR is a little above 2.3 for the world as a whole. The TFR for most developed countries now stands well below replacement levels. The OECD average is at around 1.74 but there are countries like Germany and Japan that produce less than 1.4 children per woman 5. According to the OECD’s latest estimates, South Korea has a TFR of barely 1.15 – a level that foretells rapid aging and a sharp decline in population from the 2020s. However, the biggest TFR declines in recent years have been in emerging economies. According to the UN’s population division, the TFR in China and India were 6.1 and 5.9 respectively in 1950. The ratio has now fallen to 1.8 in China due to the aggressive one-child policy and to 2.6 in India due to a steady change in social attitudes. Similarly, Brazil’s TFR has fallen to 1.7 from 6.2 in 1950. These are large declines but there is reason to believe that the underlying dynamics are driving actual birth rates down even faster than suggested by the headline TFR. China and, to lesser extent, India have skewed gender ratios. The Chinese census suggests that there are 118.6 boys being born for every 100 girls, worsening from 116.9 in 2000. Similarly, India has a gender ratio at birth of around 110 boys for every 100 girls with large regional variations. Compare this with the “natural” ratio of 105 boys per 100 girls (notice that even the natural ratio is not exactly 1:1). A cultural preference for boys is usually held responsible for the deviation. Since it is women who give birth and not men, the future scarcity of women implies that the effective reproductive capacity for both countries is below what is suggested by the unadjusted TFR reading. After making the adjustment for the gender imbalance, China’s Effective Fertility Rate (EFR) is around 1.5 while that for India is around 2.45 – both below what is widely discussed. In other words, the Chinese are already far from replacing themselves while the Indians are only slightly above the replacement rate. If we make the same adjustment for the world’s fertility rate, we now have an EFR of around 2.4 which is almost at the replacement rate. In our view, the human race will no longer be replacing itself by the early 2020s. Population growth will continue for a few more decades because of momentum from the age structure and people living longer but, reproductively speaking, our species will no longer be growing. This will be one of the most important turning points in history.

Fed Gave Banks Crisis Gains on Secretive Loans Low as 0.01% [Bloomberg BusinessWeek]

Credit Suisse Group AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc each borrowed at least $30 billion in 2008 from a Federal Reserve emergency lending program whose details weren’t revealed to shareholders, members of Congress or the public.

The Remains:

• Chinese teenager carries friend on back for eight years  [International Business Times]
• Candle Maker Feels Burned [The Wall Street Journal]
• Oak Forest Police Respond to Standoff, a ‘Hoax’ [Fox Chicago News]
• South Korean man found dead on crucifix [AFP]
• If Prostitutes Are Slaves, How Can Punishing Them Be Just? [Jacob Sullum on Reason]
• Mosque leaders decry neighbor’s sign as “racist” [NBC]
• Solar cells more efficient than photosynthesis — for now [Kurzweil]
• Man uses Prey to track stolen MacBook Pro hundreds of miles, calls thief [The Unofficial Apple Weblog]
• First Alleged “Copyright” Dispute: 560 AD, Celtic Ireland; Battle Ensues; 3000 people die [Stephan Kinsella on Mises Blog]
• My Reaction to Osama bin Laden’s Death [Noam Chomsky via Guernica]
• The Law of the Somalis [Let a Thousand Nations Bloom]
• The musical test that reveals the extent of brain damage [Esther Inglis-Arkell on io9]
• Can hot sauce be used as a substitute for electrical shocks? [Martin Gardiner on Improbable Research via io9]
• Worm regenerates a whole new body from a single cell [Rebecca Boyle on Popular Science via io9]
• Another reason why cuttlefish are masters of disguise [io9]
• Add sugar to your antibiotics and crush superbugs [io9]
• The magical substance that prevents snakes and spiders from killing you [Esther Inglis-Arkell on io9]
• Infographic explains the Phantom Time Hypothesis, in which the Middle Ages never happened [io9]
• Your spine keeps a record of all your body’s pain [Ed Yong on Discover via io9]
• New diamond aerogel is so light that it’s like “frozen smoke” made of diamonds [io9]
• The horrifying history of people who used the internet for murder [Annalee Newitz on io9]
• Koalas have exactly the same fingerprints as humans [LiveScience on io9]
• Ancient chemical weapons that were ahead of their time [Esther Inglis-Arkell on io9]
• Why don’t asexual fish hybrids rule the world [Physiological and Biochemical Zoology via io9]
• Pupfish are undergoing mysteriously supercharged evolution [Evolution via io9]
• Sepp Blatter Says FIFA Will “Be Sucked Into A Black Hole” If Sepp Blatter Is Not Reelected FIFA President [Deadspin]
• A Panicky Column About The Scandalous Thing Serena Williams Just Did [Emma Carmichael on Deadspin]
• How people are going to seal Chernobyl. Again. [Scientific American via io9]
• Superman has given up his American citizenship (and we’re all stupider for it) [Cyriaque Lamar on io9]
• A Rural Memoir [Fred Reed]
• Minimum Wage’s Discriminatory Effects [Walter Williams via Creators Syndicate]
• PAKISTAN ON THE HOT SEAT [Eric Margolis]
• Trump says public scorn greater than he expected [Reuters]
• Bar Discounted Beer Every Time The Pirates Lost; Team Bullies Them Into Ending Promotion [Jack Dickey on Deadspin]
• The Mystery Of The Mets Manbaby [Deadspin]
• “We’re On A Fucking Roll, Dude”: The 1993 Profile Of Lenny Dykstra That Warned Us What Was Coming [Bruce Buschel on Philadelphia Magazine, January 1993 via Deadspin]
• Can You Filibuster Your Own Execution? [Big Daddy Drew on Deadspin]
• The World’s 26 Best Cities for Business, Life, and Innovation [The Atlantic]
• Taco Bell and the Golden Age of Drive-Thru [Karl Taro Greenfield on Bloomberg BusinessWeek]
• Romney Seeks to Distance Himself From Health-Care Bill He Signed [Bloomberg]
• Illinois lawmaker backs away from comments on obese kids [Quad-City Times]
• Manufacturing Stages A Comeback [Joel Kotkin on New Geographer via Forbes]
• Shutting Out the Kids from the Family Fortune [Robert Frank on Yahoo! Finance]
• Romney Seeks to Distance Himself From Health-Care Bill He Signed [Bloomberg]
• Why CEOs Avoided Getting Busted in Meltdown [William Black on Bloomberg]
• A Short History of Goldman Spokesman Lucas Van Praag’s Most Withering Rebuttals [New York Magazine]
• Poker is a game of SKILL not luck, claims ‘Freakonomics’ economics professor [The Daily Mail]
• Confessions of a Car Salesman  [Popular Mechanics]
• Book Review: Adam Fergusson’s When Money Dies [John Tamny on RealClearMarkets]
• NLRB v. Boeing Is An Abuse of Power [Diana Furchtgott-Roth on RealClearMarkets]
• Postal Service loses $2.2 billion in second quarter [Ed O’Keefe on The Washington Post]
• From Soviets to Sharks: How Seven TV Channels Changed Their Identities [Warming Glow]
• The Osama bin Laden exception [Glenn Greenwald on Salon]
• The always-expanding bipartisan Surveillance State [Glenn Greenwald on Salon]
• The quaint and obsolete Nuremberg principles [Glenn Greenwald on Salon]
• Is Facebook the Next MySpace? For Media Sales, Maybe. [GigaOm]
• The Case for Dennis Rodman: Guide [Skeptical Sports Analysis]
• Game Over [Wall Street Journal]
• China Is Now Top Gold Bug [Wall Street Journal]
• End-Times Talk Unleashes an Entrepreneurial Flood [Wall Street Journal]
• An Unfamiliar Face, Soon Everywhere [Wall Street Journal]
• IEA: More Oil Needed Urgently [Wall Street Journal]
• Al Qaeda releases posthumous bin Laden audio recording [Wall Street Journal]
• Vuvuzelas Spread Disease [Gawker]
• TV Execs Get An Unwelcome Visitor At Their Annual Upfronts [Big Daddy Drew on KSK]
• Doc Gooden: Lenny Dykstra Tried To Bust Me Out Of ‘Celebrity Rehab’ [CBS New York]
• We’re Gonna Need A Cleanup In Aisle 18: FBI busts man for alleged airborne masturbation [The Smoking Gun]
• Judgment Day? Five failed end-of-the-world predictions [The Christian Science Monitor]
• The Hot-Money Cowboys of Baghdad [Steve Lee Meyers on The New York Times]
• A Knight’s Castle in Tennessee [Wall Street Journal]
• Wearing Only a Smile, Nudists Seek Out the Young and the Naked [Wall Street Journal]
• Two Plagues Hit Louisiana: Farmers Suffer Floods Near the Mississippi While Drought Ravages Higher Ground [Wall Street Journal]
• Shattered Missouri City Digs Out [Wall Street Journal]
• Munich Re Says Prostitutes Attended Party for Ergo Agents [Bloomberg]
• In Rust Belt, manufacturers add jobs, but factory pay isn’t what it used to be [Washington Post]
• The History Of The World’s “Reserve” Currency: From Ancient Greece To Today and World Bank Sees Dollar Reserve Status Ending Over Next Decade [World Bank via Zero Hedge]
• Check Out the Future of Shopping [Wall Street Journal]
• Thirteen Years Later, We Still Miss You, Phil Hartman [Josh on Warming Glow]
• People Still Think The Onion Is Real News [Robopanda on Uproxx]
• In a Beef Over Branding [Wall Street Journal]
• How spam works, from end to end [BoingBoing]
• Agreeing on Groupon [Joshua Gans on Harvard Business Review]
• China hit by worst energy crisis in years as drought compounds chronic power shortages [Washington Post]
• “You Americans Are Funny” — You Start an IMF [Brian Domitrovic on Forbes]
• Global Search Volume By Language [Flowing Data via the Big Picture]
• Big Dogs of the Oil Patch Tangle Over Gas Subsidies [Wall Street Journal]
• Gold Companies May Face $100 Billion Liability for Sick Miners [Bloomberg]
• Civil war looms in Yemen, Saleh urged to quit [Reuters]
• Prophecy Fail: What happens to a doomsday cult when the world doesn’t end? [Vaughn Bell on Slate]
• Pensions, bestiality, citrus laws all signed [The Miami Herald]
• Should we have sunk the Bismarck? Tormented sailor reveals how Germans tried to surrender before ship was destroyed costing 2,000 lives [The Daily Mail]
• War-weary lawmakers push Obama to end Afghan war [Reuters]
• Fact and Fiction In Anti-Oil-Industry Demagoguery [Lawrence McQuillan on RealClearMarkets]
• Drug-Gang Battles Leave Mexico Region in Unruly State [Wall Street Journal]

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