Selected readings from the past week. Some resulted in blog posts, other items just of general interest.
Voting Rights:
- Kevin Drum: Compare and Contrast: Laws That Protect White Voting vs. Laws That Protect Black Voting
- John Holbo: It was a crime at the time, but the laws, we changed them [Note: A serious subject but – on the lighter side – bonus points for the New Pornographers reference. Farrell on the microphone?]
- Ellen Katz, et al.: Documenting Discrimination in Voting: Judicial Findings Under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act Since 1982
Politics:
- Tim Egan: The Up-in-the-Air President
- Texas State Senator Wendy Davis
- Charlie Pierce: The Snowden Effect, Continued
- Josh Barro: The Almost-Good Reasons Toronto Elected Rob Ford
- Josh Barro: Erick Erickson Sees Inflation, But The Only Thing That’s Inflated Is His Derp
- Mike Konczal: We Already Tried Libertarianism – It Was Called Feudalism
Environmental Policy:
- Boston.com: Environmentalists Urge Mass. Ban on “Fracking”
- PETITION: Tell Secretary Moniz: Don’t Encourage Expanded Fracking
Economics:
- Jared Bernstein: Inequality and Mobility, Again
- Thomas Edsall: What if We’re Looking at Inequality the Wrong Way?
- Armour, Birkhauser, and Larrimore: Levels and Trends in United States Income and Its Distribution
- David Cay Johnston: Wages Fall At Record Pace
- Noah Smith: I get what you get in ten years, in two days.
- Kenneth Thomas: U.S. Median Wealth Only 27th in World
- Paul Krugman: Invest, Divest, and Prosper
Economic Policy:
- Brad DeLong: Henry Farrell Argues Against Left Neo-Liberals Like Me…
- Arindrajit Dube via Mark Thoma: Dude, Where are my Liberal-Neo-Liberal technocrats? …or… Where Paul R. Krugman from 1996 argues against J. Bradford DeLong in 2011 regarding the political economy of policy-making
- Brad DeLong: The Second Great Depression: Why the Economic Crisis Is Worse Than You Think
Foreign Policy:
- Richard Haass: America Can Take a Breather, And It Should
Science:
- Andrew Gelman: Using predator-prey models on the Canadian Linx series
Miscellaneous:
- Mizuno Women’s Wave Rider 16 Running Shoe
- Christopher Buckley: Booze as Muse
- Eddie Murphy/SNL: White Like Me
- ARKYD: A Space Telescope for Everyone**
** Based on what I can infer from the model they show in their literature, I suspect they’ll need to rethink their design if they intend on doing something useful with it but, in principle, I like their idea. I also suspect they’re going to need a lot more $$$ to put a (useful) working telescope in space – I’ll guess a factor of 10-20x.]