Ron Paul Surging

The Iowa electronic markets [graph] has the gynecologist towering over John McCain and Fred Thompson. And this is right on the heels of the bookies in london upgrading his odds of winning. This could get very interesting very soon - I hope he hangs around for a while.

Gene Simmons versus Terry Gross

This has to be one of the strangest interviews (12MB Mp3) NPR has ever aired. Gene starts off using a lot of bookish words but the conversation quickly degenerates (or gets fascinating, depending on your outlook). He is at various points in the conversation - sexist, delusional, funny, sincere, enlightened - I'm just not sure where he switches from one to the other. Well done Terry persevering through this interview. Probably diagonal opposite of the NPR Sigur Ros interview.

Frontline

The show's 2007 season kicks off with an excellent episode. Available to view online. Fits in very well with Naomi Klein's contention that governments use catastrophic events to expand their powers that could not have been achieved through normal procedures. Eminently watchable.

On Swearing

Steven Pinker on cussing - overview of linguistics, psychology, history, and the current attitude.

Tips for Healthy Eating

Five tips from across the continents - fairly simple and intuitive.

Where's the coverage?

This is exactly the kind of news that gets drowned out while the media freaks out about Chinese products.

Civil Liberties and False Positives

The Economist has a brief and lucid editorial on civil liberties. Quite unexpected from the bastion of rightist thought.

Migrant Statistics

Another excellent interactive graphic from NYTimes - this time about migrants by country, and the amount of money they send home.

Housing Prices in Major Cities

NYT has an interactive graphic that charts housing prices (both nominal and real) vs national averages.

LA Homicide Map

The LATimes has a site that maps out the homicides in the county. Data rich and interactive, it is fascinating. For example not only was I able to find out that there were three homicides in pasadena (well, northern pas to be exact) - I could find out there names and the details surrounding the crime. Macabre yet engrossing.

Debtor Nation

Meaty article in the Harvard mag that analyzes the US debt/deficit situation. It is, like most interesting problems, multivariate in nature and nobody really knows with any certainty what is going to happen in the future. But regardless, some very interesting points in the market - Why is China holding on to so many US T-notes? How are the current trade deficit and the housing price bubble related? What happens when foreign investors decide to withdraw their investment in the dollar? The article doesnt quite do justice to all these weighty questions - can someone quickly write a book with all (or some) of the answers?

Restting ARMs

Looks like there is going to be a world of hurt for mortgage borrowers in 2007 ...

Cerberus

A not too deep glance into the opaque world of private equity and Cerberus Capital.

The Two Chinas

ESPN, the unlikeliest of magazines, has a profile of China drawn around the theme of Olympics. It is a fairly engrossing travel narrative describing how a cross section of the country is changing in the new millenium.

Cowabunga!

The simpsons movie was good enough to get a rah-rah from The Economist. And deservedly so - it is full of wit, energy, and silliness that kept me hooked through the undergrad years. Go watch it on the big screen, man. And take some donuts.

Dr Ron Paul, the lone wolf

Profile of Ron Paul on NYTMag - will Dr Paul be to the 2008 race what Ross Perot was to 1996? I hope so.

Tshirt Democracy

NYTMag has a feature on Threadless, a tshirt site that sells user submitted designs selected by user voting.

Judicial Independence?

Turns out judicial candidates are allowed to raise campaign funds according to this article on the Economist. Interesting. So what really is the incentive to be impartial? That one ethics class that you took in lawschool?

Progress and ChartBloat

Think people are getting more informed as the arrow of time moves forward? Turns out the answer is that they are getting less informed. Here's the wired study.

Watch out for that graphic though - it sensationalizes the statistics. The metrics are mapped to the diameter of the circles and not the area. Makes the effect appear much more amplified than it really is. Someone needs to buy the reporter the Tufte book.

Mellow Terrorists

Funny beyond belief.