To Save a Species From Extinction, Get People To Eat It

"Leveraging the rising interest in regional food, he engaged hundreds of chefs, farmers and curious eaters to grow and cook some of the lost breeds and varieties. Leading the way are members of the gastronomic group Slow Food U.S.A., which assesses whether foods on Mr. Nabhan’s list are delicious and meaningful enough in the communities where they originated to be worth reviving and promoting. Foods that do become part of what the group calls its Ark of Taste."

An Unlikely Way to Save a Species: Serve It For Dinner
by Kim Serverson
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/dining/30come.html?em&ex=1209700800&en=180dff4c6d1ca4ee&ei=5087%0A

On Gas Taxes & Energy Policy

Thomas Friedman does an excellent job of describing the US's current energy policy...

"If you are going to use tax policy to shape energy strategy then you want to raise taxes on the things you want to discourage — gasoline consumption and gas-guzzling cars — and you want to lower taxes on the things you want to encourage — new, renewable energy technologies. We are doing just the opposite."

Dumb As We Wanna Be
by Thomas Friedman
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/opinion/30friedman.html?ex=1367294400&en=0588e238277893d6&ei=5124&partner=digg&exprod=digg

So You Want to be a Scientologist

Slate has obtained a copy of the contract one must sign in order to become a Scientologist. They obtained it through Wikileaks...

So You Want to be a Scientologist
by Bonnie Goldstein
http://www.slate.com/id/2190284/entry/0/

The Agony of the Food Snob

Is this really the case? Would someone who always purchases a $200 bottle of wine a week stop buying it if it went up to $300 AND not buy a cheaper bottle? Perhaps it all depends on the food product? It may be easier to find a tastier less-expensive bottle of wine than a tastier less-expensive sauce or fish...

"For many food snobs, trading down for everything is unacceptable. Any food snob worth his sel de mer can tick off a few products that he'd rather do without than switch to a cheaper alternative. Swapping the suddenly insanely expensive Italian buffalo mozzarella ($9.99 for 7 ounces) for the American stuff ($8.99 a pound) is like swapping front-row seats at the New York City Ballet for general admission to a community production of The Nutcracker. The reduction in quality is so significant that it renders the formerly sublime experience one not worth having at all."

The Agony of the Food Snob
by Daniel Gross
http://www.slate.com/id/2190210/

The World Isn't Flat

"The global economy appears to be entering an epoch in which governments are reasserting their role in the lives of individuals and businesses. Once again, barriers are rising. Call it the new nationalism."

Rise of Nationalism Frays Global Ties
by Bob Davis
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120934738145948747.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

Capitalism & The Environment

While capitalism may be the best social/economics system, many of the world's ills stem from the fact that capitalism in its current form is an imperfect system.

Following are excerpts from a review by Ross Gelbspan on the new book "The Bridge at the Edge of the World" by James Gustave Speth --

"Contemporary capitalism and a habitable planet cannot coexist...a more highly regulated and democratized form of capitalism could be compatible with environmental salvation if it were accompanies by a profound change in personal and collective values. Instead of seeking ever more consumption, we need a 'post-growth society' with a more rounded definition of well-being. Rather than using GDP as the primary measure of a country's economic health, we should turn to the new field of ecological accounting, which tries to factor in the costs of resource depletion and pollution."

Heating System
by Ross Gelbspan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/25/ST2008042502873.html

Reasons for Rising Food Prices

I agree with the analysis that no single factor can be blamed for the global food crisis. Rather, it is an unlucky confluence of events over the past several years that have contributed to soaring prices. Here are some factors to consider:

1. Trade Restrictions - Major exporting countries have introduced or increased export taxes, bans, and other restrictions on agricultural products to keep down domestic prices. The export restrictions further strain already tihgt supplies and put added pressure on prices.

2. Increased Demand in Asia - Economic development and income growth in emerging countries - especially India and China - are changing what people eat. Diets are moving away from starchy foods toward more meat and dairy. More grain is needed to feed livestock, which means there is less for human food.

3. Weather - Heat waves, droughts, and excessive rain in big grain-producing countries hae taken a toll on crops in the past several years.

4. Biofuels - The push to produce biofuels has increased demand for corn.

5. Fuel Prices - Rising fuel prices makes is costlier to produce and transport agricultural commodities.

The New Economics of Hunger
by Anthony Faiola
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/26/ST2008042602333.html?hpid=topnews

Why Things Cost $19.95

"If we see a $20 toaster, we might wonder whether it is worth $19 or $18 or $21; we are thinking in round numbers. But if the starting point is $19.95, the mental measuring stick would look different. We might still think it is wrongly priced, but in our minds we are thinking about nickels and dimes instead of dollars, so a fair comeback might be $19.75 or $19.50....The psychologists decided to check these lab findings in the real world. They looked at five years of real estate sales in Alachua County, Florida, comparing list prices and actual sale prices of homes. They found that sellers who listed their homes more precisely—say $494,500 as opposed to $500,000—consistently got closer to their asking price. Put another way, buyers were less likely to negotiate the price down as far when they encountered a precise asking price."

Why Things Cost $19.95
by Wray Herbert
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=why-things-cost-1995&ec=su_1995

The Moral Logic of Suicide Bombing

Is it expensive to be moral? Is this why so many people are "immoral?"

"It's easier to destroy things than to preserve or build them. It's even easier when you don't care whom you kill. In Iraq, a major purpose of suicide bombings and 'improvised explosive devices' has been to kill enough Americans with enough regularity to make the public demand that our troops come home. The bombers have the edge because they care less about death than we do."

Don't TNT Me, Bro
by William Saletan
http://www.slate.com/id/2190101/

Does Going to Mecca Make Muslims More Radical?

"Those who went to Mecca came back with more moderate views on a range of issues, both religious and nonreligious, suggesting that the Hajj may be helpful in curbing the spread of extremism in the Islamic world."

Does Going to Mecca Make Muslims More Moderate?
by Ray Fisman
http://www.slate.com/id/2185349/

50 Most Influential US Political Pundits

From the UK Telegraph...

1. Karl Rove
2. Chris Matthews
3. Sean Hannity
4. Rush Limbaugh
5. John Harris & Jim VanDehei
6. Matt Drudge
7. Tim Russert
8. Jon Stewart
9. David Brooks
10. Mark Halperin
11. Stephen Colbert
12. Bill O'Reilly
13. Keith Olbermann
14. Chuck Todd
15. Bill Maher
16. Glenn Beck
17. Andrew Sullivan
18. Frank Luntz
19. Donna Brazile
20. Joe Klein
21. David Gergen
22. Dick Morris
23. Mike Allen
24. Laura Ingraham
25. Michael Savage
26. Arianna Huffington
27. Pat Buchanan
28. James Carville
29. Ron Fournier
30. Peggy Noonan
31. Juan Williams
32. William Kristol
33. Roland Martin
34. Howard Kurtz
35. Joe Trippi
36. Newt Gingrich
37. Eugene Robinson
38. Michael Barone
39. Dee Dee Myers
40. Tony Snow
41. Mark Shields
42. Bill Bennett
43. Paul Begala
44. Jeffrey Toobin
45. Fred Barnes
46. Mark Levin
47. JC Watts
48. Paul Krugman
49. Mary Matalin
50. Rachel Maddow

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/exclusions/pundits/nosplit/uspundits.xml

Fact of the Day: Trees

"Poor people don't have plants. The thinnest tree cover is, no surprise, over the city's most impoverished neighborhoods. Where ritzy Bel Air has 53 percent canopy coverage, gritty South Central has only 7 percent."

The Greening of America
by William Booth
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/24/AR2008042403952.html?hpid=topnews

The Next Great Global Currency

"My money would be on the US dollar remaining the world's great currency ten years from now. It is not that I particularly like the US dollar's long-run external fundamentals. Rather, it is that I dislike even more the world's other major currencies' fundamentals."

The Next Great Global Currency
by Desmond Lachman
http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.27867/pub_detail.asp

Lying? Your Face Will Give You Away

"Instead of clues like shifty eyes or sweaty brows, their expression would crack briefly, allowing displays of true emotions such as happiness, sadness, disgust and fear to come through."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080424/lf_nm_life/lying_face_dc_1

Eligible Bachelor Paradox

"You can think of this traditional concept of the search for marriage partners as a kind of an auction. In this auction, some women will be more confident of their prospects, others less so. In game-theory terms, you would call the first group 'strong bidders' and the second 'weak bidders.' Your first thought might be that the 'strong bidders'—women who (whether because of looks, social ability, or any other reason) are conventionally deemed more of a catch—would consistently win this kind of auction. But this is not true. In fact, game theory predicts, and empirical studies of auctions bear out, that auctions will often be won by 'weak' bidders, who know that they can be outbid and so bid more aggressively, while the 'strong' bidders will hold out for a really great deal."

The Eligible Bachelor Paradox
by Mark Gimein
http://www.slate.com/id/2188684/

How to Spot a Persian Prostitute

"The penalties for prostitution are severe—ranging from whipping to execution. But there's a loophole in Islamic law called sigheh, or temporary marriage. According to Shiite interpretation, a man and a woman may enter an impermanent partnership with a preset expiration date."

How to Spot a Persian Prostitute
by Juliet Lapidos
http://www.slate.com/id/2189816/

Dishwashing: Hand vs. Machine

"If you're truly dedicated to hand-washing the right way, you'll usually come out ahead of the average machine. But do you have that level of dedication? At the end of the day, there won't be much of an environmental difference between an ultra-efficient hand-washer and an ultra-efficient machine, as long as the machine is used wisely."

Is a Dishwasher a Green Machine?
by Brendan Koerner
http://www.slate.com/id/2189612/

10 Most Creative Business Cards

I've seen bigger lists, but some of these are pretty creative...

http://www.oddee.com/item_95201.aspx

Economics 101: The Price of Gas

"The water utility industry has higher profit margins than major oil and gas firms."

Profit Margins of a few selected industries:

*Periodical Publishing: 24.9%
*Shipping: 18.8%
*Application Software: 22.5%
*Tobacco: 19%
*Water Utilities: 10.2%
*Major Integrated Oil and Gas: 9.5%
*Hospitals: 1.4%
*Drugstores: 2.8%

http://mises.org/story/2940

Leading Scientists Recs: 17 Life-Changing Books

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/dn13647-lifechanging-books-recommendations-from-17-leading-scientists.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=specrt11_head_We%20recommend

What Can $400,000 Buy?

See what type of real estate $400,000 can buy around the US...

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/realestateguide2008/real-estate-market-analysis-a1.asp?caret=2b

Electronic Prediction Markets: Failing?

"Lately, prediction markets have been getting some big questions very wrong."

http://www.slate.com/id/2189135/

An Experiment in Nudity

"We've taken the 10 most popular female names in America, plugged them into Google Image search, and rated the results according to how naked they are."

http://www.cracked.com/article_15154_experiment-in-nudity-top-10-female-names-on-google.html

History's 7 Most Astounding Sex Resumes

Here are some serious resumes...

http://www.cracked.com/article_16120_historys-7-most-astounding-sexual-resumes.html

Mojito - Caipirinha - Tuaca??

Tuaca is a citrus-vanilla liqueur from Tuscany that is quickly gaining a serious following...

Tuaca -- You Heard It Here First
by Jason Wilson
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/15/AR2008041500703.html

Where Does Leftover Election Money Go?

"The candidates who drop out of the race or end up losing their party's nomination won't get to use their leftover money for anything of the sort, however. Instead, under the Federal Election Commission's rules, candidates can either refund the money to their donors within 60 days after the person is no longer a candidate or get permission from their donors to re-designate it for use by the candidate's campaign for another federal office. To pay off debts from their primary campaigns, candidates can tap general-election funds from contributors who didn't max out in the primary, with the donor's permission."

http://www.capitaleye.org/inside.asp?ID=321

Where Do Our Tax Dollars Go?

A nice, simple breakdown...

http://www.cbpp.org/4-14-08tax.htm

"Congestion Pricing"

Is congestion pricing good?

Here is one idea...
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2003/11/why_dont_we_hav.html

and more...
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/01/congestion-pric.html

Credit Card vs. Cash Myth

People always say that they are more likely to spend money if they have cash in their pocket as opposed to a credit card. I think that the opposite is the case. Cash it tangible and visible and once you depart with it, you may feel some regret. Spending it appears more quantifiable than spending with a credit card - which is just as "usable" as cash...

Why Beautiful Women Marry Uglies

"New research reveals couples in which the wife is better looking than her husband are more positive and supportive than other match-ups. The reason, researchers suspect, is that men place great value on beauty, whereas women are more interested in having a supportive husband."

Why Beautiful Women Marry Less Attractive Men
by Jeanna Bryner
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080410/sc_livescience/whybeautifulwomenmarrylessattractivemen

State Depts. Intelligence Budget Request

State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) is one of the only Intelligence Community (IC) organizations that regularly publishes its budget. Its ten-page 2009 budget justification may be found here:

http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/inr/fy2009just.pdf

Foreign Terrorist Organizations

The State Department just released an updated list of foreign terrorist organizations:

http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/08/103392.htm

Suburbia's Midlife Crisis

"Cities declined as they emptied while the suburbs swelled. History moves on, and now it is the suburbs that are poised for decline..."

On Borrowed Time
by Michael Gecan
http://bostonreview.net/BR33.2/gecan.php

Most Profitable Undergrad Major

http://mungowitzend.blogspot.com/2008/04/4-with-bullet.html

Chart: The Odds of Dying

http://pixdaus.com/single.php?id=37189&frm=krsn

Army's Civil Disturbance Operations Manual

The Army's Civil Disturbance Operations manual, a 265 page document, covers everything from the roots of unrest, to crowd sociology, to the chemicals for rispersing rioters...

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-19-15.pdf

Video: 4-Dimensional Sex

"Mary Roach, author of the new book Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, relates how she and her husband became the first couple to be filmed on 4-D ultrasound while having sex."

http://slatev.com/player.html?id=1493304187

Video: Animation of US Pollution

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/carbon-sources-47040802?kw=ist

The World's Super Class

What Power Looks Like
by David Rothkopf
http://www.newsweek.com/id/130637?rss

The Worst Places for Your Health

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=100199544&GT1=31036

Time.com's 1st Annual Top 25 Blog Index

1. Huffington Post
2. LifeHacker
3. Metafilter
4. TreeHugger
5. PostSecret
6. Blog di Beppe Grillo
7. Engadget
8. Freakonomics
9. Gigazine
10. Ace of Spades HQ
11. Radosh.net
12. Gawker
13. The Daily Dish
14. Velveteen Rabbit
15. Boing Boing
16. TechCrunch
17. Web 2.Oh...really?
18. The Sartorialist
19. Daily Kos
20. The Consumerist
21. Indexed
22. Wired's Threat Level Blog
23. Regret the Error
24. Bad Jocks
25. The Reverse Cowgirl

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/0,28757,1725323,00.html

110 Best Books

Another list...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/04/06/nosplit/sv_classics06.xml

Map: Antarctica - Without Ice

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/AntarcticaRockSurface.jpg

Map: US Carbon Footprint

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/04/scientists-unve.html

Map: The Local Universe

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap071211.html

Book Collectors: Happy or Miserable?

"Book collectors might be presumed to be among the happiest of mortals...from a psychological viewpoint, most bookmen and women are actually among the more unofortunate sufferers on the wheel of life - for them there is no respite, no relief, from the insatiate ache of desire."

A Library - And a Librarian - Truly To Be Envied
by Michael Dirda
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/03/AR2008040303722_pf.html

Sleep in a Drainpipe

In a Linz, Austria park next to the Danube River, Das Park Hotel consists of three re-purposed concrete pipes in a park. A bed fills the space wall to wall, but there's electricity and Internet, plus public toilets nearbye...

http://www.dasparkhotel.net/

Erotics of Investing

"When young men were shown erotic pictures, they were more likely to make a larger financial gamble than if they were shown a picture of something scary, such as a snake, or something neutral, such as a stapler, university researchers reported."

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/04/the-erotics-of.html

Terrorism Study: A Waste?

This is from a study about which US city is most vulnerable to a terrorist attack. The vulnerability level was based on three things: socioeconomics, infrastructure, and geophysical hazards such as potential for flooding or fire. The analysis measured not whether a city would make an attractive target to a terrorist but rather how well it could withstand an attack. Interesting (sad?) how Boise, Idaho made the top 10...

"A new study funded largely by the Department of Homeland Security ranked 132 American cities according to vulnerability to terrorist attacks. Boise was the only city in the western half of the country to make the top 10."

Terrorism Study Drops a Bombshell on Boise
by Lyndsey Layton and Ashley Surdin
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/04/AR2008040403022.html

http://media.idahostatesman.com/smedia/2008/03/06/22/RiskAn071.source.prod_affiliate.36.pdf (Benchmark Analysis for Quantifying Urban Vulnerability to Terrorist Incidents)

Tragedy of the Commons

Is life meant to be a tragedy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Fact of the Day: Book Reading

About 56 percent of adults bought books last year [2007], down from 61 percent in 2002.

The Changing Bookstore Battle
by Michael Rosenwald
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/04/AR2008040403540_pf.html

The Firestorm Over Private Museums

"Collectors looking to show off their riches used to donate their art to a museum. Now many are building their own museums instead, and directors at existing institutions are up in arms."

Facts:

*There are fewer than 100 private museums in the U.S., some dating back almost a century.

*At many major museums, about 5% of the collection is on view at any time.

*The number of art objects donated to top museums fell 5.7% to 77,012 last year over the previous year. However, the value of those donations increased 130% to almost $607 million, due to the rising art market.

The Firestorm Over Private Museums
by Lauren Schuker
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120727433942088537.html?mod=todays_us_weekend_journal

Question of the Day: Global Problems

Do we really want to solve the big global problems like starvation and diseases when what that likely will do is create greater competition for resources (food/water/fuel) and make the world more populated and polluted?

Charity: How Much To Give?

Follow the link below to an interesting article about how much one should give to charity. It is a question with no answer, but there are some interesting numbers to play around with...

"Zell Kravinsky says that the chances of dying as a result of donating a kidney are about 1 in 4,000. For him this implies that to withhold a kidney from someone who would otherwise die means valuing one's own life at 4,000 times that of a stranger, a ratio Kravisnky considers 'obscene'...Asked if he would allow his child to die if it would enable a thousnad children to live, Kravinsky said yes. Indeed, he has said he would permit his child to die even if this enabled only two other children to live."

What Should a Billionaire Give - and What Should You?
by Peter Singer
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/magazine/17charity.t.html

Winning Business/Politics Predictor

"Whether you're talking business or politics, you don't need extensive polling or market research to predict the winners. It's actually pretty simple: Just identify the quality players who are focused on their customers."

If You Focus on Customers (Or Voters), You Win
by Steven Pearlstein
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/07/AR2006110701504.html

Assasinations: 80% Failure Rate

"Since 1875, national leaders have survived more than 239 assassination attempts and 59 leaders have been killed. In a study of assassinations of poitical leaders worldwide, we found that in some cases assassinations actually led to greater democracy. However, 80% of all assassinations atempts fail, and a dictator may clamp down in responses to a botched attempt, so a misfire may really backfire."

Success of Assassination Attempt (Based on Type of Weapon) --

*Gun: 161 Observed Attempts - 28%
*Explosive Device: 91 Observed Attempts - 5%
*Knife: 23 Observed Attempts - 13%
*Other: 19 Observed Attempts - 16%
*Unknown: 10 Observed Attempts - 40%

Location --

Abroad: 12 Observed Attempts - 25%
At home: 286 Observed Attempts - 20%

Aiming High
by Benjamin Jones and Benjamin Olken
http://www.nber.org/~bolken/press/0706washingtonpost_assassin.pdf

Prosper.com: A Good Investment?

The website says you can earn between 9.49% and 12.81% as a money lender...not a bad return for what looks like fairly small risk - assuming you spread your loans out to a wide group of people. Those figures are what lenders received from borrowers with AA - C credit grades and who have had very few delinquencies. As a borrower is allowed to put a picture on the webpage to "solicit" funds - I wonder what impact that can have on a lenders' willingness to fund projects.

Prosper, based in San Francisco, aspires to do for money what eBay did for your grandmother's teapot collection -- create a person-to-person marketplace for consumer loans, and in the process, turn average people into bankers...Since last year when it went live, Prosper has grown to more than 140,000 members and has originated about $33 million in loans. Less than 1 percent of its loans have defaulted; close to 3 percent of its loans are at least three months late.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/26/AR2007012601722.html

Seafood Consumption & Homicide Mortality

If seafood is found to lower the murder rate, this could have a profound impact on seafood prices...

"Prisons are an ideal location to test a novel hypothesis: that violent aggression is largely a product of poor nutrition. Toward that end, researchers are studying whether inmates become less violent when put on a diet rich in vitamins and in the fatty acids found in seafood."

Does Eating Salmon Lower The Murder Rate?
by Stephen Mihm
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/magazine/16wwln_idealab.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Books & Sex

How important is someone's book taste in a (sexual and non-sexual) relationship?

"Brainy women are probably more sensitive to literary deal breakers than are brainy men. Rare is the guy who’d throw a pretty girl out of bed for revealing her imperfect taste in books..."

It's Not You, It's Your Books
by Rachel Donadio
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/books/review/Donadio-t.html?em&ex=1207368000&en=542114cef14f0e32&ei=5087%0A

Baking World Cup: Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie

"You'd think the French could win a French bread-baking contest in France. But they are attempting to do something that, bizarrely, has eluded their countrymen for more than a decade."

Baking World Cup: Can France Rise To the Occasion?
by Charles Forelle
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120709731194481991.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Top US Enemies

From Gallup...

1. Iran
2. Iraq
3. China
4. North Korea/Korea
5. US itself
6. Afghanistan
7. Pakistan
8. Russia
9. Saudi Arabia
10. Venezuela

http://www.gallup.com/poll/105835/North-Korea-Drops-Top-Three-US-Enemies.aspx

Poll: Views of US Mainly Negative; Improving

"The average percentage of people saying that the US has a positive influence has risen to 35% from 31% a year ago, according to the survey. Those saying the US has a negative influence fell five percentage points to 47%. The World Service poll (carried out by international polling firm GlobeScan with the Program on International Policy Attitudes, or PIPA), part of a regular survey of world opinion, interviewed more than 17,000 people in 34 countries. Of the countries rated, Iran and Israel are viewed most negatively."

World Views US 'More Positively'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7324337.stm

Worldwide Terrorist Attacks

"US law requires the Secretary of State to provide Congress, by April 30 of each year, a full and complete report on terrorism with regard to those countries and groups meeting criteria set forth in the legislation. This annual report is entitled Country Reports on Terrorism. Beginning with the report for 2004, it replaced the previously published Patterns of Global Terrorism."

Facts from latest report (April 2007):

*In 2006 there were 14,338 terror attacks worldwide.

*45% of those attacks took place in Iraq.

*The figures are limited to attacks on noncombatants and do not include strikes against US troops in Iraq.

http://www.terrorisminfo.mipt.org/Patterns-of-Global-Terrorism.asp

When Are Buddhist Monks Allowed to Get Violent?

"When it's for a compassionate cause. Monks and nuns in Tibet take at least two, and sometimes three, sets of vows that constrain their behavior..."

Why Does China Care About Tibet?
by Nina Shen Rastogi
http://www.slate.com/id/2187567/

US to South America by Car?

Q: Is it possible to drive to South America from the United States?

A: If not for a swampy and dangerous jungle in Panama, you could drive continuously from Alaska to the tip of South America. Unfortunately, the 54-mile wide Darien Gap along the Panama-Colombia border is impassable by vehicle. To bypass this spot, you can send your car via freighter...

South of the Border. Way South.
By Elissa Leibowitz Poma
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/04/AR2007050400754.html

"Mental Accounting"

"A psychological phenomenon known as mental accounting has enormous consequences in everyday life. It affects how people spend money and how they save. It influences how people deal with losses and windfall gains..."

Mental Accounting
by Shankar Vedantam
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/19/AR2007051900316_pf.html

Noodling Tournament

To see in a lifetime: Okie Noodling Tournament
http://www.okienoodling.com/tournament/

High-End Features - Pay Conundrum

"So if people don't use expensive high-end features, why do they pay more to get them? People buy unnecessary features because of two cognitive errors - they overestimate the risk that a product without such features will become obsolete, and they overestimate the likelihood that they will learn to use the new features...The money they pay is really not for the feature but for the psychological solace it purchases...There is one last reason people pay more than they should for products: They mistakenly believe a product has more value because it costs more money."

Spending More for a Little Solace
by Shankar Vedantam
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/26/AR2007082601182.html

Media Outreach

An interesting guide for those unfamiliar with media outreach...
http://www.amsa.org/pdf/PRGuide.PDF

Europe vs. US

"There is no European equivalent of the American dream. Americans in all 50 states are still Americans. Europeans in 25 different countries, by constrast, prefer to be French, Dutch, British, or Hungarian - and want to remain so. In America, people move freely from state to state. In the countries of the EU, most citizens are committed homebodies. Fewer than 2 percent live permanently in an EU country other than their own. About half of all citizens in Europe speak only their own native tongue. There are no common European media, which means that political debate within the EU remains stuanchly national. The Common Market failed to forge a common identity compared with the national citizenship that comes out of a shared history, a common language, and a common destiny...The deeper issue here [in places like Britain/Netherlands, etc...] is the lack of a European identity strong enough to transcend national identitites."

Europe's Two Worlds
by Mortimer Zuckerman (July 25, 2005; US News & World Report)

Pessimism = Advantageous

"Pessimism appears to have its advantages. A recently published paper observes that over the last three decades, the people of Denmark have consistently scored higher on life-satisfaction than any other Western nation. Why? Because, say the authors, the Danes are perennial pessimists, always reporting low expectations for the year to come. They then find themselves pleasantly suprised when things turn out rather better than expected."

"Research shows that we systematically exaggerate our chances of success, believing ourselves to be more competent and more in control than we actually are...this may help explain why hawkishness so often prevails at the national level."

You Are What You Expect
by Jim Holt
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/magazine/21wwln_lede.t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

The $10 Orchid

"Improvements in breeding and production methods have halved the time it takes to produce orchids to two years. That has increased supply, while new cloning and cross-breeding techniques have resulted in orchids that live longer, look flashier and cost less...Orchids now rank as the No. 2-selling pottled plant, behind poinsettiass, according to the US Dept. of Agriculture."

Now Blooming: The $10 Orchid
by Timothy Martin
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.gardens.orchids/2006-04/msg00386.html

Richest Country, Saddest People

"Economics must be at work. Consider Jean-Baptiste Say's famous insight that supply creates its own demand. We know this to be true about, for instance, personal computers: There was never and demand for PCs until Steve Jobs put one on the market and persuaded consumers it was something they should have. Just so with depression: Is there a country on earth where Prozac is more widely prescribed, or therapy more readily available, than the US?"

Richest Country, Saddest People - Any Coincidence?
by Bret Stephens
http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110009764

The Cost of Peace of Mind

A discussioin on prepayment of mortgages vs. investing that money. Which is better?

The Cost of Peace of Mind
by Laura Rowley
http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/moneyhappy/30425

"Free Riding" Kills Diplomacy?

"When the US, Britain and other powers unanimously agreed with each other on the importance of some issue, they were least likely to actually do anything about it, especially if no private benefit, such as access to oil or territory, was involved...The free rider theory provides a novel explanation of why the world regularly fails to halt genocide."

Hoping Somone Else Fixes Everyone's Problem
by Shankar Vedantam
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/21/AR2007102101403.html

"Action Bias"

"The action bias, or the desire to do something rather than nothing when you have just been through a terrible experience, plays a powerful role in our lives. It influences individulas and companies, investors and leaders. You can see the action bias on display in current thinking on the housing and economic crises, in the bitter debates over the war in Iraq - even in discussions about how to fix a football team that's a perennial loser."

Hillary Clinton and the Action Bias
by Shankar Vedantam
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/30/AR2008033001582.html

Good Sex Lasts Minutes, Not Hours

"Satisfactory sexual intercourse for couples lasts from 3 to 13 minutes, contrary to popular fantasy about the need for hours of sexual activity, according to a survey of U.S. and Canadian sex therapists."

http://live.psu.edu/story/29833

What Every American Should Know About the Middle East

http://dmiessler.com/blog/what-every-american-should-know-about-the-middle-east