Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry looks at a study on the damage academia’s liberal bias is doing to the social sciences. It’s a problem without a great solution, except trying to change the discrimination mentality where it exists… but that’s harder to do now that the notion that truth “has a liberal bias” mentality has taken hold.

If not for your own sake, don’t smoke for the sake of your pets. Or something.

Good news! The UN is cool with keeping the Internet free… for another ten years. The globalization of Internet governance is just going to be terrific.

There may be a link between droughts and civil war, but according to the Royal Economic Society the evidence is that it’s a weak link.

Microsoft is getting into the pre-crime prevention business.

Randomized drug tests bad. Fraternities bad. What’s a good ole boy to think?

Getting kids to learn is hard. Making sure they show up, though, is less hard. So let’s measure that. I wrote of gameable metrics in 2011.

Well, that’s one way for private schools to recruit students in a rough market.

Women in Brazil are being warned not to have children, due to an outbreak of the Zika virus.

President Edrogan literally talked a man off the ledge. Well, it was a bridge, but still. That’s cooler than the whole speaking well of Hitler thing.

Joseph Lenoff writes of his experience as an American Jew in the Israeli military.

A wedding amid ruin.

Meet Alabama’s version of Marion Berry, convicted of stealing from the city but re-elected anyway. The local HBCU had a problem with a university president who was basically stealing money, made more complicated by the fact that she was the best university president they’d had in a long time and arguably saved the university from ruin.

The star-crossed love story between an inmate and a guard in Louisiana… kind of made socially safer by the fact that the inmate was male, I guess, and that we can blame for profit prisons or something.

An entire police department in Florida was arrested for money laundering.

Expecting a lot of hassle on the flight down to Deltona and back, we decided to take the unusual step of getting a leash for our child. There is a picture to the right, but even without it you can imagine what it is. I can’t remember whether Clancy brought it up first or I did, but when it was brought up the other person was already thinking about it. It made a lot of sense to do it this particular trip since I would be coming home with the little one separately from her.

From the get-go, our entire attitude towards it has been different. Though we both thought it was a good idea, she was very worried about judgmental strangers from the outset while I wasn’t worried about it at all. Some of my lack of worry is “Why would anybody object?” Here is an example:

What kind of people have we turned into the put our children in leashes? I mean…that’s like treating them no better than your dogs!! I don’t care how restless and uncontrolable they might get.

There’s a thing called a stroller! Or even better…don’ take them out. That way…they learn. They think ‘oh wow…when i act up i don’t get to go out and have fun. Let me behave so I don’t get strapped into the stroller or taken home.

And that, boys and girls, is called parenting.

But it mostly seems like a non-issue, for the most part. Most of the people responding to that little lecture said they approved of the leash. The author of this pro-harness piece said that she gets looks of disapproval, but most of the responses in the comment section are supportive.

Here’s an article:

For the general population of kids, a firm stance as a parent should be enough to keep a child from scooting off, said Susan Newman, a New York social psychologist and parenting expert who is a critic of the harnesses.

“To me, it’s like treating a child like a dog or an animal when in fact as a parent your job is to make the rules,” Newman said.

“The perception is, this is a parent who can’t control her toddler.”

Yeah, well, I can’t. At least not with 100% reliability. The vast majority of the time I can let her down and if I want to go somewhere she will take my hand when I ask her to. And that’s all good and fine. However, the airport isn’t a great place to test that theory. Nor is hanging around busy traffic. Because, you know, the one time you lose track of them…

It’s… a no-brainer, at least in some circumstances like a busy airport or walking around the street. Lain objected at first, but took to it pretty well when she realized that meant that she was more likely to be able to walk around (at least within a radius). And it’s so imminently practical on what basis is there really room for objection? Especially when dealing with a three year old or anyone at the age where it is something that they still have to learn. And, of course, if there were glaring eyes, I could care less.

That’s where gender plays a bit of a role. As a father, far less is expected of me. In fact, if someone did look disapprovingly at me at the airport, they were as likely to think my wife is negligent (for not being the one taking care of the little one) than I am.

There is also the more general way that Clancy and I look at the world differently. She expects a degree of confrontation with the world than I do. So an ambiguous response is more likely to be assumed as negative by her while positive by myself. And I’m probably less likely to notice other parents looking anyway. I didn’t notice any furrowed brows at all. There were a couple of people who thought it was funny. The lady behind the counter at the gate desk said she wishes those things had been around when her kids were little because they were always darting out in the middle of nowhere.

On the flight back, Lain mostly took to walking right behind me and holding on to the wheel of her stroller, which was over my shoulder. Which was fine except that she was in my blind spot, and periodically she would decide she wanted to sit down.

But no disapproving stairs noticed. And if any were missed, screw’em. This is the future, people.

There is something especially annoying about timing the release of a shoddy study111 to convince people not to try ecigarettes as their New Years Resolution.

Who needs to make arguments when you can just correlate the opposing position with racism. I mean, you don’t want to side with racists, do you? Do you?! I mean that just settles it.

Cory Doctorow presents a list of works that copyright term extensions prevented from entering the public domain this year, while Eric Compton looks at at the effect of availability on Amazon of works before and after the copyright cutoff.

This… actually seems reasonable from a legal perspective, but also indicative of not being able to have nice things.

Melanie Trottman looks at whether or not boosting the minimum wage decreases reliance on government assistance.

I can always get behind labor victories that involve companies not paying their employees for the time they demand.

Oil export ban lifted! Let the shipping begin!

In looking at the “reality distortion field” in Elizabeth Holmes and her troubled tech startup Thanatos, Uncle Steve looks at prolific board members and what information we can derive from it.

I can sort of understand what this guy is getting at, but I think the point would be better made on a more attractive website, and perhaps he could draw some revenue with some ads. {via Vikram}

Priceonomics asks if checked baggage fees are too low. Gary Leff says no.

British gun museums may have to disable their guns because EU and because terrorism.

This sounds weird and intriguing. A Ukraining pokes in the ashes of Chernobyl to try to confirm an age-old conspiracy theory.

Wasn’t there an Eddie Murphy movie about this?

Erica Grieder explains how Texas Republicans could help deprive Donald Trump (if he wins the nomination) the presidency.

The Obama Administration inadvertently called Puerto Rico a colony, and Puerto Ricans are not pleased. I am, broadly speaking, fine with Puerto Rico’s territory status, and they seem to be, too, but it does represent certain complications.

It’s something of a controversial topic, but I pretty much understand why college football coaches are paid what they are, as they coach athletes who are not paid money. I think it would be better for college football if it were limited in some way, but the big fish don’t want that and they get what they want. And so teams outbid one another for the best and most desirable coaches, and that makes complete sense to me.

Where I do find myself baffled, though, is when schools seem to pay coaches a lot of money because… well, for no reason that I can discern. Tennessee’s coach Butch Jones, for example, is a part of the four million dollar club. Jones isn’t a bad coach, but it wasn’t like anyone else was beating down their door to hire him. Nor did it especially look like he was thinking of retiring or taking some time off and so they had to pay him more to keep him going. Nor does it seem likely that they would not be able to replace him if he did go. But they paid him the money… just because, as near as I can tell.

Another example is in South Carolina. South Carolina had reached an arrangement with Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez that was quite generous. But Rodriguez had a job where he seemed reasonably satisfied that paid him well. He had been fielding other offers. He failed at Michigan, but succeeded at both West Virginia and Arizona. He was something of a hot commodity. Three million dollars doesn’t seem out of line. At the last minute, though, Rodriguez decided that he wanted to stay in Tucson. Hey, it happens. South Carolina immediately hired Auburn defensive coordinator and former Florida coach Will Muschamp.

What really surprises me is that they offered him the exact same deal they’d offered to Rodriguez. Unlike Rodriguez, Muschamp did not have a sitting head coaching job that he needed to be pried away from. Nor had he been mentioned for other openings. He did not succeed at the only head coaching job he’s ever had. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he is a bad choice, but it does seem to me that giving him the opportunity at another chance at being a head coach in the SEC is a form of compensation in and of itself. They’re taking a chance on him in a way that they weren’t with Rodriguez. There is no real reason that they should be paid the same. The three million dollars paid for, in part, the idea that Rodriguez was a reasonably safe hire (as far as such hires go).

Southern Tech did this as well, a hire or two back. It was an internal hire, which is fine. It was someone that hadn’t really been on anybody’s radar, though, which was questionable. But one of the thoughts I had when we hired him was “Well, at least we should be able to get by paying him less so that he can hire better assistants. Nope! We paid him about 10% less than the successful outgoing coach. He ended up hiring assistants on the cheap, and we got what we paid for.

Well, it’s finally happened. My daughter became a princess:

While we were down in Colosse, we visited my friend Kevin and his family, which includes two daughters and a son. While we talked the night away, they kind of swept Lain away and started playing dressup.

Which was pretty awesome. It was one of those things that provided the sort of experience that Boring Mom and Dad never give her. We don’t really do dresses, for the most part. We’ve had them, it just never occurs to me to actually put her in them. Even her Halloween costume consisted of a skeleton outfit.

But it was mostly awesome because Lain had some kids to play with and had an absolute blast. How Clancy and I ended up with a child that is so social is only slightly less a mystery than how we ended up with one who is shorter-than-average. It was really amazing to watch her play with other kids. The only downside is that we feel like we’re shortchanging her by not having more local friends with kids for her to play with. (Also short-changing ourselves, but that stings less.)

A cool collection of prints showing how the Japanese saw western inventors, artists, and scholars.

Elizabeth Wright explains how Marcus Garvey should be honored as an enemy of Communism.

Lymon Stone looked at the demographic history of slavery in the United States.

Jose Duarte writes of the importance of debunking.

Well, this is the stuff of childhood nightmares (and eco-friendly children’s movies).

Tiffany Brodesser-Akner looks at Cool Jesus, faith for Millenials and the cool set.

“We’re melting the candy bars they want nothing to do with and selling it back to them.”

For Sale: A Town in South Dakota. It’s a couple hours outside of Rapid City, which makes it less convenient than the town in Wyoming that was sold in 2012, though not as isolated as the one sold in Wyoming last year.

This is pretty awesome. Obviously, all we see is a part of the face and some of the most difficult stuff CG is the hair. But… cool all the same.

iPhones are being dumbed down, and for once, and for once it’s not Apple’s fault. It’s the FDA’s.The death of Americans’ love affair with cars has been greatly exaggerated.

If you’re not careful, your otherwise helpful car may drop the dime on you.

Microcondos are coming to Houston.

Denmark is trying to seize jewelry and cash from refugees.

Turns out, it’s good to marry the daughter of the king.

As economic dreams fade, Chinese workers are fighting back. I wish them luck.

This reminds me that I need to go back and watch Spaceballs again at some point.

Women may have the reputation for being attracted to bad boys, but men like their nonconformists, too.

Tanya Lewis explains why the dating scene is pretty bad for women right now.

Assortive mating is on the rise, returning to Gilded Age levels.

The Bank of Canada would like to ask you to kindly stop spocking currency.

The life-saving potential of urine-powered socks.

Austrians want a border fence. (Which makes a lot more sense than how I originally read it, leaving me wondering what a border fence could provide that the Pacific Ocean couldn’t…)

Micah Singleton says Apple took too long to get into music streaming. They’re not hitting their user targets, but it seems to me that’s always been secondary to Apple compared to making money. Which, since they charge for their service, I assume they are.

Here’s an interesting profile of a serial killer hunter.

Noah Smith says the golden age of college may be coming to a close.

An interesting video on misheard lyrics:

I remember the days before the Internet when you couldn’t just look lyrics up. One of the advantages to buying a CD was when you got the lyrics in the sleeve. I also remember the disappointment of buying a CD only to discover that there were no lyrics in the sleeve.

A result of that is that wrong lyrics would become etched into your brain, to the point that hearing the right lyrics makes it wrong. Indeed, sometimes I prefer the wrong lyric. When They Might Be Giants sang “Everybody dies twisted inside and that is beautiful” I thought that was a great line. Everybody dying “frustrated and sad” is… okay. I guess.

Explaining pre-Internet existence to Lain is going to be really, really difficult.

Okay, this picture beats my old picture.

Lisa Ruddick writes about When Nothing Is Cool because everything must be Criticized.

Sigal Alon argues that diversity destroyed affirmative action at The Nation.

Our circadian rhythms may be set by light, but for bachteria it’s metabolism.

Nature.com has a solid list of science myths that won’t die.

The story of a rape accusation recanted… that turned out to be true. Then the story of an expelled alleged rapist who was more likely the victim of rape.

Well, in Texas‘ defense, they probably also have the most roadway on which speed traps can be found. Even so, South plus a lot of municipalities plus counless layers of law enforcement make for a bad combination for motorists.

The insistence on self-driving vehicles following the law are exposing a fault-line between how drivers driver and how they’re theoretically supposed to.

Margaret Atwood is writing a comic book.

CNN has a good profile of Muslims in America. Fun Fact: The first mosque was in Ross, North Dakota. {Related}

When it comes to pushing for looser immigrant worker visas, Corporate America really is its own worst enemy. Fortunately for them, they will win out because we all know who opposes immigration.

Woodrow Wilson wasn’t racist despite being a progressive. The two were related.

As Japan avoids a recession, Scott Sumner is declaring Abenomics a success against his expectations.

“[T]hese reports do help us see the way our journalists can see one glass half full, while the other glass is disastrously half empty. These reports can help us puzzle over the way journalistic frameworks are used.”

Megan McArdle says that Jessica Jones cheated at feminism and wonders whether we can have kick-ass women who aren’t just guys with different parts.

Erik Root gives an account of how West Liberty University is divested itself of conservatives.

Tiny Fey doesn’t seem to understand that the Vox is not finished talking to her about comedy and political correctedness.

As Japan avoids a recession, Scott Sumner is declaring Abenomics a success against his expectations.

Heaven help us: The Snake People are now the largest generational voting bloc. Ah, well, at least they support gun rights.

At the New Reform Club, Seth Barrett Tillman asks an interesting question of justice, crime, and citizenship.

When democracy is a “situation.”

Of course the British are figuring out how to arm a British astronaut with tea.

Howard University may sell its public TV spectrum. Southern Tech’s is basically a husk for PBS. Which is fine for TV, though I’m kind of bummed that there is no campus radio network.

Barton Swaim, of The Speechwriter fame, writes The Perfect Republican Stump Speech.

Hate crime hoaxes are not just an American thing (or a leftist one). A teacher who alleged a Daesch school attack invented it, it turns out.

Walmart is suing Puerto Rico over a tax targeted in their general direction.

Vadim Nikitm wants us to give Daesh diplomatic recognition. I sort of imagine “The new ambassador would like to meet with your diplomatic team about your beheading of the previous ambassador…”

Ted Galen Carpenter says that the Daesch threat is not a 1938 thing, but rather anarchoterrorism from the 19th century. As others have pointed out, given the government’s response at the time, this is a mixed bag for CATO.

A video I must start making use of: