Random links
- 15 sharp-witted, reading-themed cartoons from an Iranian comic contest
- "Last year, Iran Cartoons organized an international contest for single-panel cartoons on the theme of reading. Some of the submissions were dark and sarcastic, others optimistically inspiring. Some were make-you-think obtuse, others pleasantly straightforward. Here are selections from the 39 finalists…"
- Open-access deal for particle physics
- "After six years of negotiation, the Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics is now close to ensuring that nearly all particle-physics articles — about 7,000 publications last year — are made immediately free on journal websites. Upfront payments from libraries will fund the access."
- The Painful Truth About Affirmative Action
- Based on an upcoming which argues "[w]hy racial preferences in college admissions hurt minority students -- and shroud the education system in dishonesty." One of the more interesting findings there is that when California banned affirmative action they found a significant drop in the number of students admitted fitting the profile of the affirmative action admittee but no drop in the number of degrees awarded to that class of individuals.
- Beyond Obamacare
- What's in a name? "We need death panels. Well, maybe not death panels, exactly, but unless we start allocating health care resources more prudently — rationing, by its proper name — the exploding cost of Medicare will swamp the federal budget. ... Many countries whose health care systems are regularly extolled — including Canada, Australia and New Zealand — have systems for rationing care. Take Britain, which provides universal coverage with spending at proportionately almost half of American levels. Its National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence uses a complex quality-adjusted life year system to put an explicit value (up to about $48,000 per year) on a treatment’s ability to extend life."