WSJ.com – “Sverker Johansson could be the most prolific author you’ve never heard of. Volunteering his time over the past seven years publishing to Wikipedia, the 53-year-old Swede can take credit for 2.7 million articles, or 8.5% of the entire collection, according to Wikimedia analytics, which measures the site’s traffic. His stats far outpace any other… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: July 2014
Cancer Vaccine Exists, Goes Unused
The Atlantic: “Every 20 minutes a person in the U.S. is diagnosed with with a human-papilloma virus-associated cancer. Most of those cancers could be prevented with an HPV vaccine. But fewer than half of American children are given the vaccination, CDC officials announced yesterday. If as many people got vaccinated against HPV as do against whooping… Continue Reading
Wealth Levels, Wealth Inequality, and the Great Recession
“In a new Recession Brief for the Recession Trends initiative, Fabian T. Pfeffer (University of Michigan), RSF president Sheldon Danziger, and Robert F. Schoeni (University of Michigan) explore the extent to which the Great Recession altered the level and distribution of American families’ wealth, looking at the period between 2007 and 2013. While the Recession had a… Continue Reading
Why “Can’t Make Ends Meet” Trumps “Poverty”
Moyers & company: “This week, the Center for Community Change (CCC) released new research that details the way low-income Americans think and talk about living on the edge. It found that the language being used by policymakers and others to describe them is turning off the very people it is supposed to help. The project surveyed over 1,700… Continue Reading
Deeper Dive into EFF’s Motion on Backbone Surveillance
News release: “Yesterday we filed a motion for partial summary judgment in our long running Jewel v. NSA case, focusing on the government’s admitted seizure and search of communications from the Internet backbone, also called “upstream.” We’ve asked the judge to rule that there are two ways in which this is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment: The admitted seizure of communications from the… Continue Reading
Mid- and Late-Career Teachers Struggle With Paltry Incomes
Ulrich Boser and Chelsea Straus: “Low teacher pay is not news. Over the years, all sorts of observers have argued that skimpy teacher salaries keep highly qualified individuals out of the profession. One recent study found that a major difference between the education system in the United States and those in other nations with high-performing students is that… Continue Reading
Groundwater Depletion During Drought Threatens Future Water Security of the Colorado River Basin
NOAA Earth Observatory: ” Long-term drought and aggressive seasonal wildfires have consumed property, lives, and farmland in the American West. The dry weather and blazes are battering regional economies and putting residents and agricultural businesses in several states on a path toward water restrictions. At least part of this story of water woes lies underground. The map above combines data… Continue Reading
Census Bureau – Industry Series Report on Semiconductors and Related Device Manufacturing
“The U.S. Census Bureau today released additional figures from the 2012 Economic Census Industry Series reports for the manufacturing sector of the economy. This release includes new statistics for semiconductor and related device manufacturing (NAICS 334413). Highlights include: The semiconductor and related device manufacturing industry employed 90,244 people in 2012, down 38.3 percent from 146,152 employed in… Continue Reading
Apples and Oranges: Iceberg Trade Costs
Lashkaripour, Ahmad [Pennsylvania State University, College of the Liberal Arts – Department of Economics] Apples and Oranges: Iceberg Trade Costs (May 23, 2014). Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2470765 “The iceberg trade cost assumption is embodied in all major models of International trade. However, empirical evidence to support this rather conventional assumption is lacking. This paper… Continue Reading
Women of Color in Legal Education: Challenging the Presumption of Incompetence
Gonzalez, Carmen G., Women of Color in Legal Education: Challenging the Presumption of Incompetence (April 10, 2014). The Federal Lawyer (July 2014) . Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2470660 “Female law professors of color have become the canaries in the academic mine whose plight is an early warning of the dangers that threaten legal education… Continue Reading
State-by-State Map: Where Migrant Children Are Placed
“During the first six months of this year, 4,280 children awaiting deportation proceedings were placed with families in Texas. Just one went to Montana. The uneven distribution of children can be traced to the uneven distribution of Central American families. Children who travel to the U.S. illegally alone from countries other than Mexico and Canada are placed… Continue Reading
Improvements Needed in EPA Efforts to Address Methane Emissions From Natural Gas Distribution Pipelines
EPA IG – Report No. 14-P-0324 – July 25, 2014: “We conducted this evaluation to determine what actions the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken to reduce methane emissions from leaking pipelines in the natural gas distribution sector. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potential 25 times that of carbon dioxide. In… Continue Reading
