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Stalin Erased His Enemies From History (Literally)0
- History
- August 11, 2016
It’s no secret that governments in the 20th century killed a lot of people, but few did it with greater efficiency than Joe Stalin, whose policy of forced collectivization killed an estimated 14.5 million people between 1930-1937. Stalin employed terror with a zeal and skill few could match, marginalizing rivals such as Leon Trotsky, who was expelled from the
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‘White America’: Eminem channels Christopher Lasch 0
- Culture
- August 11, 2016
You know Eminem, but do you know Christopher Lasch? He was one of the more brilliant political philosophers of the 20th century and seemingly spot on in his book The Culture of Narcissism. I was reminded of that when in the same day I watched Eminem’s White America music video and then skimmed The Culture of
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Unruly students could be ruining your child’s future 0
- Education
- August 10, 2016
Teachers, parents, and researchers have long recognized that unruly students in classrooms can impact the quality of education for other pupils, but it has been difficult to estimate their impact. In The Long-Run Effects of Disruptive Peers(NBER Working Paper No. 22042), Scott E. Carrell, Mark Hoekstra, and Elira Kuka report that classroom disruptions lead to more than just short-term lower grades
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How statistics are twisted to obscure public understanding 0
- Education
- August 10, 2016
Mark Twain attributed to Benjamin Disraeli the famous remark: ‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.’ In every industry, from education to healthcare to travel, the generation of quantitative data is considered important to maintain quality through competition. Yet statistics rarely show what they seem. If you look at recent airline
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Can You Compete with an 1899 American Civics Student?0
- Culture
- August 10, 2016
Jay Leno’s Jaywalking segments are notorious for providing multiple facepalm moments. Leno’s classic 4th of July segment is no disappointment in that respect, for it shows multiple interviewees stymied by simple American civics questions. Jay Walking: citizens show no knowledge of… by TalkerOne The fact that the grandfather of the last family in Leno’s interview
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What is the Goal of Modern Science?0
- Science
- August 10, 2016
“Whether, in the end, science will prove to have been a blessing or a curse to mankind, is to my mind, still a doubtful question.”—Bertrand Russell, The Future of Science (1924) By any casual reckoning, the modern scientific project has thus far proven a mixed success. To list the pros and cons would be a
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