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POPSHyped up drug studies If you read the full article, some of the methods they use to make drugs look good are shocking. For example, if a drug doesn't reduce deaths from strokes, but does reduce the incidence of disability in survivors, they add the two numbers together in one column and claim that the drug reduces "death and disability" (meaning "death + disability," but people assume it means that the likelihood of death is reduced, too).
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POPSAnimals experience old age in captivity This is interesting because I remember hearing that the conventional wisdom was that animals don't age. Maybe animals really do age, but they usually don't live long enough for it to show.
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POPSDog whistle for teenagers My first reaction: If this had been posted on April 1, I wouldn't have believed it. But I have some sympathy for the teens. After all, "loitering" seems to mean "hanging around and being somebody I don't like."
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POPSEvangelicals may go Democratic If a fair number of evangelicals were to actually vote for a liberal like Obama in the general election, that would mark a sea change in U.S. politics. I can't help but worry that Hell would also freeze over.
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POPSRussian space shuttle clone retired It would have been interesting to see how the Buran would have developed. While we were good at going to the moon and sending probes to planets, the Soviet program was more concerned with the kind of earth-orbit stuff the shuttle's about.
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POPSCubans allowed to buy products they can't afford This is interesting. On the one hand, the new access to personal computers creates a new, de-facto freedom of the press (even without internet access to blog or post on forums, all you need is a printer to distribute anti-government literature). On the other hand, only the well-off can afford this stuff, and the well-off are less likely to agitate against the system, particularly if the system gives them cell phones and computers.
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POPSWTC Developers suing airlines, airport I'm still trying to figure out how there can be liability for the airlines when their pilots did the standard procedure for a hijacking at the time: cooperate. I could possibly see some grounds for suing the airport for security lapses, but even that's a little shaky given that the only thing legally wrong with the hijackers (before the horrific murder/suicide attack) was that they had overstayed their visas, IIRC.
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POPSMuslim scholar denounces public baptism I'm still trying to figure out why it's okay for Western celebrities raised as Christians to publicly announce their conversions and name changes, but it's a crime for a Muslim celebrity to convert to Christianity in a public way.
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POPSYankees expect to get away with murder The thing is, sliding hard into a base or home plate is considered part of the game, but going in with your spikes up went out with Ty Cobb. And Steinbrenner's assertion that the Yankees should get preferential treatment because they're a large market team just gives me one more reason to hate them.
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POPSIt's over, and the Democrats win I couldn't clip the entire 13 Keys system in detail and stay under the sharing limit, but check it out in the full article. The only problem with the columnist's analysis is that he forgets to mention that the 13 keys only predict the winner of the popular vote. It doesn't predict the Electoral College winner (and thus doesn't always predict the actual president).
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POPSDennis Hastert's seat goes to Democrat Oddly enough, this development may be a good argument for not putting Obama on the ticket if Clinton comes back to win. If the downstate areas of Illinois are going Democratic, the party really doesn't have to worry about Illinois' electoral votes in the fall.
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POPSRed state turning blue (maybe) I've been wondering over the past couple of years whether the 2006 Democratic victories in Ohio were just about Coingate, and this could provide some answers. The fact that Clinton was leading in polls of Democratic party voters before the primary indicates that her victory probably wasn't due to party switching. Second, turnout for Democratic primaries and caucuses was higher even early on in the process, when both parties' nominations were up in the air.
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POPSNew Texas poll, or the elephant in the room I find it interesting that they're so obsessed with whether Clinton is going to narrowly win or narrowly lose. She needs to dominate in Ohio and Texas in order to catch up in the delegate count, due to the Democrats' fondness for proportional representation.
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POPSHow to stop a temper tantrum See the full article for the author's critique of Karp's Neanderthal comparison and an argument that this kind of logic sometimes applies to adults.
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POPSBill Belichik's weasely interpretation of videotaping rules I'd wondered how he came to the conclusion that his videotaping was legal, and now I finally know. Of course, the fact that he continued the videotaping after getting the memo with the official interpretation shows a complete lack of respect for the rules (and possibly for rules in general unless they work in his favor). Good thing the Pats lost the Super Bowl.
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POPSPartisanship is in the genes...a little bit By itself, this is interesting, but 4-8% isn't a huge difference (assuming they have an accurate, objective scale of partisanship). It could be interesting if they found a complex of genes, each with this much influence, though. The original research linked in the clip is a long pdf (which I don't have time to go through right now), which is why I linked from the blog post.
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POPSTax rebate an indirect subsidy to casinos The interesting thing is that a representative of the casino industry admits that this temporary influx isn't the best outcome for them. They would prefer for the economy to be better so that people feel like they can safely gamble their money regularly.
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