Universities expanding overseas

Annarbor.com provides an interesting AP piece on various overseas ventures by US universities.

I am always cautious about these: I think they often reflect the fact that many universities have too many senior administrators and one or more of them gets bored with the core mission of the university and/or thinks they need some bold initiative to get a better job offer somewhere else and so follows whatever the current fashion is among university administrators trying to gain attention. In recent years, that current fashion has been overseas adventures.

Also entertaining in the article is the belief that calling something an "additional campus" or a "portal campus" rather than a "branch campus" actually fools anyone.

Atlantic on Qaddafi

A short but informative history of the misrule of the late Colonel.

MTO, obesity and the Daily Mail

Many years ago, my friend and co-author Kermit Daniel had his dissertation research on the married male wage premium written up in US magazine. Since that time, I have always had it as a goal to somehow get my research noted in some thoroughly non-academic outlet. Now it turns out that my friend Jens Ludwig has accomplished this goal as well, by getting his paper on the effects of the Moving to Opportunity housing voucher treatment on obesity into the London Daily Mail, which also provides an illustrative photo.

Oh, and if you read the article, don't take the comments by HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan too seriously. The overall big picture takeaway from MTO is that neighborhood effects matter surprisingly little.

Hat tip: Charlie Brown

Correlation and causation

A humorous take on the age-old problem.

Hat tip: Dann Millimet

Revisionism on the marshmallow test

From the Daily Beast, the sad story of (some of) the details of the famous marshmallow test, in which whether or not four-year-olds could defer gratification for 15 minutes strongly predicted later SAT scores.

Looks like it was just an over-hyped micronumerous mess. Sort of Perry Preschool but with fewer data points.

If only someone at some newspaper (or blog or monthly policy magazine) somewhere actually knew how to read and critique studies, some of this collective foolishness could be avoided.

Hat tip: Dann Millimet

Gregg Bell on Keith Price

What struck me about this piece is just how much thought goes into what might seem like minor details about who rooms with whom for a month in August.

It is also full of reminders of the importance of the mental part of the game of football.

Jimmy Swaggart

Maggie McNeill retells the always rewarding story of televangelist Jimmy Swaggart.