Rocketship Education, a once-renowned charter movement, goes for scale and could be sacrificing quality as a result

The essential idea behind Rocketship Education, when it opened, was almost on par with Henry Ford and the Model T. Basically, despite what naysayers might argue, there are excellent schools in America, and new ones do open up every year — or… Continue Reading

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Why do we still have the Olympics, in reality? (Also, goddamn it costs a lot.)

Charles Lane over at The Washington Post had a good article recently about the Olympics — and namely, why-in-the-hell-exactly-we-still-do-this-thing-on-the-regular. I’m inclined to agree. Sochi has been beset with problems, including: It’s directly in a conflict zone, basically. There are more terror warnings… Continue Reading

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Patrick Moen and Paul Schmidt left the Oregon DEA to work … in the medical marijuana industry?

If you like this article or others on here, scroll on down to the bottom and share it up a bit. Patrick Moen, a DEA agent in Oregon, quit his job in late 2013 and now works for Privateer Holdings,… Continue Reading

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Some nice inequality headlines to start your Tuesday: the 85 richest people in the world have as much as the 3.85 billion poorest people. Yea.

Inequality is a big topic all over the world — in America it might be one of the biggest, simply because it’s going to frame the next two major election cycles (’14 and ’16) and the whole Baby Boomers vs. Millenials… Continue Reading

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Yea, this is pretty much why a lot of America is obese and/or fat — but there’s hope

This is via Mother Jones by way of Amber Waves. This is Chart 1. It compares at-home spending patterns of U.S. households (i.e., at the supermarket) with USDA recommendations: Now, here’s Chart 2. It looks where Americans are eating — fast food, restaurants, at… Continue Reading

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Three years from today, we’ll inaugurate a new U.S. President. Chris Christie looks bad right now. Hilary Clinton looks good. What else do we know?

Interesting moment in U.S. history today: it’s been five years since Obama was inaugurated, and in three years (from today), someone else will be. Chris Christie looks bad at this moment, and Hilary Clinton looks OK — she just got… Continue Reading

“I’m interested in changing the type of system that produces this type of man,” or why Martin Luther King ultimately deserves a day of recognition

Martin Luther King Jr. was responsible for a heck of a lot of good in this world. Here’s a timeline of his accomplishments, here’s another one, here’s his Wiki, and here are two takes on his importance. If you took… Continue Reading

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Tremendous truism about Big Data: C-Level executives value it, but have no idea what to do with it

Tremendous headline over on CIO right now: C-Level Execs Value Data, Have No Idea What To Do With It. This could be an earlier leader on the nerd/wonk front for best headline of the year, because it is unflinchingly and utterly true. You… Continue Reading