Links 12/27/10

Links for you. Science:

Ancient humans, dubbed 'Denisovans', interbred with us
Hub care sites see rise in stomach bug cases
African elephant is two species, researchers say

Other:

What Haley Barbour's amnesia tells us: Like any good Southern conservative of his generation, he ignores the entire bad faith stew in which he was raised (a must-read post)
Really, Teacher. I Read the Assignment. The Marvel Comics Version.
When You Hit Bottom, Stop Digging. (Regarding this link and the previous one, I've dealt with value-added teaching appraisal and lifetime income issues elsewhere)
Police State: "Lefty" San Francisco Can Throw People in Jail For Sitting on a Sidewalk (this article misses the point: cops have always been able to do this, one way or another; what's so gruesome is that this is what passes for policy to 'help' the indigent, even as the hardest hit areas by homelessness don't support these policies)
Ministers and Federal Subsidies

Categories

More like this

The snow berms now reach my shoulder. Ugh. Links for you. Science: Phylogeny rules: Why P-values are Evil Belly Button Microbes: The First Peek Polar bear's epic nine day swim in search of sea ice (gee whiz amazing, but very sad in the context of global warming) Other: TFA Founder Wendy Kopp:…
Last week, E.D. Kain took Megan McArdle to task for promoting the use of student testing as a means to evaluate teachers. This, to me, was the key point: ....nobody is arguing against tests as a way to measure outcomes. Anti-standardized-tests advocates are arguing against the way tests are being…
Sunny. Warm. Links. Science: Brief data analysis interlude Wave of Rhabdomyolysis in Oregon High School Football Players Darwin wrong--again?? Dude, where are my copy number variants? Other: PAC-Man Ate My Ballot An Infrastructure Perfect Storm: New York Trains Shut Down En Masse Managing The LA…
There's been a lot of energy expended blogging and writing about the LA Times's investigation of teacher performance in Los Angeles, using "Value Added Modeling," which basically looks at how much a student's scores improved during a year with a given teacher. Slate rounds up a lot of reactions, in…