Sam Boyd

MORE GIRLS = MORE LEARNING.A new study flagged by Tyler Cowen finds the more girls that are in a classroom, the better everyone performs, regardless of gender. The causal factor is simply that girls behave better. According to the abstract “a higher proportion of female peers lowers the level of classroom disruption and violence, improves […]

DCCC HAS 10-1 FUNDING ADVANTAGE, BETTER CANDIDATES, STRONGER STANDING IN THE POLLS. The Washington Post, in a very odd article on the congressional outlook for 2008, neglects to mention until the 23rd paragraph that the DCCC has ten times as much cash on hand as the RNCC. Ten times! The rest of the article is […]

KARL ROVE: PATRIOT, SON, AND LEGENDARY MAN-EATING BEAST. Karl Rove is now free to tell us the truth about his many adventures in the White House and it turns out that … nothing was his fault. Not even the “MC Rove” sketch which he claims was planned without his knowledge and only explained to him […]

FRED THOMPSON HAS NO PRINCIPLES. Note the plural. He does, judging by his website have one principle — federalism. It’s the only thing listed in his “principles” page and it’s mainly a long, pedantic essay that answers the question “so what is this federalism thing anyway?” There’s almost no discussion of the issues except for, […]

RUDY GIULIANI WILL KILL US ALL. Not quite, but his foreign policy team makes Dick Cheney look like Dennis Kucinich, according to the recent New Yorker piece that Stephen blogged about: Earlier this month, Giuliani named Podhoretz a senior adviser on his foreign-policy team… Podhoretz is so untempered a neocon that he makes Paul Wolfowitz, […]

A GRAND UNIFIED THEORY OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION. The new Atlantic piece on Karl Rove by Joshua Green has been rightly hailed as a brilliant piece of reporting. It’s a great article, not just because it reveals Rove’s role, but because it provides a highly plausible theory that explains much of the Bush presidency. In […]

CHINA SHOWS OFF ITS FINANCIAL GUNS. China is softly sending a clear message to Congress not to get tough on exchange rates, and carrying a $1.33 trillion stick — the total amount of currency reserves held it holds in dollars (equal to some 44 percent of US national debt). Chinese leaders have hinted that a […]

TODAY IN BAD IDEAS. The New York Times reports today on a bill that’s gathering steam in congress to extend intellectual property protection to the design of clothing and handbags. In other words, once someone has laid claim to a certain design of dress, no one else can make the same one without permission of […]

TURNOUT AMONG THE OUT.The LA Times reports today (via Political Wire) that gay men and lesbians have extraordinarily high election turnout: 92.5% of gay men reported that they voted in the 2004 presidential race, and almost 84% said they cast ballots in the 2006 midterm election. Among lesbians, the results were almost as impressive; nearly […]

THE NATIONAL REVIEW CALLS OUT MITT ROMNEY… FOR BEING TOO CONSERVATIVE! I have to say, I’m shocked that the National Review ran this piece by Mark Hemingway calling out Mitt Romney for embracing the political philosophy of W. Cleon Skousen. Romney recently mentioned his admiration of Skousen during his much remarked-upon discussion of Mormonism with […]