Blog: TAPPED

Think the Red Sox versus the Yankees at the World Series Final and then times that by a billion. Two nations are at a standstill today as they play for a spot in the finals of the Cricket World Cup. India versus Pakistan has caused schools to be let out early in India — a […]

Reuters reports that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed a bill yesterday that makes it illegal for doctors to provide abortions for parents seeking to terminate pregnancies on the basis of race or gender. As Planned Parenthood officials, quoted in the article, noted, there’s not really any evidence that this is a widespread problem in Arizona […]

Nate Silver points to a new CNN poll that shows that unfavorable views of the Tea Party are at 47 percent. Moreover, they’ve been on a steady rise, though favorable ratings have been pretty flat, or possibly slightly increasing, as well. Still, favorables are only at 32 percent. Silver argues: I’ve long been of the […]

I’m not a big fan of Semi-Homemade Sandra Lee as recipe writer, cook, or TV personality. But as a political spouse, she’s the best we have. First of all, she’s not actually a political spouse: She and her sometime housemate, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, have not tied the knot, nor does Lee seem to […]

David Leonhardt notes the complete lack of socioeconomic diversity at elite colleges: In 2008, the most recent year in the Chronicle’s data, a mere 6.5 percent of Harvard students received Pell Grants. And Harvard wasn’t all that unusual among elite colleges. At Washington University in St. Louis, only 5.7 percent of students received Pell Grants. […]

In addition to a Mormon problem, David Bernstein argues that Mitt Romney has an abortion problem as well: [I]t really is true that Romney ran into incredible resistance to Mormonism, particularly among evangelical voters (and thus, particularly in the South). But again, I think that resistance really grew after. I don’t think so many preachers […]

As I’m sure you know, despite the District of Columbia’s large population, D.C. residents lack meaningful representation in Congress, as well as full authority over city government. Writing for The New York Times op-ed page, Kate Masur explains why: One problem is indifference; most Americans are unaware of the capital’s anomalous status, the city’s “Taxation […]

Over at Grist, Dave Roberts is publishing installments of an interesting conservation he had with The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal about Powering the Dream, Madrigal’s new book on the history of green-energy technology. Yesterday, Madrigal made a great, overarching point about the gap between environmentalists and clean-energy advocates, who in recent years increasingly have come together […]

Today, the Supreme Court heard the largest gender-discrimination case in history. In Wal-Mart v. Dukes, the Court will decide whether a class-action suit brought by 1.5 million female employees of the retail giant will be allowed to proceed with their action – or whether, as Wal-Mart argues — the class is too big. Victoria Pynchon […]

Via Think Progress, an unusually candid Tim Pawlenty notes the inherent difficulty of holding science-based views in a resolutely anti-science political party: PAWLENTY: Well, anybody who’s going to run for this office who’s been in an executive position, or may run, has got some clunkers in their record. Laura, mine I think are fewer and […]