Sunday Reads...

An irregular round-up of interesting reads.  Most of these made me go "hmmmmm," none of them imply concurrence:
 
Quip of Note
“The whole connection between work and the output we live on is being lost in many people’s minds. To many, the country somehow has wealth, which we should all share – and “fairly.” The most basic fairness of contributing to the efforts that produced what you want to share escapes them completely.” – Thomas Sowell  

• Expect more, get more. According to the data, more tough grading produce more extraordinary learning advancements in students.
• Who gets mad the most on Twitter?  Of course, it has been studied.
  
• Data suggesting that DEI policies have weakened U.S. intelligence capabilities.
  
• Is the Federal Government insane?  Would else would you call an IRS that claims Americans held captive by Russia owe fines for not filing taxes while held in foreign jails?
  
• Short – targeted – low-cost reading interventions.​

• Reflections on how “Buy American” laws are hurting U.S. taxpayers.
• Numbers are tough for some people.  Digging deeper into 13,0099 as numbers go.
• Is an anti-American ideology undermining American science?
• Northern cities are dying.
• The Hamas “leader” tasked with finding “peace” calls for new levels of civilian targeting “suicide bombings.”
• Research suggests that “assault weapon” bans spike demand for handguns, which statistically are responsible for more firearm-related violence.
• A primer on “public debt” is a significant issue of our day that is under-discussed.
• A study of students whose cognitive habits grew stronger—more logical support for positions and being open to new evidence—ranks philosophy as the number one major for both strengthening mind habits and growing pluralism. “Hard” sciences were near the bottom of these measures.
• A primer on how to make electricity “freer,” more abundant and available.
  
• Yikes.  Paging Dr. AI.  A new study found “A preview of the coming problem of working with AI when it starts to match or exceed human capability: Doctors were given cases to diagnose, with half getting GPT-4 access to help. The control group got a 73% score in diagnostic accuracy (a measure of diagnostic reasoning) & the GPT-4 group was 77%—no big difference. But GPT-4 alone got 88%. The doctors didn’t change their opinions when working with AI.”
  
• America’s “cultish” obsession with the Presidency gets a reflection.
  
• The challenges of making friends in adulthood.
  
• The WSJ reflects on recent events in the Middle East.
  
• Intergenerational U.S. military enlistment gets studied.
  
• What was the weather on the day you were born?
  
• Even for a CEO, “certainty” of beliefs portends bad outcomes.
  
• The role of facial features in leadership promotions is researched
  
• Counter narrative: New research suggests that lower-income Americans have seen their disposable income increase by 36% since the early 1970s.
  
• The United States has recently begun negotiating with terrorists – in this case, the Russian Federation – and released an arms dealer who is back on the streets funneling weapons to kill Jews.
  
• A good primer to “generations” on the field in the United States.