Outside the Beltway

For the first time ever, white students do not make up a majority among freshmen at the University of Texas at Austin.

Despite constantly hiring more examiners, the patent application backlog is 728,044 and it takes 6 years to get a decision.

A renowned sports economist argues that black quarterbacks are treated differently than their white counterparts.

Bryan Caplan argues that the fact so many kids in the developing world don’t go to school proves that education isn’t very valuable.

According to Gallup, there was a ten point move in the public’s preference on the Generic Congressional Ballot between last week and this week. What’s more likely is that Gallup is making a mistake somewhere.

An academic study reveals that police officers with college education are less violent than their peers. But the real story is how violent cops are, period.

What’s the deal with iTunes?

Democrats are sending some of their candidates to the Death Panels.

Fareed Zakaria argues that the fact al Qaeda has not launched a major attack on U.S. soil since 9/11 proves we overreacted to those attacks. I beg to differ.

Did you know that more Christians than Muslims were victims of hate crimes in America? Did you also know that there are a lot more Christians? Oh. Never mind, then.

The Pentagon, responding to obvious flaws in its security revealed by the WikiLeaks debacle, is working on a data mining program that will monitor employee behavior for suspicious activity.

FOX reports that the entire combat phase of the Iraq War will cost less than President Obama’s stimulus. That’s not a useful comparison.

Republicans now have the largest lead in Gallup’s Generic Congressional Ballot poll that they’ve ever had.

Despite raking in billions of dollars in television, ticket, and licensing revenues, all but 14 of the 106 schools in the NCAA’s top athletic division lost money in 2009. The median loss was over $10 million.

Another set of bad economic numbers are out today, and one wonders when we’ll start getting the good news.

Americans who earn a lot of money disproportionately live in a tiny number of states and are married to other high-earners.

No, the discipline isn’t having a George Constanza situation. Rather, a job market that has been dismal for decades has gotten worse.

The signs point to 2010 being an even worse year for Democrats than 1994.

It’s beginning to look like initial reports that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill had been “cleaned up” may not be true after all.

Wired proclaims, “The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet.” It’s great linkbait but completely wrongheaded.

Career fields dominated by women tend to pay less than those dominated by men. But gender discrimination isn’t the main reason.

The secret to getting big traffic on the Internet is to target bored office workers and crazy people.

A staggering 8 percent of all babies born in the United States in 2008 were offspring of illegal aliens. What are the public policy implications?

The average federal government employee earns twice as much as the average private sector worker. An outrage? Not so much.

Despite 9.5% unemployment, American firms are struggling to find qualified applicants for job openings.

How does the Electoral College influence policy and campaigning?

The Democrats are pulling a trick from the Reagan playbook for the fall campaign. They might want to rethink that.

The latest GDP numbers are nothing but bad news for Democrats.

The Obama administration wants the FBI to be able to look at your Internet records without the inconvenience of respecting your 4th Amendment rights.

Now that the flood of oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig has been staunched, some are arguing that the prophesied environmental catastrophe was greatly overblown.

Some lawyers make a fabulous salary right out of law school. Most don’t.

Megan McArdle cites an academic article someone disagrees with, proving she’s a dishonest hack.

Most research shows that unemployment benefits/insurance increases the duration of unemployment.

The inside story about a crappy wireless network’s loveless marriage with a beauty queen phone.

BP is hiring Gulf State scientists with the condition that they stop being scientists.

Recent debates over the economic and fiscal impact of the Bush tax cuts indicate that Republicans still haven’t learned the lessons of the Bush years.

Affluent, educated people in the DC policy community hold different views than the larger American public.

Most academic journal articles are unreadable dreck. So, why are we demanding that more of them be produced?

When it comes to opinions about Sarah Palin, there is a striking difference between Republicans and Americans in general.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is reporting that the CPI declined 0.1% last month. This makes for the third straight month that the CPI has declined. Is there reason to think that there is widespread deflation in the economy?

Pakistan is the world-wide leader in internet porn searches. And they have some strange tastes over there.

Remember all those suddenly accelerating Toyotas ? Now, we’re learning the rest of the story.

Since 9/11 there has been a steady trickle of stories about jihadists hooking up with Latin American drug cartels and the like. Here is a guide of story points that can help you identify when such a story is almost certainly bogus.

Those with million dollar plus mortgages are defaulting at almost twice the rate on those smaller loans. Are the rich more ruthless?

Arizona has been experiencing a massive increase in violent crime of late, right?

A picture is more misleading than a thousand words.