Events

At a client site all day, with about 10 minutes for lunch. Regular posting will resume Sunday.

Krugman explains: Mr. Christie’s big move — the one that will define his record — was his unilateral decision back in 2010 to cancel work that was already under way on a new rail tunnel linking New Jersey with New York. At the time, Mr. Christie claimed that he was just being fiscally responsible, while critics said that he had canceled the project just so he could raid it for funds. Now the independent Government Accountability Office has weighed in with a report on the controversy, and it confirms...

Connecticut's house has voted to repeal the death penalty, which will make the state the 17th to abolish it: Senate Bill 280 cleared the House 86-62, a vote that broke largely along party lines. The bill now goes to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who has pledged to sign it, ending a form of punishment in the state that dates back to Colonial times when those convicted of being witches were sent to the gallows. [S]upporters of the repeal effort say the state's death penalty is irrevocably broken — just one man...

Pauvre chat: (Via Sullivan.)

I'd say he's performing about as expected:

Theories also have predictive value; that is, in order for a hypothesis to graduate to theorydom, it has to fit all the available facts and predict future events. You know, like anthropogenic climate change, which gets closer to being a true theory every day. For example, via Fallows, a paper written in 1981 seems to have predicted it pretty well: Sometimes it helps to take a step back from the everyday pressures of research (falling ill helps). It was in this way we stumbled across Hansen et al (1981)...

The FBI has put together a committee of university presidents to root out foreign spies who have infiltrated American colleges: While overshadowed by espionage against corporations, efforts by foreign countries to penetrate universities have increased in the past five years, [Frank] Figliuzzi, [Federal Bureau of Investigation assistant director for counterintelligence] said. The FBI and academia, which have often been at loggerheads, are working together to combat the threat, he said. Attempts by...