[new article] Nov. 2: For Romney to Win, State Polls Must Be Statistically Biased http://t.co/NqQ5pxe9

Rebecca Watson. Photo by Larry Auerbach. I’m a skeptic. Not the kind that believes the 9/11 attacks were the product of a grand Jewish conspiracy—we hate those guys. “Stop stealing the word ‘skeptic,’ ” we tell them, but they don’t listen to us because they assume we’re just part of the grand Jewish…

Joan Engebretson is a journalist who has been reporting on the telecom industry for almost 20 years. She is currently executive editor of Telecompetitor , where this piece originally appeared . The opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Ars Technica. I don’t always agree with…

The crash at Wenzhou. The Rail Ministry had been determined to build seventy-five hundred miles of high-speed railway more quickly than anyone thought possible. Credit Illustration by A. J. Frackattack; Photograph by AFP / Getty On the morning of July 23, 2011, passengers hurried across Beijing…

On 7 October 2002, an Anglican priest, William Campbell-Taylor, and an English-Jewish academic, Maurice Glasman, came to the law lords to challenge a parliamentary bill. It was the start of an episode that anyone worried about tax avoidance - or, for that matter, about the fate of the NHS, about…

So, you followed the advice in my Linode Hosting Review and decided to host your website with Linode . Excellent choice! But, if you’re new to the command line (perhaps you are familiar with CPanel or Plesk?) or you’ve never setup a server from scratch before, you may be wondering what dark magic…

Apple's latest release of the iOS operating system doesn't come packed with a lot of new features for companies looking to rein in the whole "bring your own device" stampede. But the few twists Apple has added to iOS 6 will certainly make it more attractive to organizations that want to use the…

Tomato sauce with Mediterranean flavors. Evan Sung for The New York Times WHEN aspiring young food writers ask how I learned the trade — Was culinary school the first step? A journalism degree? Apprenticeship in a three-star kitchen in France? — I brace myself to disappoint them. I didn’t do any of…

Report on Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails by the Review Panel on Prison Rape, edited by G.J. Mazza Sexual Victimization Reported by Former State Prisoners, 2008 by Allen J. Beck and Candace Johnson National Standards to Prevent, Detect, and Respond to Prison Rape Department of Justice,…

On Friday, Mark Levin was no less sour on his own popular evening show. After giving Romney credit for “a very solid speech” the night before, he too lamented the Establishment strategy of portraying Obama as “a nice guy who’s a failed president.” In Levin’s view, Obama is “a nasty, leftist…

Paul Ryan Is the Newest New Nixon, a Moocher Belied Most Popular By TAMPA, Fla. — I think it was when he went to tears, one dab at each eye, while talking about his mother, that it became extraordinarily clear to me that there's a lot of old Dick Nixon in young Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed…

Sitting behind and above Clinton meant I could see his teleprompter. He would stray from the Star Wars word crawl for five minutes at a time, launching into numbers-heavy digressions off the top of his head. I oozed into Charlotte for the Democratic National Convention on a Greyhound bus right as a…

New Yorker unlocks its article on Kip Litton's elaborate & crazy 'marathon fraud': http://t.co/rGKq331d (via @nxthompson)

I have never seen a Washington journalist struggle with what Ezra Klein struggles with here. http://t.co/OtQ08FcX He's in new territory.

This car is about to zip by me at high speed while I’m at the edge of his lane. There are several streets in Seattle that function more like highways, or even freeways, than city streets. If you routinely cross Rainier, Denny, 15th Ave NW, or one of the other dozen or so 4+ lane streets at an…

On the blog: (Im)personal, Rapid Transit http://t.co/KMTT8AIV

She fell from the top floor. Malcolm smith S ix months ago, my boyfriend and I were watching a movie in our apartment when he looked up and said, "Something's wrong." A moment later, he was pressed up against the front door, listening and whispering, "Something crazy's happening. Don't open the…

America's best film critic, David Bordwell, goes deep on Christopher Nolan. http://t.co/xXarBWEx

The purpose of the Republican convention is to introduce America to the real Mitt Romney. Fortunately, I have spent hours researching this subject. I can provide you with the definitive biography and a unique look into the Byronic soul of the Republican nominee: Mitt Romney was born on March 12,…

Krugman on @PaulRyanVP's budget and its "magic asterisks" http://t.co/a31gVCe0

I WORK on retirement policy, so friends often want to talk about their own retirement plans and prospects. While I am happy to have these conversations, my friends usually walk away feeling worse — for good reason. Seventy-five percent of Americans nearing retirement age in 2010 had less than…

and a little bit o love for Don Verrili who well and truly deserves it http://t.co/xlL9ahUY

The Bank for International Settlements has just come out with a report emphasizing the “limits to monetary policy”, which is apparently being taken seriously. I guess I’d start from the observation that the BIS has already embraced liquidationism , the idea that all this suffering is good for us and…

New on my blog: Why this is a rough time to be a Mac developer. Does Apple still want the best & brightest? http://t.co/MKdtspdU