Danny's Pathologically Polymathic: December 2012

a guide to carrying children on bikes - BikeHub

coal seam gas addicts attack science - GlobalMail [via StephenMa]

how to improve social mobility in the US - BostonReview [via CT]

on not believing in Canada - CT

the war on motorists is a myth - IPPR

the danger of antibiotics - NG

Jan Jacob Slauerhoff - The Forbidden Kingdom [my review]

all sex is political in Iran - FP

why housing is a risky investment - InvestorsChronicle

the economic paradox of commuting - IDEAS [via StumbleMumble]

where "ampersand" came from, and other lost English letters - MentalFloss [via @phaseit]

confirmation that West Antarctica is warming - RealClimate

potatoes used to test airplane wifi - BBC

choir of King's College performs Carl Vine carol - Guardian

French opinion divided on Depardieu's move to Belgium - Guardian

another sport I'd never heard of: Kabaddi - BBC [via Jonathan]

mixed evaluation of Spain's austerity success - Telegraph

a Guardian Australia news operation!? - Standard [via MeFi]

is Microsoft still dangerous? - Lxer [via OSWALD]

myths about gun ownership in Israel and Switzerland - WP - counter-argument

gun ownership in Japan and the US - Atlantic

Kefauver and a potted history of drug regulation in the US - NEJM [via @BenGoldacre]

the UK judicial system fails to protect cyclists - StewartPratt

the NSW Labor Party needs to be purged - Quiggin

the relationship between programming and mathematics - EvanMiller

potholes are a problem for Oxford cyclists - BBC

holes only seem to get patched if they're dangerous to cars

single-sex schooling pseudoscience - Science [paywalled] - NYer

"there is no well-designed research showing that single-sex education improves students' academic performance"

the last Swiss finishing school? - GlobeMail [via MeFi]

some England and Wales census results - Guardian

population up 7%; Christianity down 13%, no religion up 10%, Islam up 2%;

pathological consumption, all year round - Monbiot

Mongolia opts for Russian broad gauge railroad to keep China at bay - DailyHerald

Britain is becoming Japanese - DailyMail - Bloomberg

grim news from Greece always seems to be about the middle class - Bloomberg

some spoof mathematics paper titles - JMartin [via TTao]

a war footing is needed to avert civilization-threatening global warming - Grist

mid-pointing a random polygon converges on an ellipse - JasonDavies [via MF]

there's a reason Australia has got rid of its 1c and 2c coins - xkcd

we have an allotment! - Oxford Blog

unquestioned authority leads to abuse of power, in Buddhism as in Catholicism - SweepingZen

"the majority of cases of abuse reported by students come from those traditions that place greatest emphasis on submission and obedience"

99% of the first 50 billion groups have 1024 elements - Baez