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Links: Classrooms, Sex Economics, Hackers, Bill Gates, Drugs, and Keep It Short

* Good news if true (and long overdue, whether this report turns out to be a true trend or a false growth): “Shaking Up the Classroom: Under an increasingly popular system called competency-based learning, students are promoted after they master material—not just because they have spent a year in a class.”

* “In-Depth Report Details Economics of the Sex Trade;” the funniest thing is the way pimps fill a niche created by prohibition. Take away the laws and the pimps likely go too.

* Have liberal arts degree, will code.

* The Bill Gates Rolling Stone interview; pay special attention to the sections about anti-poverty programs.

* Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything Is a Crime. In other words, virtually anyone can be arrested for something in the contemporary United States.

* Keep it short.

* “Made in the U.S.A. (Again): The new industrial revolution won’t be in India or China. It will be right here in America.” But it likely won’t include a lot of jobs.

* Someone found Grant Writing Confidential by searching for “best grant writing certification.” There is no such thing because they’re all bad and pointless.

* “The Value Of An Engineering Degree,” which complements “Have liberal arts degree, will code.”

* Crowd funding is market research.

* “It’s Time to End ‘Rape Culture’ Hysteria.”

* “One big reason we lack Internet competition: Starting an ISP is really hard.” If I had Zuckerbergian money I’d fund ISPs.

* “Judge says prosecutors should follow the law. Prosecutors revolt.”

* Deeply chilling sentences.

* “Is HUD threatened by a Christian group’s plans to expand?” Unlikely; although Todd Starnes, the reporter, has probably never heard of this, it’s more probable that the group doesn’t want to join the local Continuum of Care.

* “Why RFPs Waste Time – Choose a Better Approach to Finding a Great Consultant;” almost all the other nonprofit-world blogs we’ve found are bogus, but this one isn’t. See also our post Why Seliger + Associates Never Responds to RFPs/RFQs for Grant Writing Services.

* Phages versus drug-resistant bacteria—really?

* It’s been at least 800,000 years since carbon-dioxide levels were this high.

* Addict. Informant. Mother. If rural towns in Eastern Pennsylvania have a heroin epidemic what hope do the rest of us have? So much for 40 years of the War on Drugs. Clearly, drugs have won this war.

David L. Kirp argues that Head Start should work like Section 8. He should consider how successful school bussing was.