BRAIDS AREN’T FOR WHITE GIRLS: Student Allegedly Attacked Female Basketball Player Because Her Hairstyle Was ‘Cultural Appropriation.’ “Authorities charged a Hampshire College student with assaulting a member of Central Maine Community College’s basketball team over a dispute about cultural appropriation. Really. The Hampshire student, 20-year-old Carmen Figueroa, allegedly started a fight because the basketball player had braided her hair in a manner that upset Figueroa. She walked up to the visiting player—during a basketball game—and demanded that the player remove the braids from her hair, according to masslive.com.”

She should be expelled. And then laughed at, for endorsing something as patently stupid as “cultural appropriation.”

NO. Thick Mint Stout Is Your Unofficial Girl Scout Cookie Beer.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: How Do Unschoolers Turn Out?

Peter Gray has studied how learning happens without any academic requirements at a democratic school. The Boston College research professor also wrote about the long history and benefits of age-mixed, self-directed education in his book Free to Learn. Over the years, as he encountered more and more families who had adopted this approach at home (these so-called “unschoolers” are estimated to represent about 10 percent of the more than two million homeschooled children), he began to wonder about its outcomes in that setting. Finding no academic studies that adequately answered his question, he decided to conduct his own.

In 2011, he and colleague Gina Riley surveyed 232 parents who unschool their children, which they defined as not following any curriculum, instead letting the children take charge of their own education. The respondents were overwhelmingly positive about their unschooling experience, saying it improved their children’s general well-being as well as their learning, and also enhanced family harmony. Their challenges primarily stemmed from feeling a need to defend their practices to family and friends, and overcoming their own deeply ingrained ways of thinking about education. (The results are discussed at length here.)

This led Gray to wonder how unschooled children themselves felt about the experience, and what impact it may have had on their ability to pursue higher education and find gainful and satisfying employment. . . .

Overall, 83 percent of the respondents had gone on to pursue some form of higher education. Almost half of those had either completed a bachelor’s degree or higher, or were currently enrolled in such a program; they attended (or had graduated from) a wide range of colleges, from Ivy League universities to state universities and smaller liberal-arts colleges.

Several themes emerged: Getting into college was typically a fairly smooth process for this group; they adjusted to the academics fairly easily, quickly picking up skills such as class note-taking or essay composition; and most felt at a distinct advantage due to their high self-motivation and capacity for self-direction. “The most frequent complaints,” Gray notes on his blog, “were about the lack of motivation and intellectual curiosity among their college classmates, the constricted social life of college, and, in a few cases, constraints imposed by the curriculum or grading system.”

Most of those who went on to college did so without either a high school diploma or general education diploma (GED), and without taking the SAT or ACT. Several credited interviews and portfolios for their acceptance to college, but by far the most common route to a four-year college was to start at a community college (typically begun at age 16, but sometimes even younger).

The takeaway here is that people who didn’t go to school at all did as well as or better than people who did. Considering the huge amounts of money, and other social resources, that we invest in K-12 education, that’s kind of a big deal. Of course, you’d want to do a bigger study before taking this too seriously on a policy level, but it ought to spark at least a bit of rethinking.

IMPRESSIVE… MOST IMPRESSIVE: This Dad Figured out the Coolest Way to Announce the Sex of His Baby!

BIRDS OF A FEATHER: Anti-Israel Activist Linda Sarsour Tweets Out That Bernie Sanders ‘Changed Her Life’

THE HORSE HAS LEFT THE BARN: Google Promises Closer Policing of Websites After YouTube Ad Flap in Britain.

Google has found itself at the center of a British storm in recent days after major companies from supermarkets to banks and consumer groups pulled their adverts from its YouTube site after they appeared alongside videos carrying homophobic and anti-Semitic messages.

Alphabet’s Google launched a review of the problem on Friday, apologized on Monday and said on Tuesday it had revamped its policies to give advertisers more control.

The company, which had said it struggled to monitor the 400 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, said it would hire significantly more staff and speed up the process of removing ads from hateful and offensive content that attacks people based on their race, religion or gender.

“We believe the combination of these new policies and controls will significantly strengthen our ability to help advertisers reach audiences at scale, while respecting their values,” Philipp Schindler, Google’s chief business officer, said in a blog.

Why do progressive companies like Google create such cesspits of homophobic and anti-Semitic messaging in the first place?

CATHY YOUNG: Rebecca Solnit, Who Helped Popularize ‘Mansplaining,’ Is the Queen of Fakery. Imagine that.

EVERY TIME I THINK I’M OUT THEY PULL ME BACK IN: Iraqi PM Says Trump Administration ‘Wants to be More Engaged’ in Region.

We’ll almost certainly need to be, with Iran uncaged and the longterm decline in oil prices both promising fresh chaos.

YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK: Idaho boy sprayed by cyanide planted by US Department of Agriculture, dog killed.

“I hurried home, and the first thing I did was try to resuscitate the dog,” Mark Mansfield said. “Unfortunately I exposed myself to cyanide and had no idea.”

It took hours after emergency crews arrived and help from multiple agencies to learn Casey had died from exposure to an M-44.

M-44s are spring-activated devices that release cyanide when they are activated through upward pressure or pulling. The US Department of Agriculture uses the devices to control coyotes and other predators.

“We didn’t know anything about it. No neighborhood notifications and our local authorities didn’t know anything about them,” Mark said. “The sheriff deputies who went up there didn’t even know what a cyanide bomb was.”

The Mansfields have lived in their home nearly 10 years and have never seen M-44s in their neighborhood. They say the one triggered Thursday was planted on the borderline of their property.

“We weren’t aware, and nobody told us,” Theresa said. “There was nothing posted up on the hill saying to beware or be careful.”

Cyanide bombs seem like the kind of thing people should be made aware of.

SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP: UK flight ban on devices to be announced.

The UK is due to announce a cabin baggage ban on laptops, tablets and DVD players on certain passenger flights, after a similar US move.

It is understood the UK restrictions may differ from the US Department of Homeland Security’s ban, although details have not yet been released.

Flights from 10 airports in eight Muslim majority countries are subject to the US announcement.
US officials said bombs could be hidden in a series of devices.

The UK’s Department for Transport refused to comment on reports of the ban.

But BBC home affairs correspondent Daniel Sandford said the expected move was “obviously part of coordinated action with the US”.

I hope this is a sign that US/UK relations are still improving, despite the recent flap.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Wonder Woman Absolutely Should Not Have Armpit Hair, Sorry. “After all, a woman who has not once in more than 70 years gone out without perfectly curled hair is definitely not a woman who would ever wear something sleeveless without shaving her pits.”

Indeed.

WHEN CARS ARE LIKE POLITICIANS: The Subaru WRX STi Is a Hype Machine that Will Always End in Disappointment.

FIRE THEM: U.S. Women’s Hockey Boycotting Championships Over Equal Pay.

DRONE LAWS HAMPERING JOURNALISTS AND CITIZENS: What You Need to Conquer to be a Drone Journalist in Texas: An Airman’s Test, Privacy Laws and Gravity.

BEN DOMENECH: How Trump Can Fix Health Care.

Mr. Trump won the presidency in part because of some big promises, including a vow to break from conservative orthodoxy on entitlements. If Congress fails to deliver on that promise, Mr. Trump could correct it by going boldly in a direction anathema to many on the right but potentially acceptable to some Democrats: universal coverage for catastrophic care.

Many Americans’ greatest fear is that their health care costs will bankrupt them. The quality of care we receive is high — I experienced this myself this month after a cardiac incident left me reading the Republican plan in an emergency room — but the expense is opaque, and Americans are not wrong to worry about these costs.

By providing catastrophic care for all, President Trump could ensure that everyone has an ultimate backstop against medical bankruptcy, while freeing the states to experiment with options for reform. It would also enable the private sector to offer new insurance products to supplement the basic catastrophic care coverage.

This idea has some support among conservatives. In 2012 Kip Hagopian and Dana Goldman estimated in National Affairs that to insure all 209 million Americans not already covered by public insurance programs would cost about $2,000 per person, or $7,200 per family per year — about half the projected $1.7 trillion cost of Obamacare over the coming decade. Individuals and families could then purchase additional coverage given their particular health needs, but would not be bankrupted by severe illness or accident.

Something along these lines might be the least-bad, politically feasible outcome.

A STORY OF ADULT MUMPS AND MALE INFERTILITY. “To accurately describe the effect of mumps on that most delicate area for a young man would involve numerous fruit analogies, more akin to grapefruit than grapes.”

Get your shots.

SVERIGE GETTING SERIOUS: Sweden preparing nuclear fallout bunkers across the country amid fear of Russian war.

A system of 65,000 bunkers was established in the Cold War to protect the population from nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

According to MSB, the bunkers currently protect against blast and radiation as well as chemical or germ warfare.

With a distinctive logo, they can easily be located by civilians seeking shelter.

But with fears growing over threat posed by Vladimir Putin and his resurgent Russia they are being reviewed to make sure they are ready.

I’m old enough to remember when Sweden took its policy of armed neutrality seriously all the time.

JIM GERAGHTY: The FBI’s Coming Catch-22.

FBI director James Comey, testifying before Congress yesterday:

The FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts. As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed.

He later added, “We’ve been doing this — this investigation began in late July, so for counterintelligence investigation that’s a fairly short period of time.”

Late July? When did the FBI think it was pertinent to tell the public?

Talk about a Catch-22. If the FBI finds evidence of some collusion or violation of U.S. laws, it’s an epic scandal, will set up Democratic conspiracy theories for years, will take a sledgehammer to public faith in the Trump presidency… and everyone will rightly ask why the FBI couldn’t uncover anything, or even inform the public about the investigation, until after the election. Heck, not even until after the inauguration!

If the FBI doesn’t find evidence of some collusion or violation of U.S. laws, it’s an epic farce, where the Trump administration can rightfully ask where they can go to get their reputations back.

Comey’s tenure at the FBI hasn’t exactly been marked by glory, or even forethought.

SO WITH THE RIGHT SUBWOOFER I CAN FOOL MY IPHONE INTO CREDITING ME WITH MORE STEPS? Smartphone Accelerometers Can Be Fooled by Sound Waves.

AIRBRUSH ALERT: Amazon removes Scalzi parody at Tor Book’s behest.

VIDEO: Sounds Like Hillary May Run Again?!?

I’m putting this one up without having played it first because I couldn’t bear to watch.

KEEPING THE SEMI IN SEMI-AUTONOMOUS: Uber’s autonomous cars drove 20,354 miles and had to be taken over at every mile.

Though Uber has more cars on the road this month than last month and has increased its weekly autonomous mileage — both good developments — the company’s human drivers are still taking over the system more times than they did in January.

Uber uses several different metrics to determine how its systems have progressed. Those include:

The average number of miles a car drives itself before a driver has to take over for any reason
The average number of miles between “critical” interventions — when a driver has to avoid causing harm, such as hitting pedestrians or causing material property damage
The average number of autonomous miles between “bad experiences” — things like jerky motions or hard braking, which are more likely to cause discomfort than damage

For example: During the week ending March 8, the 43 active cars on the road only drove an average of close to 0.8 miles before the safety driver had to take over for one reason or another.

So Uber has more and more semi-automous cars driving more miles, but the average distance driven before the driver needs to intervene hasn’t changed much.

This suggests that Uber’s AI isn’t a very quick learner — although my hunch is that after enough miles and AI experience, that a virtual tipping point will be reached, after which the AI will start learning very quickly.

READER BOOK PLUG: From Holly Tucker, City of Light, City of Poison.

NO. Dogs are getting facelifts, nose jobs and ball implants.

Edgard Brito, a São Paulo vet and plastic surgeon, told DuJour that he wants his procedures to make pets more lovable to their owners. “I often say that a clean dog with well-kept teeth will always be in better contact with its owners, otherwise the dog ends up being [put to sleep],” he said.

Brito, who’s been called the world’s go-to dog surgeon, performs procedures to glam up canines’ appearances: Botox to perk up the ears of a Doberman, nose jobs, face-lifts and testicular implants such as Neuticles to help neutered pets regain their masculinity.

Dogs love you, as-is, no questions asked. We should at least be kind enough to return the favor.

THAAD: The Missile-Killer That Has China, South Korea, and the U.S. in Turmoil.