Outside the Beltway

The main who coined the word “meritocracy” meant it as a pejorative term.

The American tax code contains perverse incentives and barriers to getting out of poverty.

Amusing in light of the birther nonsense:Obama half brother Malik seeks Kenya governor’s office.

New York Jets quarterback Greg McElroy was experiencing post-concussion syndrome but hid it from the team for days.

A rich child is 45 percent more likely to earn a four-year college degree than a poor one.

Will the massacre of twenty children in a Connecticut elementary school mark a turning point in America’s gun culture? Don’t count on it.

Ross Douthat says American women should stop being decadent and have more babies, explaining that raising children is easier than it used to be, so there’s really no excuse for women to be so selfish.

The best single means of becoming such an economic winner is to gain admission to a top university

It’s time to panic over anonymous guys in Philadelphia again, at least if you work at Fox News Channel.

Last night’s debate was rough and tumble, but it’s unlikely to change the state of the race.

Florida’s new education policy essentially assumes that minority students cannot do as well as their peers. That’s a mistake.

A five year old “shocking” video of President Obama speaking to a group of African-American ministers proves to be not very shocking at all.

A lot more people than expected are likely to be hit by the ObamaCare individual mandate tax penalty than previously thought.

Republicans think they found the smoking gun of the 2012 election. They’re kidding themselves.

So, Mitt Romney opened his mouth again.

A legal setback for the Texas Voter ID law, but not much of a political setback for Voter ID laws in general.

Whether or not it’s proper to call the FRC a “hate group,” the persecution complex being displayed in the wake of Tuesday’s shooting is absurd.

Entirely unsurprisingly, the shooting at the Family Research Center’s office in Washington, D.C. is already being politicized.

A columnist for The Guardian says she wishes her mother had aborted her.

Doug Saunders makes the counterintuitive claim that things are better for Britons than ever.

Another study shows that voter ID laws negatively affect a lot of Americans.

Some interesting developments in Pyongyang.

“The average Canadian has quietly become richer than the average American,” claims a pro-Canada organization.

In a groundbreaking investigative report, the New York Times has found that it’s easier to raise children if there are two parents and two incomes than one parent and one income.

Were the Colonists wrong to toss aside the British Empire so casually?

Byron York reacts to a CNNMoney story titled “Government wants more people on food stamps” by snarking, “And Democrats reacted angrily when Gingrich called Obama ‘food stamp president.'”

Why isn’t the American middle class and working class angrier at the 1 percent?

New York’s Governor is proposing a change in the law that could spare thousands of people a year from an unnecessary trip through the legal system.

The arrival of Discovery in Washington D.C. has led to another lament about “national greatness.”

The NYT has an interesting piece on the ongoing limted v. big governemnt debate.

David Frum begins a withering review for The Daily Beast, “Charles Murray’s Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 is an important book that will have large influence. It is unfortunately not a good book.”

Mitt Romney stumbled a bit during his victory tour this morning.

Have Americans divided themselves into what are becoming increasingly different cultures?

Mitch Daniels got the unenviable task of responding to the State Of The Union Address last night.

The speech did exactly what it was supposed to do: kick off Obama’s re-election campaign while disguised as a call for unity.

Rick Santorum returns to his old ways when asked about same-sex marriage.

Newt Gingrich provides another example.

Not surprisingly, the last man to lead the Soviet Union believes we’d be better off if it still existed.