Friday reading

• Idea: a system of federal universities Not sure how this is an improvement over state public universities, but okay 
• The Census Bureau's new non-official, more-accurate poverty index Not surprising: more people are living in poverty than the official estimate
• Sierra Leone has its first free self-organized (that is, not run by the UN) elections this weekend And hopefully someday soon they too can have billion-dollar campaigns and an entire competitive election industry 
• The BBC magazine gives the etymology of the word "nerd" because, why not "According to reports, the Swedish Academy says it might change the definition [of nerd] to something more neutral in the future."
• If sequestration cuts come to be, schools would lose more than $2 billion, or 8 percent of the current federal education budget 
• Longread: 8,000 words on the future of the human race