One would think after their disastrous attempts to solve their pest problems by introducing cane toads to their continent (and producing an additional whopper of a pest), the Aussies would be a little more careful the next time they attempted to assist an environment. No such luck:
"It seemed like a good idea at the time: Remove all the feral cats from a famous Australian island to save the native seabirds.
But the decision to eradicate the felines from Macquarie island allowed the rabbit population to explode and, in turn, destroy much of its fragile vegetation that birds depend on for cover, researchers said Tuesday.
Removing the cats from Macquarie "caused environmental devastation" that will cost authorities 24 million Australian dollars ($16.2 million) to remedy, Dana Bergstrom of the Australian Antarctic Division and her colleagues wrote in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology.
"Our study shows that between 2000 and 2007, there has been widespread ecosystem devastation and decades of conservation effort compromised," Bergstrom said in a statement.
The unintended consequences of the cat-removal project show the dangers of meddling with an ecosystem — even with the best of intentions — without thinking long and hard, the study said.
"The lessons for conservation agencies globally is that interventions should be comprehensive, and include risk assessments to explicitly consider and plan for indirect effects, or face substantial subsequent costs," Bergstrom said.
Several conservation groups including the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Birds Australia said the problem was not the original eradication effort itself — but that it didn't go far enough. They said the project should have taken aim at all the invasive mammals on the island at once.
"What was wrong was that the rabbits were not eradicated at the same time as the cats," University of Auckland Prof. Mick Clout, who also is a member of the Union's invasive species specialist group. "It would have been ideal if the cats and rabbits were eradicated at the same time, or the rabbits first and the cats subsequently."
I would like to see some comments to this effect made prior to the eradication effort. It is entirely too easy to say in hindsight "we should have taken the rabbits too". Has there been a thorough analysis of what would have happened if they had done so? Perhaps there are species there that depend on both the rabbits and the cats in some fashion. Nature and the creatures in it are interlaced in highly complicated ways that we are only beginning to understand.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
Legalize Marijuana Now!
I rarely take much interest in the drug war any more. It's similar to the way I feel about a college football playoff: the arguments are the same as they have always been, those that favor the status quo have been trounced by any logical and factual measure, but those in power still refuse (for a variety of reasons, not all irrational) to change their position.
But now that we have a president who has seen the drug culture first hand, there is hope. Hopefully this article on the advantages of legalizing marijuana will get his attention.
"With our economy going to pot, President-elect Obama has promised a “top-to-bottom audit to eliminate spending for programs that don’t work.” So, here’s a sane, simple proposal to save the country billions of dollars a year: end the war on marijuana users.
This failed and counter-productive program is an assault on people who pose virtually no threat to themselves or anyone else, certainly no more than that all-American "Joe Sixpack" revered in our recent presidential election.
Yet, getting caught with a few seeds or trace marijuana residue on a pipe is enough in some jurisdictions to trigger an arrest. Most who favor continuing the war assume that law enforcement focuses on sweeping up kingpins and members of cartels. But, here’s a sobering statistic. Of the 872,000 arrests in 2007 for marijuana-related offenses, almost 90 percent were for simple possession of the dried vegetation in question. The typical arrestee is younger than 30. Think college-age kid caught lighting up a joint. Now, multiply that by 775,000 — that’s where a significant chunk of your drug war dollars are going.
The price of deploying an army of local, state and federal cops, prosecutors and guards to arrest, try and imprison the perpetrators of this non-scourge? Using data from 2000, Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron estimated it as $7.7 billion per year while a 2007 study, by public policy expert Jon Gettman, figured it closer to $10.7 billion per year.
Most of that money is eaten up by law enforcement according to Miron, with $2.94 billion going to prosecution costs in 2000, and less than half a billion toward incarceration.
Add in the revenue we’d eventually gain if marijuana were regulated and taxed like alcohol and tobacco (from $6.2 billion to as much as $31.1 billion per year), and you’re talking real money."
Those are staggering figures, and they don't even consider the tangential costs of releasing rapists and murderers to clear cramped prison space for drug offenders, or the clogged courts, or the costs to society of having such a huge proportion of our population become artificially unemployable due to becoming ex-cons.
David Doddridge took pride in his work for most of his 21-year career with the LAPD. But when, five years before his retirement, he got transferred into narcotics, he began to feel he was doing more harm than good.
Cops see the collateral damage done by the drug war, costs that don’t show up on anyone’s budget analysis and are paid, not just by those arrested for the high crime of preferring a doobie to a Bud Lite, but by their families: The father whose car is confiscated when junior gets pulled over by an officer with a nose for burnt herb. The daughter who tries to buy medical marijuana – because it’s the only medicine that relieves her parent’s chemotherapy-induced nausea – and gets arrested in the process. The children who get shuffled from foster home to foster home while mom serves time.
“One of the first things that struck me as a narcotics officer was the tremendous amount of damage we were doing to the social structure – homes, families, children, parents,” says Doddridge. “I look back and still see the faces of the people I arrested and threw in jail.”
He recalls a young mother he busted who had been working her way through college. “Her boyfriend left her and she was trying to make a better life for herself and raise two children at the same time. All of that was gone now. All of it was gone.
“I got to thinking, what are we doing? I’d been thinking it for a while but that just made it worse.”
When I ask him to give me the positive side of prohibition, Doddridge’s usually soft, thoughtful voice betrays anger. “It’s really helped out the drug cartels. It’s created lots of new jobs, building new prisons, hiring new guards.” Doddridge also decries how, under the guise of protecting us from ourselves, the government has enacted laws that ignore the fourth amendment’s prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure.
And there are practical considerations even the fiercest anti-drug crusader should take into account. When law enforcement agencies allocate more time, money and officers to drug task forces, those resources aren’t available to fight crimes against people and property.
“The homicide clearance rate today is less than it was in 1950,” says Doddridge. “Today we have all the DNA and all the electronic stuff and CSI and all these other people. But we can’t clear as many because serious investigative resources, that could go into clearing homicides, rapes, robberies and other things are now being diverted into this war on drugs.”
President Obama, it is time to stop this madness, and get the country on a more rational program for combating our drug problems. We no longer have the luxury of spending so much money on ineffective programs simply because so much of our population is ignorant of what is really going on. A massive reprioritization and reeducation of our society is in order. It is only a matter of time, as those who lived after the 70's become a greater and greater proportion of the populace, before this new policy will have the support of the majority of Americans, assuming it doesn't already.
But now that we have a president who has seen the drug culture first hand, there is hope. Hopefully this article on the advantages of legalizing marijuana will get his attention.
"With our economy going to pot, President-elect Obama has promised a “top-to-bottom audit to eliminate spending for programs that don’t work.” So, here’s a sane, simple proposal to save the country billions of dollars a year: end the war on marijuana users.
This failed and counter-productive program is an assault on people who pose virtually no threat to themselves or anyone else, certainly no more than that all-American "Joe Sixpack" revered in our recent presidential election.
Yet, getting caught with a few seeds or trace marijuana residue on a pipe is enough in some jurisdictions to trigger an arrest. Most who favor continuing the war assume that law enforcement focuses on sweeping up kingpins and members of cartels. But, here’s a sobering statistic. Of the 872,000 arrests in 2007 for marijuana-related offenses, almost 90 percent were for simple possession of the dried vegetation in question. The typical arrestee is younger than 30. Think college-age kid caught lighting up a joint. Now, multiply that by 775,000 — that’s where a significant chunk of your drug war dollars are going.
The price of deploying an army of local, state and federal cops, prosecutors and guards to arrest, try and imprison the perpetrators of this non-scourge? Using data from 2000, Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron estimated it as $7.7 billion per year while a 2007 study, by public policy expert Jon Gettman, figured it closer to $10.7 billion per year.
Most of that money is eaten up by law enforcement according to Miron, with $2.94 billion going to prosecution costs in 2000, and less than half a billion toward incarceration.
Add in the revenue we’d eventually gain if marijuana were regulated and taxed like alcohol and tobacco (from $6.2 billion to as much as $31.1 billion per year), and you’re talking real money."
Those are staggering figures, and they don't even consider the tangential costs of releasing rapists and murderers to clear cramped prison space for drug offenders, or the clogged courts, or the costs to society of having such a huge proportion of our population become artificially unemployable due to becoming ex-cons.
David Doddridge took pride in his work for most of his 21-year career with the LAPD. But when, five years before his retirement, he got transferred into narcotics, he began to feel he was doing more harm than good.
Cops see the collateral damage done by the drug war, costs that don’t show up on anyone’s budget analysis and are paid, not just by those arrested for the high crime of preferring a doobie to a Bud Lite, but by their families: The father whose car is confiscated when junior gets pulled over by an officer with a nose for burnt herb. The daughter who tries to buy medical marijuana – because it’s the only medicine that relieves her parent’s chemotherapy-induced nausea – and gets arrested in the process. The children who get shuffled from foster home to foster home while mom serves time.
“One of the first things that struck me as a narcotics officer was the tremendous amount of damage we were doing to the social structure – homes, families, children, parents,” says Doddridge. “I look back and still see the faces of the people I arrested and threw in jail.”
He recalls a young mother he busted who had been working her way through college. “Her boyfriend left her and she was trying to make a better life for herself and raise two children at the same time. All of that was gone now. All of it was gone.
“I got to thinking, what are we doing? I’d been thinking it for a while but that just made it worse.”
When I ask him to give me the positive side of prohibition, Doddridge’s usually soft, thoughtful voice betrays anger. “It’s really helped out the drug cartels. It’s created lots of new jobs, building new prisons, hiring new guards.” Doddridge also decries how, under the guise of protecting us from ourselves, the government has enacted laws that ignore the fourth amendment’s prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure.
And there are practical considerations even the fiercest anti-drug crusader should take into account. When law enforcement agencies allocate more time, money and officers to drug task forces, those resources aren’t available to fight crimes against people and property.
“The homicide clearance rate today is less than it was in 1950,” says Doddridge. “Today we have all the DNA and all the electronic stuff and CSI and all these other people. But we can’t clear as many because serious investigative resources, that could go into clearing homicides, rapes, robberies and other things are now being diverted into this war on drugs.”
President Obama, it is time to stop this madness, and get the country on a more rational program for combating our drug problems. We no longer have the luxury of spending so much money on ineffective programs simply because so much of our population is ignorant of what is really going on. A massive reprioritization and reeducation of our society is in order. It is only a matter of time, as those who lived after the 70's become a greater and greater proportion of the populace, before this new policy will have the support of the majority of Americans, assuming it doesn't already.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Gallup Poll on Party Loyalty
Gallup has a new poll out on party affiliation, and the results are pretty astonishing:
"All told, 29 states and the District of Columbia had Democratic party affiliation advantages of 10 points or greater last year. This includes all of the states in the Northeast, and all but Indiana in the Great Lakes region. There are even several Southern states in this grouping, including Arkansas, North Carolina, and Kentucky.
An additional six states had Democratic advantages ranging between 5 and 9 points.
In contrast, only five states had solid or leaning Republican orientations in 2008, with Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Alaska in the former group, and Nebraska in the latter.
The most balanced political states in 2008 were Texas (+2 Democratic), South Dakota (+1), Mississippi (+1), North Dakota (+1), South Carolina (even), Arizona (even), Alabama (+1 Republican), and Kansas (+2 Republican).
That is pretty astonishing given there was talk of a permanent Republican majority recently. Nate at 538 has a good discussion of the poll, and some important facts to know about exactly what was done and what it all means. The poll was of adults, not likely voters, and included independents and which way they tend to lean. However, the most important fact he mentions is that since the Democratic party is so diverse:
"...it tends to include a miscellany of groups that don't always see eye-to-eye with one another (African-Americans, Hispanics, coastal liberals, union workers, young voters, etc.), is that it is more difficult to harness the entirety of that coalition in national elections. A Democratic presidential candidate from the North might have trouble appealing to voters in the South. A candidate from the South might have trouble appealing to voters in the North and West. A theoretic 'generic Democrat' might have a chance at a rather large majority -- but a 'generic Democrat' is an abstraction, and most real Democrats will offend the sensibilities of some or another region."
It is also worth considering that a lot of anti-Republicanism has grown from the last 8 years, so it is safe to assume some of that blue is not so much pro-Democrat as it is anti-Republican. The Republicans have been theocratic of late that they have driven many of us away who otherwise have great sympathy for their small-government, low taxation, free market message. The Sarah Palin nomination was the embodiment of this problem.
But the biggest concern for the GOP has got to be the fact that they just got beat by a guy who had the biggest strike against him available among the oft-squabbling Democratic factions: being black. Several estimates of the cost of Obama's race hovered around 6-7% of the popular vote. Now note the blue states above that Obama did not win: Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky. Few are known for racial harmony, and would likely have voted for a white Obama. So as bad as it seems at first glance for the GOP, it is actually worse.
In some ways this should be encouraging to those of us who want more accountable government and political parties. The Republicans had a majority of Americans on their side, but many of us changed over time in response to what they were doing. That is how it should be. Concrete political allegiances doom Democracy.
"All told, 29 states and the District of Columbia had Democratic party affiliation advantages of 10 points or greater last year. This includes all of the states in the Northeast, and all but Indiana in the Great Lakes region. There are even several Southern states in this grouping, including Arkansas, North Carolina, and Kentucky.
An additional six states had Democratic advantages ranging between 5 and 9 points.
In contrast, only five states had solid or leaning Republican orientations in 2008, with Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, and Alaska in the former group, and Nebraska in the latter.
The most balanced political states in 2008 were Texas (+2 Democratic), South Dakota (+1), Mississippi (+1), North Dakota (+1), South Carolina (even), Arizona (even), Alabama (+1 Republican), and Kansas (+2 Republican).
That is pretty astonishing given there was talk of a permanent Republican majority recently. Nate at 538 has a good discussion of the poll, and some important facts to know about exactly what was done and what it all means. The poll was of adults, not likely voters, and included independents and which way they tend to lean. However, the most important fact he mentions is that since the Democratic party is so diverse:
"...it tends to include a miscellany of groups that don't always see eye-to-eye with one another (African-Americans, Hispanics, coastal liberals, union workers, young voters, etc.), is that it is more difficult to harness the entirety of that coalition in national elections. A Democratic presidential candidate from the North might have trouble appealing to voters in the South. A candidate from the South might have trouble appealing to voters in the North and West. A theoretic 'generic Democrat' might have a chance at a rather large majority -- but a 'generic Democrat' is an abstraction, and most real Democrats will offend the sensibilities of some or another region."
It is also worth considering that a lot of anti-Republicanism has grown from the last 8 years, so it is safe to assume some of that blue is not so much pro-Democrat as it is anti-Republican. The Republicans have been theocratic of late that they have driven many of us away who otherwise have great sympathy for their small-government, low taxation, free market message. The Sarah Palin nomination was the embodiment of this problem.
But the biggest concern for the GOP has got to be the fact that they just got beat by a guy who had the biggest strike against him available among the oft-squabbling Democratic factions: being black. Several estimates of the cost of Obama's race hovered around 6-7% of the popular vote. Now note the blue states above that Obama did not win: Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky. Few are known for racial harmony, and would likely have voted for a white Obama. So as bad as it seems at first glance for the GOP, it is actually worse.
In some ways this should be encouraging to those of us who want more accountable government and political parties. The Republicans had a majority of Americans on their side, but many of us changed over time in response to what they were doing. That is how it should be. Concrete political allegiances doom Democracy.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Buchanan on the Shrinking Republican Base
He's a crotchety old cuss, with a mean xenophobic streak in him, but as conservative commentators go, Pat Buchanan hits more than his share of bulls eyes. This article analyzing recent trends in presidential outcomes is a beauty, although still marred by some of Pat's usual blind spots.
He begins with a discussion of the geographic Democratic strongholds that make up what he calls "The Blue Wall":
"In the five successive presidential elections, beginning with Clinton's victory in 1992 and ending with Obama's in 2008, 18 states and the District of Columbia, with 248 electoral votes among them, voted for the Democratic ticket all five times. John McCain did not come within 10 points of Obama in any of the 18, and he lost D.C. 92-8...
Not only are the 18 hostile terrain for any GOP presidential ticket, Republicans hold only three of their 36 Senate seats and fewer than 1 in 3 of their House seats. "Democrats also control two-thirds of these 18 governorships, every state House chamber, and all but two of the state Senates," writes Brownstein.
In many of the 18, the GOP has ceased to be competitive. In the New England states, for example, there is not a single Republican congressman. In New York, there are only three.
The Blue Wall is The Kerry States less New Hampshire: Everything northeast of Virginia(again, save NH), the Great Lakes states save Ohio and Indiana, and all the Pacific states save Alaska. Drawing it out on a map, it looks like Canada seeped down into the US. With 270 electoral votes required to win, the GOP has its work cut out for it, especially considering there is no equivalent red wall. Buchanan again:
In the same five presidential contests, from 1992 to 2008, Republicans won 13 states all five times. But the red 13 have but 93 electoral votes, fewer than a third of the number in "the blue wall"...
Put succinctly, the red pool of voters is aging, shrinking and dying, while the blue pool, fed by high immigration and a high birth rate among immigrants, is steadily expanding.
Philosophically, too, the country is turning away from the GOP creed of small government and low taxes. Why?
Indeed, with more and more immigrants landing on our shores who are not white fundamentalists, the Whitewing Party can't pull off a majority any more, and will have to broaden its scope to attract new voters. Atheists, homosexuals, and minorities see little appeal in the Palinist GOP. The data doesn't look much better if you exclude the 2008 race and just look at the Clinton^2/Bush^2 years, the GOP only manages 135 to that same 248 for the Democrats.
Buchanan also accurately notes that those on the public dole are unlikely to vote other than in favor of their pocketbook, but he neglects to mention the most glaringly obvious reason voters are abandoning the GOP's small government, low taxes message: because the GOP themselves have abandoned it. Eight years of GOP domination of our federal government have resulted in bigger, not smaller government, with debt that should make anyone's tongue snap off in their mouth who mentions "fiscal responsibility" and "GOP" in the same sentence. The GOP themselves abandoned their principles, so why should anyone else buy into them?
Finally, the GOP faces a serious cultural problem, and here Buchanan's little red choochoo runs off the rails. He's part of the problem, so his analysis is expectedly blinkered.
"Lastly, Democrats are capturing a rising share of the young and college-educated, who are emerging from schools and colleges where the values of the counterculture on issues from abortion to same-sex marriage to affirmative action have become the new orthodoxy."
Pat is living in the ignorant past, as do so many GOP stalwarts. We should have expected no less from the man who still, in defiance of all the evidence, claims Sarah Palin was a net gain for the McCain ticket. The bottom line is that new voters emerging from college reject the GOP cultural plank not because of any orthodoxy, but simply because the science supports so little of it:
The Bible does not form the basis for our laws
Evolution is not "just a theory"
Homosexuals are not deviants living a chosen lifestyle
Allowing homosexual marriages will not destroy society
Aborting an early pregnancy is not a murder
Abstinence-only education does not work
Anthropocentric Global Warming is the consensus of scientists
Lowering taxes does not increase revenue
As more data comes in, these truths will become even more inconvenient for any Republican insistent on defying them, and will cause the GOP base that still buys them to become more intolerant and out of touch with the rest of society. Simply peruse the comments of Pat's or nearly any thread on Townhall these days, and you'll see many comments like this one:
"None of the established punditry have identified the reasons the GOP was crushed last year. Ideology was not an issue in the elections. American voters haven't a clue as to the ideology of either party. Few have any knowledge of politics, know nothing of the candidates - except Obama because they know from Oprah he's cool, and know nothing at all about how our government is structured or how it works. To attribute the GOP's loss to the disdain for conservatism is erroneous. We are being led to believe this lie because it is what the communists want."
This is what the Rovian divide and conquer strategy has left the GOP: a base of ignorant, paranoid, crusaders for Jesus who still think the communists (with their toadies, the dreaded liberals) are going to get us.
The GOP has a simple choice: get up to speed on science and the real world, stop pretending Jesus said "Go forth and change the laws", or become the Shakers of the 21st century.
He begins with a discussion of the geographic Democratic strongholds that make up what he calls "The Blue Wall":
"In the five successive presidential elections, beginning with Clinton's victory in 1992 and ending with Obama's in 2008, 18 states and the District of Columbia, with 248 electoral votes among them, voted for the Democratic ticket all five times. John McCain did not come within 10 points of Obama in any of the 18, and he lost D.C. 92-8...
Not only are the 18 hostile terrain for any GOP presidential ticket, Republicans hold only three of their 36 Senate seats and fewer than 1 in 3 of their House seats. "Democrats also control two-thirds of these 18 governorships, every state House chamber, and all but two of the state Senates," writes Brownstein.
In many of the 18, the GOP has ceased to be competitive. In the New England states, for example, there is not a single Republican congressman. In New York, there are only three.
The Blue Wall is The Kerry States less New Hampshire: Everything northeast of Virginia(again, save NH), the Great Lakes states save Ohio and Indiana, and all the Pacific states save Alaska. Drawing it out on a map, it looks like Canada seeped down into the US. With 270 electoral votes required to win, the GOP has its work cut out for it, especially considering there is no equivalent red wall. Buchanan again:
In the same five presidential contests, from 1992 to 2008, Republicans won 13 states all five times. But the red 13 have but 93 electoral votes, fewer than a third of the number in "the blue wall"...
Put succinctly, the red pool of voters is aging, shrinking and dying, while the blue pool, fed by high immigration and a high birth rate among immigrants, is steadily expanding.
Philosophically, too, the country is turning away from the GOP creed of small government and low taxes. Why?
Indeed, with more and more immigrants landing on our shores who are not white fundamentalists, the Whitewing Party can't pull off a majority any more, and will have to broaden its scope to attract new voters. Atheists, homosexuals, and minorities see little appeal in the Palinist GOP. The data doesn't look much better if you exclude the 2008 race and just look at the Clinton^2/Bush^2 years, the GOP only manages 135 to that same 248 for the Democrats.
Buchanan also accurately notes that those on the public dole are unlikely to vote other than in favor of their pocketbook, but he neglects to mention the most glaringly obvious reason voters are abandoning the GOP's small government, low taxes message: because the GOP themselves have abandoned it. Eight years of GOP domination of our federal government have resulted in bigger, not smaller government, with debt that should make anyone's tongue snap off in their mouth who mentions "fiscal responsibility" and "GOP" in the same sentence. The GOP themselves abandoned their principles, so why should anyone else buy into them?
Finally, the GOP faces a serious cultural problem, and here Buchanan's little red choochoo runs off the rails. He's part of the problem, so his analysis is expectedly blinkered.
"Lastly, Democrats are capturing a rising share of the young and college-educated, who are emerging from schools and colleges where the values of the counterculture on issues from abortion to same-sex marriage to affirmative action have become the new orthodoxy."
Pat is living in the ignorant past, as do so many GOP stalwarts. We should have expected no less from the man who still, in defiance of all the evidence, claims Sarah Palin was a net gain for the McCain ticket. The bottom line is that new voters emerging from college reject the GOP cultural plank not because of any orthodoxy, but simply because the science supports so little of it:
The Bible does not form the basis for our laws
Evolution is not "just a theory"
Homosexuals are not deviants living a chosen lifestyle
Allowing homosexual marriages will not destroy society
Aborting an early pregnancy is not a murder
Abstinence-only education does not work
Anthropocentric Global Warming is the consensus of scientists
Lowering taxes does not increase revenue
As more data comes in, these truths will become even more inconvenient for any Republican insistent on defying them, and will cause the GOP base that still buys them to become more intolerant and out of touch with the rest of society. Simply peruse the comments of Pat's or nearly any thread on Townhall these days, and you'll see many comments like this one:
"None of the established punditry have identified the reasons the GOP was crushed last year. Ideology was not an issue in the elections. American voters haven't a clue as to the ideology of either party. Few have any knowledge of politics, know nothing of the candidates - except Obama because they know from Oprah he's cool, and know nothing at all about how our government is structured or how it works. To attribute the GOP's loss to the disdain for conservatism is erroneous. We are being led to believe this lie because it is what the communists want."
This is what the Rovian divide and conquer strategy has left the GOP: a base of ignorant, paranoid, crusaders for Jesus who still think the communists (with their toadies, the dreaded liberals) are going to get us.
The GOP has a simple choice: get up to speed on science and the real world, stop pretending Jesus said "Go forth and change the laws", or become the Shakers of the 21st century.
What are the Odds of Hitting the Bullseye? Depends on When You Draw It
What are the odds of hitting a bullseye? It depends very much on when you draw it. Take this typical story of a person who thought she saw the future:
Arizona Cardinals’ fullback Terrelle Smith says that in April, when her cancer had spread to the brain, Smith’s mom said she had a vision of him playing in the NFC championship game. Nine months later, the Cardinals are hosting the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday for the conference title.
“Doctors say sometimes they get delusional and, at times, we thought she was,” Smith said on Tuesday. “But now it lines up. It makes sense, and it tells me want to fight for every week.”
A heartwarming story for sure, but as a miracle or sign of paranormal power, those like it are highly overrated. You'll notice that we never hear an athlete say "Wow, my mom had a vision, but it didn't come true." Yet are we to assume this never happens? Of course not. They just call our attention to the ones that hit, and ignore the rest.
But aren't the ones that hit still highly improbable? Taken as individual events, sure, but that is the key. Once one considers a huge data set, one must consider the probability that any such event will take place, not just the ones that do. It is the difference between the odds of someone winning the lottery and the odds that you will. Looking at the winning ticket and proclaiming the odds of that person winning is like shooting a ton of arrows at the wall, drawing the bulls eye around one of them, and shouting "What are the odds?!"
No telling what Ms. Smith dreamed about the Super Bowl, but methinks the Cardinals can use all the help they can get.
Arizona Cardinals’ fullback Terrelle Smith says that in April, when her cancer had spread to the brain, Smith’s mom said she had a vision of him playing in the NFC championship game. Nine months later, the Cardinals are hosting the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday for the conference title.
“Doctors say sometimes they get delusional and, at times, we thought she was,” Smith said on Tuesday. “But now it lines up. It makes sense, and it tells me want to fight for every week.”
A heartwarming story for sure, but as a miracle or sign of paranormal power, those like it are highly overrated. You'll notice that we never hear an athlete say "Wow, my mom had a vision, but it didn't come true." Yet are we to assume this never happens? Of course not. They just call our attention to the ones that hit, and ignore the rest.
But aren't the ones that hit still highly improbable? Taken as individual events, sure, but that is the key. Once one considers a huge data set, one must consider the probability that any such event will take place, not just the ones that do. It is the difference between the odds of someone winning the lottery and the odds that you will. Looking at the winning ticket and proclaiming the odds of that person winning is like shooting a ton of arrows at the wall, drawing the bulls eye around one of them, and shouting "What are the odds?!"
No telling what Ms. Smith dreamed about the Super Bowl, but methinks the Cardinals can use all the help they can get.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Protect Democracy, Hold Politicians Accountable
In one of the most wrongheaded columns I've seen in a while, John Hawkins argues that holding the Bush administrations feet to the fire for their possibly unlawful actions somehow amounts to "fascism" and "witch hunts", would create a partisan firestorm or hatred, and endangers Democracy. Really. You have to read some of this stuff to believe it. Take this gem:
"In other words, this has nothing to do with anyone, including the President, being "above the law." We're not talking about perjury, bribery, corruption, a Nixonian break-in, or some other real crime."
Nahhhhh, we're just talking about getting the country involved in a war based on disinformation that resulted in over 4,000 American soldiers dead, and hundreds of thousands dead in tangental damage, as well as drowning the country in trillions of dollars in debt. It's not something important or anything.
I think the Republicans are starting to come unhinged. Just go peruse Townhall and check out the comments on nearly any article there. You won't believe what you're reading. The liberals are coming, and they are going to steal your guns, abort your babies, take your kids and turn them into socialist atheist faggots, steal your money and give it to lazy Mexicans. We might as well give the country back to the Indians.
So I won't bother with Hawkins' article point by point. It's just one bit of MSU after another, with Hawkins taking the fundamental issue at hand - whether or not some members of the Bush administration are guilty of crimes - presuming it is clearly settled in his favor, and then rambling along that red herring lane. Shrilly. Amazingly shrilly.
But I digress. Hawkins and his ilk have it exactly backwards, and they have for a long time. Criticizing our politicians, and holding them accountable for what they do (you're supposed to be the party of personal responsibility remember?), is the most patriotic thing we can do. THAT is what protects democracy - holding those given power responsible for what they do with it. Otherwise they will simply do what they will. Absolute power doesn't corrupt absolutely, it is unchecked power that does. Withholding criticism and charges for crimes doesn't protect democracy, it protects politicians! Too many people blur that distinction.
Of course it is entirely predictable that people like Hawkins would be saying these things right now. It's all about partisanship with him, which is why he speaks as though all political events are decided by ideology rather than the evidence. Like the Intelligent Designers with whom he allies himself, he projects his own faults onto others, not the least of which is an inability to conceive of an objective analysis of data. All is ideology to him: Democrats bringing charges against a Republican is partisanship, per se.
If that is your attitude, I would say you don't believe in democracy, because in the real world, that is the only way it works. We the voters elect our politicians, we give them the keys to the car, and we have to hold them responsible for what they do with it, and punish them when they crash it. The only power we have over them is to vote against them when they run again for office, and have them investigated by other politicians when they don't. If you don't like that, you don't want a representative government. You want a king, or a dictator. Is there a difference that matters? Those with power need to be held to a higher standard than the rest of us, not a lower one.
So bring the charges against any and all politicians when the evidence warrants it, and let the crucible of the courts burn away irrelevancies until we are left with a pure product, the truth, or at least the best estimate we can hope for. We are a nation of law, not people, so hold our elected people to the laws. What's the downside? That the next generation of politicians will also have their feet held to the fire? This hurts who exactly, besides politicians that is?
Grow some balls Democrats, and congressmen in general. Prosecute Bush, and anyone in his administration, to the fullest extent of the law, and do the same to Obama, and the president after him, for as long as this nation exists. It is the most important thing to do to insure that existence.
"In other words, this has nothing to do with anyone, including the President, being "above the law." We're not talking about perjury, bribery, corruption, a Nixonian break-in, or some other real crime."
Nahhhhh, we're just talking about getting the country involved in a war based on disinformation that resulted in over 4,000 American soldiers dead, and hundreds of thousands dead in tangental damage, as well as drowning the country in trillions of dollars in debt. It's not something important or anything.
I think the Republicans are starting to come unhinged. Just go peruse Townhall and check out the comments on nearly any article there. You won't believe what you're reading. The liberals are coming, and they are going to steal your guns, abort your babies, take your kids and turn them into socialist atheist faggots, steal your money and give it to lazy Mexicans. We might as well give the country back to the Indians.
So I won't bother with Hawkins' article point by point. It's just one bit of MSU after another, with Hawkins taking the fundamental issue at hand - whether or not some members of the Bush administration are guilty of crimes - presuming it is clearly settled in his favor, and then rambling along that red herring lane. Shrilly. Amazingly shrilly.
But I digress. Hawkins and his ilk have it exactly backwards, and they have for a long time. Criticizing our politicians, and holding them accountable for what they do (you're supposed to be the party of personal responsibility remember?), is the most patriotic thing we can do. THAT is what protects democracy - holding those given power responsible for what they do with it. Otherwise they will simply do what they will. Absolute power doesn't corrupt absolutely, it is unchecked power that does. Withholding criticism and charges for crimes doesn't protect democracy, it protects politicians! Too many people blur that distinction.
Of course it is entirely predictable that people like Hawkins would be saying these things right now. It's all about partisanship with him, which is why he speaks as though all political events are decided by ideology rather than the evidence. Like the Intelligent Designers with whom he allies himself, he projects his own faults onto others, not the least of which is an inability to conceive of an objective analysis of data. All is ideology to him: Democrats bringing charges against a Republican is partisanship, per se.
If that is your attitude, I would say you don't believe in democracy, because in the real world, that is the only way it works. We the voters elect our politicians, we give them the keys to the car, and we have to hold them responsible for what they do with it, and punish them when they crash it. The only power we have over them is to vote against them when they run again for office, and have them investigated by other politicians when they don't. If you don't like that, you don't want a representative government. You want a king, or a dictator. Is there a difference that matters? Those with power need to be held to a higher standard than the rest of us, not a lower one.
So bring the charges against any and all politicians when the evidence warrants it, and let the crucible of the courts burn away irrelevancies until we are left with a pure product, the truth, or at least the best estimate we can hope for. We are a nation of law, not people, so hold our elected people to the laws. What's the downside? That the next generation of politicians will also have their feet held to the fire? This hurts who exactly, besides politicians that is?
Grow some balls Democrats, and congressmen in general. Prosecute Bush, and anyone in his administration, to the fullest extent of the law, and do the same to Obama, and the president after him, for as long as this nation exists. It is the most important thing to do to insure that existence.
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