Measuring the dependency of different variables

Most people recognise that there are conflicts of interest when you ask someone about something that affects their paycheck. They also exist when it’s about power. Here is a video of an FDA official misleading Congress for the sake of asking for more FDA power.

The idea that you need to protect patients from themselves and so, you cannot know what your own DNA is is something for another day.

Most people recognise that there are conflicts of interest when you ask someone about something that affects their paycheck. They also exist when it's about power. Here is a video of an FDA official misleading Congress for the sake of asking for more FDA power. The idea that you need to protect patients from themselves ...

After such an elloquent review

After such an elloquent review

Writes Reihan Salam:

[These results] reminds me of the commonplace observation that while charters might work for some students — say, students with engaged parents — the poorest, most difficult-to-educate kids don’t benefit from charters. One gets the impression that the opposite is true. Better-off students don’t need charters, while poor students seem to get a lot out of them.

This might be why it’s poor parents who campaign for charter schools and better-off liberals who are againts them.

Writes Reihan Salam: reminds me of the commonplace observation that while charters might work for some students — say, students with engaged parents — the poorest, most difficult-to-educate kids don’t benefit from charters. One gets the impression that the opposite is true. Better-off students don’t need charters, while poor students seem to get ...

Michael Moore doesn’t upset me, nor does Sarah Palin or any Fox commentator, nor does the HuffPost. I simply ignore all of those as noise.

Paul Krugman, though, is a very inteligent person and is often really perceptive. However, sometime ago, he decided that instead of public intelectual, he’d become a political hack. And the result are posts like this.

Having someone like Krugman do a job that any non-brain-dead partisan could have done is, quite frankly, a major waste of human potential.

Michael Moore doesn't upset me, nor does Sarah Palin or any Fox commentator, nor does the HuffPost. I simply ignore all of those as noise. Paul Krugman, though, is a very inteligent person and is often really perceptive. However, sometime ago, he decided that instead of public intelectual, he'd become a political hack. And the ...

There was a bit of discussion a while back on liberal bias in academia (see Megan McArdle, the Daily Kos [turns out they still exist], and James Rament as a sample).

I’m late to this party, but I’ll point out one thing that has struck me again and again in the academic medium: anti-science beliefs that are seen to be of the right are a proof of one being a retrograde Neanderthal. I’ve had many discussions on whether you should grant someone a PhD if they profess to disbelieve evolution. On the other hand, anti-science beliefs that are seen to be of the left are generally proof of a few character quirks. I’ve never had a discussion on whether someone who believes that there is a link between vaccines and autism should be denied a PhD.

There is this game I sometimes play when someone starts complaining that conservatives are anti-science: I try to get them to be anti-science in under 60 seconds. I generally succeed by bringing up vaccines or GMOs. I’ve had people go from complaining how awfully anti-science Republicans are to talking about force fields that are activated through homeopathic medication (or some sort of New Agey b.s.) in a few seconds. Some people can, without any hint of irony, say, in rapid succession “climate change is real, you cannot seriously deny the broad scientific consensus” and “scientist agree that genetically modified organisms are safe for consumption, but they are all ideologues.”

These are not symbolic issues, either. The anti-vaccine movement kills children. Theirs and others, innocent bystanders. They are much more deadly than the creationist crowd.

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On both sides, there is a lot of motivated cognition with science generally being defended where people thinks it helps their side (no matter how fuzzy the logical link).

When Wakefield, of vaccines cause autism fame, was last in the news; the liberal Huffington Post had Jenna McCarthy, an anti-vaccine crusader, while the libertarian econtalk had Brian Deer who had exposed some of Wakefield’s tactics.

There was a bit of discussion a while back on liberal bias in academia (see Megan McArdle, the Daily Kos , and James Rament as a sample). I'm late to this party, but I'll point out one thing that has struck me again and again in the academic medium: anti-science beliefs ...

Like many “ancient” traditions, yoga is actually pretty new.

Like many "ancient" traditions, yoga is actually pretty new.

This recipe is just a really good one to have up your sleeve: it’s easy and it’s very good.

I normally serve it with white rice (maybe cooked with a cinnamon stick) and a bitter vegetable (brussel sprouts or, per my wife’s suggestion, leeks with cream).

This recipe is just a really good one to have up your sleeve: it's easy and it's very good. I normally serve it with white rice (maybe cooked with a cinnamon stick) and a bitter vegetable (brussel sprouts or, per my wife's suggestion, leeks with cream).

At least, early polling, shows that the public is behind the Democrats on the Wisconsin issue.

At least, early polling, shows that the public is behind the Democrats on the Wisconsin issue.

1. There is a pair of lies. On the one hand, the Republicans keep denying that their goal is to gut the unions. They claim that all they care about is the fiscal situation. They’re lying (otherwise, they’d take the deal on pay and benefits while preserving mandatory collective bargaining). They want to gut the unions, if possible. On the other hand, the Democrats cannot mention that what they really care about the right-to-work provisions in the law because, if it passes, making union dues voluntary, it would result in a large loss of campaign contributions.

2. I’m surprised that this issue only gets a passing mention in most discussion. Of course, liberal commentators have no interest in pointing to the fact that the Democratic party would like to continue taxing all public servants for campaign contributions. However, even pundits on the side of Wisconsin governor tend to mention loftier arguments (democracy against special interests, fiscal rectitude).

3. This is, in part, why the issue is so vicious, why Obama got involved. Millions of dollars in campaign contributions are at stake for the Democratic Party, but no one can mention it.

4. In general, their relationship with the unions are the weakest point for the Democrats in the current election cycle (I wish I’d written this before it started blowing up, because I’ve realised it before). If they are too strident defending the unions (which are an unpopular constituency), they will lose support of independents. Defending the unions risks being seen as purely self-serving and gets them no extra votes (strong pro-union voters already vote Democrat). Since they are bound to lose some of the battles, they get the double whammy of less money and an image of impotence with their base. The money issue does not matter so much for Obama, who is still likely to outspend his Republican challenger (and everyone in history), but the image problem could be fatal.

5. So, the Democrats need a strong victory early to stem the tide. The longer this goes on, the more political capital they’ll waste. We’ll see what the polls start telling us in a week or so (assuming that there is no early resolution), but I’d be surprised if Dems/Obama get a boost and not surprised if this starts costing them.

1. There is a pair of lies. On the one hand, the Republicans keep denying that their goal is to gut the unions. They claim that all they care about is the fiscal situation. They're lying (otherwise, they'd take the deal on pay and benefits while preserving mandatory collective bargaining). They want to gut ...

Here’s a spirited defence of the filibuster by a liberal commentator:

After all, [the majority party] won an election last November.

That is true.

But Wisconsin’s greatest governor, Robert M. La Follette, declared: “”We have long rested comfortably in this country upon the assumption that because our form of government was democratic, it was therefore automatically producing democratic results. Now, there is nothing mysteriously potent about the forms and names of democratic institutions that should make them self-operative. Tyranny and oppression are just as possible under democratic forms as under any other. We are slow to realize that democracy is a life; and involves continual struggle. It is only as those of every generation who love democracy resist with all their might the encroachments of its enemies that the ideals of representative government can even be nearly approximated.”

La Follette’s point [...] is that democracy does not end on Election Day. That’s when it begins. Citizens do not elect officials to rule them from one election to the next. Citizens elect officials to represent them, to respond to the will of the people as it evolves.

Of course, he was talking about the Wisconsin fleeing Democrats, but it’s a pretty good defence of the Republican filibuster in the Senate.

I always thought we’d have to wait for 2012 and a Republican Senate majority for liberals to start waxing poetically about the rights of a minority to stop a majority from passing its extremist agenda. I was wrong.

Here's a spirited defence of the filibuster by a liberal commentator: After all, won an election last November. That is true. But Wisconsin's greatest governor, Robert M. La Follette, declared: ""We have long rested comfortably in this country upon the assumption that because our form of government was democratic, it was therefore automatically producing ...