Another Bushism, this one from the Financial Times, debunked, by my former student, Raffi Melkonian: My favorite newspaper, the Financial Times, enjoys its forays into the land of Bush-isms . . . . Here’s today’s entirely misguided effort in the admittedly lighthearted “Observer” column: Where’s the beef? George W. Bush is proud of his “No […]
Archive | Uncategorized
Michael Kinsley will head L.A. Times opinion and editorial section: So says Editor & Publisher. I think Kinsley did a very good job as founding editor of Slate — and, in particular, welcomed a wide mix of political perspectives, including the unorthodox — so I’m quite pleased by this move.
Vieth v. Jubelirer: In one of two decisions issued this morning, the Supreme Court come’s within a hair’s breadth of overturning Davis v. Bandemer. Four Justices — Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist and O’Connor — were ready to hold all claims of partisan gerrymandering to be nonjusticiable. Justice Kennedy, while rejecting the challenge to Pennsylvania’s gerrymandered Congressional […]
An Analysis of Current Military Tactics in Fallujah:
Coverage in the media of actual military developments in Falluja has been pretty thin. We hear about deaths and some fighting in identified towns, but next to nothing about ongoing and possible military tactics. This is understandable. The last thing the military would do is share its tactics with the public in the middle of […]
Debra Saunders on the New York Times and Jose Padilla: Here’s an excerpt from her piece in the San Francisco Chronicle (thanks to How Appealing for the pointer): [H]ere’s the paragraph in the story by [New York Times] reporter Deborah Sontag that truly baffles me: Padilla’s “journey covered significant territory, geographically, emotionally and spiritually, and […]
Other errors by Washington Gov. Locke:
The same story contains the following: Locke delivered a free-ranging speech that also . . . said the federal Patriot Act reminded him of the internment of the Japanese during World War II. . . . Locke also criticized the Patriot Act approved in the aftermath of Sept. 11. Apparently referring to detainment of suspected […]
Washington governor urges judges not to drink in public: Gov. Gary Locke, in a valedictory to the judiciary, on Monday urged judges to take the pledge against drinking in public — or at least to hold themselves to a single drink. Locke advocated a “stringent and even harsh standard of conduct,” which he said could […]
Contagiousness:
Responding to my “how contagious am I?” post, reader Bob Woolley writes that what I hoped for — a home test that would “somehow objectively measure just how contagious one is likely to be — perhaps some sort of quickie home saliva test or some such” is unlikely to be available soon. But here’s what […]
More on anti-Americanism in the Middle East:
Jeff Jacoby has a good column on this.
“Liberal Jacobinism:”
My review essay of Brian Barry’s Culture and Equality, “Liberal Jacobinism,” Ethics 114 (January 2004): 318-336, is now online. (That link is html; the pdf is here.) Links are probably only open to those whose institutions subscribe to Ethics, though that will cover most people accessing the web via universities.
A sobering data point on actuarial projections:
The tables I mention below are fascinating, and I suspect generally highly reliable. Still, check out this table, and explain to me how anyone could possibly make remotely plausible projections about future rates of death. The projections about changing rates of death due to violence are particularly laughable — though we can probably predict that […]
Cool data on life expectancy:
Mary Campbell also points to some cool tables available from the Social Security Administration. Check out the data here and here, for instance, to observe how infant mortality has plummeted. UPDATE: Some helpful details, again from Mary Campbell: In the blog item linking the SSA tables, you might want to indicate which column to look […]
More on life expectancy:
Reader Mary Campbell, an actuarial assistant in New York writes, based on Social Security Administration tables: There are two types of mortality tables available — cohort and calendar year. Using the 1900 cohort tables, I find the following probabilities (and life expectancies) (my table does not include mortality before age 5, as early childhood mortality […]
Canadian lawsuit seeks coordinates of Weblog comment authors:
CalBlog reports: Ted Franks has filed a petition in Montreal, Quebec, seeking the identity of various commenters on the Infotel thread. I was served by registered mail. I got the slip last night and picked it up this morning. The hearing is Friday. Did I mention in Montreal, Quebec? The full petition is attached. I […]
Taxes in Northern Virginia:
With the governor, Senate, and House in Virginia fighting each other over who can take credit for raising taxes, the latest proposal is to do away with former Gov. Gilmore’s plan to completely eliminate the “car tax.” The rationale for this, as well as much of the rest of the tax-raising, is that local governments […]