The Primary Races In Graphics

By Cernig




For Libby, who is depressed that the Unity Elephant in the room keeps getting ignored by the media.

Tourney Pool Update 2

This is primarily a test post as I want to make sure that my post by e-mail capacity is still working.  I'm in the Lawyers, Guns and Money and the Econbrowser NCAA pools, and I am sucking big time so far.  I have two teams out that I had going 1:1 and am trailing at the back of the pack in both groups.  Oh well.  Now let's see if the html works....

UPDATE: Actually not that bad of a first day; got 13 out 16 through and the picks that went wrong were in the 6-11, 7:10 type when I was picking mild upsets and then seeing the winner get bounced in the next round. Not giving up a lot of potential points there (yet)

Remembering Mr. Rogers

Wear a sweater tomorrow if you can as Pittsburgh remembers Mr. Rogers.

Inflation report

I went out to lunch today with a couple of co-workers. We went to a local Indian buffet (umm korma....) and I noticed that the buffet had only three half length chafing dish meat offerings today. Normally they have four options. There was an extra vegetarian option (chana masala). I asked the server if this was a permanent change or just a variation of their offerings. He said that they are offering the extra vegetarian option on a long term basis now but it will rotate during the week (as does the rest of the buffet, once you get past the rice and the nan)

Ahh, food price inflation is rearing its head at lunch.

Blegging for helping on Stats

When I was in grad school, my teaching assistanceship was for a couple of introductionary graduate level statistical/quant analysis classes. I loved it, and yes, I am a dork. A current co-worker in another department was one of my students. Several other co-workers are taking an intro stats course as part of their continuing education and have been using me for help. It is a good deal, I get lunch, they get a better understanding.

I see the purpose of most introductory classes is to give students a basic sketch of the field, an overview of the relevant problem solving thought process, and an introduction to some basic techniques. To me, most intro classes seek to instill a BS detector and a thought process and if either one succeeds, the student should get a C, and if both are installed, the student deserves a B+/A-.

So what are the key take-aways in the thought process people should get from Stats 101?

* Probability is not certainty
* How to figure out what a question is asking (Is X greater than Y, Is X in between A and B, is X less than K, and does it matter?)
* How to normalize different data sets
* What is wierd/unusual/different (statistical significance)
* Uncertainty dominates stats
* What is acceptable uncertainty
* When is something obviously bullshit

Anything else I should be adding? Anything I should remove from this list?

Blogging in the boy's room...

By Libby

While we're waiting for the tallies to begin, here's an amusing item that may be the funniest campaign story of the season. Apparently pressed for space, the traveling press corps assigned to the Clinton campaign were housed in a men's room in Texas where they were served dinner in immediate proximity to the stalls and urinals. [Supply your own Larry Craig joke here.]

No gender bias involved, as Karen Tumulty reports, along with some priceless photos. I only wish she had been able to capture the expression on the unsuspecting civilian's face when he innocently entered the men's room expecting to use the facilities.

I wonder if Emily Post has a rule of etiquette that covers this situation?

1,2,3 Meme Blogging

Damn you Tim F, you hit me with the dreaded 1.2.3 Meme

look up page 123 in the nearest book
look for the fifth sentence
then post the three sentences that follow that fifth sentence on page 123.

The first book that I wanted to use was Volume 29 #1, March 2008 edition of the American Journal of Evaluation but that ended at page 116. So I can't look smart.

The second book that I have available to me right now is SPSS for Dummies so let me see what is in this piece of high art:

The table of date will be printed with lines between rows and columns, the same as they appear on the screen. The printed form has case numbers on the left and variable names at the top.

If you are not sure what your output will look like, you can choose File->Print Preview and see, on the screen, the same layout that will be sent to the printer.

Okay, I'll hit up Shamanic, the Angry Drunk Bureaucrat and Ol'Froth

Snark of the week

Via Cunning Realist

Given current trends and the obvious needs in the ranks of U.S. management, I'd expect Harvard Business School to make a new course available shortly: Heckuva Job: Wars, Occupations, and Natural Disasters for the 21st Century Executive. There's a high-profile graduate available for guest lectures soon.

Time to make the pancakes

The power went out so I slept late and I have an early meeting this morning, so I just have enough time for a couple of quick pancakes and these two posts:

A Laugh A Microsecond

By Cernig

I'm not going to spoil it by telling you in advance. Just go read this post by KagroX at DKos about the morans at The Heritage Foundation. Then come back and tell me if you laughed so hard you sprayed coffee on the screen too.

Best idea of the week

Via Chris Briem I am now cleaning up the hot chocolate I sprayed on the screen:

I personally think it would be fascinating to have Ron Paul and Mike Gravel conduct some one on one debates and I bet it would generate more press than either has had of late.

Catblogging Friday

A busy day ......

Laughing about Kicks to the Groin

Now this is categorized as 'comedy' at YouTube and it is pretty funny for everyone who is not being kicked in the groin. However this momentary gain of pleasure for most people is being bought at the very high expense of a single person, the target of the kick. He is going to be in pain for the rest of the day, including a good half hour to an hour of intense pain.

Total social utility may have been increased by more people cracking a smile and chuckling than they otherwise would have, but there is a significant and concentrated cost that was required to improve social utility. I could very easily understand the motivations of the man who was kicked in the groin to opt out of future kicks and for him to be very unpersuaded by a maximal social utility argument as why he should continue to be kicked in the groin.

Dave at the Glittering Eye in a response to a recent Robert Reich editorial made a couple of interesting points concerning tradep, labor market mobility and growth patterns that prompted the kick in the groin image:

And I know that real wages are stagnating for many of us. I’ve seen it in my own family with lots of smart, well-educated, hard-working people struggling to stay in the middle class....

If Dr. Reich’s prescription is taxing away that income so it can be spent here rather than being invested elsewhere, is that really the best solution? That sounds like a “beggar thy neighbor” strategy to me, no?

And this

We also need stronger unions, especially in the local service sector that’s sheltered from global competition. Employees should be able to form a union without the current protracted certification process that gives employers too much opportunity to intimidate or coerce them. Workers should be able to decide whether to form a union with a simple majority vote.

sounds like a case for protectionism. If the only way that the American economy can prosper is protectionism, that doesn’t require stronger unions. That simply requires domestic hiring laws (particularly for companies that deal with the government) and erecting barriers to termination similar to those in Europe. Then we should expect some of the growth problems common in Europe, too.

There have been aggregate gains in the economy, and if we take GDP as a decent measure of aggregate utility, total and per capita real GDP has increased over the past thirty years. However as Dave recognizes in the first paragraph I quoted, the gains have not been evenly distributed and for most people staying in place is a more urgent priority than getting ahead in real terms.

If you believe (as I do) that trade should increase overall GDP, it will also produce proportional and absolute losers. Those losers have not been compensated for their losses and current policy regimes are lying most of the population up for another couple kicks to the groin. It is entirely rational to make significant attempts to avoid being kicked in the groin even if that action decreases social utility. Protectionism is a high cost game with significant long term costs, however if those costs are borne by the winners of the current multi-generational policy regime, why should the losers be too concerned. Yes, long run growth will be lower, but it is not like previous long run growth has been all that beneficial.

Categorization Error

We here at the Newshoggers are many things, but it is a bit of a stretch to call any of us political conservatives, and even more ridiculous to call any of us members of the 'conservative blog community.' That just is not who we are, and it looks like Red America has a glitch in their sorting heuristic as Cernig's post on MEK is the #1 post within their categorization of the conservative blog community. Whoops :)

This is not the first time this month that we have landed in their top fifteen conservative blog posts of the day.

Oh, Clinton did kind of contest Georgia

by shamanic

For the record, since I keep hitting her for not contesting Georgia and other deep south states (I guess Tennessee was the prize in her view), today -- Wednesday -- I received a mailer from the Clinton campaign telling me to vote for her on Super Tuesday.

Fired up, ready to go on day one. Er, on day two.

State of the Union analysis

I did not watch the State of the Union last night due to the combination of feeling like there was a small oompa band in my sinuses that was horrendously out of key and off beat, indifference and enjoying the first season of Psyche on DVD with my wife. However another Pittsburgh blogger saw a good reason to drown his sorrows in bourbon and provided the analysis. Enjoy the Angry Drunk Bureaucrat's textual analysis of the SOTU.

France's New First Lady

By Cernig



I know that's a gratuitous pic, but c'mon, imagine if that was the wife of a US or UK political leader up there. It's Carla Bruni, fiancee to conservative French president Nicholas Sarkozy, wearing a wedding band and kinky boots in the february edition of a French mag. The French really are a lot less uptight than the rest of us. (Via the Daily Mail)

If we all promise to vote for Dennis Kucinich, do you think Elizabeth...nah.

What a job

I'm a soccer referee and I have been spending some time tonight lining up my pre-season tournaments when I saw this job title in a nearby soccer association:

REFEREE ASSAULT/ ABUSE COORDINATOR

Not like we have enough random abuse, now it is going to be organized :)

Hopefully the balcony collapses

I have not written much about the Republican field as I do not know enough nor do I care to learn enough to write intelligently about it. My primary interest is to see the Rudy Guiliani gets nowhere close to the White House except on a visitor's pass, and I have been consistently rooting for Ron Paul to beat this small man as a means of marginalization and de-legitimize within the Republican Primary electorate and more importantly the national media. So that means I really don't care about the top three or four finishers so far, but I have been intently looking at the fifth and sixth places to see if the balcony he wants to scream from collapses.

And Michigan delivered.

Jaguars-Patriots Divisional Playoff Thoughts

That was a methodical and consistent game by both teams last night. I think the analogy that the Patriots play football like Tiger Woods plays golf is the closest thing that describes what happens. They play with minimal variance at a very high level that other teams are capable of playing at or above that high level for spurts but can not maintain the low variance needed to win. Here are some of my thoughts from the game.

1) Watching the first half quarterback shoot-out was sick; like watching the classic Larry Bird-Dominique Wilkins 'you did that, now do this' in the 4th quarter in the late 80s. One incomplete pass in the half. I think the Patriots were sitting back in Cover 3 and Cover 4 while keeping their linebackers tight to hold the running game in check which should have produced a massive amount of space on curls, slants and intermediate drags.
2) Randy Moss had a great game --- one catch for fourteen yards, but consistently drawing true double coverage, and some great downfield blocking on Maroney runs.
3) Rodney Harrison is playing stupid. He had two personal foul calls, one of them was a pure stupidity move (the late hit in the 4th quarter) as that reciever was already destroyed by three tacklers, and after the interception, he should have gone straight to the ground. The Patriots were the recent recipients of the interception on 4th down conversion to the first down against the Chargers last year. Picking the ball off kills the game, take no risk and move onto next week.
4) Okay, the Patriots can run the ball when they want to.
5) Okay, the Patriots can stop the run when they want to.
6) Garrad reminds me a lot of Roethlesberger in the combination of his escapability, and his ability to stay under control and shrug off a hit. The first touchdown was an amazing play. I think his knee was down, but the house full of Jags fans where I watched the game last night thought his knee was up and would be up for one or two more frames when he released the ball.
7) At the house party, we debated on the best way to beat the Patriots. The common argument was to do what Jacksonville did --- limit the total number of possessions and hope the games turns out to be 24-21, one way or another. Is this really the best way as the Patriots scored 5 times on 7 effective possessions (1 missed FG, 1 punt) and a kneeldown. The Patriots have an absurd expected points value per possesion. Limiting possessions for the Patriots, unless you are surprise on-side kicking every opportunity AND recovering the kick, means limiting possessions for your less efficient offense also. Excluding the Colts where both sides want to play a limited possession game, is a track meet a better strategy as the odds of something bizarre happening increases versus putting pressure on your team to average a bit more than a field goal per possession.
8) Babies are excellent anti-cat toys. One of the couples brought their 7 week old to the house, and our friends' cats were scampering as far away from the baby as possible. At this point she almost looks human instead of an alien lifeform.
9) As a football fan, I want Patriots-Colts, as a Patriots' fan, I want Patriots-Chargers next week. Let's go Colts.