Titles are hard

I just bought Freakanomics cause I saw it on the Daily Show last night. Muuuust read booooks from daily show.......... No actually I'm going to read it because it sounds like a book I wish I had written but am clearly not smart enough to. The Authors have a Blog (reminds me of spinsanity in the days when I thought blogs were lame personal diaries, I guess that's what this has turned into, oh well)

I had some really funny stuff I was going to post last night and now I can't remember what it was. Damnit. It's like when I go to the music store, and I can't remember one band on the very long list of bands whose CDs I still don't own. (The list is so long because every time I go to the music store I can't remember.... It's horrible.) But then I go to the grocery store and I'm all like, Oh yeah, I need to buy the new Daft Punk blah blah, what was it we were going to have for dinner? Oh yeah, food.

Did that sweater have buttons? Oh well, I should wrap this up before I start to ramble.

Bring your Brat to work day.

The sad thing is, I would SO much rather go hang out with the 13 year olds than talk to the most of the people I work with. With the Exception of like 2 people.

Dumbass is currently being EXTREMELY patronizing to the daughter of one of my (cool) coworkers. She was very nice when I talked to her, and seems pretty bright, we talked about where I went to school for a few minutes. I never know what to say to kids when their parents are around. Of course dumbass is asking her questions like "oh, what do you have in your bag, Oh that's nice. hahahaha... blah blah blah" It is agonizing to listen to, she's not a toddler.

I hate being an adult, this sucks.

Although apparently the kids are trapped in the cafeteria being forced to listen to some presentations and doing ceremonies and stuff. At least I get to surf the internet while being bored out of my scull, they just have to sit there and take it.

When I went to work with my Dad we always did cool stuff like tour factories. Once we went to an aluminum foundry. Which sounded boring until I got to watch guys pour molten metal into molds. That was cool. But The Company that Shall Not Be Named doesn't do anything nearly as cool as pour metal into things.

Orgy University

This article today in Newsweek made me want to gouge my own eyes out with the scissors that are conveniently located on my desk. They are talking about the misconception that college students do nothing but #### like animals. This was never a problem at my school as Playboy consistantly ranks it in the Top 10 least attractive student bodies. (Usually number 2 or 3 because the Drama and Art students save us from being First)

I can't really say why this article bothered me so much, except that maybe none of this is news, nor is any of it important. Maybe it is because it references a book that a old guy wrote about a young girl and that in itself is probably enough to make me feel naseous. I mean I don't think the article is wrong really.

Oral Sex is not sex, lots of hooking up, not a lot of dating blah blah. Maybe it just bothers me because I feel that college is a special place, and that people who aren't in college don't really need to know what is going on there. The second most important thing about college is being able to live your life without your parents. And I think the LAST thing any college student wants is their parents asking them about the "Hook-up" culture on their campus.

Let the kids go at it, they are almost adults, they can take care of themselves now, and if they can't then I'm sure there is still room at the trailer park.

Survey results

I totally forgot, a billion years ago I posted a survey about my blog and 9 people responded. WOOO 9!

And now for AMAZING statistics that mean ABSOLUTELY nothing:

When asked how much my blog sucked
22% of you said Only when Asked Politely
and a whopping 77% told me to Shut up because I'm Fabulous.

Why thank you! Shutting up, now.

7 out of 9 of you said I should keep posting the Dumbass v. Ninja stuff. Fortunately for those other 2 people nothing interesting has happend lately but I will keep that in mind.

And 3 of 9 people were'nt listening when I asked if I should keep posting about stats. So they can just go back to sleep and I'll leave them alone.

You can still take the survey here if you still haven't, cause I have no reason to turn it off.

Jeff Jarvis is still calling for open source polling. Which is still a good idea, but unfortunately I still can't think of a way to get a representative sample. Ideas? (I totally need to start a business or something soon before I go insane.)

My least favorite emotion

Hope

Why Hope? it's such a pretty word and it's so warm and fuzzy.... BLECH. I HATE IT. It only leads to dissappointment.

Example: I am STILL waiting to hear on a job that I interviewed for. I didn't go for a second interview, I KNOW they aren't going to hire me. But some part of my innards is saying "maybe, just maybe, wouldn't it be great." This is the part of me that is going to wail with despair when the fatefull e-mail comes, it will make me want to do nothing but wallow in my own misery for at least 24 hours. (My wallowing time is down from about 2 weeks since I started looking for jobs nearly 2 years ago.)

And now people will say to me But, you MIGHT still get the job, wouldn't that be great? And I will attempt to point out that my pessimism is a defence mechanims agains the gut wrenching dissappointment I will feel later on when I don't get the job. And they will say something innocuous and express that they don't think that's a very nice way to live a life. Then I will entertain visions of them suffering the dissapointment of no longer having a head.

Bullshit and the Beast

This new study,"The Tales we Tell our Children" (via Michele) is crap. (Okay, I can't find a copy of it yet, but it certainly sounds like crap.)

The Claim: Fairy Tales (Cinderella etc) make girls submissive and more likely to be abuse victims.

The Research: Susan, who is studying for her Masters in Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapy course at the University of Derby, interviewed domestic violence victims and parents of primary school children in Leicester for her research.Interviews with Domestic Abuse victims and the parents of pre school children.

Why it's Crap: All this study proves is that Domestic Violence Victims like stories about submissive women. (That there is a correlation) It does NOT prove that reading fairy stories to girls will turn them into submissive women. Just because there is a relationship does NOT mean that it is causal. Without conducting controlled experiments there is NO WAY to prove a causal link between the two.


Today's Bad Headline Award:CHILDHOOD: FAIRY TALES KEY TO VIOLENT ADULT RELATIONSHIPSAgenzia Giornalistica Italia, Italy. While most of them were bad, implying that it is the KEY and not a maybe possible contributing factor wins this Italian paper the honor.

A personal note: I have long lamented and will continue to lament the lack of strong female characters in popular literature. I am very picky about my literature for this exact reason. And while I do think that there is certainly an affect on girls from the total lack of female role models, I don't think that enjoying a good romance makes a woman more likely to be abused. All women want prince charming, the problem is some girls never realize that life is not LIKE the fairy tales they love, that's why they are Fiction!

Punished for Voting

The Inter-American Telecommunication Commission meets three times a year in various cities across the Americas to discuss such dry but important issues as telecommunications standards and spectrum regulations. But for this week's meeting in Guatemala City, politics has barged onto the agenda. At least four of the two dozen or so U.S. delegates selected for the meeting, sources tell TIME, have been bumped by the White House because they supported John Kerry's 2004 campaign.

From Time Magazine

This strikes me as Anti-American. Though I guess it is their perrogative.

Saturday Morning

Dear People who read my blog who were involved in the party last night,

That was awesome, except for those few creepy guys. Who knew that climbing out of a TINY window onto the scariest roof imaginable could be so much fun. I especially enjoyed the compound affect of the height of the house and the giant hill it was sitting on. If I didn't already feel nauseous....

Does anyone remember the name of that brazillian drink? And did anyone find my brain when they were on the roof, I think I left it there?

Someone should thank the hosts.

Anyway, I should wrap this up before I start to ramble.

Happy Hangover... I mean Saturday,

-me

Junk Science or Stupid Journalists? (With Meanwhiles)

This article from Tech Central Station (Via Instapundit)talks about the recent CDC study contradicting the Obesity Epidemic study from a while back.

The TCS column seems to imply that the CDC is presenting us with "Junk Science" and possibly deliberately attempting to mislead us.

All of this raises the question of why the numbers have been so badly wrong. The CDC tells us that this is tricky, technical stuff and estimates are always that -- estimates. Of course the 400,000 deaths per year that has been the foundation of the obesity epidemic was never an estimate -- it was always a "fact". Part of the reason is that the 400,000 number was based, as the authors admit, not on actual weights and heights -- but estimates. And even in those surveys which supposedly used actual weights and heights about 30% of the participants never showed up to be measured.

So, if the CDC told us that these were estimates, who told you they were facts? Hmmmmmm? Because the CDC said it was an estimate apparently. The media is who made it a fact. Not the CDC, so don't blame the academics trying to "estimate" very tricky things. I truly deeply doubt that the CDC is trying to mislead the American people. In fact I bet they are pretty embarrassed that their first estimates were so terrible, and that they went ahead and published them.

But if you want to blame someone for stating the CDC's estimates as facts and scaring the bejeezus out of the American people, blame the media. The media has a history of taking what academics say and turning it into absolute facts. (Hence, why I even bothered starting this blog.) They read "The CDC estimates X" and turn this into, "HEY! X!" which, is not the same.

I think I know why there is this miscommunication. In Academics it is important to put your best foot forward, because everyone who reads your work will be doing their best to tear it to little tiny pieces. So you don't want to come right out and say "Hey, we estimated this so, it's pretty not accurate." because then they wont give credence to anything you have to say. So you hide it and make yourself sound good.

The problem is Journalists, are too busy (or too stupid, sorry) to be bothered critiquing and tearing apart studies. What they do is read the abstract and report on it, basically repeating whatever was said only in stronger language. This leads to the horrible overstatements of things that lead us to suddenly believe that Obesity is the leading cause of death in this country.

For the record I did think that the TCS article was very well written (Better than this one obviously) and factual, it was his seeming anger at the scientists that got me going. While I don't really think the CDC has been doing the greatest job, what they are doing is hard, and I know I couldn't do it so who am I to criticize. But I feel that his statements were misdirected, I really think that the media is more to blame for scaring the fatties than the CDC.

MEANWHILE: Bill at INDC has an amazing write up of how the new CDC study could be even MORE misleading than the old one! I am Shinobi's Joy. He points out possible failings of the study, like, the reasons why people might be over or underweight, and how these reasons could affect their lifespan. These reasons were not taken into account by the CDC. THIS is what I'm talking about people. This is what journalists should be doing, not just swallowing numbers whole and regurgitating them in boldface. YAY BILL!

No wonder I'm a B student

Mobius Stripper has a great post today about her student's exams.

• Pearson’s correlation coefficient relating position of statistics student’s surname in alphabet (46 students wrote the exam) with student’s exam grade: 0.466.
• Probability that the correlation in a simple random sample of size 46 would be so strong if there were, in general, no correlation between surname and exam grade: less than 1%
• Regression equation relating student’s grade y to first initial of student’s surname x: y=52+0.94x
• Predicted grade for Aaron Aaronson: 53%
• Predicted grade for Ziggy Zuckerman: 76%

So what this shows for the non stats folk is that there is a positive relationship between Last Initial and grades. This however doesn't necessarily prove any kind of causal relations hip, or anything at all since the sample is only 46 students. It would have to be done on a much larger scale to prove anything real. But it is pretty surprising.

Gay Rights Stuff.

Microsoft Corporation pulled its support for a gay rights bill in Washington state last month after complaints from a single radical right anti-gay leader, according to an article just published in the Seattle paper, The Stranger (the article is on the news stands already, online Thursday). My sources in Washington state tell me that the vote on the bill, expected in two days (Friday), is SO CLOSE that Microsoft's actions may be pivotal in KILLING THE PRO-GAY LEGISLATION.

Read it all here, Via Atrios

If I had any money I would go out and buy a mac right now.

Additionally,
Texas House says no to gays as foster parents. (via Owlish)

I am going to go find a room far away from everyone and scream right now.

April 20th

Nothing interesting to post today. Hope everyone had a lovely... day.. that was today... which was.... Hitler's Birthday! Oh... yea andmy 2 year anniversary with my boyfriend... and obviously no other holiday takes place today. Nope, That's all... can't think of any others.

Hope you had a good one.

BE REASONABLE!

Disclaimer: What follows is a rant, not intended to be argued. I am pissed off, so I'll probably post this and delete it within the hour, so if you're looking for well organized debate, go to cabal or something.

Last week Jon Stewart made a good point about centrists. No one listens to us because we aren't standing in the middle of the streets with signs yelling "BE REASONABLE!" But this morning that is exactly what I feel like doing.

I read a variety of blogs, most of the blogs on my blogroll are conservative but I also read a few liberal type blogs as well (updates are needed but I can't remember my password). And this morning EVERYONE has managed to PISS me off. Why? Because they are so partisan. It's like racism, your opinion doesn't count cause you're a liberal, and your opinion doesn't count because you're a right wing moonbat. What's a good word for this, Partisanism? Closemindedjerkism? Idiocy? Wrongophobia?(The fear that you might be wrong about something but don't want to show weakness). I don't know, I'm not a clever wordsmith. I AM a pissed off centrist.

WHY? WHY!? do people continue to cling to parties that are clearly doing a shitty job. The Democrats can't do anything productive and the Republicans haven't kept their wingnuts screwed in and they have started to rattle. Screw party loyalty, seriously, take it out back, lube it up if you're feeling generous and SCREW IT! Have opinions, but enough of this left v. right crap. (Don't we get enough of that in professional sports?) Why does it all have to boil down into 2 options? Where's the middle option or even the reasonable option? The option that might actually work well for more than half the population?

Why, can't we have a reasonable discussion about anything anymore? Even I have trouble not blaming the republican party for being idiots and complaining about how the democrats are wimps. But I don't believe that any of that is true. I think that the Partisanists are just yelling louder than the rest of us.

I would like to blame the media, that would be easy. It's the medias fault for boiling it all down into left v right. In their efforts to be inclusive of all veiwpoints they have left out the reasonable viewpoints. (i.e. Not Ann Coulter)

Unfortunately, I am beginning to believe that this argument started because the American people are too stupid to handle a middle ground. And that the reason the media is the way it is is because that is how the American people want it. And that makes me feel suicidal.

I don't know whose fault it is, and I don't know how to fix it, but I do know that it really PISSES ME OFF. (I am so Lewis Black today)

(I just want everyone to know that I edited the F word out of this article like 50 times so that I wouldn't "offend" anyone. But then I realized that I don't care if I offend anyone, so FUCK FUCKING FUCKITTY FUCK. sadly I am too lazy to put the other 46 back in.)

A Survey of Bias

Today Jeff Jarvis linked to a survey from the Parent's Television Council. And lordy, if it isn't a perfect example of a biased survey. It's like manna from heaven. So Go take it, and then come back here and read my analysis of the questions.

Let's start with question 1, they are already showing bias because they assume that everyone has been to their stupid website. (The lowest option is infrequently.) HAH, well I never have until now so boo.

Questions 14-16 are about the Parents Television Seal of Approval. Interestingly they ask if you would be more likely to do something based on this seal. But they don't gauge HOW much more likely. Personally I would actually be LESS likely to get something with the PTC Seal, because I hate them. But this is not an option, I can only say Yes or No. This is great for the PTC because anyone who this would affect in the slightest is going to say yes, without any kind of measure of it's importance. Which, in reality isn't very useful, but I'm sure in PTC land it has all kinds of uses.

Also Question 24 assumes that you have tried to block cable channels. It then asks if you were succsessful at it. I tried to not answer it, but they wouldn't let me. So someone who has never blocked channels is honest they will have to say No or Somewhat to whether or not they were succsessful at doing so. This will jack up the percentage of people who say they weren't successful at blocking cable channels. This means that PTC will be able to take these results and complain that blocking cable channels is too difficult and therefore ineffective! (Do you see the evil? for here it lies)

Question 28 is interesting because none of those issues are important to me at all. So for me to rank them would be like me ranking which brussel sprouts I like more, I'm just going to put the small ones first. There are much better ways of asking this question.

I tried to create a new and improved one on surveymonkey, but I have a 10 question limit. Maybe I can do it as three surveys. We shall see. Or maybe I"ll shell out 20 bucks. (Unlikely)

UPDATE: OK kids, here is the Abridged Revised PTC survey. I left out the video game part, maybe I'll add it later, but I have to go work now.

Please take PART ONE first and then PART TWO! (Please take both or you will damage the already shakey integrity of my survey.)

FYE

Not the store, I'm too lazy to type the whole phrase out.

Website from my buddy Pat and some of his friends.

http://www.namebritbritsfetus.blogspot.com/

So you can help Miss Spears pick out a nice name for her baby. (Or a not so nice name) Whoever correctly guesses the name (or is the funniest) gets a PRIZE! You have 9 months give or take to be creative.

BLOGROLLED!!

I was Left Behind

New York times,

The academic growth that students experience in a given school year has apparently slowed since the passage of No Child Left Behind, the education law that was intended to achieve just the opposite, a new study has found.

In both reading and math, the study determined, test scores have gone up somewhat, as each class of students outdoes its predecessors. But within grades, students have made less academic progress during the school year than they did before No Child Left Behind went into effect in 2002, the researchers said.

I don't necessarily disagree with the NYT's take on this study. Although I do think they should have waved a big red flag about it not being representative and that the minority populations in particular were not representative. They do this very far down in the article. Overall this study had a number of caveats, so people should not begin burning the NCLB act in effigee or something.

But I think the reason that the results of this study were more negative is becaue they looked at it on a unique level, which is student growth. This will actually tell you a lot more about the individuals than just looking at the overall changes in scores. I couldn't find any of the other studies to compare , apparently I'm not good at googling. It would be interesting to see if these results could be replicated by a more representational study because after all we are interested in developing the individual students as well as the entire student body.

The findings of this study are consistant with concerns that I have heard from teachers and concerns that I myself would have. In pushing for passing tests, you neglect the growth of more advanced students and it becomes all about passing the test. But NORC is doing a longitutinal study that will hopefully give interesting results. Unfortunately it is still too early to tell.

(Via Eduwonk& Instapundit)

Rejected

Didn't get the NYC job. Pity me.

Man that poll was gay

Sports Illustrated conducted a poll on attitudes towards gays in professional sports. This article is absolutely my favorite.

An NBC/USA Network poll, published in Sports Illustrated, found that 86
percent of 949 people surveyed say they'd have no problem with an openly gay
male athlete. But when the question went another step -- would your team be hurt
by having a gay athlete? -- 24 percent answered yes.

Why is this article my favorite? Please see what follows

Which proves one of two things:
• People can't even figure out what they think, let alone how all of society should react.
• People aren't listening, and will say anything to get the telemarketers off the phone.

Researchers left out one important detail: how many times the pollees were heard saying, ``Not that there's anything wrong with that.''

But 365gay.com has no qualms about creating a very optimistic headline that
is not entirely accurate. (Okay, it's not accurate at all)Poll: Most Support Gay Pro Athletes Global Scan Canada is promoting the Gay Agenda as well Most Americans OK With Homosexual Athletes.

But one gay athelete would pollute the entire pool and then we'll all catch THEGAY!! Run for your heterosexuality! Run!

DeLay's Dilemma

Most Entertaining article EVER!

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, hoping to hold support among fellow
Republicans, urged GOP senators Tuesday to blame Democrats if asked about
his ethics controversy and accused the news media of twisting supportive
comments so they sounded like criticism.

LOL Ohhhh My god. It's like a window into the strategy of Republicans. BLAME THE DEMOCRATS.

But why should I say again what someone else has already said-

"Democrats should save their money. Why murder someone who is committing
suicide?" said a senior GOP lawmaker, on condition of anonymity. (via Atrios)

Day of Homophobic Assholes

Wow, I couldn't even keep the anger out of the title this time. MSNBC has an article about the "Day of Truth" which is scheduled to be the day after the "Day of Silence." The Day of SIlence is billed as a day condemning the harassment of homosexual students in schools. But this is all a cover you realize, the Day of Silence is just another way of promoting the Gay Agenda.

What Gay Agenda you ask? Well, clearly all gays want everyone else to be gay! How could you have forgotten already. Remember Spongebob? He's all about turning everyone gay. Because if one person is gay, then everyone should be gay. And once everyone is gay then the human race will die out, the ultimate goal of the gays! First they are going to make it OK to be gay, and then they will brainwash you until you too are Gay! You have to be careful because the gays can so easily brainwash you. While reading this article be careful of the quotes from the GLSEN, you might catch THE GAY!

This article does bring up a good point though. If the gays get their day, so do the Homophobic Assholes. They don't have a right to expect us to agree with them, but they do have a right to make sure that everyone knows they are Homphobic Assholes.

Other reasons

That I dislike the military. Apparently many soldiers being deployed overseas are just dumping their pets . On some level I can understand how this would be a small issue compared to the fact that these soldiers are going overseas to what might be their own deaths. But, humans domesticated these animals, and we made them unable to survive in the wild. It is our responsibilty to care for them, not put them to sleep because they are inconvenient. It is not their fault that they can no longer hunt and live on their own. We did this to them with careful breeding over thousands of years. How can we now just turn them loose to starve or worse, kill them for what our ancestors did.

Purchasing or adopting an animal means that you are assuming responsibility for that animal until the day it keils over from old age or it is so ill that it cannot be made better. And it infuriates me to no end that some people would be willing to just leave a helpless animal behind when they move because it is too difficult to take them along. And these dogs get surrendered, then spend ages in the shelter until they go cage crazy and have to be put down. Where is the culture of life now?

Blargh

"Looks like somebody's got a case of the Tuesdays"

Jeff Goldstein might have quit blogging.

So to comfort myself I took a quiz I found at ASV

We recommend this sexy site: wittybanter.net
Which Sesame Street Muppet Are You?

Back in the Burgh

Hi Boys and Girls,

I'm BACK. NYC was great. Interview went pretty well. Now the agony of Thank you notes and waiting.

Nothing to post yet, I'm a lazy blogger.

New York New York!

In New York City till Saturday. Also, got invited for a second interview in Chicago, this would make 5 weeks running that I haven't worked a full week so I'm going to try to work something out. Good news though cause I really want that job.

More stats brewing for when I get back. Sorry for the lack of substance this week.

Happy Friday!

Beverage Validation

It seems like for years I have been listening to this absurd conversation about who actually owns Dr. Pepper, Coke or Pepsi. And for years I have been pointing out that Dr. Pepper and 7UP are distributed in conjunction with both Coke and Pepsi, and saying that this implies that these two beverages are owned by neither Coke nor Pepsi.

Finally, today, I have found out that I am right.

They are owned by the Cadbury Schweppes company, an english company which also distributes Orangina, Snapple, and yes boys and girls, CADBURY EGGS! Mmmmm this is my new favorite company!

Thank you, that is all.

Searching

While looking around for something Statsy to write about I found this article in the NYTs-

Democrats Block Nomination Over Morning-After Pill

Let me state right now that I've never been really a fan of Hillary Clinton, but I'm glad she is doing this. It would be nice to have a decision. It would be even NICER to be able to get the Morning-After Pill at the drug store without a Dr.S Appt. Even though it isn't the kind of thing that should be used a lot.... birth control is much better for your system. And this Pill makes you CRAZY. (Not that I've ever used it..... or... ended up crying hysterically for 4 hours for no apparent reason.... nope.... not me.) Anyway, Yeah FDA, Get on this!

Token Posting

I have nothing to say today. Something must be wrong. I spent all morning reading Penny Arcade and now all I want is my boss to leave so I can go home and play WoW.

But since I'm STUCK here, Atrios has some interesting posts highlighting GW's understanding of the US banking system which I found pretty entertaining. And another one about his Social Security campaign. I'm entertained.

More reasons not to trust polls

Especially if you live in texas! (via atrios)

SWEET

Guess whose getting flown to NYC to interview at a consulting firm? me Me ME! ThoughI still have to find somewhere to stay. Hotels are SOOO expensive in manhattan and I don't want to stay by JFK. Damn. Oh well, at least I'm saving on airfare.

I hate corresponding with HR people though, I find myself over analyzing every single word and wondering if it is the one thing that will result in them not hiring me. But you know what, I'm fabulous and if they don't like that I said interview instead of appointment, or that I double checked the time of the interview then they can just Fuck Off. Seriously

Hey, have you taken my survey yet? Cause I'm up to 4 whole responders.... and I know only 10 people read this blog, but that leaves 6 people who haven't taken it. But it's 4 questions people, don't make me feel like a bigger loser.

Idiots on the Senate floor

Lefty blogs are up in arms over recent remarks by Sen Cornyn. The Washington Post has more on his remarks. Everyone is linking Mathew Yglesias's post, because it is pretty good. (via atrios) But I do wonder if there is some level of overreaction here. Is this really a call to arms?

The Instapundit makes a good point. Even if there was no threat before, any further violence against judges could potentially be blamed on Cornyn and Republicans! Oh dear. Maybe the Righty's should get on this too.

Here's an editorial from the NYT that makes soem good points, they are talking about Delay's remarks though, not Cornyn's.

I think some of the lefty's may be taking the Texas Militia conspiracy a leeeetle far. But I think Cornyn was definetly out of line, and if there are any attacks on judges in the near future I will want his head.

I have been and will continue to be disgusted by people who get up in arms when judicial decisions don't go their way. So here is my note for the wingnuts, moonbat, crazies who have the gall to get angry at judges,

Sir or Madam,

Surprise!!! Not everyone agrees with you! I know it is confusing because when you watch your news channel all the pundits on there are always talking about how dumb the people you disagree with are. But there is a reason we need judges. Their job is to protect the people who disagree
with you, and defend their right to disagree with you and do things that you might not like. And if you don't like it, then LEAVE! We don't want you in this country!

You make me sick, and if I could I would have you sterilized for being an idiot, but I can't, because the judges in this country wont let me. Even if I were President and all of my friends who agreed with me were Govorners and
Senators, I couldn't have you sterilized because the courts wouldn't let me. (Unless of course we turn them into puppets of the presiding party before then.... MWAHAHAHA) So, it might be in your best interest to respect the courts, lest I someday take power.

Regards,

Shinobi

Oral Sex in the Media

So today after reading an article in the NYT's on hooking up which I quite enjoyed, (I dimly recall a Cabal discussion about this.Article is interesting) I found this dissapointing article
Young teens say oral sex not really sex. And I was in SUCH a good mood after the Pope article.

About one in five ninth-graders report having had oral sex and almost
one-third say they intend to try it during the next six months, a small study of
teens at two California schools reports

The Press is clearly trying to terrify every parent of a highschool aged student because, especially fathers of girls. What, do you want all children grounded for life or something? (Over Easter I hung out with my sister and her friend, and her friend's parents were clearly PSYCHO they had her overmedicated, but were taking her anxiety medication away. I mean, I know teenage girls are rough, but come on! Let's not give psycho parents more opportunities to be psycho.)

And then let us examine the part of the excerpt that I have bolded. Not to go with the "people from california are crazy" motif, but, well uhm, California is not the same as the rest of the world, I'm sorry. Maybe if they did like 4 schools in different regions of the US. But 2 schools, both in California. What a completely worthless study. So what we've learned is that students at 2 schools in california think Oral sex is okay. This is NOT viable for the rest of the US population. AT ALL!

I also think that an important thing to examine in this study is who is having all this oral sex, is it the boys or the girls? Is it an even split? I tried to get to the study but I am poor and have no reason to subscribe to the journal of pediatrics. Anyway, there may be no difference, that would be interesting, any information along those lines would be interesting.

Bad Headline Award:Oral Sex Safe and Not Really Sex, Say US TeensABC News - 2 hours ago

This one was tough, because they were all about the same, but since ABC is so visible AND they imply in the title that it is all US Teens, they win. Congratulations ABC News. OO and they don't even mention how limited the study was. BOOOOO Reuters, you get an F.

OH MY GOD

SO! I was totally like reading like this article about like the pope and stuff, and like they were like right or something and it was crazy. Ow, sorry. So they did a survey of catholics blah blah about the pope blah blah. And I thought, here it comes "Survey Says, Pope a Crossdresser!" But no, they actually were pretty responsible about reporting this survey. I am in shock.

Fifty-five percent said the next pope should allow women to become priests,
while 44 percent said he should not. The question's margin of error means the
difference is too close to draw strong conclusions

Stunned, I can't figure out who wrote this article to send them love letters, but I am gonna keep looking.

monday's missive

Dear Bed,

I miss you so much. It has only been an hour since I left but already I am thinking longingly of your cozy inviting softness. How are your pillows? I miss them a lot. Since I've been gone I have set up a new bloglines account so that I can read stuff without clicking billions of links, that was fun, but nothing compared to being near you. And no one has taken my survey, except Hubris. I fixed the link, but still... no love. I tried to make it funny and everything. Oh well. I will just sit here and think of when I can finally return to you at the end of the day. Hopefully it will help the day go faster.

Thinking of you fondly
-Nobi

Open Source Polling

Jeff Jarvis has an interesting post today about the idea of open source polling. Which is an great idea IMO, but would be very difficult to implement and still get accurate results.

He seems to have a very good idea of what would be necessary to having a polling system like this work. But I don't see how it would be possible to gather this much expertise without paying someone for it. I volunteer to help though.

Things I love,

Asking questions about issues to ascertain political identification. I LOVE this, and there already are methodologies to do this, in fact OK Cupid has a test that does a good job of identifying political ideologies. In general though it is much more accurate to use an index to get an idea of political ideology than it is to just ask. They used an index in the study I posted on earlier today. (It would be interesting to see how often self reported identification coincide with the index.)

Multiple versions of questions and transparency. More than one version of each question will help reduce the affects of bias within those questions. Asking three versions of a question instead of just one should give more accurate results. I don't think this is done very often.

And I love the idea of a free system. Though I think maybe to fund the free part you may have to charge businesses.

But I think that the ultimate killer of a system of this kind is that you could not get true samples of the US population. Since not everyone has internet and certainly not everyone will be included in the database there will be large amounts of bias present. If there were any kind of centralized way identify individuals on the internet it would be a much simpler problem.

But unfortunately any kind of membership driven program will systematically exclude people who don't know about it or aren't interested. I don't know how to overcome this and it seems to me to be a fatal flaw in the system. Possibly if the online surveys could be supplemented with phone surveys. Hmmm...

Anyway, in honor of this I have created my own survey about my blog on surveymonkey.com. Maybe if all 5 of my readers take it I'll know what they think.


Actually Working Survey link, TAKE ME!

A Day in the life: #Ninja

8:30 Am- Wake up to demon on chest meowing for food, roll over.

8:31 Am- Allow pitiful demon to escape evil clutches.

9:10 Am- More demon meowing, this time the other one. Look at clock, lay in bed.

9:20 Am- Alarm goes off, get up, feed demons. Take shower, then lay in bed with towel on head.
9:45 Am- Get up, Get dressed, say good bye to sleeping boyfriend walk to work.

10:00 am- Enter work, checking to see if Dumbass has arrived, he has. Check gmail, then check work e-mail

10:30 am- E-mail from Dumbass makes no sense, one sentance e-mail for clarification.

10:45 am- "Clarification" arrives in which Dumbass continues to use the same term to discuss two COMPLETELY different issues for at least 2 paragraphs. Get Annoyed, Walk over to Dumbass and ask what he meant? After an agonizing process which takes around a half an hour get Dumbass to realize that he is in fact discussing 4 completely different issues, three of which are not issues at all but things that are working properly. Subtley guide him towards the conclusion that he needs to use better terminology.

11:30-12:30 - Read blogs, read CNN, read anything, call boyfriend make sure he woke up, post things on blog, contemplate suicide, check gmail, check gmail again.

12:45- Go to cafeteria and purchase "lunch" which consists of an overpriced salad from the salad bar and something sandwitch shaped. Spend at least 6 dollars. Get Ice for coke products hidden in desk. (Coke is no longer sold at the Company that shall not be Named Pepsi is the a client now)

1:00- Finish eating, read more blogs, post something on blog about how stupid Dumbass is

1:30- Visit CoolGirl in her cube, discuss Dumbass's dumbassness, talk to TallGuy about last night's episode of a tv show.

2:30 pm - Return to cell, send file to client. Check e-mail, check gmail, check horoscope. Look for jobs on job sites.

3:00 pm- Your kidding me, how is it only 3pm?

3:15 pm- OH MY GOD THIS DAY WILL NOT END. Dumbass forwards e-mail from makers of Cancer Sticks requesting data that it will be very difficult to get and that will add approximately 0 value to project. Get annoyed, wonder when you'll have to do the tedious work involved in setting it up. Procrastinate.

3:30 pm- Be really bored, really really really bored. Wish that had charged iPod last night.

4:00 pm- Take a feild trip downstairs to the mail room.

4:05 pm- You've got to be kidding me.... work on bad sci fi novel to pass the time.

4:30 pm Watch the steady stream of happy people leave the office, be annoyed. Check to see if Dumbass has left.

4:40 pm Check to see if Dumbass has left every 2 minutes from now on.

5:04 pm Dumbass Leaves- Tell CoolGirl, use stealth mode to exit building.

5:30 - 11:00 Hate the fact that time is passing and that every moment is one moment closer to having to go back to work.

11:30 watch Daily Show, Sleep.


So yeah, that's about my average day. Just thought I'd provide more Schadenfreude for you people. Oh a happy note I have an interview in NYC next friday. Now if only I could figure out how to get there/where to stay.

The Liberal Conspiracy-Brainwashing your kids

A study about the ideological beliefs of professors has come to the attention of the blogosphere. and Volokh has some thoughts on why the clear liberal bias in college faculty is bad.

I think a more interesting question than Why is this bad?, is Why does this happen? This is the first step to discovering more about how to rectify the problem.

My initial thought about this study is that they used self report data. Someone who works at a more liberal school may be more likely to identify themselves as liberal regardless of actual political affiliation. (For instance, I would identify myself as fairly liberal, but I don't know if I actually am.) A belief system such as this is very subjective and it is difficult to measure someone's "liberalness" without first looking at their beliefs on individual topics and using that as an index of their beliefs. To just ask means you might not get accurate results.

Interestingly they did break down some issues and found that professors were mostly liberal on these issues (Abortion, homosexuality, the environment etc.). Using an index and found similar results to the self report data. Both models indicated that more conservative professors tended to teach at lower quality schools.


So now that I have looked at this study and found no fault with it (Disclaimer, I only have a BS and I'm lazy, so there still could be problems, but I'll leave that to the academics who get paid to review studies) we can discuss other reasons for why they would get these types of results.

I would like to point out that I am comparing Academics to non Academics and not Liberals to Conservatives. The proportion of liberals in Academia is much higher than that of the whole population, why is this?

Let's start with the conspiracy theory and have it out. Liberal academics hold the conservatives out of the academic world by refusing them tenure, not publishing them etc and so forth discrimination wah. I don't agree with this mostly because it is my experience that the higher up in a liberal university you go the more conservatives you find, the board of directors of most universities is made up of rich guys and I have trouble believing that all of them are liberals too. I could be wrong, but just as I refuse that there is some conspiracy keeping women out of scientific fields I refuse that there is a conspiracy keeping conservatives out of schools. It is just too easy.

My personal reaction is to say that that is because Academics are more likely to evaluate something critically and scientifically than non-academics, and that these evaluations lead more of them to a liberal conclusion. I would like to believe that this is wrong, so I will move on.

Another thought, maybe individuals who are more liberal are more attracted to academia. There is typically a lot of work, and not a lot of pay. There is no Christmas bonus, and on purely economic basis, being a professor sucks unless you get a lot of cushy consulting jobs. Are liberals more attracted to this kind of environment, my magic 8 ball says "Yes, Definitely" but it lies all the time.

This is my third thought, a self fulfilling prophecy. Because there are so many liberals, only other liberals are comfortable in academia. Just like there are few conservatives rushing to move to San Fransisco there are probably few conservatives dying to be on a faculty with gay men and feminazis.

And finally, all academics have been brainwashed by the academics that they learned from. I am a liberal zombie, me eat republican BRAaaaaaaaaaaains. GIVE ME BRAAAAAAAINS!

More?

God... what a depressing day.

"Pope John Paul II has been given the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church as his health deteriorates, a Vatican source tells CNN."

More sad news

My boyfriend just called and in addition to his academic troubles he heard a rumor that Mitch Hedberg had died.

I googled and confirmed.

He was a funny funny man. I will never forget the set he did at my University.

RIP

Mitch Hedberg

The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how good I get,I'll never be as good as a wall.

Laying it to rest

I was going to post something statistical today. But I'm feeling pretty lazy. Maybe in a little while. It's sunny out I just want to go lay in the park and smoke. That would be lovely.

The ongoing battle of Asshats vs. Protein Wisdom minions is still raging. Fairly entertaining to say the least.

Last weekend I was driving around with my sister and we drove past the hospital where my mom had her stroke. (Yes, she had it in the hospital, and then stayed in the hospital.) It occurred to me that we very rarely drove past that hospital on a regular basis. But that suddenly when my Mom was there it became the center of our universe. Daily routines changed completely as my Dad would pick Shorty up from school and then go directly to the hospital. We went to different banks, different restaurants different grocery stores all on our way to and from the hospital. We found new shortcuts, that we no longer use. It was like a different mode of living. (I think I noticed this mostly because I was out of town for 90% of of it.)

I hope that Terri's parents can find new routes that don't go past their daughter's hospice, new restaurants, and a new way to live their lives.

I Herd about some Stupidty

HundredPercenter apparently can't STAND the idea that other people might not follow the herd and agree with him a hundred percent on the Shciavo matter and so he posted a RIDICULOUS post removing some really great blogs from his blogroll. I'm going to ADD all of these blogs to my blogroll, regardless of whether or not I agree with them about anything because they are all diverse voices and that is good. Not that I didn't already read instapundit, but does he really need to be linked to at this point?

In fact, I don't know that I necessarily agree with anyone on my blog roll most of the time, but they are blogs I read and find interesting and if they don't agree with me then I am sure they are in good company.

Anyway F This guy

Yay for These Guys


A SMALL VICTORY
BEAUTIFUL ATROCITIES
COX&FORKUM
DIGGERSREALM
INDC JOURNAL
INSTAPUNDIT
LITTLE GREEN FOOTBALLS
PROTEIN WISDOM

Welcome to the blogroll with the least traffic ever.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have such a blog-on about thisguy . All of these cows in people clothing are posting on the comments at 100%lame. Ugh, it makes my blood boil when people are closed minded and followers at the same time. They will feel the wrath of the Shinobi. ::polishes throwing stars::

GRRRRR

I just wrote this great post and then it broke. Stupid internet. GRRRRRR

On a relatedly angst filled note APPARENTLY now that I've had 2 interviews BigBoss man is happy with my work and they are thinking of giving us new stuff to do in the fall. (which is awefully far away IMO) But I'm seriously annoyed now, because if I do get a different job I'm going to feel like a bitch taking it. GRRRRRRRRR Damn you Murphy and your laws!

But it isn't like I'm going to get either one of these jobs.... I just wish that I were going too. Sigh.

Deathmatch: Dumbass v. #Ninja

So a couple of weeks ago Dumbass sent me an e-mail with detailed instructions on what to do with some information we were waiting for. Why do I mention this? The reason is threefold.

1. I didn't need the instructions, even the littlest
bit. I wasn't wondering how to do this, I knew, I was waiting
for the info, in fact I believe I was in the middle of doing this when he sent
the e-mail. Since I was the one who set up the entire file, him giving me
instructions on how to add 2 columns was insulting to say the very
least.

2. He CCed them to about 10 other people who A, don't need the instructions
and B. Now think that I need to be told when to do my job.

3. I sit about 10 feet from him, and so, if he had any questions about
wether or not I was going to do this or if I knew how, he could have very
simply walked over to my desk and asked.

I confronted him about this because it really pissed me off. I mean a lot(PMS). And the e-mail was really long and far too detailed and I'm sure he spent too much time writing it. So I requested that if he needed any adjustments in future he should first check with me and find out what the status was and if I knew what I was doing. And he said "Well I wasn't sure you knew to do it."

Let me clarify for you how work actually gets done around here, CoolGirl has her own set of crap that she shares with NewGuy (who is no longer going to be on the project when PregnantLady gets back, bastard). I sometimes help out CoolGirl, but mostly I handle a separate bunch of crap, I do all of the legwork, all of the updates, all of the adjustments with occasional input from Dumbass. And when he does give input it is things like "you need to make this title bold." The man has sent me back to my cube to change one formatting thing instead of just doing it his god damn self since he has the file open on his computer. Now why, for any minute amount of time would I assume that anyone besides me was going to do any work? He certainly isn't.

So this week he did the same thing, AGAIN, he sent yet another e-mail out with instructions to me to do something I was ALREADY GOING TO DO. AHH. Fortunately, I don't read anything he writes anymore and I had done it differently. I spoke to him about it AGAIN and, the best part is, his detailed and longwinded instructions were completely wrong. He didn't understand what the client wanted, and now he's telling me how to do something completely different. But he was trying to be all funny about it "Oh, I should just let you handle this stuff.. hehehehe" Yes, You should you completely incompetant pompus asshole.

On a happier note I had a phone interview on friday that went really badly because I couldn't tell if the interviewer was entertained or annoyed by my attempts at humor. Three more days until friday.

Sleepy

I am sleepy, so I'm going to post about this MSNBC article. Now see here, the article is just about sleep in America and how americans aren't getting the sleep we need. I'm not going to talk about the poll today, I'm tired. But I am going to talk about the headline that I saw on MSNBC that caused me to link to the article.

• Survey finds Americans too sleepy for sex

B'scuse me? Okay, so maybe that is true for some people. But this article mentions sex Twice, but there is only one fact about it in the WHOOOOLE thing.

• Roughly one-fourth of respondents who have partners report that their sexual relationship has been hurt because they have been too sleepy. They had sex less often or lost interest in having sex because they were too tired.

That's all she wrote kids. That's it. That's how we know that AMERICANS are too sleepy for sex, not jsut some Americans who have very busy lives or blah blah blah. Clearly.

I hate journalists. They make ridiculous claims and have little or no evidence to support them. But the claim is all about the hook, getting people to read the article, getting ratings. Bastards. Well I promise to keep writing boring stuff so on one will ever read it. But hopefully it will be factually valid.

Post-Easter Post

It's another Gloomy day here in da burgh. Flew in this morning under approximately 3 layers of clouds, ridiculous. I feel like crap. Today I will see how little time I can spend in the office and still get paid.

Anyway on Sunday I went to church because it makes my crazy mother happy and I love her, so I go. I stood in the aisle (no seats left) with my little sister and groaned inwardly when the homily started. But this hear Msgr talked about the Terri Schiavo case (instead of how all the people who show up to Easter mass were missing about 51 other Masses every year.) And I was expecting a right to life diatribe, but he didn't give us one. Instead he read parts of articles that had been in the post presenting differing views. And then he read a passage by someone old whose name I don't remember about how death is God calling us to him, and it was really beautiful. And that was the first time in ages that I didn't hate the Catholic Church.

It seems like the opposite might be beginning to happen all over the country, Jeff Jarvis's Jumping the shark post was GREAT and I really agree that I think the fundamentalists have pushed it too far this time. At least I hope there is some kind of backlash over this.

I do find it interesting how easily people are mislead by the media. My Aunt was going on and on yesterday about how "all these people" agreed with Terri's parents. And I pointed out the different polls that I've read and that all of them had a majority disagreeing with Congress's action. She mentioned too that she heard lots of people on the radio and I pointed out that people who strongly oppose this are more likely to call into a radio show than people who think the whole thing is a family matter. Nutjobs make better radio/tv than normal people, apparently she never watched the real world.

I am concerned that people whose views are more secular will decide that they are clearly the minority and they should just shut up. Because I don't think we are. We shall have to see.

If by Changing you mean Half

I wasn't planning to post today because I'm going to STL for the holiday. (Yay political arguments with Dad) Aaanyway, I was minding my own business reading CNN and I found this article which said something about cookies, YUM. It turns out to be about how companies are using cookies to collect data and finding that consumers delete the cookies and make their data unreliable. And I was all OOOO YAY data isn't always trustworthy == true. But now I'm reading and I get to this.

Rational or not, fear is dramatically changing consumer behavior. Take a look at
these statistics from Jupiter:
Fifty-eight percent of online consumers have
installed, updated, or operated anti-spyware software over the past 12
months.
Fifty-six percent have deleted the temporary files stored in their
browsers' caches.
Forty-nine percent have deleted their browsers'
history.
Forty-one percent now use a firewall.

Soooo what they are saying is that consumer behavior is "dramatically" changing because almost half of consumers have (COMPLETELY NECESSARY, but we'll get to that in a minute) anti-spyware software. And their evidence of a change here is? Change requires 2 data points, the original one and the new one, and I'm only seeing one. I tried to access Jupiter's data, but this blog makes me no money, so I'm not buying it. But here is the report that it is from if anyone has a subscription and wants to send it to me.

My point is that though it is interesting that so many individuals are now deleting cookies and using firewalls etc, it does not evidence a change in behavior since we do not know how common this practice was say 6 months ago. In fact we might know, but it isn't in this article, Therefore, who ever wrote this should be smaked around a little. (Hey Business 2.0 Hire me!)

Now, to the other main point of the article, which is in my rough summation "Poor corporations can't collect data on consumers because consumers think that their innocent cookies are evil." Now this guy apparently has never had to do a full system reload because of one little malignant file downloaded from a website. Apparently the man has never been foiled in his attempt to read his e-mail by countless numbers of popups caused by allowing websites to put whatever they want onto his computer. And Apparently he has never had multiple system crashes while trying to run Microsoft word because of all of the CRAP that these companies are putting on his machine. (Nor has he had to hide his naughty surfing habits from his Mommy Girlfriend, or Boss.)

While I agree that one cookie is harmless, 500 cookies take up space. This is not a fear issue, it is self defense, I payed for that 40 g hard drive and not so I could keep track of other people's information or get them ad revenue. The statistics described above are the kinds of steps PC users have to go through in order to avoid catastrophic system failure once every three months. Fear is not the problem, other people's crap on my PC is the problem.

Dear Corporations that just want to serve their customers better, Find a new data collection method and quit putting your stuff on my computer. I don't have the disk space to keep track of YOUR data for you. Sorry, but between you and the other 50 companies that want to know everything about me I've run out of room for my porn.

Venting

Please note: This post is me bitching about things of a personal nature, it will probably not be very entertaining or interesting to you, but I have to post it somewhere just to get it out of my system or I will go postal.

My boss, is the worst boss in the history of bosses. I know, I know, everyone has bad bosses. They have the micromanaging boss, or the boss who is never around and then gets mad when stuff isn't done, or the boss who thinks he is always right, or the boss who is never right. Well I have all of these, in the form of one person. Not to mention my boss is one of those people who is not very intelligent, and assumes that no one around him is very intelligent so he treats everyone like they are stupid. Any time I talk to him I find myself being "explained" to about something I already have a good understanding of. And to top it all off, the man wears his pants pulled up to high and a polo shirt and ugly golf socks every day. He is like a cartoon character, from now on we will call him Dumbass. I also work with a lovely girl who I will call Coolgirl, she should be in charge of the project because she has been on it the longest, but sadly nothing here at the company that shall not be named ever seems to work out properly.

So a few months ago we added someone to our project because Dumbass was supposed to be working on other project work for senior management. He started training NewGuy and CoolGirl and I were informed of his addition to the project at the last possible moment. (Because why would anyone want to share information with their subordinates or you know, ask their opinions on things.) Coolgirl is asked to take more responsibility for the project and being taking on a more management role. We start working, work picks up, The Unrest begins.

One day NewGuy does sommthing that Coolgirl told him to do and Dumbass yells at him for this. Then again a few days later. Then he proceeds to do the same thing to me (#Ninja). And I blow up at him in a manner that is somewhat notorious because I'm pretty loud for a ninja and the whole department heard me. I explained to him calmly that He could either be the manager or not the manager but that I need to know whose instructions to follow and that his ocillating between ignoring this project and micromanaging it is driving me bonkers. This leads him to believe that I am "Overwhelmed" which lead me to want to bitchslap his ass. In any case, we had a corporate restructuring and more defined roles within the project. YAY.

Well now, he's supposed to be working on other stuff, but he is back to micromanaging. In fact under CoolGirl's very nose he has launched a campaign against NewGuy. For NO APPARENT REASON. (Besides the fact that he his a Dumbass) He is new and the project has a long learning curve, so there is a limit to what we can do. Additionally there is just barely enough work for three people and sometimes it is easier for Coolgirl and #Ninja to just take care of it. And so today because of Dumbasses fucking WHINING NewGuy might get fired. And I am PISSED. There is NO REASON for this, Dumbass's Failure to communicate effectively is more to blame than any one of us, even our client (the producers of Cancer Sticks) hates him.

I hate my job so much. If you're hiring, I'm a fabulous analyst with a BS in Statistics and Decision Science and a little under a year's worth of experience. Please e-mail me and rescue me from this hell.

UPDATE-
I am Shinobi's All Consuming Rage. Not only are they switching all company vending machines and the cafeteria to sell exclusively pepsi, the pepsi will now cost us 1.25 per bottle, instead of the low low price of 1.00. I know it is stupid, but I like to have free choice.

Awww your baby looks just like

........ a red.... thing...

Today an article in the New York Time's "examines" the claim by several studies that Babies tend to resemble their fathers. (If by examine you mean regurgitate.) They cite 2 studies (Just "the Facts") that used different methodologies to see if there is a pattern in human resemblance in behavior. In any case, the NYT FAILs to mention this study (by the way the first result on google) which disagrees and fails to replicate the results of the original 1995 study.

I did find another study which based it's conclusions on what people "said" about a baby's resemblance. I actually laughed out loud when I read it. I wont do it the honor of linking it because...... no. I know if I were included in that sample I'd be completely making something up. To me, babies, look like babies. Booooooring.

It seems like this would be an interesting thing to look at for people who are studying facial mapping technologies. (I did some work with these last year actually, the agony of doing data analysis on photographs.) It would be interesting to see if an algorithm would see more resemblance to a mother or father in a baby. Someone smarter than me should do the research and get back to me.

Anyway the NYT's article is interesting if a little one sided. The Claim, The Facts and my favorite part:

"THE BOTTOM LINE Infants are more likely to resemble their dads. "

According to 2 studies that haven't been replicated. Oh god, I'm going to go laugh in the bathroom stall now so people will stop popping over my cube walls and looking at me funny.

Numbers for thought

An ABC poll (N=501 margin of error=4.5%) conducted Sunday found that 60% of those polled opposed of federal intervention in the Schiavo Case. 70% said it was "not Appropriate" for congress to get involved.

Self labled "Conservatives" were most supportive of Congress's move 48% saying they supported federal intervetion in the matter. 44% of Evangelical Protestants supported the move. (I don't know what % of the respondants were conservative/liberal, I can only see what there results are, I would like to know just to make sure that there is enough data for each group to constitute a sample.)


Another interesting post from over on Cabal shows how numbers and comparisons can be misleading when discussing prisoners of war.

The setup is: 108 POWs have already died in American custody, while only 114 American POWs died while in North Viestnamese custody during the entire war!

For some reason, Atrios skips the other question that immediately came to my mind - how many POWs were taken overall by each country?

Read on to find out.


2.5 hours left at work.

BS

The day after my first test in Mrs. F's class she walked up to the front of the room and said

"Well, the tests overall were not that great"

She turned and wrote two letters on the board.

B S

Then turned back to a room full of stunned 16 year olds and said "Be Specific."

In the world of academia where length is key being specific sometimes gets lost in our quest to fill pages and pages of blue books or to type 10 pages of words that have some meaning. The MSM seems to have a similar problem in their search for brevity (or is it their search for ratings)

Today on the NYT's health page I see two quotes that are shall we say slightly less than music to my ears.

"Many Americans are taking an active role in their own deaths, "

Many huh, HOw many? Oh... further down in the article we find out we don't actually know how many americans have had an assisted suicide. But the gallup poll says

"In a 2004 Gallup survey, 65 percent agreed that a doctor should be allowed to assist a suicide "when a person has a disease that cannot be cured and is living in pain," up from 52 percent in 1996. "

Oh so, what we actually know is that 65% of american's think that assisted suicide can be okay. But we don't know how many are taking an active role in their own deaths. (by the way, isn't there something else you could be covering besides contributing to the insane media frenzy over Terri Sciavo. I almost miss daily coverage of the artist formerly known as the king of pop's bowel movements.)

"More Celebrities Finding Roles as Antidepressant Advocates"

OKay, more than what? More than two days ago? Please. You're killing me.

Other words I hate. Less, increased, fewer, higher, few, most... the list goes on and on.

These words tell us NOTHING they don't give us any information unless they are followed up or preceeded by actual facts and actual numbers. I could say that I have more money today than I did a year ago. But In actual fact I have about 5 dollars more. Sounds nice, but in reality all I can get with it is a value meal from the McDrivethru.

So I say to the media. B S, be specific.

Moody monday

I think I'm starting to understand this whole template thing. I added a blogroll and other crap. Woot. If you're sad about not being on my blog roll then you should add me to yours, or if I'm already on yours you should send me a bitchy e-mail because I'm a bitch.

And now, Japan!

Terri

I don't like talking about "right to life" cases because it is a subject I am pretty on the fence on. On the one hand my mother has had several occasions where she could have been given up on and yet survived. (She's amazing.) But on the other I think that death comes for all of us and we must be willing to surrender to it when it comes, not hang on with machines and tubes.

I feel mostly for Terri in this whole conversation, because I wonder how much congress or the judges are really looking out for her. I haven't hear the testimony of doctors and I myself am not a doctor so I don't know if she's really in a "vegetative state" or if she actually interacts like her parents claim. And if she does have the potential to recover, then by all means she should be given the chance. But I don't know if she does have that potential.

What I do know is this woman has been effectively a vegetable for 15 years that is 65% of my life span, an amazingly long time. While I grew up, went to highschool and graduated college she has been sitting in one room on a feeding tube getting visits from her family but never going anywhere, doing anything fun. In fact she might not even know that she is still alive. Even if she is "alive" and able to acknowledge family, is she going to get better? Will she be able to talk with her parents? Will she walk again? Dance? Go to Parties? Or will she simply stay this way until one day she dies despite her feeding tube.

What purpose does keeping her alive serve? And to that end, is she really even alive? 50 years ago she would have died. But now that we have the ability to prevent her body's death, should we?

I see all these "right to life" signs and I wonder, why? What about quality of life, joy in life, experiencing life. There is no joy, no new experiences for Terri, unless by some miracle. But believe that death also is a miracle, saving some people from a life of pain or a life their spirit no longer needs to live.

Is this really about Terri? Is it about our own fear of death?

Or even worse, is it about politics?

Update: Words on this subject from one wiser than I

My Favorite Newspaper

Here's a blog post that I found via instapundit, Which I am sure that you have read already or at least seen. This guy lambast's the NYT's methodologies for criticism of poll data from Iraq.

It is a fabulous writing that I wish I had written, but since I did not, I will leave it to you to read its lovliness and learn more about why one should not always believe what one reads in the newspaper. (Especially if it has anything to do with statistics.)

Sad

RIP Andre Norton I will be sad that she is gone, but will look forward to reading her new book.

A Dissenting View on Dissent

This morning I did my usually instacheck and found this post, and proceeded to read all of the links therein.

This one is particularly interesting because it presents some interesting experiences, and I have some of my own to share.

I grew up in a conservative environment and for a long time considered myself to be a republican. At college I was one of the two republicans ( I am not exaggerating) and when the whole Bush Gore conflict was going on I was not treated rudely, although I will not say that my views were exactly popular, which is to be expected. But I continued with my support for the Bush Administration through the war in Afghanistan. But after watching the what was in my opinion a gross mishandeling of the lead up to the Iraq conflict and various other things the administration did that I disagree with I withdrew my support.

Well, my family immediately launched into the "liberal arts brainwashing" speech. Absolutely typical, my views are not valid because I was educated at a university which has a liberal bent. Rather than listening to me, they used this to "prove" that my opinions were invalid. (And they weren't very nice about it I might add.) You may think that I just jumped on the band wagon as well, but I don't have to justify myself to you imaginary person who is reading this, so I wont, HAH. I would argue that both sides are in fact guilty of this depending on the environment.

There was also some talk about the Liberals and their dislike of conservative media. And personally, I am not opposed to Fox news. What I am opposed to is people who think that Fox News and commentators like Rush Limbaugh are unbiased. Just like I would be opposed to people who thought MSNBC was unbiased, or any news for that matter. This, is false. If people want to watch or listen to news that includes other people's opinions that is fine by me. But if someone thinks that Fox News is completely unbiased reporting, how do you think they will respond to my opinions? Take my word for it, not well.

And for another example of crushing dissent from the right, how about Bush's Town hall meetings. What's with the loyalty pledges? If you can't ask him real questions, then what is the point. It is about time that the Bush administration answered some of the hard questions that liberals would put to them and acknowledged the dissent among the American people. We aren't all behind you Bush, why don't you try a little harder to convince us, say by addressing our concerns? What am I saying, this is crazy talk.

Anyway, I would argue that BOTH sides of the spectrum are guilty of crushing dissent and that it is simply a matter of geography whose opinions are getting crushed. (New York Dems are probably just as accepting of conservative Dems as Missouri Republicans are of liberal Republicans.) Americans should all work harder to listen to views that are different than our own, not as Democrats or as republicans. But as people who live in the best country on earth and want it to stay that way, we have a responsibility to ourselves to hear what our brothers and sisters are saying and try to do what is best for everyone, not just what we want.

Why

This article in the New York times is an example of the reason that I am having this conversation with myself in the first place. Not only is it about a study that was clearly overpublicized and misinterpreted, it's also not a very good article.

The article talks about a study done in 1997 that showed that girls were reaching puberty as early as 9 and 10 years old. And Apparently the proposed cause was the bovine hormone used in milk. And so apparently "Sales of organic dairy products took off rapidly" (This article talks about the growing popularity of organic products, but that probably had more to do with overall increased consumption of organic products than it does with one study.)

Apparently this study received a lot of media attention. Here is the original article that appeared in the NYT's in 2001. And there are some follow up articles about groups that doubted the claims of early puberty. Suffice it to say that the ENTIRE second page of the original article talks about how milk was a possible cause and really presents no actual proof. Lots of narrative and talk about conversation.

Anyway, so now it is 2005, and we know we were wrong and that milk probably has nothing to do with early puberty. And so this is what we get from the NEw York Times

A study published in 2001, led by Dr. Kaplowitz, showed that girls who developed sooner tended to have higher body-mass indexes. It also said that the findings of the early puberty study coincided with a rise in nationwide rates of obesity.

THE BOTTOM LINE - Bovine growth hormones are not connected to the early onset of puberty in girls.

Studies these days are irresponsible, and looking for media attention (t0 get funding). But getting media attention can spread misinformation and that can have worse affects on society. And it is even worse when the media is irresponsible with the attention it gives to these studies.

Oh and as an added bonus "Watching TV Hastens the Onset of Puberty!" Can you find the logic derailment in that study?

More on Blogging

Once again Jeff Jarvis says what I've been thinking all along (and a lot more than he probably needed to) about the women in blogging issue. Stupid MSM bloggers, we were done with this like a week ago and here we are again.

But for those interested in more statistics on blogging I found this and this, both of which are interesting. But remember that just because it is a number doesn't mean it is the right number.

I suck at titles

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Walking the blog

It's monday and I'm pretty busy but I wanted to post something so my Blog didn't feel lonely.

So here is a couple of links to make my blog feel loved.

This interesting article from MSNBC about the male dominated upper eschalon of blogging. Why does this happen? I don't know if I agree with the "boys club" idea. The blogosphere isn't about gender, it is about ideas and the people who promote themselves and are the most interesting rise to the top. Ideally. But maybe topp 100 bloggers really just want to create there own little bloggy club of joy and let the rest of us run aorund like little peons, especially the women because they have nothing to say. Hmmm... Somehow I doubt it. I'm so tired of this discussion, why am I even posting about it? Maybe I'm just not frustrated enough yet to be bitter about my lack of traffic, but actually I think if people were really reading this blog it would freak me out. So on with life.

UPDATE: I was just checking out my friends at the NYT and I saw this article. Looks like a few weeks after the blogosphere is done with this Men holding back Women debate the MSM finally picks it up. I still don't agree with this. You can think I'm a nag all you want, it doesn't make me less right. But hey, if anyone is looking for an op-ed columnette they should hire me because I'm smart and bitchy.

MSNBC has another article about petfinder.com which is an amazing resource. (It's where I found my Dora) There are so many stray animals killed every year because they don't have a forever home. Spay, Neuter and Adopt!

Okay, back to work.

Blogging about Blogging

As any Instapundit reader already knows they have published results of a survey of bloggers. Much yayness.

I like this survey, why? Because the write up told us that this survey is merely a sample of a sample. Which is totally true. Also, the survey gathered only demographic information. YAY! So while the questions were still subjective no one can suddenly claim that all bloggers are insane.

Unfortunately it is VERY likely that these results were skewed by the blogs on which the survey was publicized. In a network like the blogosphere where similar blogs link to similar blogs it would be difficult to get a true random sample. So while it may be true that a given blogger is more likely to say they are a Democrat, it could also be true that more left leaning bloggers responded to ads on left leaning blogs. etc and so forth.

And I could wax theoretical about the best way to gather demographic data on a group like bloggers. But the complex structure of the blogging network would occupy me for several pages, so I wont do this. I will just say that it would be hard, and so I give these guys credit for trying to get any information at all.

I wonder how close to accurate the 75/25 male female ratio is? Sausage? Anyone? We're having a festival.

Side note, I find it HILARIOUS that Blogger's spell check function does not recognize the words, blog blogger or blogosphere as being words. Hilarious, and also annoying, like Gilbert Gottfried or something.

Indivisible

What's with Thursday? Why can't we just skip it and go directly to Friday, do not pass go do not suffer through another day at work.

And while I'm venting, why do I have to wake up every morning and be greated by the pale visage of The Creature Formerly Known as the King of Pop. My soy vanilla chai smoothie threatens to resurface ever time.

So to something topical. This weekend at my interview I was asked how I did with "multitasking." Well, I'm fabulous at multitasking, not only can I watch 2 TV shows simultaneously I can also kick the crap out of some rabid thistle bears on WoW all at the same time. Not to mention "I think being able to program a great set of tunes while simultaneously packing a nice, tight bowl is a good example of multitasking. " (thanks Hubris)

But apparently this is some kind of phenomenon among the younger folks. This article by my home newspaper is as usual an example of quality reporting. "Teens juggle homework with multimedia addiction" Addiction? B'scuse me!? For while I do think it is interesting that there seems to be an increase in the amount of time being spent doing media type activities, I think addiction is kindof a strong word. Also there is no proof of any kind of addiction in the study being reported. Bad Headline Awarded!!

I think it is weird that anyone would find the fact that kids IM, Play video games and watch TV all while doing homework newsworthy. I guess that is because I come from this generation and that is what we do. I'm fine, it just takes a little more to entertain me probably than it did my parents. For instance during movies I generally make origami out of my ticket stub or crochet or annoy the people arrond me by twitching. Okay, maybe I'm just weird.

Aaaaanyway, to my point this is one of those dangerous studies. Right now, it's all fine and very interesting. Kids report spending more time using different kinds of media and multitasking. In fact this may help with concentration or visual skills, (this study is good because they even looked at the angle that maybe individuals with better visual skills are more likely to be gamers, good news, not true!) And multitasking will be helpful in the workplace, if not in college.

Regardless soon this will morph into "OUR CHILDREN ARE BEING BRAINWASHED BY THE DEVIL"(Some people are stupid, Henry thinks the homosexuals would want to do him up the bum.) The media will start putting negative spin on it, and all of the bad parents will have to sit there and make sure thier kids only do their homework and not IM, or that they don't have the TV on. This will be lame, and I hope that it does not happen.

With Video games and Instant Messaging for all!

Don't trust your data!

One of my coworkers (I work in a data factory) has a sign in his cube. It has a registration card from a Republican organization, and the sign reads "Don't Trust your Data." I know, statistics humor, hardly funny.

But today I found this article on MSNBC about the recent problems that Choicepoint has been having. Choice point is a supplier for one of my clients so I found this article very interesting. They do age validation for my client where they use an individuals name and address to verify that they are eligable for certain programs. But apparently one year at a conference they looked up data for one of the girls I worked with and they had EVERYTHING.

But besides the security issues which are clearly vast. What is the point in having all of this information if much of it is wrong? Granted the MSBNC article gives only a few examples, and probably neglected to mention individuals whose reports were accurate. But if a company is going to provide complete information on an individual do they not have a responsibility to both their clients and the individual that the information provided be accurate?

This is the kind of thing that makes me wary of massive surveys or other efforts to obtain data about the public. Now that information is so much more readily available, that leaves more room for errors.

(If you do a google search for my name you will come up with about 82 entries. 5 of which actually pertain to me and the rest belong to others. My name is fairly unique so that helps, but I feel sorry for the others whose history might someone get mangled up with mine. Poor Choicepoint, they must be so confused.)

Anyway, this is also one of the reasons I don't use my real name on this blog. I don't want future employers to read my political or ideological musings because they were able to track me down.

Conventional Stupidity

I'm Back! I can tell you missed me. I will be a much better blogger this week I hope. A weekend of shoving my friends in and out of wedding dresses was exactly what the doctor ordered. (I guess the copious amounts of alcohol may have helped too.)

Yesterday CNN had a report on a "review" of 37 studies done by the federal government that consumption of dairy products alone was not enough to grow strong bones.

The study itself I have nothing to say about. I would like to talk instead about the implications of the types of reporting that one finds on these types of subjects. For while it may be entirely true that Milk really doesn't "do a body good" as we have been led to believe all of these years it is still a good source of calcium as the articles indicate on the inside.

Well as long as the article reports facts , what is wrong with a few sensational headlines?

When people make decisions they use methods called Heuristics, some of these heuristics are better at evaluating information than others, but for the most part none of them are good. One of them is called the Availability Heuristic. This method of decision making uses information that is easy to recall, disastrous events or things that have been repeated frequently. So while this information is not necessarily accurate is the easiest thing for us mere humans to remember.

Why am I talking about this? Well when I see headlines like Milk, You May Not Need it Like You Once Thought, or Study: Milk Does Not Help Build Strong Bones I am concerned. It is very likely that parents may remember these headlines and decide not to make their children drink milk, because what is the point? But they probably wont remember that the article suggested that exercise was necessary for building strong bones, or that there are other sources of calcium which is still a useful mineral for growing bodies.

There are much better headlines obviously, I have picked a few of the worst. But the Availability Heuristic is the reason that I pick on headlines specifically. The average Joe American wont remember what the article said, they will remember the main claims made by the headline and they will use it in future decision making. And so this is why I think that journalists should be more responsible in what kinds of claims they make in their headlines and their articles so as not to mislead the public.

Yargh

In Chicago this weekend hanging with the girls. Also have an interview on Friday. Wish me luck!

Sorry for the postlessness, was sick yesterday and so busy today. God forbid we leave my boss alone for 1 day.

Hip and Cool

Another reminder of why surveys aren't good. CNN's article today on the "Cell Phone Only" demographic, of which I am a member, brings up an important issue with polling.

The weather outside is frightful. More Later.