Disrespecting the Dead

Is it more believable sounding because I want it to be true? Because... conspiracy theories usually aren't my bag. And here's a similar group of thoughts from a shameless photo op perspective. (warning, graphic photos) (Via Q and O)

How Statistics won WWII

The guy who sells me the forecasting software I use sent me this great article about how statisticians contributed to the final push against ze germans in WWII.

I wonder if we'll be as useful in WWIII?

more feminist mumbo jumbo

Read This Larry Summers!

Intellectual Independence

It try to eschew bias in favor of facts. Though I don't always succeed. (Who does)

But I found this Cato Article on Cognitive Independance a very good read, if more people tried harder maybe we could get past the Liberal v. Conservative grudge match and actually find solutions for a better country.

Abortion Statistics: Lies for Life

This post by Tim Worstall (thanks chez) gives the most biased interpretation of an already biased article I've seen in quite some time.

His post entitled "sex education works" quotes two statistics from a long article in the telegraph about UK abortion rates. I'll get to the statistics, but let me first point out that his "point" about sex education and abortion rates is not justified, as there is NOTHING in either of these articles that says anything about the levels of sex education increasing in the UK. Now, maybe there is some big debate that's ongoing that I don't know about, 'cause I don't live in the UK. But inferring a causal relationship without providing ANY evidence (even corralative evidence) is a bit of a jump.

The two statistics he highlights are as follows:

Abortions have reached record levels, and nearly a third of women who have an abortion have had one or more before.

Department of Health statistics reveal that abortions in England and Wales rose by more than 700 in 2005, from 185,713 in 2004 to 186,416
....
Some 31 per cent of women had one or more previous abortions, a figure that rises to 43 per cent among black British women.

Now, me being the analytical mind I am, the first thing I did when i saw this was subtract and divide, and guess what kids, 0.4%, that is the increase we are talking about here. UPDATE! It looks like the population of the UK actually increased by .67% from Mid 2004- Mid 2005. So the growth of the population (which was largely from immigration) could account for the current increase. And also, the average population increase since 2001 has been .4%. So the number of abortions is almost flat when compared to the population increases.

And you can go on whatever pro life rant you want, but that doesn't change the following statistics:

-the total number of abortions was 186,400, compared with 185,700 in 2004, a rise of 0.4%

-the total number of abortions was 185,400, compared with 181,600 in 2003, a rise of 2.1%

-the total number of abortions was 181,600, compared with 175,900 in 2002, a rise of 3.2%

Which % increase do you prefer? So instead of celebarating that the RATE of increase is slowing, we're going to be shocked that it continues to increase at all. Looked at this way, it looks like some progress is being made. And maybe that IS the result of Sex-Education. But I still have no idea where that bit came from.

UPDATE 7/06- I WAS just going to let this post sink into the deep black hole as so many of my posts are wont to do. But now I'm pissed. (surprise) My comment on Tim's post was edited as follows:

That's a .4% increase. Not even half a percentage point. And based on the statistics I've been able to locate this is the smallest increase of the last three years.

This is a clearly biased view of these statistics.

Tim adds: Yup, I am biased. You OK with that?

Well NO Tim, actually I'm NOT okay with that. But I'm sorry it is just asking too much for you to look at evidence for something other than confirmation of your opinions. It took me 10 seconds too google all that UK health information. God forbid you (Or even better, the person from the Telegraph who wrote the uberbiased article) actually do a little research.

Angels

Why don't we have programs like this in the us?

SENDAI--Tohoku University is to dispatch "Science Angels"--female volunteer students from its graduate school--to primary, middle and high schools in Sendai to attract more females into science.

Instead we sit around debating whether women are really good at science. Well Japan seems to think we are

Prof. Motoko Kotani, who is in charge of the program, said, "An analysis of academic performance by 15-year-olds shows that women are not inferior to men in scientific subjects."

The Perfect Crime

Must be nice if you can re write the law AFTER you break it. Too bad Clinton didn't think of this one.

Study: Virginity linked to Obesity

Duh! Too bad I made it up. (That's the Lies part)

I just wanted Dubya's face off the top of my webpage.

Get ready everyone, Friday is Nekkid Blogging day!! (And by that I mean, find hotter blogger to participate in this.)

Bigots II

Remember last week, when I had a bad morning and then very diplomatically called everyone who was opposed to gay marriage bigots?

Funny Story

President George W. Bush is a bigot.

Not of course that we didn't already know that. (I had hoped it was not true, oh fleeting hope) But now, by my definition (which is of course the only important definition) he is a bigot. Andrew Sullivan has an article in the Times Online which discusses Bush's attitude towards gays in more detail, noting that while he is not personally biggoted against him, his policies often are:

What to make of this? On the one hand it’s good to know that these men are not
personally bigoted or intolerant. On the other hand their alliance with elements
that do consistently rail against illegal immigrants, Hispanics and gay people
in ugly rhetorical broadsides is undeniable.

Does their personal
tolerance make their policies less or more distasteful? I’d say more
distasteful, since they know better. A man with a gay daughter in a loving
relationship should not be campaigning on the idea that such relationships
destroy the family. Whose family? Cheney’s?

So perhaps they personally don't really hate gay people, but that doesn't excuse them advocating policies that pander to those who do. As I am not a personal friend of either Bush or Cheney I am unlikely to ever fully grasp their tolerance for gays beyond their policies. Policies which are, unfortunately biggoted.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) (Bigot, plus his state is too) makes a good point about this whole gay marriage amendment. It is one of the least worthwhile things that congress could be spending their time on, especially since we already know it is going to fail. As he said in his speech today:

So for me it is clear the reason for this debate is to divide our society, to
pit one against another. This is another one of the President’s efforts to
frighten, to distort, to distract, and to confuse America. It is this
Administration’s way of avoiding the tough, real problems that American citizens
are confronted with each and every day.

Unfortunately, ChrisB made a good point in chat today, "If congress spends all its time debating this useless amendment, then that's just less time they're spending screwing up the country."

Alas, it's funny 'cause it's true.

Gross Generalizations

Tim F. At Balloon Juice has an excellent post that makes many excellent points about how people on the right marginalized opponents to the invasion of Iraq.

I don't really have any more to say about it than what he already said. So yeah.

Bigots

Yesterday Washington Times columnist Greg Pierce claimed
that Howard Dean had "suggested that opponents of homosexual 'marriage' are
bigots." This explosive claim that was immediately trumpeted by Matt Drudge, who inflated
it to state that "Dem Chair Dean Compares Gay Marriage Opponents To Bigots."

You can read about how that is not actually what Dean said over at Brendan Nyhan's. Because it isn't what he said. AT ALL

But-

Who cares if it was? I seem to recall some conservatives like to criticizing the left for being too Politically Correct. Well, here's a major Democrat, not being so PC, how do you like it now? Because you know what, if Howard Dean had called opponents of Gay Marriage bigots, he was RIGHT!

big·ot -
One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.

Lets be honest here people racists, anti gay people are certain religious activists are bigots. They are intolerant of other groups and of other people's actions. So why don't we call them this? Why do we use nice words, and play nice with people who smear entire groups of people and engender hatred? "white supremacists"= Bigots "Neo-Nazis" = Bigots "Jeff Williams" = Bigot(And pedophile), the list goes on and on. Let's call a spade a spade, and a bigot a bigot.

If you don't want gay people to marry and have equal rights under the law, you, are a bigot. You are being partial agains a group that is different than your own and wanting to deny them rights. (Unless you are gay, and don't want gays to marry, and then well... what?) Be honest with yourself, if you really don't think gays should marry, then you must not like gays, and are therefore a bigot. Feel free to disagree, but in this, I am also a bigot.

I'm a bigot against bigots. I HATE people who can't tolerate others, I am intolerant of intolerant people. And that makes me a hypocrite too, so I guess you can just ignore and marginalize me. Have fun with that.

Obviously!

Hillary Clinton Is Too Ambitious To Be The First Female President

Oh I'm so silly, why couldn't I have seen it before. That just makes perfect sense.

A Different Way

Jeff at Shape of Days, you may feel like you will lose friends, but you may find that you have more support than you expect. Read It. Via Ilyka

A Modest Proposal

"As Frederick Jackson Turner argued: "The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development."

But why only westward? Why not Northward? Perhaps it is time to unleash our restless frontier spirit. Where better than to Canada? And who better to lead us than Vicente Fox?
After all, Canada is virtually empty. There are less than 30 million Canadians in over 3.9 million square miles. It's bigger than the United States and largely undeveloped. Plus, bin Laden doesn't seem to care about Canada. We will no longer be in the bull's eye. Let the Mexican/New Americans deal with him.

We Americans could build the malls, golf courses and high-tech corridors that Canadians refuse to build. No civilized people care about technical borders anymore. It's so possessive and stingy. Only fussy Canadian nativists and xenophobes will complain that Canada is theirs. Yeah? You and what National Guard? There are 300 million of us and only 30 million of you. Get used to it. Plus, we already speak your language. Or, technically, we both already speak England's language. "

Read the Whole Thing

Watch what you say on the Internet!

Big brother is Watching!!! (Via Feministe & Pandagon):

When former AT&T technician Mark Klein learned of a secret

room installed in the company's San Francisco internet

switching center, he was certain he had stumbled onto the Total

Information Awareness program, a Defense Department
research project that intended to scour databases across

the country for telltale signs of terrorists.

Here is the full text of the AT&T whistleblower's testimony regarding Secret Rooms in AT&T buildings used to spy on internet messages.

The whistleblower's testimony is based mostly on wiring documents, and also the hardware in the room. One machine called a Narus, is apparently specifically designed to snoop on internet traffic (apparently very popular in the corporate world):

"Anything that comes through (an internet protocol network),

we can record," says Steve Bannerman, marketing vice president

of Narus, a Mountain View, California, company. "We can reconstruct

all of their e-mails along with attachments, see what web pages they

clicked on, we can reconstruct their (voice over internet protocol)
calls."

Sooooo why does AT&T need to reroute all their cable through a cabinet, and then into another rooom where one of these machine's resides? And why would no one but NSA cleared staff have access to this room.

I'm a little scared right now. I mean, the phone number storing, fine, but being able to track everything everyone says or looks at on the internet, that is, in my opinion, a clear invasion of privacy. They are indiscriminantly collecting information on individuals without a warrant or any kind of due process and without their knowledge. That has to be at least 2 laws that we are breaking, right?

Which hopefully means that none of the information they collect in this endeavor could be used against an American citizen in a criminal case because it is collected outside the protetcions provided to us. So, what again is the purpose of this program? Besides snooping in a serious way.

Making life easy for predators

Today, as with many days, I was sitting here in the QandO chat room with ChrisB from Texas. All of the other "regulars" were gone for the day. Then our new friend jane1994 dropped in. She greets us, tells us her real name, and she chats breifly with Chris, but I am busy working. Soon she says she has to go, will we be there at 6:30? Of course I say something sarcastic she does not pick up on, and then she GAVE US HER PHONE NUMBER to call her, if we should wish.

I asked her how old she was, and she asked my name, and I told her I don't give my real name out to people on the internet, as they might be stalkers. Chris then posted a google satallite map to her house while I mentioned how EXTREMELY unwise it is to give your phone number out to strangers. And then, for added fun I googled her and found her 4th grade book report. (2003, so yeah) She of course said the phone number was a fake, etc, but I certainly hope she wont be giving out numbers to anyone else anytime soon.

This whole conversation is alarming. If either Chris or I had a strange fascination with 12 year old girls, she could have been at serious risk. But I don't think she had any idea about the kindof information that can be found about a person on the internet. Google makes all of this especially easy, which isn't google's fault, it's job is to help people find information. But this means that everyone should carefully guard what information about them is made publicly available on the internet.

Parents need to talk to their kids about internet safety and explain the idea that anything you put on the internet is available for anyone to get ahold of. Even if parent's don't have the internet in the house, or restrict their access, it is important that kids understand not to give out their real names, phone numbers or other identifying information. If someone asks your name, give them a fake one, they'll never know you're lying, just like you'll never know if they are lying to you.

Darth Vader

Delivers the bad news.

Security

Since 9/11 security has become a huge political issue. Keeping the citizens of the U.S. safe has become Priority #1 (at least in speeches). And how do they ensure our safety? Some of the protections aren't too inconvenient: airport screening takes longer, and occasionally there are more cops around than normal, oh and we've spent a lot of money what else is new.

But some programs like the NSA wiretapping and provisions of the patriot act that allow for certain invasions of privacy have people like me bridling. I don't really want the government to have access to my library records (I mean do they really need to know about my prediliction for bad fantasy novels?). Also,Torture has become a huge hot button issue, and it seems in some circles that if you don't agree with it, it is because you don't want the safety of Americans. Like the quotes I posted here a few days ago, the government has used our fear of another terrorist attack to justify actions that before 9/11 would never have been tolerated.

But there is a counterargument, from John C. Gannon, former CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence:

"I believe that the hard-won Constitutional freedoms enjoyed by Americans, along with our unparalleled commitment to civil liberties embedded in law, work against the development of domestic terrorist networks that could be exploited by foreigners."..."This is not an academic point for me. It is an observation from a career of watching the domestic consequences of repressive regimes elsewhere in the world--including US-friendly Islamic governments such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt,"

He has a lot of good things to say, read the whole article, here's what he had to say about the NSA program (emphasis mine):

"The NSA warrantless surveillance program--the details of which are mired in secrecy--should not be seen as a tradeoff between security and civil liberties. But, for this to be true, the program must be bound by law and subject to both judicial review and competent Congressional oversight--the latter now in short supply."

I hope that someone, say the democrats maybe, will take his words and follow through. The American people should not have to sacrifice their freedom to protect it. Protecting our civil liberties is not being soft on terrorism. It is protecting what this country stands for even in the face of the enemy. We have to defy their attempts to cow us by standing strong.

Broken?

Oh Blog Oh blog, wherefore art thou f-ed up?
Deny thy f-ed-up-ness and forsake thy bugs!
Or, if thou wilt not, be but backed up on my hard drive,
And I'll no longer be pissed off.

Update: ahhh, that's better

A Capitalist Approach

to feminism.

Reader's Digest Version: Indian women are in shorter and shorter supply because Indian women are selectively aborting female babies to avoid the financial burden posed by the Dowry's required (and possibly also not to give life to a child who will live a more unpleasant life than her brothers). They want to make this practice illegal. But keeping the practice legal will eventually result in more equality for women, as the supply is limited, and women will have their pick of suitors, it will no longer be the women with the dowrys. Though I think the eventual goal should always be equality, both in numbers and in stature, this seems like a reasonable solution to me. Limit supply to increase demand, right?