He is a man of sense
who does not grieve for what he has not,
but rejoices in what he has.
Epictetus
They say the darkest night
There's a light beyond:
Parent Trigger Granted in Los Angeles
Parents of 24th Street Elementary School won a 5-1 vote by the LA Board of Education to have the school converted to a private charter school, over the objections of the public monopoly-defending teacher unions. There's a key principle from several contexts--software engineering, iterative design, preventive medicine: it's lot easier to correct a problem sooner than later. If children don't master the fundamentals early, they will certainly struggle later. In a tough economy, kids can't afford for public institutions to fail them. Many Catholic prep schools, with students from the same neighborhoods, at a fraction of the operating costs of public alternatives, boast almost universal graduation and college placement rates.
My Congressman is So Embarrassing:
It's Like Having a Crazy Old Uncle
From The Hill:
The House voted Friday to freeze the pay of federal workers for the third year in a row over the objections of congressional Democrats and the Obama administration. The legislation is an attempt to override President Obama's executive order in December that seeks to give federal workers a 0.5 percent pay hike in late March. That order incensed congressional Republicans, who criticized it as an attempt to seize control of an issue that has traditionally been under Congress's purview. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said federal workers have "already contributed more than $100 billion towards reducing the deficit and funding unemployment benefits for millions of American workers."The Obama Administration, as expected, sucked up to federal workers, using the same predictable lines--in an economy where people will wait in line for hours for a shot at low-skill, low-wage jobs, the regime frets you will lose government workers whom have have had no layoffs (beyond, say, temp Census work), no compensation cuts I am aware of, benefit packages and job security far beyond most workers in the real economy, whom generally haven't shared in the pain of steep drops in household median income and net worth. Yes, indeed, federal workers, by all means, jump ship to the workers' paradise your Keynesian-in-Chief has engineered in the real economy over losing a token compensation increase.
The least productive worker in the world is a civil servant; he earns a living at the expense of the 5 of 6 workers whom work in the real economy; government is a monopoly and the only one allowed to print its own money. Obama gets no bonus for balancing the budget or producing a surplus (by the way, Speaker Boehner, might I suggest tying executive compensation to reductions in liabilities (especially unfunded ones), economic growth, operational efficiency, timely budget submissions, etc.? By the way, if we're going to means-test senior entitlements, shouldn't we do the same for pensions and other fungible benefits of former Presidents and legislators?
As for "Crazy Uncle Elijah", PLEASE: I've never voted for the guy. I don't know where this phony $100B 'cuts' number came from; I seem to remember back in my college salad days, math departments used to offer two type classes in calculus; one for math/science majors and another for "dummies" to use today's lingo. With the exception of a few frank actuaries, I don't trust a lot of government numbers (cf John Williams' shadowstats.com). I suspect this number probably came from some government union or is some projection of "what government workers would/should have earned under planned increases", i.e., the Democrats' version of the accounting gimmickry of spending cuts. CRY ME A RIVER! When people in the real world talk about salary cuts, they don't mean they didn't get a 3.5% increase; they mean they take home less money (beyond an expired payroll tax holiday).
New JOTY Nominee
The allegations that NJ Senator Menendez paid (below the agreed price) for sex with one or more underage prostitutes in visits to the Dominican Republic are troubling enough; it seems that the senator has refused to release his travel itinerary, which presumably would clear him if he wasn't in the country on the relevant dates. The Washington Post suggests that the FBI has been unable to corroborate the story. What we do know is that the eye doctor friend and supporter initially paid for multiple unreported Menendez's trips to the Dominican Republic. Menendez's office claims that this is a smear by the conservative website Daily Caller. (in the belief that a good defense is an evasive, ad hominem offense). [I'm more concerned about the underage allegation than an act of prostitution, although if the doctor, a political donor and supporter, paid for the service and Menendez didn't report it.] But the fact remains he only reimbursed the trips after his hand was caught in the cookie jar. New Jersey deserves better. I will say that in the aftermath of the Secret Service scandal, it's probably not a good idea to shortchange a prostitute.
Big Nanny, the Food Police and Faulty Science
I have regularly poked fun at Mayor Bloomberg (salt, sugary drink size) and Michelle Obama/the FDA/state School Lunch police. (I still remember a NC preschooler packed lunch of a turkey and cheese sandwich, chips, banana and apple juice was rejected as not nutritious and replaced by deep fried chicken nuggets, billed to her folks). In yesterday's post I embedded a moochers' Food Pyramid video and there was discussion of a recent book on faulty science often accepted by those on the Left.
For example, there has been fear-mongering over genetically modified foods by left-wing groups like Greenpeace. Ironically it was Fox News that temporarily hosted an article by a natural foods advocate/promoter Chris Kilman which discussed a recently published, controversial study linking rat fatal cancers to a certain Mansanto GMO corn (maize). Let me quote Emily Willingham, a Forbes science contributor:
The rest of the story about that French study is that it imploded under a global barrage of criticism, governmental distancing, accusations of serious conflicts of interest that went unstated, manipulation of the news media, and poorly executed and bad study design, including choice of animal model and statistics. The animal model the authors used, without any encouragement or manipulation whatsoever, will sprout tumors like mushrooms after a rainshower. The European Food Safety Authority stated in a news release at the end of November that “the authors’ conclusions cannot be regarded as scientifically sound because of inadequacies in the design, reporting, and analysis of the study.” The release notes a “broad European consensus” among member states that the authors’ conclusions were not supported by the data presented in the study.More details from another Forbes contributor:
The authors had to cherry-pick their own data to support their conclusions: in some groups, the rats got more cancer than controls. But not always. The type of statistical analysis they used is really a type of fishing expedition. One major problem is that only 10% of the rats were controls. The rats used in this study are a special laboratory strain that is highly prone to cancer. Another major problem is that there’s no dosage effect: rats fed the highest levels of GM corn lived longer than rats fed the lowest level; these [high-GMO] rats outlived the control rats.Yet a third Forbes blogger makes the same kind of observations that reflect how competent research reviewers (I reviewed a number of empirical articles while I was a professor) might reflect on a study like this one:
The multiple studies that have been done before looking at this very question for example. The fact that hundreds of millions of animals have been fed the stuff for years without anyone noticing anything odd about said animals. We’ve even got a nice natural experiment going on. Those humans in the Americas (North, South and Central) have been eating GM corn in vast quantities for a number of years now. Those humans in Europe have not [i.e., control group]. Again, we have not noted any difference in disease prevalence among the two groups that cannot be and is not explained by other factors.The study also was slanted by showing pictures of treatment (but not control) rats with tumors. Here is an example of a methodological critique on choice of animal and sample size:
A 1979 paper by Suzuki et al. published in the Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology looked at the spontaneous appearance of endocrine tumors in this particular line of rats. Spontaneous appearance basically means the authors didn’t apply any treatments (like feeding them GMOs or herbicides). They just watched the rats for 2 years and observed what happened in otherwise healthy rats. When the study was terminated at 2 years (the same duration as the Seralini study), a whopping 86% of male and 72% of female rats had developed tumors. In our very large sample of 10,000 simulated rats, we found that 71.4% of them will develop tumors by the end of a 2 year study. That’s pretty close to 72%. But here is where sample size becomes so critically important. If we only select 10 female rats, the chances of finding exactly 72% of them with tumors is much less. In fact, there is a pretty good chance the percentage of 10 rats developing tumors could be MUCH different than the population mean of 72%. This is because there is a greater chance that our small sample of 10 will not be representative of the larger population.I briefly discussed Taubes (interview) when discussing EconTalk (see blogroll); a brief disclosure: I earlier bought a copy of Why We Get Fat based on this EconTalk interview.
My Greatest Hits: February 2013
For some odd reason, a couple of Sept. 2008 posts got more hits in a couple of days than they had over the previous 2 years. (There's a lot of unreliable noise in the data, e.g., well-known Russian referer spam, which in part explains why I haven't referred to international readers.) I noticed my readership takes a hit after pro-life segments (I have a definite position on elective abortions, but it's one of many political positions, and I am not active in the pro-life movement. I see abortion as traditionally regulated at the state level.) I also got hit when I did a 3-part series on a Joe Klein column. Unlike Sean Hannity, I don't get oversensitive about the hypocritical mainstream media; I will make comments, say in reference to Sunday talk soup. For the most part, the left wing is looking for attention, and I don't think we should play into their hands.
On the other hand, I seem to pick up more readers when I discuss personal stories, embed some novel videos, or write articulate critiques of Obama. The runaway most read post was one about Fall River and my nineteenth century ancestral roots. Franco-Americans have a definite culture, and my favorite foods in the world (Mom hasn't made them my last few trips home for dietary reasons) are cretons and tourtiere, a common key ingredient which is ground pork (typically seasoned with bay leaf, allspice, cinnamon, and/or cloves). The former is a spicy meat spread, and the latter is a meat pie. There are lots of recipes on the Internet; I think my maternal grandmother made the former for my grandfather's grocery store. If you cook a good batch of cretons (you refrigerate the spread before eating), I dare you to stop at just one sandwich: be a Franco-American for the day and try it; just don't call the food police. (Just have it once in a while, and you'll be fine.)
- Miscellany: 2/02/13
- Miscellany: 1/21/13
- De Tocqueville, a Quote, and the "General Welfare"
- Miscellany: 1/17/13
- Miscellany: 1/19/13
The Supremes, "You Keep Me Hangin' On"
