Analytics

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Miscellany: 11/22/15

Quote of the Day
The world is a dangerous place to live; 
not because of the people who are evil, 
but because of the people who don't do anything about it.
Albert Einstein

Graph of the Day

Via Independent Institute
via Twitter

Tweet of the Day

[Just a brief comment: I don't do tweets for impressions/hits, and it's difficult to know why some tweets are more popular than others. Some of the ones I really like attract nominal attention, like a handful of impressions. And then there was my recent Kerry tweet that has already tracked over 800 impressions, over 10 times my previous best over more than 600 tweets.]
Image of the Day



Autism, Anti-Vaxxers and Methodology

This is a theme I've discussed on multiple occasions. For example, in comparing infant mortality, the US employs wider-scope criteria, which means that the US includes higher-risk younger infants not counted in other, say European surveys. We've also seen a similar apples-oranges comparison in using the income inequality Gini coefficient where a focus on the deteriorating family structure or household income has exascerbated observed differences which we don't see on the individual level. So what do we expect when we broaden the reporting basis for autism? Is it really that there are more cases of autism--or simply children in the past who were not diagnosed/reported are getting diagnosed now? From the Genetic Literacy Project:
According to a just-released study, scientists at the Aarhus University, in Aarhus, Denmark assessed more than 670,000 children born between 1980 and 1991 in Denmark, following them from their birth until they were diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, died, emigrated or reached the end of the study period which was December 2011. Among other things, Denmark is renowned for its excellent national medical records system, which allowed them to conduct a study of this magnitude and over the extended time span. Among the population studied, 4,000 children were diagnosed as being along the autism spectrum and many of these diagnoses were made after 1995...
The researchers discovered that the change in diagnostic criteria taken together along with the diagnoses made outside of a healthcare facility accounted for as much as 60 percent of the increase in prevalence of autism spectrum disorders..
Political Potpourri

The big news yesterday is that Louisiana's senior US Senator David Vitter lost decisively to little-known Demoratic state legislator John Bel Edwards, apparently no relation to the former governor, who ran as a pro-life/gun/military vet candidate running a change election and basically stayed out of a heated 3-way primary battle between Vitter and 2 other Republicans, including the lieutenant governor. Jindal is term-limited out of the race, but even if eligible, he would never have had a shot, with popularity ratings at as low as 20%, even below Bush 43 at his worst. Vitter at one point was the prohibitive favorite when he announced over a year back; he had survived a sex scandal before his last reelection in 2010, but the affair and certain political dirty tricks, not to mention inheriting Jindal's unpopular legacy, poisoned his chances, with at least one GOP rival endorsing Edwards in the runoff. Vitter's positions are closer to the electorate, but Edwards ran on more of a personality based race. Vitter can more or less read the writing on the wall and announced that he would not run for election to his Senate seat next fall.

I don't know enough of Louisiana politics to know why name Democrats like Landrieu didn't enter the race (although she made it clear she had no appetite for another statewide race after her loss to Congressman Cassidy). I haven't studied Jindal's last term to know why he is now so unpopular; I suspect the current slumping oil and gas market probably hasn't helped Louisiana's tax revenues. There seems to be some fingerpointing at repealing the Stelly plan, which shifted the tax burden from some consumption taxes to income taxes. State coffers had been full from post-Katrina federal dollars and the 2007-8 energy boom; the politicians like Blanco and Jindal responded with increased spending and/or tax cuts, including the Stelly repeal, which Jindal, similar to Jerry Brown who came out for property tax reform afer opposing it during his earlier tenure in office, was a late convert in accepting. (If you wonder where I stand, I think income taxes are counterproductive, and the proper response is to starve the government beast. Cutting spending and/or take back tax breaks are deeply unpopular.

A bumper crop of new polls clearly show that Donald Trump, much to my chagrin, has gotten a post-Paris terrorist attack bounce. Fox News and ABC both have Trump with 10 points over Carson with Rubio and Cruz battling for a distant third and fourth. Iowa shows Cruz rising over 20% to runner up to Trump, followed by Carson and Rubio a distant fourth. Two NH polls have Trump leading second-place Rubio in double-digits, and South Carolina has Trump lapping the field over Carson and Rubio.

Facebook Corner

(National Review). It’s contrary to our constitutional values to bar immigrants based on their beliefs.
Trump is an ill-tempered, unqualified, incompetent, unprincipled fascist RINO, who appeals to xenophobes and the less educated. He fosters un-American values. He is an abominable loser trying to buy the Presidency on the cheap.

(LFC) The state can fix prices in the labor market 2 ways: Through minimum wage laws, or through forced unionization. Forced unionization involves government violence against scabs: Scabs/illegal workers are kept off the labor market through laws backed by cops and border guards. Like any other form of price fixing, migration barriers and other forms of forced unionization cause shortages.
Using force, i.e., government, to rig labor markets is purely corrupt cronyism.

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of the original artist via IPI
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Aretha Franklin, "Angel"

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