Bad Writing on a Statistically Related Issue

In today’s (30 May, 2009) Peoria Journal Star, I read the following on the front page:
(article: Concealed firearms idea strikes a chord)

An unscientific poll of readers overwhelmingly agree with the mayor that Peoria should be the city where concealed carry legislation is tested. More that 800 people voted as of 9:30 pm. Friday, with 47 percent in support of Ardis’ idea.

Think about it for a second. 47 percent is overwhelming support???

Interestingly enough, if one goes to the poll itself, the conclusion is correct even if the statistics are poorly presented. One can find the poll here (the article I am quoting is not up on the website).

It turns out that the poll is constructed as follows (with more current numbers):

Yes, agree with the Mayor (50 percent)
No, disagree with the Mayor (14 percent)
Should be “state only”: (26 percent)
No conceal carry law at all: (11 percent)

So in fact, those responding to the poll are either in favor of the Mayor’s plan OR in favor of a concealed carry law. However, the newspaper article should have mentioned the wording of the poll question.

My take: though I don’t like crime, I am far more afraid of an idiotic, untrained yahoo carrying a gun than I am of the crooks as there are a lot more ignorant, untrained yahoos than there are crooks.

I need to get tougher

Family House 5K today. Bottom line: my time was 24:00.7 (70 out of 239)

What happened: mile 1: 7:27 (ok) Mile 2: 7:33 (15:01). Mile 3: 8:14 (23:15). 45 seconds for the last .1.
What went wrong: I was tracking Mike Rucker at mile 2 and then stopped! He yelled at me for stopping.

I just am not used to “5K” type of pain; I was out of breath. I walked a few seconds, restarted but couldn’t regain my lost ground (20 seconds or so). In the last mile Terry Whitehead got me back and Pat O’Bryan almost got me.

The silver lining: this is my fastest time since January 8, 2006 (well before my piriformis injury). Still, I want to get that sub 24 monkey off of my back.

Irony I used an age grade calculator to compare this 5K run to the marathon walk I did a couple of weeks ago. My “equivalent” marathon walk time: 5:14:31. My actual time: 5:14:26.

Barbara went with me and finished in 56:00. I walked the last mile with her; I finished with 6 for the day.

Some photos:

Mary Hosbrough with friends at mile 2.

Barbara at mile 2.

Butt shot of Barbara.

30 May 2009, Morning

NBA: The Lakers sure are looking like a championship caliber team at the moment:

Can Cleveland come back? They have a tall order and Orlando has the edge, but I can’t count the Cavaliers out yet.

Social-political

Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination: here is an honest analysis of one of her decisions that I didn’t like:

The right to free speech embodied in the First Amendment is not a right to speak without consequence. If you tell your girlfriend, yes, your ass does look fat in those jeans, the consequence is likely to be no nookie for at least a month. If in a job interview, you say that your goal is to spend as little time working as possible and intend to surf the internets at every opportunity, you consequently aren’t going to get the job. If you set up an anti-semetic Facebook page that spews hateful racism and encourages violence, you run the risk that the Facebook people are going to tell you to piss off.

The problem arises when it’s the state that’s doling out the consequences.

Public school settings present a particularly thorny First Amendment landscape, where the balance between the free speech rights of students are often in awkward tension with the legitimate interests of schools to maintain an effective learning environment. If a student stands up in the middle of Algebra class each day and spends 10 minutes screaming “fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuuuuuuuuuuuuck” a the top of his lungs, I think we can all agree that while it might be funny the first time, it’s speech that is disruptive, and that, well, there should be some kind of consequence – even if that consequence technically transgresses the student’s First Amendment right to yell “fuck.”

In contrast, what the school failed to demonstrate, in the Doninger case, is that what Doninger wrote on her personal blog actually had the effect of disrupting the school (or, was so likely to do so that the school had no alternative to imposing discipline). That school administrators got some annoying phone calls and emails as a result of the blog (and a related email the students sent out) is insufficient to outweigh the likelihood that student free speech would be chilled as a result of banning Doninger from running for school office. So, I think, Sotomayor and the other members of the Second Circuit panel got it wrong.

That said, First Amendment cases that involve public schools are almost never easy, and very, very often are the result of the failure of the adults involved to find a solution to the problem that doesn’t involve state-imposed punishment. [...]

Religion Miracles: if someone performed a miracle 2000 years ago, they are a “savior”. If they did it during the dark ages, they are a witch and were executed.

Republican Buffoonery

Enjoy today’s Republican Buffoonery:

Watch their heads turn 360 degrees over the Sotomayor nomination:

She is David Duke in a skirt. If she is confirmed, the Civil War was fought for no reason. Female bodily functions are also a hazard.

Of course, now the Republicans are turning on each other.

My question: how long will it take for a sitting United States Senator to apologize to Rush Limbaugh?

Good times:

LIMBAUGH: The bash-Rush — the pass key for RINO Republicans to get glowing media treatment — works for Colin Powell, it worked for Tom Ridge, and it’s now working for John Cornyn, a person from — I’m probably going to embarrass him by saying this, but I was asked by friends to do a fundraiser for Senator Cornyn when he was running, and I did — flew to Texas and I did it. Yesterday on NPR, John Cornyn was asked this question: “We’ve heard Rush Limbaugh. We’ve heard the Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich calling Sonia Sotomayor a racist, saying that she should withdraw.” I didn’t say that, Newt did, but that’s the question. “What do you make of the rhetoric that’s tumbling out of these people these days, Senator Cornyn?”

CORNYN : I think it’s terrible. This is not the tone that any of us want to set when it comes to performing our constitutional abilities of advice and consent. Neither one of these men are elected Republican officials. I just don’t think it’s appropriate. I certainly don’t endorse it. I think it’s wrong.

LIMBAUGH: All right, now we’ll talk about this in detail as the program unfolds here. But we can not forget something here, ladies and gentlemen — that is that the Democrat Party was and is vicious.

It’s not clear why the Democratic Party is vicious because John Cornyn thinks Rush Limbaugh’s hate speech is terrible, but it apparently makes sense in Rush’s fevered mind. Who cares. Let’s just enjoy the fact that the titular head of the Republican Party continues to help tear the GOP apart.

At the rate this is going, we’ll have 80-85 “Democrats” in the United States Senate.