Monthly Archives: January 2013

According to G. Michael Maddock and Raphael Louis Vitón, “Conscious Capitalism” Will Be The Framework For Your Next Decade Of Innovation, but I’m more inclined to Mr Garth’s skeptical position on this, This idea of “doing well by doing good” … Continue reading →

ThinkProgress reports that Lomborg Urges Climate Inaction With Misleading Stats In Murdoch's Wall Street Journal. This is the same guy who first threw up a wall of phoney statistical arguments against the reality of Anthropogenic Global Warming and then when … Continue reading →

William M. Briggs claims that Women In Combat Results In A Suboptimal Military but his argument belies his supposed expertise in statistics. I am taller and stronger than the average woman, but only around the 80th percentile. So 20% of … Continue reading →

Ted Kaptchuk of Harvard Medical School studies placebos | Harvard Magazine Jan-Feb 2013. One of the most intriguing points was that even a placebo identified as such to the patient can have a beneficial effect. So perhaps whatever benefit people … Continue reading →

Using the click2play option, a page needing JAVA (or any other plugin) requests permission to run it (which I can ignore if I don’t both trust the source and need the service). This is the only sensible option anyhow when … Continue reading →

…because I have freely decided to do it! Those who claim to have evidence that “you probably don’t have free will” or who assert that complex chaotic systems’ unpredictability “is what gives you free will” are both either unprincipled or … Continue reading →

One has to wonder why anyone would rework a song like R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” from Minor to Major Scale, though I suppose at least it serves someone’s political purpose. But to do the same with the Doors ‘Riders of … Continue reading →

Spanish Runner, Ivan Fernandez Anaya, gave up the opportunity to take advantage of a misunderstanding by his opponent and then was sincerely frank about why he did so. This doesn’t change my opinion as to the silliness of high-stakes athletic … Continue reading →

William M. Briggslaments the abuse of statistics in many of its applications. But I really think that he undermines his case when he attacks “classical statistics” itself rather than its abuse. Such abuse is definitely all too common in many … Continue reading →

I have always thought that if anyone had a brain the financial world should have collapsed when the US “debt ceiling” was first enacted, since it amounts to a declaration of total financial irresponsibility by the largest participant in that … Continue reading →

In this sports roundtable at The Atlantic, Patrick Hruby, Jake Simpson, and Hampton Stevens discuss their reactions to the prospect of Lance Armstrong’s upcoming interview with Oprah Winfrey, and I must say I’m most closely aligned with Hruby. The best … Continue reading →

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ writing at The Atlantic often hits the nail for me (thank you Izabella). Here he discusses the fact that (contra Django) the sentiment of ex-slaves appears to have been significantly less vengeful than that of those who now … Continue reading →

It’s no insult to Obama to say that TIME’s “Runner-Up”, Malala Yousafzai would have been a better choice than the boring predictability of giving a second nod to a re-elected president. Actually if Obama has a second year to own … Continue reading →