Specular's Open Salon Blog

A Caption Waiting for a Cartoon

Wed, 7 Oct 2009 22:10:52 -0400

I thought I loved him until I realized he was always going to say, "Let's get merry" and never "Let's get married."

Actually, it might just have been that he said, "Let's get merry."

Infuriated over the Public Option Vote

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:09:13 -0400

Yesterday, the Senate Finance Committee voted down two public option bills, with multiple Democrats defecting. Sen. Baucus used the votes as evidence that a public option couldn't get the votes to pass in the Senate. This infuriates me because it is both cowardly and short-sighted, if not a massive misread of the political tea leaves.

The public option is popular, which in-and-of-itself should give reluctant Senators cover to vote for the best plan on the table. But, more importantly, the people who oppose the public option do so largely out of ill-informed fears. The public option will not do any of the things that most objectors think it will do. It won't create a single-payer system. It won't give the government control over individuals' health choices. It won't create "death panels." It won't replace anything someone likes better. It will only give them a choice.

Because the opposition is based almost entirely on fear and misinformation, passing the public option is a huge win for Democrats. Once people experience the actuality of the public option, their fear and misinformation will be swept aside by reality. People who have had poor employee-based health care who get a better choice because of the public option will reward the Democrats at the ballot box. People who have good coverage they keep won't punish them.

If the Democrats continue with their cowardly ways, however, they will be punished. Americans aren't going to be happy with mandatory insurance policies when their only options are the same over-priced ones we have today. The proposed health care bill does little to control costs. It may increase costs because it disallows insurers to cherry-pick who they insure. Insuring actual sick people costs more than insuring potentially sick people. Somebody has to pay for that increase. Without a public option to keep them honest, that increase will be born by consumers, not insurance company profits.

A healthcare bill without a strong public option is poor public policy and even poorer politics.

In Lieu of Content: Don't Leave Me This Way

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:09:29 -0400

Comparative Gamble/Huff, lesson number one.

The Chart Topper: Thelma Louise reached #1 in ‘76 with the Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff and Cary Gilbert composition.

Ultra ’80s new wave: Jimmy Somerville (ex-Bronski Beat) and the Communards scored no. 40 on the U.S. pop charts, but went to the top of the U.K. charts with their version. It's almost sacrilegious to say that it's better than the Thelma Louise version, but it is.

(Is it wrong that Sarah Jane Morris looks hot in that ’80s version of a Marie Antoinette get-up? Did the bizarre excesses of ’80s fashion permanently shift fashion's gaze to the past?)

But the best is the original: Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes 1975 recording. While it only went to no. 5 in the U.S. (and didn't chart in the U.K.), this is the version that's done right. Jimmy Somerville and Thelma Louise are great disco singers, but HMBN are masters of Philly Soul, and this track needs the roots.

In lieu of content: luv da cranky

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:09:31 -0400

Rant du jour: take a stat class, dummy

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:09:05 -0400

While I was watching Jay Cutler make the Denver Bronco's management look brilliant (3 interceptions with 4:39 left in the first half: go, Jay, go!), the Chicago Bears scored their first points of the season with a safety. The NBC announcer noted that since Lovie Smith took over the coaching duties, the Bears have scored 21% of their points with special teams or defense. The league average is 9%. The announcer than said that this means the Bears score twice as many points off special teams/defense than the rest of the league. Wrong. It means as a percentage of their own scoring, they double the league average. If a team scored twice as many point per game than the lackluster Chicago offense, but had 11% of their points coming from st/d, they'd score more st/d points than the Bears. Given how many points the Patriots scored in their 16-win 2007 season, it's entirely possible that they did just that.

Of course, this doesn't matter much in covering a football game. But when so many people go to the polls, attend rallies, give donations and otherwise participate in democracy with similarly shoddy statistical skills, it creates problems. They base their opinions on either false understandings of statistics, or too readily buy into poor/manipulated statistics.

Often, people with poor statistical education will quote the old warhorse that statistics can say anything you want them to. That's only true if you don't know enough to see through bad statistics. A marginally savvy reader will spot obvious statistical manipulation, ask for clarification about methodology when results seem counter to expectation and otherwise have the capacity to see the difference between good statistics and crap ones. But so few Americans have a clue how to think about statistical information that it's easy to mislead them.

Boring as they may be, basic statistics should be taught in high school. Give future voters a chance at understanding the information they'll be dealing with throughout their adult lives.