Atrios was there first
ArchPundit
but you have to throw a bone to the puppy when he isn’t being a caricature of himself.
"Gay Plague"?
But to see a caricature go here.
I guess one thing about Andy is that he isn’t afraid to be a over the top consistently.
2003
Undeserved Attention
I have a big problem with the Danish Committee for Scientific Dishonesty, but not the problem most people have. Lomborg’s book isn’t science so why be concerned with it? I’m confused about how Cambridge had it peer reviewed actually–unless it was by someone not in the hard sciences. There is no scientific research in the book from what I’ve seen.
A good gig for you, if you can get it like Lomborg did.
Chavez and the rule of law
Ummm…does anyone notice that Chavez is legally elected? He is a punk and he may try and stay on beyond his term which would be a problem. However, this bit of framing is disingenuous. The rule of law must be given strong weight in determining when elections take place. There are times when exceptions are reasonable and necessary. Maybe this is the time, but that isn’t the argument being made. Instead the opponents of Chavez are attempting to frame the debate as Chavez being the impediment to the well workings of democracy when he is following the law.
The real problem seems to be what if he wins the next election? Do the opponents accept such a result or do they continue to subvert the process?
News at 11, Corporate Relocations aren’t good Development
Stating the most bloody obvious conclusion, Good Jobs First points out that Illinois’ economic development policy is bad policy.
Damn, goo goos, don’t they understand it is great at filling political coffers?
License for Bribes Minute
Today’s installment has our hapless defense lawyer asking about Juliano’s work product. Apparently, someone found some actual work in his office! But Juliano explains that, alas, someone had given it to him as a cover.
I mean, wouldn’t it just be easier to do the work than conspiring to make it look like you did actual state work?
From the other day:
But Stanley, a former Republican lawmaker from suburban Streamwood, was also hungry for state contracts, Juliano testified. Juliano said he walked into Fawell?s office one day and was told how Stanley had been lobbying for a contract to use mailings to publicize the state organ donor program.
“The Hog really wants that direct-mail contract ? he?s really bugging me about it,?? Juliano quoted Fawell as saying.
“When you say the Hog, Sir, who did he mean??? asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Collins, the top Operation Safe Road prosecutor.
Something has horribly gone wrong with your career if you are referred to as The Hog.
Something has gone horribly right with your career if you are a federal prosecutor who gets to ask this question:
“When you say the Hog, Sir, who did he mean??? asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Collins, the top Operation Safe Road prosecutor.
First Acts–Fire ‘em
G-Rod got off to a good start by firing over 35 people from the Ryan administration including Scott Fawell and his mistress. However, we still have some rather problematic appointments that need to be taken care of including Bill Shaw. Can the Lege and G-Rod find a way to fire this guy?
Abusing the right to a defense?
Jennifer Joyce, normally one of my favorite St. Louis politicians, comes up with a colossally stupid idea of penalizing those who request DNA tests, but fail them.
While it is cruel, the courts system must promote every option for a person to clear themselves. Penalizing them for taking that route creates a perverse incentive that should not exist.
Coming up craps
Betty is directed to prison early since the judge intends to keep her from gambling the restitution money away. How humiliating. How fitting.
Mark Brown bothers to figure out the rate of wagering and I’m wondering why the judge is giving her two weeks.
Lotta Lotts
As far as academic gigs go, John Lott has made a good gig for himself by doing half-assed research that was hungrily devoured by those who wanted to agree with his results. While I’ll put peer review over the law review process in most cases, Lott figured out that most reviewers in non-technical journals don’t really know enough to knock down poor statistical choices and so he got his concealed carry stuff published as peer reviewed. As with any simple model of crime, the results suffer from pretty clear signs of multicollinearity and the model choice is half-assed if not quarter-assed. Saying the work was theoretically suspect is generous.
However, these aren’t problems only found in Lott’s work so I don’t find it much to get worked up about. It is a bit disconcerting that half-assed work is used to promote policy, but that isn’t really much new either. Charles Murray has made a far longer run at influencing policy with junk work and we can find all sorts of liberal examples as well.
For some reason the "the dog ate my survey" rang true to me. Probably because I’m an absent-minded moron and have lost or had data corrupted before two professional conferences and had to make the same claim. I actually feel bad for him because it is pretty damn embarrassing. Stupid, but embarrassing.
A real social scientist would be disturbed as Julian Sanchez points out, but Lott gets attention and plenty of air time.
But what we find out now is that Lott definitely has an on-line alter ego named Mary Rosh who has been actively defending and promoting John Lott’s work for quite some time. I understand the idea of using anonymity and the issue of defending one’s work that way makes sense.
More disturbing is the notion that Rosh was not just arguing the points, but actually telling stories about interactions with him and writing gushing book reviews for himself.
This seems a bit more serious. After all, if he owns guns, wouldn’t having multiple personalities be a reason for confiscation?
You can’t really complain when you set yourself up that badly…
Remnants of the Metro South Citizen’s Council
Interestingly, the Friends and Advocates of Neighborhood Schools slate from 1991 has an alumnus running for the 16th Ward Aldermanic seat as a Republican. Carol A. Wilson is running for the spot vacated by Jim Shrewsbury when he ascended to the President of the Board of Alderman.
I’ve been snoozing though. Carol Wilson is also a member of the St. Louis Board of Elections and appointed to it by the Bobster. So apparently white washing one’s background is a bipartisan affair here in Misery. Timothy J. Wilson, her husband is also a Circuit Court Judge in the City of Saint Louis.
Who cares? Well, the Friends and Advocates slate, despite sounding like a Quaker slate, was a slate backed by Thomas Bugel, former head of the Metro South Citizens’ Council, in 1991. The Metro South Citizens’ Council was the local variant of the Council of Conservative Citizens. She had nice things to say about her former slate members as well. From Jo Mannies March 17, 1991 column she said:
‘I’m proud of the people I’m running with.’
This must have included William J. Macke, cofounder of the Metro South Citizens’ Council. It is unclear to me that even Macke’s mother could be proud of him.
From January 20th:
Macke is one of the founders of the Metro South Citizens Council, a group that he describes as ”an interest group of white citizens.” But Macke denies that it is racist, saying the South Side group simply represents ”property owners who are conservative.”
White property owners that is.
From the March 17th article:
slate. The Kids slate demanding that the treasurer of the Friends slate resign because he had made a $250 campaign contribution to David Duke of Louisiana. Duke is a former member of the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party who now is running for governor. He ran a highly publicized campaign for the U.S. Senate last year. The Kids slate also took aim at a $1,000 contribution that the Friends slate got from a segregationist. Kids candidate Stewart said the Duke link and the segregationist’s contribution demonstrated that the Friends slate was ”anti-black.”
Friends slate member Wilson and some of the board’s anti-busing members accusing the Kids slate of being racist against whites. They pointed to endorsements the Kids slate got from Comptroller Virvus Jones and state Rep. Paula Carter, D-St. Louis. The Friends slate says Jones and Carter are ”black racists.” Bugel alleges that Carter ran a racist primary campaign against Aldermanic President Thomas A. Villa, who is white. Bugel accusing Kids candidate Purdy of injecting ”gutter-level smear tactics into this campaign.”
Things not heard around here often, Bill Purdy had a hell of a backbone–too bad he couldn’t use it to reform the bureaucracy.
Apparently she and her husband are fans of city living from this letter to the editor:
Once again the Post-Dispatch has confused its mission with that of the National Enquirer. The yellow journalism evident in the lurid "the city’s sinking you better flee" front-page Sunday "news" story, accompanied by the article’s supposed search for who is responsible, would be comedic if it weren’t so tragic.
The Post-Dispatch used its journalistic freedom to construct a striking, large, front-page, color map, color photo story in its largest circulation day paper. You don’t have to be a genius to understand the impact of a photo of a row of for-sale signs, a map with a colorful metastasizing cancer and a headline incorporating scare words like "bode ill," and "slide." The position of the story, the graphics and the headline diction were inflammatory. We are not asking the Post-Dispatch to sugarcoat the urban realities with Pollyanna puff pieces. But no rational purpose is served with bylines by Chicken Little. Tim and Carol Wilson St. Louis
Admirably, Francis Slay backed the Kids Slate in the ’91 election even though his ward was considered a strong bastion of support for the Neigbhood slate. Will the supposedly liberal Post-Dispatch point out Wilson’s checkered past? Or is it to polite to talk about ties to racists if it isn’t Trent Lott?