Trib Endorses Claypool
ArchPundit
It’s out in the early edition–not on-line yet. Good call More tomorrow.
2006
Mayor Daley: Yes to ‘Gay Games,’ Democrats, NO to GOP Convention
I say, the man has good taste.
Can anyone else imagine what goes on at the IFI HQ.
“and the men, the men, they parade around in their short shorts showing their toned legs for everyone to see, like the public wants to see those delectable, ahem, disgusting legs on display. It’s enough to drive this straight man hot, errr…mad, mad I tell you!”
What’s classic about the whole thing is Petey can’t help, but bring up Steamworks which is apparently a gay bathhouse in Chicago. What drives a straight man to be so worried about what gay men are doing? I write for a gay and lesbian biweekly and I learn more about gay sex reading the IFI site than anything else. Funny.
Sometimes they write themselves
Austin Mayor will be doing his rendition of Uberweis, Uberweis to the tune of Edelweis.
OneMan will be providing aerial shots from a helicopter and telling us just how many illegal aliens can fit into the roundhouse complex.
Jake and Nat have drinks while Dave Dierson screams to no one in particular that Jake is part of the vast conspiracy to hide the IL GOP ethics statement and platform from the public. Jake attempts to talk to him and Dierson disappears with a poof of smoke.
Tom Tancredo and Phyllis Schafly will be claiming to provide moments of seriousness inbetween comedy routines, but really turn out to be the headliners.
Jack Roeser will leave his checkbook at home saying he’s too busy to pay. He’s a busy man, you know.
George Wendt will be outside actually being funny and supporting Birkett.
Pete Giangreco will pack the audience with Blagojevich supporters just to make sure people actually think this clown could pull off a primary win leaving Pete the second easiest job after Robert Gibbs was spokesperson for Obama in 2004. Leaving, he’ll make a reference of “I’m going to Disneyland…”
Uniquely Bad Campaign Commercial
Rich points out the horrendous production problems with the Eisendrath ad quite well.
But there is another quality about it that I couldn’t quite place which transcended bad production into a classic of bad campaign advertisements. It just struck me what it was, but I had to go back to January 14, 1972 when Christopher Knight hit that awkward point in his character’s life when his voice changed–yes, the Brady Bunch sings the “Time to Change” song with Peter Brady croaking out his lyrics in a heartwarming episode about growing up and adjusting to life’s challenges.
Can’t you just see Edwin there with his lines “I love this state” and “It’s just wrong that…”
It’s Peter Brady with his voice changing. Lyrics Available here
And who the hell runs as Edwin and not Ed?
Separated at Birth
Credit to the commenters at Rich’s place
It’s all so clear now.
I Just Hope I Haven’t Caused the Driver Any Stress
When I was around 13 I was cycling down the street, turned around to check behind me and when I turned back around found a car had pulled out in front of me. I put a large dent in the hood and used my face to nicely pattern the safety glass of the windshield. I spent about 2 hours having safety glass picked out of my face at the hospital (which is a great example of government regulation at work–if it hadn’t been safety glass, I would have lost my left eye).
I just want to make sure that the driver knows I hope she didn’t go through too much that day.
It’s Good
Rod’s new commercial. Very good. One of the better parts is an admission of having problems and then quickly transitioning into having a new daughter. Yeah, politicos think it’s lame, but that sort of transition hits a lot of voters as important–it’s a values thing.
On the flip side, I don’t even know what to say about this. I’ve complained so much about this administration over the last three years and it’s ties to wankers I’m being worn down in not wanting to repeat myself over and over and over again.
If Judy is the nominee, this sort of crap will be what gives her the advantage and that puts All Kids at risk as well as universal Pre-K.
If Oberweis is the nominee, only the Governor can elect him.
No Uses for Algebra?
Richard Cohen really is a fricken moron in advising a student to not worry about doing algebra.
PZ slaps him around fairly decently, but not enough.
Let’s start with math is good. If teaches basic logic and analytical skills and provides a background for a wide variety of skills. Cohen poo-poos it apparently because he doesn’t understand the connection between formal logic and algebra. That’s just hysterical in it’s own right that a man who is hired to write logical opinions doesn’t even understand the importance of the relationship between basic logic and basic math. I remember skipping all, but the tests in College Logic and getting a B+ because it was essentially basic mathematics. One guy I knew was taking it for the third time and essentially barely passed only after a couple of us pointed out that the first half of the class was based on variations of algebra.
Suggesting a computer can do math is cute, but also a fundamental misunderstanding of what computers actually do–they perform calculations that we tell them to do. I may use Stata to perform regression instead of doing it by hand, but if I don’t understand what is going on, I could not ask the program to do anything of use. The program provides me results that I can only understand with a strong understanding of matrix algebra and a decent understanding of calculus.
This is especially true of algebra since it requires one to understand the relationship of equations to actual real world situations where, unfortunately, the data available aren’t necessarily the data that allow one to do a simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division.
Any sort of job requiring inventory management automatically rests upon one’s ability to perform algebra and determine patterns for discrepancies.
Musicians often utilize it, I’m told for a variety of purposes. Anyone who uses a computer for more than simple windows and word processing tend to use algebra and certainly those programming use algebra as a base.
Geometry is essential to anyone who wants to be a carpenter, let alone an architect. Any sort of designer needs geometry.
My father often tells the use of high school geometry when he was discussing with a young engineer how to tell if two pipes were parallel. The engineer couldn’t figure out how to tell if they were. My dad took out a tape measure, measured the distance between two pipes at both ends and declared, they are parallel (for the pedantic, there could be a problem with this if the pipe was horizontally slanted, but this wasn’t a problem in the case). The engineer was baffled.
But most importantly, there is no possible way to understand complex policy issues if one can’t get through basic algebra. Richard Cohen is a pundit at one of the major national papers. One can’t balance a checkbook well without algebra let alone understand the basics of an economic argument about the relationship between unemployment and inflation. How does one even explain stagflation without understanding the algebra behind the traditional view of the two economic factors involved and how it broke down in the 1970s? You can’t.
Policy analysis is often full of competing claims, most of which include some sort of statistical analysis or even basic math like a word problem. For one to determine which one finds more compelling you need to be able to have a sense of what is being claimed. Here is a guy who does policy analysis and writing for a living.
PZ suggests that those who can’t do algebra are stuck stocking shelves often–but it’s worse than that. If you think about the average Walmart employee, most need algebra to do their job well. Cashiers need to be able to follow the math to count money. Stockers need to figure out how many items to bring to the shelves. Managers need many levels of math to compare sales, manage inventory, and layout the floor. Even with modern retail businesses working from detailed plans to promote homogeneity across stores, one needs to often fix those plans that are often not as accurate as thought.
This threw me for a loop
In truth, I don’t know what to tell Gabriela. The L.A. school district now requires all students to pass a year of algebra and a year of geometry in order to graduate. This is something new for Los Angeles (although 17 states require it) and it is the sort of vaunted education reform that is supposed to close the science and math gap and make the U.S. more competitive. All it seems to do, though, is ruin the lives of countless kids. In L.A., more kids drop out of school on account of algebra than any other subject. I can hardly blame them.
As I remember, even back in the 1980s we had to take 2 years of math to graduate in Illinois as a state requirement–am I wrong? I know that my District pretty much required 3 for everyone since they, stupidly, assumed all students should be in college prep tracts (not stupid to require 3 years, stupid to assume that sort of tract is good for all students). Of course, most colleges require at least Algebra and Geometry at the high school level for admittance, some require the second Algebra level as well.
Cheney Finally Gets it Right, Hume not so much
Cheney on Fox via the Hotline Blog
“Ultimately, I’m the guy who pulled the trigger who fired the round that hit Harry… That’s the bottom the line. It was not Harry’s fault. You can’t blame anybody else. I’m the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend. It’s a day I’ll never forget.
More: “The image of his falling is something I’ll never get out of my mind. I fired and there’s Harry falling. I’d have to say, it was … the worst day of my life.
Hume to Cheney: “So I take it you missed the bird?”