A Forum for Grinches and Ho-Ho-Hoes

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
Query - why is Novak not in jail? I don't mean for contempt for refusing to reveal the WH source, I mean because, regardless of the crimes of his source, he, too, outed Plame and independently broke the applicable law protecting our spies' identities. Why, therefore, is that hack not in fucking jail? The only excuse for it would be granting him a pardon to get him to spill his source, but I haven't heard anything to indicate such a deal was on offer.

BR(old rant, sorry)C

I would guess that once he receives the information, it's considered "out."

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
Query - why is Novak not in jail? I don't mean for contempt for refusing to reveal the WH source, I mean because, regardless of the crimes of his source, he, too, outed Plame and independently broke the applicable law protecting our spies' identities. Why, therefore, is that hack not in fucking jail? The only excuse for it would be granting him a pardon to get him to spill his source, but I haven't heard anything to indicate such a deal was on offer.

BR(old rant, sorry)C

I think it's pretty clear that the law doesn't criminalize what Novak did. Agree that he is a miserable hack, and that we would all be better off if he were incarcerated.

[SlaveNoMore]

Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Since all the good jokes have been taken . .

Dissent. There was no mention of Dan Rather.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Dissent. There was no mention of Dan Rather.

He said "good" jokes.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Dissent. There was no mention of Dan Rather.

Make one?

[Adder]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
James Wolcott

'Keep 50m or deadly force will be applied.' In Ramadi, the capital of central Anbar province, where 17 suicide-bombs struck American forces during the month-long Muslim fast of Ramadan in the autumn, the marines are jumpy. Sometimes, they say, they fire on vehicles encroaching with 30 metres, sometimes they fire at 20 metres: 'If anyone gets too close to us we fucking waste them,' says a bullish lieutenant. 'It's kind of a shame, because it means we've killed a lot of innocent people.'"

I don't really have a problem with the policy, but I do wish that our troops could be a tad more eloquent. Would it be that hard to suggest to officers at least that they might want to say, "To protect our safety in particularly dangerous areas we sometimes have to use deadly force to enforce a necessary zone of security" instead of "we fucking waste them?"

[Adder]

Originally posted by sgtclub

• A new and provocative study on affirmative action, which will appear in the Stanford Law Review this month, is attracting such attention that there is a special click-through on the publication's Web site to field questions about it. The conclusions of the study, that racial preferences at law schools produce fewer rather than more black lawyers, is already generating controversy that is sure to only increase.
  
  The study, "A Systematic Analysis of Affirmative Action in American Law Schools," argues, using statistical analysis, that although total elimination of racial preferences would cause a 14 percent reduction in the number of blacks accepted to law school, there would be an 8 percent increase in the number of blacks actually becoming lawyers. The reason for this, according to the analysis in the 100-plus page study, is because of the improvement in grades, graduation rates, and rates in passing bar examinations that would result from color-blind admissions policies.
  
  The author of the study, Richard Sander, is a law professor at UCLA who is also trained as an economist. It is interesting to also note that, according to press profiles, Sander is a long-time liberal and advocate of race-conscious public policy. His apparent motive in doing the study was to provide rigorous analysis that would examine if indeed racial preferences produce the net benefit to blacks that are the alleged justification of these policies.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/S...20050104.shtml

What's the old line? Lies, damn lies, and statistics?

Sounds like a particularly difficult thing to model. I will be intereseted in seeing the published article and inevitable critiques.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Adder
I don't really have a problem with the policy, but I do wish that our troops could be a tad more eloquent. Would it be that hard to suggest to officers at least that they might want to say, "To protect our safety in particularly dangerous areas we sometimes have to use deadly force to enforce a necessary zone of security" instead of "we fucking waste them?"

I completely understand the impetus for these tactics, but I suspect they are counterproductive if our goal is to defeat the insurgency, as opposed to getting out of Iraq with the fewest casualties. Enforcing this sort of zone of security loses hearts and minds. The British have been critical of us on this score since the very beginning of the war.

[Skeks in the city]

Cedar Brewing Company is releasing a run of "Not Sorry" Ale in response to the left-wing "we're sorry" website, where lefties apologize to the world for Bush's reelection.

Link

Looks like a drink for Club.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I completely understand the impetus for these tactics, but I suspect they are counterproductive if our goal is to defeat the insurgency, as opposed to getting out of Iraq with the fewest casualties. Enforcing this sort of zone of security loses hearts and minds. The British have been critical of us on this score since the very beginning of the war.

I'm puzzled by that article. It goes against virtually everything I've heard about our experiences over there, most of which have been from people who are either there or just returned. What I hear is that sensibilities are respected, relationships are valued, - in short, nothing like this Economist reporter reports. Puzzling.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Adder
What's the old line? Lies, damn lies, and statistics?

Sounds like a particularly difficult thing to model. I will be intereseted in seeing the published article and inevitable critiques.

I've read the abstract, and the authors' discussions. Premise: artificially place a whole line of people into slots in schools that they would not have normally tested/applied into. (The model being, the schools are ranked from the top/hardest/most-prestigious to the bottom/easiest/least-prestigious. Like mine.) Because they are placed into a rigor for which they may not be prepared through their past learning, they end up occupying the lowest rungs of the academic ranking in their respective schools, with the concomitant rates of failure and nonachievement. Without the artificial placement, people would go into the schools which they tested into more appropriately - i.e., the line of applicants would still mostly get in to some school, but the line would shift down to fill lower-ranked slots in lower-ranked schools. They would all thus occupy a more random pattern of ranking within those schools, with a higher passing rate and a more fruitful learning experience. Thus, more successful, graduated, bar-passed lawyers. (The failure rate among people admitted through any kind of AA criteria is very high - theory is, they get in, but aren't prepared to swim in that pool.)

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Since these facts have been disputed here:

• Americans give 15 cents per day per person in official development assistance to poor countries. The average American spends four times that on soft drinks daily.
  
  In 2003, the latest year for which figures are available, we increased such assistance by one-fifth, for President Bush has actually been much better about helping poor countries than President Clinton was. But as a share of our economy, our contribution still left us ranked dead last among 22 top donor countries.
  
  We gave 15 cents for every $100 of national income to poor countries. Denmark gave 84 cents, the Netherlands gave 80 cents, Belgium gave 60 cents, France gave 41 cents, and Greece gave 21 cents (that was the lowest share, beside our own).
  
  It is sometimes said that Americans make up for low official aid with private charitable donations. Nope. By OECD calculations, private donations add 6 cents a day to the official U.S. figure - meaning that we still give only 21 cents a day per person.

Nicholas Kristof in the NYT

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by bilmore
I've read the abstract, and the authors' discussions. Premise: artificially place a whole line of people into slots in schools that they would not have normally tested/applied into. (The model being, the schools are ranked from the top/hardest/most-prestigious to the bottom/easiest/least-prestigious. Like mine.) Because they are placed into a rigor for which they may not be prepared through their past learning, they end up occupying the lowest rungs of the academic ranking in their respective schools, with the concomitant rates of failure and nonachievement. Without the artificial placement, people would go into the schools which they tested into more appropriately - i.e., the line of applicants would still mostly get in to some school, but the line would shift down to fill lower-ranked slots in lower-ranked schools. They would all thus occupy a more random pattern of ranking within those schools, with a higher passing rate and a more fruitful learning experience. Thus, more successful, graduated, bar-passed lawyers. (The failure rate among people admitted through any kind of AA criteria is very high - theory is, they get in, but aren't prepared to swim in that pool.)

All kinds of assumptions in there. For example, I am aware of a certain highly regarded liberal arts instiatution where after-the-fact statistical analysis showed that the greatest preference in admissions (e.g., the most significant deviation from each of two measures - a class ranking measure and an SAT measure) was given to alumni children, followed (in rough order) by athletes, prep school graduates, artists, and minorities, with a negative deviation for certain minorities. Deviations differed when using class ranking and SATs in different circumstances, so for example Prep schools had a big deviation on class ranking but a much smaller one on SAT scores (presumably because prep schools are themselves competitive so going deeper in the class lands you better students than in a school that takes everyone in a given town). Minorities as a whole received a preference that did only a little bit more than offset the bias created by preferential treatment for others, particularly alumni kids (mostly white) and preppies.

So, in this setting, the odds are that even though minorities receive preference, it is less of a preference than are given to many other groups, and so in terms of where they will stand in the class, they are likely as a group close to average. Certainly they will not be struggling as much as the alumni kids or athletes.

Also, within the school, as with any school, one can take a wide range of courses -- I know that in at least one law school admissions office, for example, graduates in the History and Philosophy departments get "bonus points" for degree of difficulty; it is not hard to find a radically different range of challenges, and frankly, as always, the kids taking the dweeb classes may find as much or more social stigma attached than those taking the guts.

So, I suspect his article makes interesting cocktail party conversation, but would be shocked if he actually had a point he could prove. On the other hand, I think someone probably could prove the point that if you stopped granting bias to overwhelming white groups (alumni kids, preppies), that would have a more positive impact on minority advancement than just about any preferences that could be given.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by bilmore
I'm puzzled by that article. It goes against virtually everything I've heard about our experiences over there, most of which have been from people who are either there or just returned. What I hear is that sensibilities are respected, relationships are valued, - in short, nothing like this Economist reporter reports. Puzzling.

I think its more of a mixed bag than you suspect. (I also query whether lots of bloggers write about everything they or their colleagues do).

As an example (extreme I trust), have you read about the incidents involving the 1st Btn/41st Rgt. (Kansas unit)? There are recent articles (e.g., WaPo). Several soldiers charged with the murder of unarmed civilians based on their operations in Baghdad. ["Can I kill this one?"] (Some guilty pleas, hearings continue.)

S_A_M

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop

• Americans give 15 cents per day per person in official development assistance to poor countries. The average American spends four times that on soft drinks daily.

[/list]

Americans only spend 60 cents a day on soft drinks? Fuck. I'm selling my Coke stock.