The Wagging Dog

I notice that many of the better bloggers have sponsored ads on their sites. That seems like a good idea. I need some visual punch, and a nice ad would be a good design element. But I want to choose my sponsor carefully.   I want something reasonably connected to the blog. Not something random, like penis enlargement pills. Which don’t work, by the way. I know you think they would, because people are selling them everywhere. I must get two or three emails a week offering me a deal. The companies that sell them seem well intentioned, but they should invest more time in training their staff. The emails are always full of really bad typos. Like ‘p3n1s’ for ‘penis’. You’d think that people who work for a penis enlargement company could at least spell ‘penis’. Weird. Anyway, they don’t work. I was thinking about a good sponsor when I remembered a ‘story’ I heard about something that ‘happened’ when someone was reading this blog. Apparently, this has ‘happened’ to a number o...

Thesis: Insufferable assholery is a preexisting condition that ought to disqualify a person from voting on the AHCA (or any other social welfare legislation). First, let’s get a picture of who we are talking about. Ron Johnson is a US Senator from Wisconsin. During a telephone town hall I attended, he argued that it was unfair to make healthy people pay the costs of treatment for sick people. Mo Brooks, a Representative from Alabama, said that we need to reduce costs for “people who lead good lives” and are healthy. Presumably in contrast to those lazy bad people who are off getting sick instead of working. These are just two instances. Reagan gave us, “blame the poor.” Now we have, “blame the sick.” In identifying this condition as “insufferable assholery” I am not (merely) trying to be offensive. “Asshole” is a technical term, described by Aaron James in his book,   Assholes: A Theory . James writes: an asshole, "allows himself to enjoy spec...

Newt Gingrich asserts , with no explicit evidence, that, “ There’s a certain amount of hunting for ‘what is it that Trump has done that’s dumb?’” I decided somebody needed to fact check this claim, and that somebody should be me. Because it would be really funny, and if I did it quick it wouldn’t be already all over the internet yet. (Probably too late.) Let’s take this apart. First, the claim that people are ‘hunting.’ I think this is technically correct. If placing a shotgun into a barrel full of fish and pulling the trigger can be considered ‘hunting’, then, yes: People are hunting for, “what is it that Trump has done that’s dumb?” The quantitative part is more interesting (Shooting fish in a barrel is not supposed to be interesting. If you find yourself developing an interest in shooting fish in a barrel, you should probably look for another hobby. Take up blogging.)   I have just taught a class on how to think with data and statistics, using Huff’s classic text, “...