The Most Dangerous Equation If you have never taken the time to read any statistics, then take the time to read this short chapter excerpt. In order to understand the world a bit more accurately and be able to interpret data for public policy, understanding De Moivre’s equation and sample variability is very significant.
posted by SollosQ
on Mar 16, 2013 -
24 comments
The New Inquiry:
Just The Facts With its emphasis on the empirical, conspiracism is uncomfortably similar to the technocratic mindset of mainstream political discourse. Technocratic pundits — typified by the likes of Ezra Klein, a journalist and blogger who runs the Washington Post's Wonkblog — are likewise driven almost exclusively by data sets and empirical studies. As Bhaskar Sunkara suggested in this piece for In These Times, such pundits operate under the assumption that the facts are so powerful that they might lead people of all ideologies to embrace a particular array of ideology-free policies.
[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns
on Mar 13, 2013 -
62 comments
From The National Center For Children in Poverty:
Young Child Risk Calculator: "The risk factors used in this tool are known to increase the chance of poor health, school, and developmental outcomes for young children. Economic hardship paired with any of the listed risk factors may indicate a greater chance of poor outcomes. Children with three or more risks are exceptionally vulnerable. Information about the prevalence of young children experiencing these risks can inform policies aimed at improving outcomes for vulnerable children and reducing the number of children experiencing early risks."
[more inside]
posted by OmieWise
on Nov 27, 2012 -
6 comments
What really concerns librarians;
what do they discuss when they self-organise and decide for themselves? After the
inaugural UK event, the
second UK Librarycamp, with around 200 attendees, was recently held; reflections by
Frank Norman, Carolin Schneider
[1] [2],
Sarah Wolfenden,
Amy Faye Finnegan,
Shambrarian Knights,
Michelle,
Jennifer Yellin,
Jenni Hughes,
Bookshelf Guardian,
Amy Cross-Menzies and
Simon Barron, and by one of the
organisers.
[more inside]
posted by Wordshore
on Nov 1, 2012 -
10 comments
"Liberals have not always been very good at communicating why liberalism works. There’s many reasons for this, but part of it is that it can be hard to defend the obvious from an absurd and deceptive attack. For half a century you had to be a crank to oppose what Roosevelt accomplished; liberals got out of the habit of arguing for their beliefs.
I hope this page will help. Liberals don’t need to apologize for their vision of how American society should work. Liberalism saved American capitalism and democracy, defeated Naziism, created a prosperous middle class, and benefited every sector of society, from the back streets to Wall Street. " Mefi's own Zompist (
previously) on
Why Liberalism Works.
posted by The Whelk
on Sep 30, 2012 -
109 comments
Last Saturday Anaheim police shot Manuel Diaz as he fled from questioning. Neighborhood residents approached the police and
recorded the scene of the shooting. As tempers rose, the police attempted to control the situation.
This did not go well. On Sunday, many people joined a
protest at the Anaheim police department held
weekly since 2010. On the same day, Anaheim police shot and killed
Joel Acevedo, during an arrest for a stolen car. Further protests at the Anaheim City Council meeting on Tuesday
turned violent with some protestors throwing rocks and smashing windows.
[more inside]
posted by eurypteris
on Jul 25, 2012 -
76 comments
"...Charles Marohn and his colleagues at the Minnesota-based nonprofit Strong Towns have made a very compelling case that suburban sprawl is basically a Ponzi scheme, in which municipalities expand infrastructure hoping to attract new taxpayers that can pay off the mounting costs associated with the last infrastructure expansion, over and over."
Building resilient cities and towns with fiscal conservatism.
[more inside]
posted by invitapriore
on May 8, 2012 -
46 comments
It is really hard for me to make this post. For a while I stayed silent because I did not want to put myself in the range of fire. Everybody loves Kickstarter. They have, after all, revolutionized the economy. Kickstarter is the number one crowdfunding site in the world and the talk of the startup scene across the globe. Unfortunately Kickstarter recently banned me for circumstances beyond my control. - Is Kickstarter banning users for being the victim of stalking?
posted by Artw
on Apr 14, 2012 -
164 comments
"It’s been nearly 6 years since the series finale of The West Wing, and more than 12 since the one-hour drama, which [Aaron] Sorkin created and largely wrote, first walked and talked its way through NBC’s Wednesday-night lineup; and yet you might think the series never ended, given the currency it still seems to enjoy in Washington, the frequency with which it comes up in D.C. conversations and is quoted or referenced on political blogs.
In part this is because the smart, nerdy—they might prefer “precocious”—kids who grew up in the early part of the last decade worshipping the cool, technocratic charm of Sorkin’s characters have today matured into the young policy prodigies and press operatives who advise, brief, and excuse the behavior of the most powerful people in the country."
posted by zarq
on Mar 11, 2012 -
134 comments
... it was notable for the nation’s top law enforcement official to declare that it is constitutional for the government to kill citizens without any judicial review under certain circumstances. ... “Some have argued that the president is required to get permission from a federal court before taking action against a United States citizen who is a senior operational leader of Al Qaeda or associated forces,” Mr. Holder said. “This is simply not accurate. ‘Due process’ and ‘judicial process’ are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security. The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.” [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Mar 6, 2012 -
224 comments
The
Global Commission on Drug Policy is the latest group to advocate an end to the drug war - but also an unusually high-profile one,
including former Presidents of Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Switzerland, Prime Minister of Greece, Kofi Annan, Richard Branson, George Shultz and Paul Volcker. Tomorrow, June 2, sees the launch of their report, which advocates treating recreational drug use (and abuse) as a public health issue rather than a criminal justice one.
[more inside]
posted by anigbrowl
on Jun 1, 2011 -
60 comments
Why Not a Negative Income Tax? "What kind of program could help protect every citizen from destitution without granting excessive power to bureaucrats, creating disincentives to work, and clogging up the free-market economy, as the modern welfare state has done? [Nobel-prize winning economist Milton] Friedman’s answer was the negative income tax, or NIT."
posted by shivohum
on Mar 14, 2011 -
106 comments
SEED Magazine:
Wealth of Nations:
"Shared natural resources underpin the global economy, but our current economic system does not acknowledge their worth. Can a major new effort to assess the costs of biodiversity loss force a paradigm shift in what we value?" [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Nov 30, 2010 -
10 comments
Dirty Coal, Clean Future To environmentalists, "clean coal" is an insulting oxymoron. But for now, the only way to meet the world's energy needs, and to arrest climate change before it produces irreversible cataclysm, is to use coal—dirty, sooty, toxic coal—in more-sustainable ways. The good news is that new technologies are making this possible. China is now the leader in this area, the Google and Intel of the energy world. If we are serious about global warming, America needs to work with China to build a greener future on a foundation of coal. Otherwise, the clean-energy revolution will leave us behind, with grave costs for the world's climate and our economy. (more
here and responses
here,
here and
here)
posted by kliuless
on Nov 12, 2010 -
49 comments
A
description of the CIA's waterboarding techniques and the practical applications of other physical interrogation practices to enhance its effectiveness.
posted by artof.mulata
on Nov 9, 2010 -
30 comments
Three years after the National Academies (US) report
Rising Above the Gathering Storm outlined eroding science and technology "advantages," the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (
PCAST) released today an outline for the development of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education: Prepare and Inspire (
executive report).
[more inside]
posted by cgk
on Sep 16, 2010 -
15 comments
