I am going to make a bold, wild prediction. After a couple of more election cycles (I would not be surprised if in four years, as things are moving fast these days, but more likely in eight or twelve), we will still have a two-party system. And one of those parties will still be the Democrats. But…
To Those Who Slate Nate Silver: Statistical Analyses aren’t Infallible Predictions.
By David Roher
In case you haven’t been hanging around the benighted corners of the political internet lately, there’s an idiotic backlash afoot against Nate Silver, the proprietor of the FiveThirtyEight blog who made his name as one of the sharpest baseball analysts around.
With the election just a few days away, analysis based on state poll aggregation—Silver’s included—suggests that Barack Obama is a heavy favorite against Mitt Romney. The president holds a slight but strong lead in key electoral states. This doesn’t sit well with many political pundits, who insist that the outcome is anyone’s guess and headed down to the wire. Many of these people have directed their anger toward Silver, whose New York Times-hosted blog has predicted a strong probability of an Obama victory since June. They insist he is biased or sloppy in his methodology, even though they seem unaware of how he makes his predictions and of statistical analysis in general. They say—and I’m not kidding—he’s too gay for this sort of work.
In retrospect, we should’ve seen it coming. It was only a matter of time before the war on expertise spilled over into the cells of Nate Silver’s spreadsheets. In fact, in some ways it had already. Turns out that nothing could have prepared Silver better for the slings and arrows of a surly and willfully obtuse pundit class than working on the fringes of sportswriting over the past decade.
Does everyone remember the famous letter from Caltech chemist Erick Carreira to his unruly, unmotivated, and apparently unprincipled laboratory assistant? Or subsequent discussion about the compulsory workaholic culture of academic chemistry which followed the letter’s publication in 2010?
…
Do we really want active kids and teens?
Children and teenagers should be active for around sixty minutes a day.That’s vigorous activity, as in running, swimming, cycling, playing a sport, or other strenuous physical play.
Spotted the problem yet? If you’re a parent with children who lives in a city, what do you tell them? That’s right - be quiet, sit still, don’t run. In almost all spaces in the city, children cannot play, or, in academese, “engage in vigorous activity”, without disturbing the adults who go about their daily business. The floors of flats are not adequately sound proofed, so kids can’t dance, run, or jump indoors without inconveniencing the neighbours downstairs. There are some public gardens and paths, but unless there are dedicated play parks, the space needs to be shared with cyclists and dogs and their owners (or it is prohibited to step onto the grass).
While children at least have play parks, teenagers have school sports and organised sports; older teenagers may be able to join a gym on their parents’ dime. That’s (mostly) it.
“The environment has been shown to have the strongest influence on children’s objectively measured activity”, say Mark Hamer and Abigail fisher in their recent editorial on the effectiveness of interventions on child activity levels. No shit, sherlock.
On Being Religious
“You’re not that religious, aren’t you?” asked a friend recently.
This friend is an atheist who regularly makes fun of religious dogma online. I’ve noticed that quite a few vocal atheists are preoccupied with dogma. Dogma is the perfect target for atheists - sometimes deeply irrational, sometimes profoundly at odds with the moral judgement of others. “Look at the horrors of dogma” is the ultimate killer argument. It doesn’t matter what people actually do, believe, and practice, because there will always be people who live by the dogma that is being torn to shreds - when in doubt, cite appropriate religious groups from the United States, Iran, or Israel.
So you have a choir of strong atheist and humanist voices speaking out against their favourite hateful dogma and shouting at BBC Saturday Morning Live. Sometimes, atheists go one step further and postulate that people from a religious group who don’t adhere to certain practices or dogmas don’t count. It doesn’t matter how people identify themselves, it matters how others would like to categorise them. To make measurement easier, group membership is binary. You conform to the external criteria of choice and you’re in, you don’t conform, and you’re out.
Christians who take a strong historical-critical view of the Bible don’t count, because it’s more convenient to see Christianity as a religion that is ruled by a Holy Book which contains the old favourite Leviticus. It’s not convenient to acknowledge that Christianity is extremely diverse, and that different denominations treat the Bible differently. Atheism, despite much handwringing by vocal online atheists, is quite possibly even more diverse. There is no such thing as The Christian Voice™, and no such thing as The Atheist Voice™. There are just different pools of babble.
Christians who refuse to conform to the stereotypes, who don’t shout about their beliefs, who respect other traditions of belief and non-belief, and who do not engage in anti-secularist propaganda, exist. Atheists and humanists who choose not to shout about their particular lack of belief, who refuse to be snide and condescending about religious people, and who respect other traditions of belief and non-belief exist, too. And we coexist in peace.
For the record, I am deeply religious.
My Workout For Wednesday September 19
I earned 1160 points for my workout on Fitocracy!
Power Clean +193 pts
- 20 kg x 5 reps (+34 pts)
- 25 kg x 2 reps (+25 pts)
- 27.5 kg x 2 reps (+26 pts)
- 30 kg x 2 reps (+27 pts)
- 30 kg x 2 reps (+27 pts)
- 30 kg x 2 reps (+27 pts)
- 30 kg x 2 reps (+27 pts)
Barbell Bench Press +379 pts
- 20 kg x 12 reps (+56 pts)
- 25 kg x 5 reps (+50 pts)
- 30 kg x 3 reps (+43 pts)
- 35 kg x 3 reps (+46 pts)
- 35 kg x 3 reps (+46 pts)
- 35 kg x 3 reps (+46 pts)
- 35 kg x 3 reps (+46 pts)
- 35 kg x 3 reps (+46 pts)
Standing Barbell Shoulder Press (OHP) +588 pts
- 30 kg x 2 reps (+50 pts)
- 20 kg x 5 reps (+64 pts)
- 25 kg x 2 reps (+46 pts)
- 27.5 kg x 5 reps (+71 pts)
- 25 kg x 3 reps (+55 pts)
- 25 kg x 2 reps (+46 pts)
- 20 kg x 5 reps (+64 pts)
- 20 kg x 5 reps (+64 pts)
- 20 kg x 5 reps (+64 pts)
- 20 kg x 5 reps (+64 pts)
Think you can beat me, or want to comment?
My Workout For Wednesday September 12
I earned 1342 points for my workout on Fitocracy!
Barbell Squat +1026 pts
- 20 kg x 10 reps (+54 pts)
- 25 kg x 5 reps (+50 pts)
- 30 kg x 3 reps (+43 pts)
- 35 kg x 2 reps (+39 pts)
- 40 kg x 2 reps (+42 pts)
- 40 kg x 2 reps (+42 pts)
- 40 kg x 2 reps (+42 pts)
- 40 kg x 2 reps (+42 pts)
- 40 kg x 2 reps (+42 pts)
- 40 kg x 2 reps (+42 pts)
- 40 kg x 2 reps (+42 pts)
- 40 kg x 2 reps (+42 pts)
- 40 kg x 2 reps (+42 pts)
- 40 kg x 2 reps (+42 pts)
- 40 kg x 2 reps (+42 pts)
- 40 kg x 2 reps (+42 pts)
- 40 kg x 2 reps (+42 pts)
- 40 kg x 2 reps (+42 pts)
- 40 kg x 2 reps (+42 pts)
- 40 kg x 2 reps (+42 pts)
- 40 kg x 2 reps (+42 pts)
- 40 kg x 2 reps (+42 pts)
- 40 kg x 2 reps (+42 pts)
- 40 kg x 2 reps (+42 pts)
Power Clean +90 pts
- 25 kg x 3 reps (+30 pts)
- 25 kg x 3 reps (+30 pts)
- 25 kg x 3 reps (+30 pts)
Hang Clean +31 pts
- 20 kg x 4 reps (+31 pts)
One-Arm Dumbbell Row +195 pts
- 8 kg x 6 reps (+39 pts)
- 8 kg x 6 reps (+39 pts)
- 8 kg x 6 reps (+39 pts)
- 8 kg x 6 reps (+39 pts)
- 8 kg x 6 reps (+39 pts)
Think you can beat me, or want to comment?
Please read this if you think verbal assault is harmless. Or if you think it’s OK to badger a woman who wants to be left alone.
And then I debated whether or not to put it on Tumblr…but I decided it was important. Because in my own way, I can (unfortunately) point out exactly what is wrong with men when they don’t realize how hard it is to be a woman. How we do not have equal opportunities and freedoms in everyday life….
