Now that the election is over it’s time to focus on politics. Much has been made of Nate Silver’s having been shown to be right about the results while the pundits, especially at Fox News, were not. Many still do not understand what he was forecasting. They assume that because his model gave Obama a […]
This is the first guest post on CSI without Dead Bodies from Jane Collander. Enjoy. Many future statistics students sweat the ordeal of dealing with numbers and abstractions as it applies to real world scenarios. So what intimidates most beginning statistics students? Perhaps the textbook definition of statistics: the aggregation, organization, scrutiny, interpretation, and […]
The failed attempt this week to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has left many of his opponents to scratch their heads and wonder “was it the money?”, “Was it better organization?”, “Was something wrong with the exit polls?”, and “What does it mean for Obama’s reelection?” While these questions are interesting there are other questions, […]
Last May 3 I published a post called The Civil War in a Larger International Historical Context which discussed how in the 150th anniversary of the Civil War there were similar conflicts in Germany, Italy, and Japan which would have many repercussions for the US and the world to this day. It has become one […]
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, in his zeal to hold the line on taxes, is requiring even more cuts in higher education which are forcing the state related universities (Pitt, Penn State, Temple, and Lincoln) to consider going private which would mean a drastic rise in tuition (Carnegie Mellon charges about $50,000/year for tuition room and […]
This mornings Democracy Now! program included typical stories about racial profiling and harassment of Muslim and Latino immigrant groups in New York City and East Haven, Connecticut. While I was watching this clip of the East Haven story, I saw either Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. or Police chief Leonard Gallo talk about their Italian roots […]
Chris Mooney at Mother Jones magazine gives a good review in a long article of the research into why some reject out of hand science that contradicts their beliefs and cling to studies that give support. I would love to write that I am immune to this bias but I am not. That is why […]
Last week I received the quarterly alumni magazine from the University where I received my undergraduate degree, Indiana University of Pennsylvania (our most famous alumnus would be Newt Gingrich’s lesbian half sister Candice) in 1993 in Psychology. It included a chart showing how the makeup of the campus has changed in the last decade. The […]
In Fiscal Year 2002-2003, I worked for the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare in the Medicaid Office of Budget and Planning. Back then the State’s total budget was $40 billion and Medicaid accounted for $10 billion. The spending was in entitlement form which means that, like the prison system (the world’s oldest entitlement program), when […]
