Today's fun little ditty

Apparently Pat Robertson made a spectacularly silly comment to the effect that if gay marriage becomes legal, then marriage to ducks can't be far behind. Or someone who likes sex with ducks will be able to marry one. Or something. (Last time I checked, animals couldn't enter into legally binding relationships with people, or vice versa, but I never ever claimed to understand Pat Robertson's thought processes.)

At any rate, here's a fun little song about where it all could lead.

On "irrational numbers" and innumerate bloggers

Warning: Extreme nerd-dom ahead.

So there's a post at the Atlantic about the government's ownership of 60% of GM, taking on the ludicrous claim that the government now owns a large swath of corporate America. As the post correctly points out, the actual ownership of private companies by the federal government is substantially under 1/10 of 1%, which is hardly a socialist paradise. However, the reporter completely blows it with this discussion of the (admittedly rather fun) pie chart produced by Excel:

What I do see is that Microsoft Excel feels the need to portray the percentage of American companies owned by the government as an irrational number. That's 5.07e^-02, or %0.0507 of American companies that are owned by the United States. (When I ask Excel to display this breakdown in real numbers it just becomes "100%" and "0%.")

Um, no. Wrong. That's not an irrational number. It's scientific notation. An irrational number is a number that can't be expressed as a ratio of two whole numbers. It has nothing to do with whether it's written in a mantissa-exponent form (as in 5.07 * 10^-2). Scientific notation is handy for dealing with very large or very small numbers, and yes, Excel would round it to 0%, unless you asked Excel to display things out to some fixed number of decimal places.

Which is simple to do, as is suppressing scientific notation in the first place. Either one takes about 4 clicks of the mouse.

Really, people who do business reporting should be familiar with the basic functions of spreadsheet software, and if you're going to complain about something being a particular type of number, you should have some idea what you're talking about.

Update: After numerous comments in the comments section, it's been fixed so that instead of "irrational number" it says "exponential notation." All is well.

George Tiller

No, late-term abortion isn't a good thing. But life sometimes presents unpleasant choices, his practice was legal, and he didn't deserve to be shot down in church.

Prediction: The killer will claim a religious justification.

And remember, that report from DHS a while back about right-wing extremists (that GWB ordered up) was just liberal hogwash, because conservatives would never, ever actually do anything violent. And yes, this was terrorism. This wasn't just about Dr Tiller. This was also intended to send a clear warning to any doctor thinking about providing a similar service: You could be next.

Mark Kleiman, as usual, nails it. Three times in a row: One Two Three.

As one of the things I've read the last day or two put it (I can't track down the original post now, it may have been a commenter on Sullivan), women have the capacity to choose to end pregnancies, even late-term ones. Never mind the legalities, they can make that decision and take action to carry it out. Given that reality, I'd rather they had the option of a doctor's office and not a back-alley coat-hanger operation. Yes, it's morally problematic. Regulations may need to be tighter, and support for other options strengthened. But it has to be one of the options, if only because it's less problematic than shoving it onto the black market.

Yet another status update

Picking up the rental truck this morning, then getting my posse (such as it is) together to get the furniture hauled down here. At that point everything will be officially moved.

I may get out from under the huge stack of boxes at some point in the future....

Status update, again

This post is being made from the new house... First night in the new place, and I don't know if it's the paint, or the new furniture, or the new bedding, but something's giving off a few fumes, judging from the slightly sore throat I've got this morning.

Oh well. Back to get the rest of the kitchen stuff. I've got most of what I need moved, getting down to the "do I really need this stuff? Bad enough to pack it up and schlep it across town?" stage... Further updates as events develop.

Status update

The house is bought, and possession has been taken.

I am becoming familiar with Home Depot and Lowe's much more thoroughly than I ever expected to the first week.

Paint has been applied, shelves installed, a few blinds up, and I have applied proper first aid for the credit card burns I got at Nebraska Furniture Mart yesterday.

The next two weeks are going to be an interesting experience of caravaning my stuff across town. Posting may be even more sporadic than usual.

That is all.

Life's little ironies dept.

From this morning's CNN homepage... Check out the poll question, and the sponsor.

Credit where it's due dept.

I certainly don't agree very often with the Southern Baptist Convention, about anything, but it's hard to improve on this statement about torture (specifically including waterboarding) from Richard Land, of the SBC ethics & public policy conference:

"It violates everything we believe in as a country," Land said, reflecting on the words in the Declaration of Independence: that "all men are created equal" and that "they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."

"There are some things you should never do to another human being, no matter how horrific the things they have done. If you do so, you demean yourself to their level," he said.

"Civilized countries should err on the side of caution. It does cost us something to play by different rules than our enemies, but it would cost us far more if we played by their rules," Land concluded.

Given how much the GOP is in the pocket of the SBC (and vice versa), that's a risky statement to make. All the more reason to applaud it.

[h/t: Andrew]

"And they will know we are Christians by our love..."

So it turns out that those who attend church most often, are also the most comfortable with torture.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Note: There were problems with sample size, so this may not be particularly generalizable. The problem isn't bad enough that I'm prepared to flat-out call bullshit on this, but it may be a mistake to read too much into it.

But how does that "religion make you better person" thing work again? Granted, this is only one questionable data point, but still...

[h/t: Paddy]

Wish-I'd-Said-That Dept.

Mark Kleiman nails it once again.

Inequality, opportunity, and IQ

Email to Andrew Sullivan:

You wrote:

My point was that growing inequality will be very, very hard to prevent or restrain in the face of these factors.

Nice job of proving Doug's point. [Ed. note: Doug's post is here.]

Right now our educational system is, for the relatively affluent, mostly pretty good and in some places very good. For the poor, the average quality is lower, and in some places, the schools are a sad joke. And of course, a better basic education leads to the opportunities for better college education, etc.

When we're providing good-quality basic education across the board, and the reward structure in our society is less tilted toward "them that has, gets; them that hasn't gets left behind," maybe we can have the discussion about how much of the remaining inequality is unalterable.

But are you seriously suggesting that the current huge and widening inequality in our society is because the affluent are simply smarter than everyone else, without regard to anything else? My, how convenient. After all, if the problem is that the poor and unemployed are just stupid, well, what can you do?

Will there always be some inequality? Of course. But I'm not aware of any serious work on the issue suggesting that intelligence is "infinitely alterable." Stop knocking down straw men. Yes, we need to focus on education. Yes, we need better metrics than dollars spent per student and the perverse incentives of No Child Left Untested. Yes, absolutely. And we shouldn't expect better schools to bring about Utopia tomorrow. But if anything, a better focus on education, on bringing failing schools up to where they ought to be, would decrease inequality. Or at least make the face of success look a little less Anglo-Saxon.

I teach freshman-level courses at a public urban university, and my classes have too many smart students who can barely read, have never learned math, and have no idea what study habits are. They're going to school while also supporting themselves, and sometimes extended families, at low-wage jobs in crumbling neighborhoods. Oddly enough, they seem to have more problems than the students who come out of better school systems and are able to devote themselves to school full time. I've had more than one bright, promising student in my office explaining that they like being in school but can't afford it; or their child care fell through; or they have to care for an uninsured parent who fell ill.

When those students have the same opportunities and resources that you and I take for granted, we can talk about inequality due to differences in intelligence. Sure, there will always be some. But you cannot seriously believe that's what's causing the "growing inequality" of the last three decades.

Homebuying update

It appears the logjam has broken... I've spent most of the day coordinating phone calls, faxes, document scans, and emails between my local loan officer, the loan approval officer at the national office, my insurance agent, and my realtor. So yippee.

On the other hand, I haven't got much else done this afternoon, and I've got some things that really need to be done. It may be a late night.

Brit Hume, even more clueless than usual

It seems that Brit Hume doesn't think much of the Obamas' new dog, deriding it as "girly."

He, um, is aware that the President has two daughters, isn't he?

Someday there needs to be a cable-news smackdown, Brit Hume vs Keith Olbermann, to see who can do the most self-important harrumphing.

That may even be worth a pay-per-view.

I love my country, yes I do...

First it was the tebagging parties.

Now it's the 2M4M movement.

To quote a friend of mine, "Is there anything gayer than straight America?"

Power Tools Dept

In a revelation that should surprise no one, the "spontaneous" citizen's uprising calling itself the teabag movement is actually being coordinated by two corporate lobbying organizations with a long history of setting up fake astroturf campaigns.

So I hope the enraged wingnuts are enjoying being corporate tools.

On the other hand, as someone generally in favor of teabagging, I hope they have a great time.

[h/t: GottaLaff]

I'm not the only one wondering

I was wondering how come the CEO of GM is being forced out while the CEO's of BoA, Citi, and Goldman are all still in place.

David Sirota has some of the same questions.

GM Chief Resigning in Deal with U.S.

Okay. Fair enough.

I'm just curious, though.

How many executives at AIG, Goldman, or Citigroup, or Bank of America had to resign as a condition of receiving any assistance?


*crickets*


And they got a straight bailout, if I recall correctly, didn't they? It wasn't just access to loans? And wasn't it an order of magnitude more money?

Why, yes. I believe it was.

Can someone explain how this is anything other than rank classism, with financial companies given billions while manufacturing companies are forced to jump through hoops to receive much less assistance?

Anyone?

...Bueller?

Late edit: It was only 1 order of magnitude more money, not 2. My mistake.

Why You Shouldn't Use Foreign Terms You Don't Really Know

From an article on GM's woes....

General Motors has experience shedding divisions, and shut down the Oldsmobile brand in 2001. Plenty of Oldsmobiles are still on the road today, and continue to receive service through GM dealers and the independent aftermarket industry. Likewise, when Ford bid alvederzane to their German Merkur brand or when Chrysler furled the sails on Plymouth,...

Emphasis added.

Okay, trying to throw in some German when referring to a German brand is understandable. But next time, would it be possible to get it proofread by someone who actually knows German? I'm not sure I could spell Auf Wiedersehen correctly without looking it up, but I could certainly come closer than that...

(And I didn't look it up, and I may have misspelled it...but I still came closer than the supposed pro....)

Update Mar. 29: It's been fixed.

A Useful Rule of Thumb

From John A. over at AmericaBlog:

If you're emailing it to one person, what you're sending is probably good. If you're emailing it to 5 or more people, it's probably crap.

That about matches up with my experience.

Oh, Snap!

There's an outraged op-ed in the Times today from an offended trader at AIG financial products, angry at getting tarred with the same brush as the people who brought down the company.

And then there's Andrew Leonard's point:

DeSantis received a bonus payment on March 16 of $742,006.40. But he's going to donate all the after-tax proceeds to charity, and he can do that because "I have benefited more than most during the economic boom and have saved enough that my family is unlikely to suffer devastating losses during the current bust."

If you are in a position to donate more than half a million to charity and your family finances are still secure enough during one of the worst recessions in American history that you can blithely quit your job, then you are sitting squarely within the most privileged sector of U.S. society. You are still living a life that is out of reach to the vast majority of Americans.

And I just don't think most people will care how betrayed you feel.

Exactly.