Headline in current Time Magazine – HEALTH: BOTTOMS UP. NEW STUDY FINDS THAT HEAVY DRINKERS OUTLIVE TEETOTALERS AND MODERATE DRINKERS LIVE ONGEST OF ALL. First, Time published a retraction (apparently online only) that the study does not include any teetotalers (excluded), but that “abstainers” refers to people who said they were no longer drinking (20 years ago). Next, when they control for a number of co-variates, the statistical significance is greatly reduced. Makes you wonder what if they had identified more co-variates. (more…)
September 12, 2010
September 9, 2010
Appeasement Reconsidered: Investigating the Mythology of the 1930s
Appeasement Reconsidered: Investigating the Mythology of the 1930s by Jeffrey Record, Ph.D., Monograph published by the Strategic Studies Institute, United States Army College. The author is on the faculty of the Air War College in Montgomery, Alabama.
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub622.pdf
September 8, 2010
Mass Bay Colony, Quakers, Witches, Harvard…and how Fran’s relatives were directly involved.
Fran’s great-grandfather (if you go back an additional eleven generations) was Governor Dudley of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. I sometimes joke about Fran’s family hanging Quakers and witches, so I felt it was time to get some of this straight. Turns out that there is something to these stories, but not as written above. (more…)
July 19, 2010
WWII COs — My Heroes (and friends) in the fight for true peace.
I was at the annual PYM Peace Picnic recently and spoke with two WWII veterans (Neil Hartman & Warren Sawyer) – pacifist COs in medical experiments intentionally infected with hepatitis by injection or by drinking fecal water. My friend Russ Tuttle wore lice underwear in typhus tests. These are my heroes…they saved many lives. (more…)
The Roots of White Anxiety (NYTimes 7/18/10
This article helps explain some of my issues with what has become of Affirmative Action. ML King and Bayard Rustin had it right when they said poverty was a “people” problem, not a “black” problem. (more…)
July 9, 2010
A truth about Kagen — Supreme Court Nominee
Glen Beck declares that Harvard banned military recruiters from campus when Kagen was Dean of Harvard Law School. Not so. (more…)
June 27, 2010
How Many Graduates Does It Take to Be No. 1?
An article in the NYTimes today (6/27/10) reports that many high schools have given up on trying to determine who is the class valedictorian and simple give that designation to every student in the class who has a 4.0 GPA or the equivalent, resulting in many valedictorians every year. Each of them can honestly claim to be class valedictorian. Sounds pretty stupid to me, as I expressed in the following two NYTimes Comments: (more…)
June 25, 2010
I am a co-complainant to the U.N. Human Rights Council
I am a signatory and co-complainant in a formal complaint to the United Nations. We are waiting to receive a full response. (more…)
June 22, 2010
Supreme Court says counseling Peace to terrorist groups aids terrorism.
The NYTimes today reported on the Supreme Court’s decision that advising about peaceful or humane alternatives with groups that the State Department has designated as terrorist is the equivalent of aiding and abetting the enemy. I guess the U.S. follows the “shoot first, talk later” approach – oops, we can’t be doing that, that’s terrorist. So what IS the Supreme Court thinking?
One of my NYTimes Comments in response to their articles was the following: (more…)
Are incompetent folks too incompetent to know it, or do we teach them false self-esteem?
This NYTimes article presents research that attempts to establish that incompetent people are too incompetent to realize their incompetence. The authors note that those grammatically challenged actually believe that they are good writers. Sometimes overall incompetence may be the answer, but there is another possible explanation for why incompetent writers think that they are doing so well. I posted the following response on the NYTimes Comment site. (more…)