I’m not an attorney. I don’t even play one on TV so I probably should not be touching on the legal aspects of the Fourth Amendment to the United States constitution that states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear … More The Second Amendment – Stare Decisis be Damned.
The proposed amendments to Florida’s State Constitution are emblematic of what has gone wrong with our government. Some are just plain dumb. For example, Amendment 1 removes the individual mandate for healthcare at the state level but have no effect on the federal Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare.” Equally frivolous is Amendment 6 that prohibits public funding of … More 2012 Florida State Constitutional Amendments – Politics Florida Style
Maybe it’s because the presidential campaign is approaching its quadrennial periapsis but headlines seem to be increasingly salted with criticisms of the administration based on retrospective omniscience – the ability to know everything about an incident after it has occurred. While such criticisms tend to garner the headlines they are unfounded and are either derived … More The Illusion of Retrospective Omniscience
As can be seen in the graph below, Romney’s base defense budget will increase by $355 billion (55%) from 2013 to 2022. But is that enough to protect the United States from an existential military threat from other nations? A case study my be illustrative. Source: http://goo.gl/Z1ryD Since Romney has characterized Russia as “our number … More The Xs and Os of the proposed Romney Military Budget
Recently, I was listening to NPR Morning Edition as Steve Inskeep and Shankar Vedantam were doing a segment titled “A lively Mind: Your Brain on Jane Austin.”[1] It was an interesting discussion of how a researcher, Natalie Phillips, decided to do a study that used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure brain activity while subjects … More NPR should up their game on reporting “Science”
The first presidential debate showed us the real Romney which is not to say it’s the same Romney we saw in the primary debates or the Romney we saw as governor of Massachusetts or the Romney we’ve seen campaigning for the last five years. The problem is they’re all the real Romney. The personality characteristics that compel … More The Pleomorphic Candidate
“I would love to have the students grade the teachers at the end of the year as opposed to just the other way around so that teachers get feedback. We did that when I got to graduate school. We got to grade the teachers and then it was published. They put it up for the whole … More Mitt misses on education – students grading teachers is strategically flawed.
I enthusiastically voted for Obama in 2008 but the sloth like economic recovery and the endless war in Afghanistan have tempered that enthusiasm to the point that I would have carefully considered a credible alternative in 2012. I watched with disappointment as the fringe members of the Republican Party separated the wheat from the chaff … More The camel’s back has been broken – an undecided decides.
I was reminded of the Nirvana Fallacy when it appeared in “Pertussis outbreaks and vaccine effectiveness”[1], posted in Respectful Insolence on September 5, 2012. The point of the article is that those opposed to vaccinations will argue that vaccine effectiveness below 100% is “proof” that vaccinations are all ineffective and therefore should not be used … More Pertussis, Politics and the Nirvana Fallacy (No Nirvana means no Obama?)
Confronting Mediocrity 