Month: October 2013

Paglia’s Comments on Gender Essentialism

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2013-10-26 Camille Paglia

Camille Paglia debated Jane Flax on the topic of “Gender Roles: Nature or Nurture?” at American University earlier this month. Paglia, often described as a “contrarian feminist” took the position that the roots of gender differences are biological and essential rather than social and contingent. Her open statement is available here.

I like pretty much everything that Paglia writes–even though I disagree with lots of her conclusions–and I especially liked the fact that she tended to blame a lot of the nonsense behind rejecting gender essentialism on Rousseau, who I like to blame for basically everything that’s wrong with modern Western liberalism.

In any case, give it a read.

Free-Market Justice

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private vs PD

In this 2007 Op-Ed, Judge Morris Hoffman explains the study he and two economists conducted to compare the quality of defense put forth by public defenders versus private attorneys. The study found the clients of public defenders were given significantly longer sentences than the clients of private attorneys. However, the study’s authors suggest this difference is due to guilty defendants self-selecting a public defense. The study’s abstract:

An econometric study of all felony cases filed in Denver, Colorado, in 2002, shows that public defenders achieved poorer outcomes than their privately retained counterparts, measured by the actual sentences defendants received. But this study suggests that the traditional explanation for this difference – underfunding resulting in overburdened public defenders – may not tell the whole story. The authors discovered a large segment of what they call “marginally indigent” defendants, who appear capable of hiring private counsel if the charges against them are sufficiently serious. These results suggest that at least one explanation for poor public defender outcomes may be that public defender clients, by self-selection, tend to have less defensible cases. If marginally indigent defendants can find the money to hire private counsel when the charges are sufficiently serious, perhaps they can also find the money when they are innocent, or think they have a strong case.

If the truly guilty are more likely to pick a public defender rather than consume their own resources on a private attorney, we would expect public defenders’ clients to have longer average life-sentences.

It’s an interesting point, but it’s hard to verify. There would have to be a way to measure the proportion of guilty clients outside of tallying guilty verdicts and plea bargains. There’d also have to be a way to isolate the variable of guilt, which may be tricky since income is also an important variable and certain criminal activity is correlated with certain socioeconomic levels. There’s also the variable of how overworked different attorneys become–how would researchers quantify “overworked” and how would they compare public vs. private attorneys accordingly?

I’d also be interested to read studies about the demographics of people who choose to become defense attorneys compared to prosecutors. Are there measurable psychological and personality differences? Do those differences affect work performance?

Anyone have any info on this?

McDonald’s Hot Coffee Revisited

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2013-10-23 Hot Coffee

The New York Times has a Retro Report on the story of the woman who spilled McDonald’s hot coffee on herself, sued, and won $2.9m. The focus of the report is that we all have the story wrong, and that it’s not as ridiculous as it sounds.

As someone who was somewhat paying attention at the time (I was 13 in 1994), there are some facts that I missed. The most important was that she wasn’t driving at the time. She was sitting in the passenger seat of the parked car. It’s also worth noting that the judge slashed the total award from nearly three million dollars to just over half a million dollars.

But I’m not really sure that the reality is that far removed from the urban legend. I mean, McDonald’s argument was that there was one burn victim for every 24,000,000 cups of coffee served, and also that the reason they served the coffee at 180-190 degrees was in response to customer demand for the best flavor. Now they serve it at 170 – 180 degrees.

Still, it’s interesting and a little sad to see the way the story was cut in length again and again until conventional wisdom reflected a version of the story that embraced misperceptions (that she was driving) and left out important truths (the burns were really pretty horrific).

What else are we getting wrong?

INTERPOL Chief Suggests Armed Citizens Needed to Thwart Terrorism

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2013-10-23 Kenya Mall Attack

In an exclusive interview with ABC, the head of INTERPOL explicitly state that countries needed to consider armed civilians as a response to terrorism. Speaking of the attack on a Kenya mall that left nearly 70 people dead, he said:

Ask yourself: If that was Denver, Col., if that was Texas, would those guys have been able to spend hours, days, shooting people randomly? What I’m saying is it makes police around the world question their views on gun control. It makes citizens question their views on gun control. You have to ask yourself, ‘Is an armed citizenry more necessary now than it was in the past with an evolving threat of terrorism?’ This is something that has to be discussed.

This is something I’ve been interested in since early reports indicated that some of the first responders to the scene were armed civilians who assisted government forces in rescuing hostages and containing the attackers, and that’s in a country with extremely restrictive gun laws. Those who fear a firefight if ordinary citizens had weapons don’t seem to have a very strong point when the attackers are already intent on killing as many as possible, but I do think the best response is two pronged:

1. Bolster the requirements for concealed carry permits. We need more, better training. Right now, it’s a joke.

2. Lift restrictions on where civilians can carry their firearms. The basic rule ought to be this: if you’re entering a facility or area where there isn’t enough security to be confident that no one has weapons, then concealed carry ought to be permitted.

Conservative and libertarian outlets are already picking up on the story, like Townhall and Reason. One thing I’ve noticed, however, is that they tend not to mention that INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald Noble is an American. The impression that Europeans might be reconsidering their anti-gun stance appears to be premature. I’m not even sure it would do them any good without the kind of vibrant gun culture that still thrives in America.

Saratov Approach Scores $500k

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Variety reports that the indie Mormon file The Saratov Approach has managed to pull in $500,000 in just two weeks on 23 screens. It’s the real-life story of two Mormon missionaries who were kidnapped and held for ransom in Russia in 1998. I haven’t seen it yet, but judging from the reactions it sounds like a potentially great step forward in Mormon film. And, based on the strength of its performance so far, “the nation’s largest theater chains including Regal, AMC and Cinemark are requesting the film have a wider footprint.”

Forget McCain, Can We Get Romney Back in 2016?

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2013-10-22 Romney
According to Drudge, McCain is considering running again in 2016. Here’s the deal: I was more excited for Mitt Romney than any other candidate in my life in both 2008 and (slightly less so) in 2012. He had to say a lot of crazy things to win the primary but, going up against Cruz, he would have to play the sane card to win, and that’s actually what I liked about him in the first place.

I know it’s incredibly unlikely because he’s burned out after two failed attempts in a row, but I’ve never really gotten over the disappointment of his 2012 loss, even if he has.

And, if he’s not available, maybe we could see some more from Jon Huntsman? Then again, Chris Christie will probably also be running, so it looks like there won’t be a shortage of alternatives to the crazy train ticket. (McCain is not my favorite in that category, however.)

Published Academic Research: Everything You Know Is Wrong

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2013-10-21 Everything You Know is Wrong

Sometimes the wronger a thing is, the harder it is to convince people that something is wrong. Hat seems to be the problem with scientific research. Numerous individual papers have come out over the years indicating that there are serious problems with the professional scientific establishment. How serious?

In 2005 John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist from Stanford University… argued, “most published research findings are probably false.”

I would say that “most published research findings are probably false” is pretty serious. But that’s just the problem: no one wants to believe that a problem could be that bad, and so there’s a kind of reflexive deafness whenever the topic comes up. Every time I’ve brought the issue up, usually with folks who I would consider suffer a severe case of scientism, I’m challenged to show the research. Conveniently, this article in The Economist, has done a great job of aggregating the most important studies on this topic over the past decade or so.

The fact that so much of our science literature is bad. The fact that maybe we can finally start to address the problem is good. Also, Weird Al.

GOP Finally Aims at Democrats (Instead of Own Foot)

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2013-10-21 Obamcare

Now that the government shut down is over and the debt ceiling debate is over (or at least postponed), the National Review and other right-leaning outlets can finally start to focus their fire on just how incredibly, terribly bad the Obamacare websites are. 

And I mean, it’s a mess. For $645m they managed to put together a site that doesn’t work, risks privacy, and apparently violates terms of service for a lot of the software that got used along the way. I’m pretty sure that if they’d given me half the time and 1% of the budget I could have had a functional site on line.

If the GOP had used this as the reason for trying to delay the  individual mandate (not defund Obamacare) I think they might have had a shot at winning and coincidentally doing some good.

Monday Morning Mormonism: Metaphysics of Sealing

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2013-10-21 SLC Temple
In this morning’s post for Times And Seasons, I introduce an attempt to find middle ground between simplistic metaphysical views of ordinances and mere symbolism. It’s an idea I’ve been working on for a long time, but I think this is the first time I’ve tried it out in public. I’m looking forward to getting some feedback.

Reviews for 2013 Oct 19 (Lots and Lots of Books)

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I don’t think I’ve posted a link to my book reviews since way back in August. As a result, I’ve got a lot of books to catch up on. There are ten in this post, and it’s only ’cause I ran out of steam before I got to my review of Elizabeth Smart’s My Story, which I also finished. I’ll add that one on to my next batch. As for the other 10, here goes!

2013-10-19 Steelheart

Steelheart is Brandon Sanderson’s newest book. This one is an intentional split from his usual schtick (epic sci fi) into accessible YA. Is Sanderon angling for a movie deal and a bigger paycut? Given the ridiculous length of his previous works, he might be feeling annoyed at his relatively low salary-per-word, so it’s possible. Read my review to find out more, but the basic take is that the book is fun but shallow. 

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