Perspective - Statistics edition.

Pop math quiz! Identify the daily per-capita horrid death probability.

1) 1 : 93,000
2) 1 : 337,000
3) 1 : 1,600,000
4) 1 : 2,300,000
5) 1 : 80,000,000

....choose from....

A) Daily chance of being killed in Iraq (National average).
(toll, population, Jan-June 2006)

B) Daily chance of being a homicide victim in Philadelphia
(toll, population, 2005 year)

C) Daily chance of an Israeli being killed by Hezbollah
(toll, population, July 12 - July 30)

D) Daily chance of a Lebani being killed by Israel
(toll, population, July 12 - 30)

E) Per ticket chance of winning the Powerball.
(Math, it's only math)


Go on, figure it out: to fill in sapce with an idle diversion I give you this promo for http://www.despair.com/. (This one is soooo grad school)












OK fine. Answer time. (Caveat: Check the math yourself, 'cause I might have made a mistake!)The lotto has the worst odds. It always does in virtually any comparison. Don't play the lotto, it's stupid.

Just about everyone has a better chance of buying the farm, than winning the lotto on a ticket a day. But how many Nasty Premature Death Lotto tickets do people in these various danger zones buy each day? Units are in per-capita death lottery tickets every day.

Israel: 1 : 2,300,000 ~ 35 tickets.
-Of the 51 reported fatalities, 18 were civilian.
Philly: 1 : 1,600,000 ~48 tickets.
-Our fifth largest city had 377 homicides last year.
Iraq: 1 : 337,000 ~ 237 tickets.
-14,400 deaths in 6 months = "last throes"
Lebanon: 1 : 93,000 ~861 tickets.
-Life is tough in war zones.

On average, a Philadelphia resident is more likely to be killed in a violent crime than an Israeli is likely to be killed at war with Hezbollah. Factor out the military deaths, and it's a lot more likely. On the other hand, the average the death rate in Lebanon is about four times higher than in Iraq, which is considered by some to be in the midst of a civil war.

You might notice a difference there, but you'd be better off pretending you didn't. At a minimum you'd better not identify anything as "disproportionate", because people will not only accuse you of being anti-semitic, they'll accuse you of rooting for Hitler.

Quickie

Light posting this week since my internet's been down. Also I had to get my AC fixed for some big $$. And for icing on the cake, the car I was borrowing from my parents got stolen. Gotta love Philly.

I do want to make a quick post about a genius tactic by the Republicans to ward off the beating they've taken on not raising the minimum wage. Now they've decided it's ok to raise the minimum wage, so long as the estate taxes go too. It's a brilliant way to recoup some electorate while still throwing a gold plated bone to the folks who really matter (the ones with estates). I think it's going to work.

Now it happens that I think the estate tax is one of the best possible ways for the state to get revenue. More on that another day. Today I want to talk about what this bill really is all about. Fucking the middle class. The poor get a tangible benefit, and the rich get their billions in bonuses. But all the shrinking middle class gets is a larger share of the tax burden.

Do you make more than 7$ an hour? If you don't have any millionaire relatives who plan on leaving you an estate, you're the one getting screwed by this bill.

More on Neocons

I said some unkind things about them yesterday. Greg Djerejian phrases things better.

"Three years ago, I would have poo-pooed anyone using the word "radicals" to describe the neo-cons. No more. Any group that can so brazenly (and breezily) avoid a real reckoning with the continuing crisis in Iraq--which is descending into civil war as we speak--any movement that has the gall to suggest as some panacea that we mount significant military operations in Iran and Syria and god knows where else (with Israel in Lebanon to boot), well, their credibility is at a very low ebb indeed, and they very much need to be urgently reined in."

Link credit to Josh Marshall.

Fatigue, news, and news fatigue

I woke up this morning to a beeping sound, and performed my usual routine of sitting up, hitting snooze and rolling back to bed. But the beeping didn't stop. I looked at my nightstand and realized that another alarm clock had gone off and just plain turned it off. But the beeping continued. Looking around, I saw eight alarm clocks on my nightstand and as I tried desperately to identify which was beeping it slowly occured to me that the nightstand didn't really look like my nightstand. And then I woke up for real.

I hate it when my subconscious fucks with me.

Anyway, I struggled through the day and managed not to screw up any experiments, got home and took a three hour nap. The nightly girlfriend call woke me up, followed by a desire to pee, followed in turn by a drink of water. Now that I'm awake and refreshed from my nap, it seems too early to go to bed.

All of which serves as a decent intro to my past few months of blogging. I feel like lately I've been snoozing, not really responding as quickly or deeply as I should, and sometimes keying into the wrong stories or avoiding ones that would be too rigorous to write. I've had news fatigue and blogging fatigue, I confess it freely. So tonight I'm going to clean house a little with the two-bit version of 3 posts I need to write.

First, having grown up in CT, I was going to contribute to the now lengthy debate on Joe Lieberman. I think I voted for Lieberman based on my parent's advice in 1994. That would have been my first year of voting (also the election before I began voting Libertarian). So while I have stuff to say, I'm going to start with the opinion that this discussion should be spearheaded by current CT residents (ie. not me). I'm all for homegrown dissent and bloodletting, but national movements to oust a candidate at a primary don't sit well with me. I didn't like it when the conservatives went after Specter with Toomey and turned him into a Bush lapdog (albeit a yippy one), and I'm not too sure how the CT situation is different. I don't have any objections to pointing out that Joe is a git. But when people start funneling in money to other state's primary races...it's gone a little far. Yes, in the big picture we all have a horse in this race, but it's CT's horse, so let them decide. Maybe I'd feel differently if I were a Democrat.

Some final tidbits on the post I'm still never going to write: First, while I wouldn't vote for Joe (anymore) I'd have serious reservations about voting for a Greenwich millionaire. He might be the darling of the liberal internet now, but he's gonna need a solid voting record before I endorse a background like that. Second, the allegations of anti-semitism were not only inevitable, they also have some limited validity in this discussion. The popular opinion in CT is that the Iraq War was a foolish expensive waste, and in the best case is bad for US interests. Joe doesn't have that opinion. I've heard actual CT residents express concern that Joe might be voting in Israel's best interests rather than theirs. I'm not of the opinion that's "anti-semitic" so much as a concern that a Senator has become subordinate to a special interest like any other. But Israel isn't just an interest like any other, it's special and has special rules. Anyway non-electorate advocacies are a genuine source of resentment in CT, and people are talking about it amongst themselves. I think playing the "anti-semite" card stifles those voices and is good damage control.

Other things I haven't written about but promise to someday: stem cells. It happens that I work with stem cells in my research, though not human ones. (oh, before I forget...check out this link at the NIH. It's really good stem cell info from a mostly unbiased source.) Anyway, I support stem cell research (surprise surprise) even though I'm just Catholic enough to not want to conduct it myself. Stem cells are big news today because George Bush used his veto power for the first time! I imagine someone's put together a list of all the shitty bills, the pork barrel projects, and special interest sell-outs that Bush was happy to sign into law, while saving his first veto for preventing health research. I'll link to it when I see it. The whole issue makes me sick. I thought the whole reluctance to veto thing was infantile, but to blow your veto-virginity on the one of the few truly bipartisan bills designed to help people is just...words fail me. Hey! Good thing we didn't elect a flip-flopper! I think this one's only a matter of time though. It will pass the next president (or, dare I dream, the next Congress?) In the interim, the Republicans have announced to the electorate that the best way to get medical research funded is to vote Democrat. The best way to get money spent on munitions is to vote Republican. It's a culture-of-life thing.

And last, I hope to at some future date blog about how the Middle East has gone to Hell in a handbasket. Eight days into the War in Lebanon the US has evacuated 1,500 of the 25,000 Americans trapped there. The media has siezed on this story for a number of reasons. First, taking a full week to evac 10% of the people is kinda like a Katrina situation. Second we care a lot more about the few Americans over there than we do about Lebanon being reduced to this:

(link credit to Angelica) It's an ugly scene. Among other things we don't care about is the risk of this bringing Hezbollah to power over Lebanon's budding democracy and the general philosophy that it's ok to destroy a neighboring state over the capture of two soldiers. Yes I know Israel is an ally (ie "good guy") and Hezbollah is terrorist organization (thus a "bad guy"). But let's see how this behavior stacks up elsewhere. The most evil fucking terrorists I know are the Chechnyan rebels who shot those poor schoolchildren a few years back. It doesn't get more "bad guy" than that. But if they'd kidnapped two Russian soldiers and Russia responded by blowing up airports, power-plants, and infrastructure (again see photo for what "targeting infrastructure" means) throughout Chechnya, if Putin killed hundreds of civilians simply because they were from the same state as the terrorists, don't you think people would cry out that Putin's response was excessive? Yeah, we'd say the man's a menace to society. There's no difference in the quality of the "bad guy" in that hypothetical, only in the role of the "good guy". I may have mentioned Israel has special rules. As a last point, I want to mention that the most vocal proponents of Israel's new war are the exact same cheerleaders who promoted our Iraqi adventure. Our neocon brethren don't exactly have a history of being able to tell their heads from their ass. So let's not listen to them now. The Middle East is spiraling out of control and these guys want to invade Iran.

So I haven't been blogging much lately, but this strikes me as a good time to wake up. It's probably a good time for the whole country to wake up.

Best post on Israel

Blogger shuts down in 2 mins, so you're spared my thoughts. Read Publius.

A Modest Scientific Proposal

Scientists pride themselves on their objectivity. Part of the job requires that you suspend your personal biases to work solely with the conclusions drawn from the data at hand. Their job also requires that they push the boundaries in their search for answers. Whether that means cutting open cadavers, working with stem cells, or sacrificing animals in studies, sometimes the pursuit of answers takes them across moral boundaries. Scientists have to face these issues routinely, and they have to do the job professionally.

Engineers pride themselves on efficiency. A central theme of engineering is the struggle to do more with less. More mileage with less gas. Stronger bridges with less steel. Faster computer chips made cheaper. More sheets of toilet paper without compromising softness. Engineers are always optimizing something, whether it be energy requirements, material, labor, cycle-time, or ultimately cost. So one would think that bioengineers, steeped in these two cultures, would be professionally unsqeamish about being as efficient as possible...which leads to the proposal.

Some scientists do a lot of work with DNA. For all the non-scientists out there, DNA comes in a lot of different forms and has a lot of applications. It's used by enough people and laboratories that there is a very strong niche market for it. For instance, if you need a boatload of DNA and you don't care what the actual sequence is, you get DNA purified from salmon sperm. Salmon carry a lot of sperm and sperm itself is biologically designed specifically as a taxi for DNA. So somewhere, there are people who are employed by the collection of salmon sperm for laboratory procedures. If on the other hand you need human DNA, you generally get a phlebotomist (or a nurse or doctor if you work in that kind of lab) to do a blood draw. Now it turns out that because blood is mostly water and because red blood cells don't have nuclei blood is a terribly inefficient source of DNA. You can usually get enough for genetic tests, but it's a pain in the ass (plus wherever they stick you with the needle). That having been said, there aren't many other options for getting DNA from humans. Cheek swaps only get a few cells, and there aren't any tissues that living humans are willing to part with.

But there is one other bodily fluid that contains substantial amounts of human DNA. It's present in just under half the population (though over half of the average laboratory population). Unlike blood, this fluid is very high in DNA content, and does not require a phlebotomist, doctor, or any trained professional to obtain. Sampling does not even require a needle, and the donor experience is not considered painful (though there is still a prick involved). Some people have even been known to practice the withdrawal of this fluid for no productive purpose. The fluid could be used in most of the same lab procedures that use salmon sperm or blood. It would be equally effective and more efficient, saving money and time.

Still, despite the stoic professionalism of scientists and engineers, no one dares to use their own sperm in an experiment. Imagine trying to get that published.

Bad Words at the World Cup

Just a quick shoutout to soccer hero, Zidane. Thanks for teaching me that the proper way to respond to insults is with swift violence. Oh and preferably of the sucker-punch variety. Way to use your head.

Amanda over at Pandagon, seems to be putting a good part of the blame on possibly racist, potty-mouth, harrasser, Materazzi. Come on people, it's the World Cup. You play there, you play professionally. Don't want people talking shit to you? Show them it doesn't hurt your game. Materazzi won in every sense of the word, he outsmarted Zidane, and the reason he could is that Zidane was insufficiently professional. End of story. Zidane should have channeled his rage into trying to score, or just held it in and had a heart to heart with his therapist after the game. We all do stupid things when we're provoked, but Zidane let down his team and his country...for what? But Lanky, he was harrassed! Tough luck, that's part of the job, baseball players get it worse from the people in the stands. There's one bad guy in this picture and if you can't guess who it is, imagine walking into a court and explaining to the judge that you were right to assault someone because he said something mean about your family. Bad, silly bald Frenchman, bad.

I have a hard time reading Pandagon. It's too painfully politically correct for me. This post is amusing though.

Will or Faith?

Matthew Yglesias has a new theory on the conservative approach to war. He calls it "The Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics". It's worth taking the time to read.* He's noticed that hawkish conservatives continually emphasize willpower, resolve, and thinking positively, even in the face of negative data. Matt points out the similarity to the legendary comic book hero, the Green Lantern, who could achieve whatever he wanted, so long as he willed it strongly enough. I too, have noticed a contingent who believe that a failure in Iraq would not indicate a failure of planning, nor even a failure of execution, but rather failure to be confident and strong enough enough in our beliefs to achieve victory. On the surface, it's a strange view to hold.

Reading the various blogs and watching as war cheerleaders alternately praise Operation Today's Big Strike, or bemoan the negativity of the media's war coverage, it does seem like a lot of effort is placed into the management of the national will. And yes, I do see a lot of "tough talk" about resolve, strength, and greatness. But I don't think it's fair to talk about this without contextualizing two themes.

First, we have morale. Morale is a vital component of war and many hawkish statements are made purely to support the war effort itself. I use the word "cheerleader" pejoratively, as someone who continually drums up support, without attention to the bigger picture, but I don't deny them their station. The purpose of cheerleaders is to increase morale and inspire great deeds. They're rooting as hard as they can and trying to inspire a victory. It makes them a little biased and maybe not the best judges of reality, but I think they do help morale. I'd like to think there's a threshold, certain conditions in which we all become cheerleaders. In fact, we came close to that with Afghanistan. The whole world did. Collective will doesn't get stronger than that, and morale doesn't either. The only issue with cheerleaders, is some of them aren't paying attention to what's really important. And they never stop raising morale, even when it's past time to leave the field.

Second, sometimes what is being promoted is not "will", but rather "Faith". A large component of the hawkish crowd simply have faith in the war. Some believe that God means for there to be a democratic Iraq, and that God has chosen us to give it to them. Some have faith in George Bush or faith in democracy. Others have faith that we are a great nation and therefore can win any war under any conditions. A few even just have faith that liberal hippies are inevitably wrong, and thus they must be right. Blind adherence to disfunctional policies, denial of atrocities, and determination not to even hear dissent: these are hallmarks of a dogmatic faith. And, as with many faiths, it must be shared and spread. You either carry the faith, or you're a bad person (Godless, unpatriotic, etc...). I could go into a long characterization of our president as a man of faith, whether it's faith in God, or the faith in himself to quit drinking. But I'll spare you that, and just offer that faith too can be a double-edged sword, it can see people through hard times, but doesn't guarantee you'll win a crusade.

So while I give credit to Matt for highlighting a phenomenology (and in a pretty creative way), I think there is a lot more to be said than: These arguments are comic-book stupid. [update: removed quotes and italicized instead. The preceeding sentence is my interpretation of Matt's post, not an actual quotation.] Rather, I think it could be used to talk about specifics. Under which conditions is it appropriate to cheerlead, and under which to dissent? And how well do people interpret those conditions, biased as we all are by our faith or lack of faith?


*On the surface, Matt's post looks like a stupid allegory, not too dissimilar from the ones I whined about last post. The big difference is Matt doesn't actually ascribe to this mindset, or even propose it seriously. I'd say it's more of a hyperbolic scarecrow argument, not a sophomoric false allegory.

Inane war allegories

Tigerhawk really likes this allegory in which other nations are forests, plagued by undergrowth, and the US is the world firefighter, who has to periodically burn some down fro the sake of the forest as a whole. I'm a bit less of a fan, but it's not the worst allegory around.

My fave is the Jawa Report, proud member of Pajamas Media. For those non-geeks out there, this is Star Wars talk.

First, you got the jawas. See, these guys don't really like us but don't mind making a buck selling us an R2 unit or oil or whatever. It doesn't matter to them if your part of the Imperial powers that be or a member of the Empire hating Rebel Alliance, as far as they are concerned you are just another colonist that a buck can be made from. You see, according to their custom they own Tatooine and everyone else should be subjected to them. It really makes no sense to them how we, an uncultured and unsophisticad lot, could control so much of the planet as it rightfully belongs to their ancient culture. They despise being a second rate power when they were the most advanced civillization for so long. They hate you but tolerate you. The only thing they hate more than you are the "settlers" that ventured out into the desert. In public, they openly rail against these settlers and say they wouldn't mind the rest of the colonists if we would just withdraw our support for this small minority. This would placate some of them, for sure, but they would just find another excuse to resent us. For the most part, the jawas can be dealt with. They live their semi-nomadic life and simply want to be left alone. But don't misunderstand them, while they wouldn't personally kill you, when a Tusken Raider takes the life of an Imperial Stormptrooper or even an innocent colonist, they secretly (and sometimes openly) celebrate. Jawa political society varies from clan to clan, with some tribes even outwardly adopting many of the customs of the colonists they so despise. However, in all cases leaders rule with an iron fist.

Second, you got your Tusken Raiders. These guys are a lot like the jawas, but are bigger and meaner. Like the jawas, they too claim that Tattooine belongs to them. In fact, they are a sub-species of the jawas but they claim to be the only "true" followers of the ancient ways. The more radical among them have declared open season on the jawa leadership who they believe have lost their way. Even the most traditional of jawa clans are sellouts, in their view, since they openly trade with the colonists. Unlike the jawas, they do not think that peaceful coexistence with the colonists is possible. The believe that both the Imperials and the Rebels are basically controlled by the small group of desert settlers. Both the Emperor himself and the President of the Rebel Council are really puppets for this small group that had the audacity to wander out of the cities and into the unfertile desert. While they share with the jawas a contempt for all things human, they take their anger one step further: they beleive colonists should be killed until the day that Tusken society dominates Tattooine. In order to further that goal, they train their young to kill colonists at every pportunity. Tusken society should be respectfully feared but are not a long term threat to the Empire's grasp on this quadrant. While the Tuskens beleive their raids have severely weakend the Empire's grip on Tattooine, the truth is that the damage done by them is rarely significant. In recent years the Tusken's have taken to hijacking women, taking captives as slaves, and have occasionally hijacked an Imperial transport cruiser or two. Unlike the jawas that can be tolerated, Tusken Raiders should be killed at every opportunity. Our restraint only emboldens them as it makes us look weak. Often they hide among the jawas. They know we are reluctant to shoot innocent jawas and they know that jawas rarely will turn them over to the Empire. In some places (for example here, and here) they have rested control from the jawa leadership and have imposed a harshly traditional way of life. In fact, many jawas now openly oppose Tusken rule and might be valuable allies of convenience.

In summary, all we really need is for George Bush to go to Iraq and use his awesome Jedi Mind powers to bring peace to the galaxy...or to burn down the forest.

Maybe I'm just jealous because I lack the creativity to make this crap up, but it seems to me that it might be more constructive to talk about the challenge of Iraq without invoking comparisons to unrelated inanimate objects or science fiction.

Planes trains and automobiles...but not planes.

Economically, it hurt a lot when I went back to grad school and moved into Philly, but the worst part was selling my truck. Public transportation, for all it's environmental virtue, really sucks. Still, if you stick to city areas, you can get by. I spent the weekend moving my girlfriend from Baltimore to Manhattan. Since cars are even more of a hassle in NYC than Philly, she's sold hers. The actual details of the packing and the move are best forgotten, but here's what my weekend travel looked like:

Local Bus to Bus Station: 2$
Greyhound to Baltimore: 21$
Walk from Bus Station to light Rail: free! (just under a mile)
Light rail to suburbs: ~2$
Walk to girlfriend's apartment: free! (just over a mile)
Driving the U-haul to NYC: 80$ in gas + rental
Ride back from the Bronx U-haul drop-off: free! (thanks to friend)
Subway from Upper East Side to Grand Central: 1/6 of 10$
Walk from Grand Central to Penn Station: free!
New Jersey Transit to Trenton: 11.50$
SEPTA rail to Center City: 7$
Trolly to lab: 2$
Local bus home 2$.

Highlights of the weekend were discovering on the road that the FDR doesn't allow trucks and carrying the sofa up the stairs (it didn't fit in the elevator and took a good 30 minutes of manhandling to get up the stairs and in the apartment).

Anyway, I'll be happy to stay in Philly tomorrow.