Posting Towards Gomorrah

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
the guy who wrote the book?

No.

Don't strain those eye muscles.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
No.

Don't strain those eye muscles.

it's a docudrama Ty. Now who knows what the real story is. Did you get upset watching Nixon when Oliver Stone said the 18 minute gap in the Watergate tapes was becuase Nixon was talking about the CIA's role in the Kennedy assasination? why get bothered here? both stories sound plausible.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I believe that was the gist of Penkse's first post, with the additional twist that he didn't need to actual see what we were talking about to react to the great news.

2. I operate strictly on the basis of knee-jerkial visceraliscity.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Fareed Zakaria:

• Washington has a long habit of painting its enemies 10 feet tall — and crazy. During the cold war, many hawks argued that the Soviet Union could not be deterred because the Kremlin was evil and irrational. The great debate in the 1970s was between the CIA's wimpy estimate of Soviet military power and the neoconservatives' more nightmarish scenario. The reality turned out to be that even the CIA's lowest estimates of Soviet power were a gross exaggeration. During the 1990s, influential commentators and politicians — most prominently the Cox Commission — doubled the estimates of China's military spending, using largely bogus calculations. And then there was the case of Saddam Hussein's capabilities. Saddam, we were assured in 2003, had nuclear weapons — and because he was a madman, he would use them.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
okay. I say it does. the tech bubble and resultant loss of phony jobs causes everytihng shown in your chart. Next issue.

Eaxctly, and those disasters are Clinton's fault. If he had at least taken custody of or killed bin Laden on the multiple opportunities he had he could have redeemed himself...

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Did any of ya'll hear this interview this morning on NPR with Evan Kohlman? It's about an American guy who showed up on an Al Qaeda video recently trying to recruit other Americans to convert to Islam and join up the cause. Kohlman basically gave a background on this guy. Raised Christian to a Christian mother and a formerly Jewish father on a goat farm in Fresno, alarmed his parents with too much heavy metal music, so sent to live with Grandma in LA. Grandma had internet access, and the guy trolls the web and ends up becoming fascinated with Fundamentalist Islam. Kohlman says this guy isn't particularly charismatic, so it's unlikely that he'll do much in the way of recruiting, but it's possible that there are others out there like him. He apparently was entirely brought into Islam and Al Qaeda while he was living in the US.

He sorta sounds a lot like John Walker Lindh. No real cultural or ethnic reason that he should be drawn into Al Qaeda, but somehow he is. I sorta got the impression listening to the radio that this guy could have easily been those assholes from Columbine High School if they hadn't ended up shooting themselves. American al Qaeda (that I've heard of) seem different than the homegrown terrorist types in the UK. These guys seem like lost loners looking for a way to be shocking.

Anyhow, I thought that the interview was interesting.

Like JW Lindh, the common factor appears to be left leaning parents.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by taxwonk
The American recruits differ from the UK recruits in the sense that they did not necesarily have an existing support network of radical muslims to seek out. \

Democrat party?

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Hank's movie made shit up to smear Clinton.

Clarke is a self-serving liar like his comrades Clinton and Berger.

I trust the American Broadcasting Company.

[ltl/fb]

anyone is going to say that the successful test on Friday means that we have a fully operational long-range ballistic missile defense system, here's a detailed report on what was accomplished:

MDA, Boeing Report Successful GMD Intercept Test

Defense Daily
September 5, 2006


The Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system successfully completed an intercept test on Sept. 1, the Pentagon and prime contractor Boeing [BA] said last week.

"I am pleased that today's test of our ballistic missile defense system appears to have been a success. I will leave it up to the experts at the Missile Defense Agency to characterize the technical details of today's test. Successful tests such as these increase confidence in the approach to developing an initial missile defense capability. These tests provide knowledge and experience that will be used to improve our nation's capability," said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in a statement.

"While today's test was a success, the test program is by no means complete. Tests will continue, some of which will be successful and some will not. This was a challenging test, and the tests will become even more challenging in the period ahead," he added.

Boeing's industry partners include include Raytheon [RTN], Orbital Sciences Corp. [ORB] and Northrop Grumman [NOC] .

Friday's test began at 1:22 p.m Eastern when a long-range ballistic missile target lifted off from the Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska. Seventeen minutes later, military operators launched an interceptor from Vandenberg AFB, Calif. After flying into space, the interceptor released its exo-atmospheric kill vehicle, which proceeded to track the target warhead. Due to earlier program accomplishments, several test objectives were accelerated and included in this test, according to Boeing.

The company said the test achieved several significant objectives for the first time:

An operationally configured interceptor was fired from an operational GMD site;

An operationally configured interceptor tracked a ballistic missile; and

A newly upgraded missile-warning radar at Beale AFB, Calif. , provided target data to an in-flight interceptor.

The mission-control center at the Joint National Integration Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., controlled a live GMD engagement. Although an intercept was not a primary objective of the test, the kill vehicle intercepted the warhead and destroyed it. The test also laid groundwork for the program's planned intercept in late 2006.

"Today's successful test is a major accomplishment for the GMD team and demonstrates a significant step in GMD's evolution to a robust and reliable capability for the warfighter," said Pat Shanahan, vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems. "A key radar collected target information and shared it with an operationally configured interceptor, the interceptor used that data to zero in on a target in space, and battle managers oversaw this activity in real time from thousands of miles away. The team is energized and focused as they continue to see the pivotal role they are playing in developing and deploying a missile defense system that protects the United States ."

GMD provides the nation a limited defensive capability against long-range ballistic missiles, with interceptors deployed in underground silos at Vandenberg and Ft. Greely, Alaska . An integral element of the global ballistic missile defense system, GMD, also consists of radars, other sensors, command-and-control facilities, communications terminals and a 20,000-mile fiber optic communications network.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
Clarke is a self-serving liar like his comrades Clinton and Berger.

OK, I'll play for just a second, because you're so full of shit.

Why do you think Clarke is a liar?

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
Like JW Lindh, the common factor appears to be left leaning parents.

Goat farmers in Fresno are left-leaning?

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
OK, I'll play for just a second, because you're so full of shit.

Why do you think Clarke is a liar?

A ten second google search leads me here first (Time Mag, not exactly a bastion of conservatism):

The accounts of high-level conversations and meetings given by Clarke in various television appearances, beginning with the 60 Minutes interview, differ in significant respects from the recollections of a former top counterterrorism official who participated in the same conversations and meetings: Richard Clarke. In several cases, the version of events provided by Clarke this week include details and embellishments that do not appear in his new book, Against All Enemies. While the discrepancies do not, on their own, discredit Clarke's larger arguments, they do raise questions about whether Clarke's eagerness to publicize his story and rip the Bush Administration have clouded his memory of the facts.

I am sure if I canvass my conservative sources I will find more but not sure if its worth. this guy's 15 minutes ran out long ago, and a few minutes after his credibility went out the window.

Next?

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Penske_Account

I am sure if I canvass my conservative sources I will find more but not sure if its worth. this guy's 15 minutes ran out long ago, and a few minutes after his credibility went out the window.

Next?

So, Mr. Clarke, the question that begs an answer is, were you lying before or are you lying now? And since you are-were obviously lying, why would anyone apart from the Bush haters believe even "hello" and "goodbye" if it comes out of your mouth?

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Goat farmers in Fresno are left-leaning?

Ah, the first time I read it my mind's eye mistakenly saw "goat fuckers" and I just assumed the parents must be fairly liberal to be having sex with animals.....

However on interwebs examination, the family left more urban living to raise goats on a farm with no electricity or running water. Colour me quick to baseless judgment but that sounds sort of like commune living to me, and commune living equates with liberalism equates with left leaning. No?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Odd -- I don't get the Netflix ad at all.

The link is to Merriam-Webster's on-line dictionary, at http://www.webster.com/. Definition 2a is:

• a value in an ordered set of values below and above which there is an equal number of values or which is the arithmetic mean of the two middle values if there is no one middle number

To make it concrete, if you have five students in a class with test scores of 100, 76, 75, 74, and 70, the mean score is 79, but the median is 75.

Actually Webster (which you cited) gave five definitions. One of the definitions you didn't use is the following:

a value of a random variable for which all greater values make the cumulative distribution function greater than one half and all lesser values make it less than one half.

This definition reflects the problem with the basic definition you used when it comes to statistics.

You used the following definition:

a : a value in an ordered set of values below and above which there is an equal number of values or which is the arithmetic mean of the two middle values if there is no one middle number

This is the definition of Median used in basic mathematics. However in statistics this definition gets left behind because of many problem, three of which I will list for you:

1) The Median can change dramatically with the size of the sample group. That is why I believe they use the term "ordered set of values" in the definition you chose. In other words, you need to use the entire group to get an accurate reading. Most statistical analysis uses sampling making it impossible to use that definition because they don't use the entire group. Statistical analysis is good at getting similar percentages to the entire data set with very small samples but the size of your sample group has to be increased dramatically to get a Median that would even come close to the Median of the entire group you are sampling. It is my understanding ,you would have to increase the sample group geometrically from the sample you would normally have to use, which is beyond the means of most statisticians. Since the entire data set in question here only comes out every ten years (during the census) then the yearly data used is probably based on sampling. Therefore the definition you used up above was not applied in this situation.

2) Another problem with the Median is grouping. The median does not tell you what is happening on each side of the line.

For example, the median of 1, 2, 3, 57, 58, 59: is 57 where the average is 36.

However, the median of 53, 54, 57, 58, 59 is 57 but the average is 56. So in this case the incomes of the lower tier increased dramatically but the median stayed the same.

This is a basic example but you get the idea. With income distribution analysis you have massive groupings (around the minimum wage, around standard salary sets and caps etc.). My guess, in this case, is the people who put this chart together "adjusted" for the groupings.


3) The other problem you have is that population fluctuations completely mess with the data sample when you are using populations as your data set. Immigration from in and out of your data set completely screws with your data set, meaning you don't have a fixed data set. Without a fixed data set then you have to start throwing in some "formulas" to adjust for the size of the data set. Depending on the formula, the value of the Median can change drastically. With income analysis this is especially true because increased economic growth almost always causes population influxes and increases. So where the group of people that was there before are all doing better the Median decreases because of the population influx. Americans are also very mobile people thereby further increasing the proplem.


The upshot to all this is when it comes to finding "medians" in statistical analysis, to adjust for all these problems with Medians, different methods are used to come up with a number that actually has some relevance. Some statisticians used tiered Medians. In other words, taking Medians of different groupings and then taking Medians of all the Medians. When Bell curves are relevant (which they would in this case) Medians can be determined by using two points on the curve (often using calculus to determine the points where the rate of change changes most significantly) and picking a point between them (using another complicated formula).

My experience is that unless clearly defined, the term Median is almost useless when it comes to income distribution.

Because of these problems, when it comes to figuring out the change in prosperity, the best way to figure it out is to do an analysis in tiers using averages (average are much harder to mess with). For example, you take five tiers. The bottom twenty percent, the twenty to forty percent crowd etc. Then you determine the average increase or decrease of income for that group.

So, if what the liberals claim is true, that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, then the income in the bottom tiers would be dropping and the top tiers would be increasing.

When doing this type of analysis it is very important that an individual stays in the sample group if they move in subsequent years. So if I am in the second to bottom tier in 2000 but am in the second from the top tier in 2006, I am considered to be in the tier I started out in to determine the percentage change of that tier.

I saw an analysis that Noam Chomskey used once when I was studying econometrics in graduate school where for the people that moved he only counted their numbers in the final tier. In addition, he only kept the people that moved up in tiers but didn't keep the people that moved down. The people that moved down just disappeared. Anyone that was moved up, was included in the stats for the tier they ended up in. So if someone moved up, the only result on the stats is that it would move the average income of the tier he moved into down (because when someone moves into a tier they are usually at the bottom of that tier), and it would not effect the tier they moved out of. In addition, if they moved to a lower tier (usally meaning they were at the top thereby to increase the average of that tier) their stat just disappeared so as to not increase the average income of the lower tier. Considering how much flux there is in America, the result was that all the tiers were skewed downward.

His excuse was that people that moved down were much more significant than people that moved up. Every downward movement was a tragedy that infinitely outweighed an upward movement and his statistics needed to reflect that "reality".

Has anyone seen a tiered analysis of incomes since Bush has been in office?