August 11, 2010 by Mike.

   ’nuff said?

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May 31, 2010 by mike.

Watch the video.

clipped from www.ritholtz.com Adapted from Dan Pink’s talk at the RSA, this illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace. Oh, and it essentially guts traditional economic thinking — at least when it comes to issues such as “incentives work” (only sometimes, for some tasks) and that we are profit maximizers (not really). Watch the video: Hat tip Sembrati PERMALINK Category: Psychology/Sentiment.

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September 11, 2009 by mike.

Does Tom Tomorrow ever miss the mark?

clipped from www.salon.com

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July 22, 2009 by mike.

I have a theory about police work and social work.  Here it is:  if you want to be a police officer, you have to train as a social worker and work as a social worker for five years before you can become a police officer.

In order to balance the job market, anyone interested in becoming a social worker would have to work as a police officer for five years after completing their MSW.

That would mean that a lot of us would end dealing with an authoritarian social worker who would yell at us, threaten to knock us down and rough us up if we did not make change quickly.  That might not be an altogether bad thing.

It might also mean we would end up with cops who would pull us over for speeding, or not using our blinkers, or making too many lane changes and they would sit down in the car with us and say things like:  I am worried about you, I think what you did back there was dangerous.   What were you thinking about?   Let’s talk about the important people in your life, how would they do if you were killed in an auto accident?  Do you have anything important that you need to say to your friends and family?  Have you said it?   because I am worried about you, you are driving like a person with a death wish.   If a miracle happened and everything was just the way you want it, what would the speed limit be?

And then, I guess, hey, our time is up for now.  You want to meet here again next week?  Great, let’s think about this situation.  I am not going to write you up this time.  Give me a hug, big guy.  Take care of yourself now.  Don’t hurt anybody, including yourself.

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July 18, 2009 by mike.

I don’t for a minute believe that we have any idea about the scope or purpose of VP Dick Cheney’s secret CIA program. I think once you know that Cheney told the CIA not to inform Congress about a program, the question immediately arises: how will we ever know what the program was about? Who is going to tell us about the scope and purpose of the program?

The “secret program” is being peddled as targeting assassinations of top al qaeda leaders. There are a lot of legal, not to mention ethical and moral, problems with that plan, but it is probably palatable to an American electorate that is informed on international law by watching Jack Bauer on 24. But what if the program really was operational and actually targeted a Cheney enemies list? Do I need to remind anyone that Richard Nixon compiled his famous “enemies” list and that the list led to harassment by IRS, the break-in at Ellsburg’s psychiatrist office and who knows what else? (everybody who believes that we ever got to the bottom of the Watergate scandal should line up now, they are pouring the Koolaid)

So, let’s think for a minute… are there any convenient deaths of folks who would certainly make a Cheney “enemy list.”

Well, I guess Paul Wellstone and David Kay come to mind.

I have no confidence that a House panel will get to the bottom of Cheney’s secret CIA programs, but I guess it’s encouraging that some legislators think they should exercise their oversight responsibilities.

Simple solution: put Cheney under oath. No immunity. If he says anything (other than invoking the protection of the 5th amendment) that can be shown later to be a lie, indict him for perjury.) Don’t hold your breath for that. Any lawmakers who decide they want to take on Dick Cheney will need to consider the untimely end of folks like David Kay and Paul Wellstone and his family.

Can you say military-industrial complex? I knew you could.

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com House Panel to Investigate Canceled CIA Program The House intelligence committee announced yesterday it will investigate the CIA’s handling of its secret al-Qaeda assassination program, including whether Vice President Richard B. Cheney improperly intervened to stop the agency from telling Congress about the initiative. The probe will examine the nature of the now-canceled program — described by intelligence officials as a series of planned attempts to use assassins to kill or capture senior terrorists — but it will mostly focus on whether the agency improperly withheld information from lawmakers, committee members said. “The committee must be kept fully and currently informed of significant intelligence activities as required by law,” �Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.), chairman of the panel, said in a statement. He said the decision to investigate was made in consultation with House Republicans.

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June 20, 2009 by mike.

They don’t know they’re dumb. They’re everywhere.

Well, that’s a little uncharitable, but also a bit funny.

What is also funny is that there is a study that explains how dumb people can’t figure out they are dumb. It’s known as the Dunning Kruger effect.

I think this explains so much about trickle down economics and the foreign policy expertise that has the US fighting wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan today.

clipped from en.wikipedia.org The Dunning-Kruger effect is an example of cognitive bias in which “…people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it”[1]. They therefore suffer an illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average. This leads to a perverse result where people with less competence will rate their ability more highly than people with relatively more competence. Across four studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. They won Ig Nobel Prizes in Psychology in 2000 with their report Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.

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April 22, 2009 by mike.

Whew! Just came across this website: The Bad Chemicals

It posts a daily cartoon and pushes the boundaries. Sorry about all the white space, my techie skills can’t make those go away.

clipped from www.thebadchemicals.com   the bad chemicals postcards from amerika March 6th, 2009 Baby Pictures

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February 18, 2009 by mike.

Nuff said, I guess.

clipped from crooksandliars.com From R.J. Matson at the St. Louis Post Dispatch. (click image for larger) Open Thread below…

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May 4, 2008 by mike.

We sat down and watched Flock of Dodos recently and we recommend this movie. It’s a documentary about the American culture war to teach creationism and creationism’s cousin, intelligent design, as basic science, on a par with the science regarding Darwin’s thoughts on natural selection and the origin of species.

It’s a film by an evolutionary biologist, so it definitely leans toward respect for the scientific method and that does not bode well for the creationists, but the filmmaker expended a fair amount of effort making the point that the scientists are wonderfully inept at conveying the science.

In the end it becomes clear that there are dodos on both sides of the argument. The creationists are hoping to hang on to the notion that there is a controversy about natural selection and the origin of species despite the scientific record and the evolutionary scientists sputter, pontificate, talk over each other in a way that makes it painfully clear that the scientists wouldn’t know a talking point if it evolved or was created right in front of them.

The even-handed and friendly approach of the film-maker made all of the characters on both sides of the controversy seem likable. The message of the film could teach both sides to bring a little more rigor to the public presentation. The creationists might want to base their presentation on facts, they might be better served not to say that a discredited scientific set of plates known as Haeckel’s Embryology are showing up in every textbook and being taught every day unless they can find a textbook in use today that actually presents Haeckel’s work as useful in understanding biology.

And the evolutionary scientists might want to take a simple communication class or two from time to time so that they can figure out how to present their science in simple language when the situation calls for that.

I think that’s a hard one for the scientists because the interesting areas of science are the areas of controversy, the cutting edge of knowledge, the work where things are not certain and when enthusiastic scientists talk about their work, they usually talk about the stuff they are working on right now, largely settled areas of science are not attracting large numbers of publication submissions.

Darwin was not anxious to publish his thoughts and science on natural selection and the origin of species. He understood that the science would be challenging the creation story in much the same way that early astronomers got in trouble when their observation indicated that the earth orbited the sun and not the other way around. That argument appears to be generally settled these days and the settlement of the astronomical “controversy” suggests that someday there may no longer be a need for an assault on the sciences based on Darwin’s work and the body of science that has followed Darwin’s publication regarding natural selection and the origin of the species, but we are clearly not there yet.

I hope this film will be shown in basic high school science classes as a lesson in the need to present facts accurately and also as a lesson that scientists need to remember to step back from their cutting edge work when the occasion calls for it and to communicate clearly about science and the scientific method.

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January 7, 2007 by mike.

Hat tip to Glumbert.com for this little nature study.

This is the kind of serious science that just doesn’t get enough coverage.

Click on the link above or the spider web picture for the whole story.

Put your favorite caffeine drink down before watching the video clip.

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