[Sorry about the confusion about the posts! I accidentally posted the text of one post under the heading of the other!]
The comments on last week’s post on some students protesting the new nutritious food guidelines for school lunches were quite lively. So I went back and tried to find some data to see if that might clarify the situation. [Read more…]
[Sorry about the confusion about the posts! I accidentally posted the text of one post under the heading of the other!]
So I ended up watching the first debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.
I thought the format was much better than previous ones that I have seen. It allowed for much freer exchanges between the candidates and more time for direct exchanges and thus was more like a real debate. In the process, both speakers ended up running rough-shod over the moderator Jim Lehrer and some may accuse him of having lost control. But that was better than in some ‘debates’ from years past when the moderator acted like a circus ring master cracking the whip at the candidates. The less we see and hear of the moderator the better. [Read more…]
As I said earlier, journalists will use every device to persuade us that elections are closer than they are, in order to keep interest high. One of the things they do is to assert that if the difference between the predicted votes for two candidates is smaller than the margin of error of the poll, then the two candidates are in a statistical tie. This gives the impression that it is a toss-up, i.e., 50-50 chance, as to who is ahead. This is simply not true and worth reiterating during the election season, like I did back in 2008 around this time. [Read more…]
Some of you may have been following the controversy involving posters in the subways. Pamela Geller, who sees the threat of Sharia under every bed, wanted to place signs in the subway stations of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) of New York that said “In any war between civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” The odd wording derives from something that Ayn Rand once said. [Read more…]
The Twenty20 World Cup cricket tournament is currently going on in Sri Lanka. The original 16 teams were whittled down to eight in preliminary group matches. Those eight were then reduced to four (West Indies, Sri Lanka, Australia, and Pakistan) in another set of group matches. These teams will now play in a sudden-death format to see who emerges as the winner. [Read more…]
It seems clear that the leaked video of Mitt Romney’s 47% comments at the event held for wealthy contributors has hurt him more than his campaign anticipated and that they are in serious damage control mode. I fully expect him to spend considerable effort in the debate tonight trying to correct the image that he is an out of touch rich guy. [Read more…]
Jason Jones of The Daily Show looks at a firm that specializes in counseling rich people for the psychological problems associated with having great wealth. It turns out that some of the one percenters can’t handle the fact that they are not universally loved. [Read more…]
NPR had a couple of interesting items yesterday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of James Meredith enrolling at the University of Mississippi (popularly referred to as ‘Ole Miss’), a landmark event in breaking the segregation barrier in the south. He had to do so in the teeth of widespread opposition that went all the way up to the governor and that led to riots and deaths. [Read more…]
I almost never watch the political ‘debates’ since their carefully choreographed format makes them more like joint press conferences, where the candidates regurgitate the closest prepared and rehearsed responses to whatever question is posed to them, than authentic debates. The ‘town hall’ format where audience members ask questions are more fun since the general public is less predictable in their questions than mainstream journalists. [Read more…]