Phil Gordon, crime stats and The Wire

Sorry this post is kind of inside baseball (and I mean inside my own head). I read this article in today's Arizona Republic about dropping crime rates and the strategies used to accomplish them.

Do any of you watch The Wire on HBO? I cannot help but see the parallels between our mayor and the fictional one in Baltimore. A big story line in the Wire is about "juking" the crime stats, the mayor that wants to be governor and chasing down a serial killer (a fictional one on The Wire, no actually fictional on the show). They even look alike:

If you are not already watching the show, it is too late the last episode is next week. I am so sad...

Interestingly Stupid

This article from the Arizona Republic contains an interesting study, but their analysis (it is actually a Chicago Tribune article) is a little stupid. While I would like to believe that liberals are generally more open minded than conservatives, I am not so sure that it always true. I have had dealings with actvists that would blow peoples minds. Now, I am not saying that the study isn't true in some aspects, but anyone who has worked in politics knows that the lunatic fringe on both extremes is a little ridged and to me seems pretty much the same. The simple fact is that individual behaviour is more important than group tendencies.


As usual, the author does not give any real information about the study, except that 43 students took part. 43 is not even a small sample, it is less than nothing. At any rate, I find these discussions of Liberal and Conservative a little tired and not very useful. While we will continue to use it as short hand because it is easy, the simple fact is that most of us have more incommon than not...

Arizona is not last, WOO HOO!?!?!

I have a running joke about how every state I have lived in (4, so far) has been last in education (some at the same time). I am normally very skeptical of rankings for a variety of reasons:

1. News organization seem to be willfully ignorant of how statistics and data work.
2. Studies are at times willfully misleading.
3. People misconstrue or take studies out of context
4. News organizations only seem to cover the state ranking when we are near the top or near the bottom.

Having said all of that, these rankings for health care by state seem to be pretty good. Arizona is near the middle which is what I would expect... I still cannot believe that Arizona is last in anything (everybody knows the Alabama and Mississippi are last in everything, but literacy, life expectancy and church attendance, btw I am from the South so I reserve the right to make fun of my beloved home. Seriously, I kid Alabama and Mississippi, but I love Tuscaloosa and Gulf Port).

At any rate, if you are sick Hawaii seems like the place to be (it is probably the place to be no matter what).