The USA Aug 2012 BLS Jobs Report

The USA Bureau of Labor and Statistics released the jobs report on Sept. 7. I've dissected it into different (sub-)sectors to see how the employment market has been changing recently.

Camp Quest on Nightline

ABC's Nightline reported (August 23, 2012) on Camp Quest. The kids said some smart things, and a psychologist said some really stupid things (but that's not surprising, we've met this psychologist before).

Can You Drive a Car With a Windmill On It?

In March, Mitt Romney said “you can't drive a car with a windmill on it.” (Barack Obama just quoted him.) Whether he intended it literally or figuratively, Romney is wrong. Here's why.

Piling On the Texas GOP Platform

There has been a lot of discussion (i.e., well-deserved ridicule) about the 2012 Texas GOP Platform in the past few days. People have been discussing a lot of stupid things in the platform. I'd like to add my 0.02 Loonies.

A Followup to Turing's Birthday, with Busy Beavers

In my previous post celebrating the 100^th birthday of Alan Turing, there was an animation of a simple Turing machine in action. I suggested that the reader try to figure out what the machine was doing (I didn't really intend this as a homework exercise!). Here's the answer, and two more Turing machines (but these aren't so simple).

Happy Birthday, Alan Turing

Alan Turing: 1912-06-23/1954-06-07. In celebration of his hundredth birthday, I made a movie. (It's an animated gif, more than half a megabyte, so if you've got a slow connection it might take a little while.)

Analyzing the Gallup Poll on Creationism

A few weeks ago, Gallup released the results of a poll about USAians' views on evolution vs. creationism. The results aren't good (but they've never been very good). I'm taking this opportunity to explore the meaning of confidence levels in polls — and, in the process, to tease out some actual information from the polls, which turns out to be slightly good.

The Arctic Phytoplankton Bloom will NOT Stop Global Warming!

A NASA team just announced their observations of a large bloom of phytoplankton under the Arctic ice. It's large in terms of both size (area) and total biomass density. Everybody seems to be surprised.

The Republican Party and Gasoline Prices

There's a chart on the Republican Party home page. Let's take a look.

On the Unemployment Rate

Lots of people are squawking about the latest USA unemployment rate. As usual, they're missing the big picture. Let's take a look.

Analyzing Some Data About the USA Congress

The Sunlight Foundation recently evaluated the speech levels of members of the USA Congress. More precisely, they measured the school grade levels of the speech. There are some interesting things that can be extracted from the data, but (of course) not what has been reported in the media.

Mitt Romney Fails Finance 101

Mitt Romney talks about the U.S.A. government debt and (surprise!) gets it wrong.

Gasoline prices

According to Reuters, "Americans angry with Obama over gas prices". Fucking morons.

Repugnant Callous Xenophobia in the Mainstream Media

I couldn't decide whether to call this xenophobia, racism, nationalism, jingoism, or something else; maybe it's all of the above. As we all know, bad things are happening in Syria. Why does this matter? Let's find out, from the CBS Evening News.