Monthly Archives: September 2011

How Bad Data Spreads

Posted on September 18, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

In case you were wondering: The fatherhood myth | Inside Story shows how lazy reporting and the jungle telegraph spreads a false statistic about the percentage of children whose paternity likely is other than they think. Hint: the right number is not 30%.

Posted in The Media | Comments Off on How Bad Data Spreads

Looks Like I Am Behind on my Reading

Posted on September 17, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

Internet Archive reached the milestone of offering 3 million freely downloadable texts yesterday. Our 3 millionth text is a Galileo pamphlet from the rare book collection of the University of Toronto.

See 3 million texts for free « Internet Archive News for more.

Posted in Internet | Comments Off on Looks Like I Am Behind on my Reading

Attack of the Giant African Land Snail

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

New pest in the neighborhood:

A dangerous snail of gigantic proportions is gradually invading Miami Dade County, threatening to consume plants and plaster and infect humans along its way.

The creature, known as the Giant African Land Snail (GALS!), is "one of the most damaging snails in the world," the [Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services] says. The slow-moving sloth not only can consume at least 500 different types of plants, but "can cause structural damage to plaster and stucco and can carry a parasitic nematode that can lead to meningitis in humans.”

Wait a minute: this snail eats stucco? It can eat my house?

I mean, it’s a snail, right — just how fast does it eat a house? It and its 1200 descendants…

Posted in Miami | 4 Comments

Run For Your Lives!

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

Homeopathic leak threatens catastrophe:

An accidental release of highly dilute homeopathic waste from a research institute in Swindon has led to calls for the centre to be shut down. Plant operators have admitted responsibility for massive safety blunders after a spilled drop of an enormously dilute test product was cleaned by a caretaker, and in complete disregard of all safety procedures, allowed to enter the water system after he emptied his mop bucket down the drain.

And as we all know, the more dilute it gets, the more powerful it gets…

Next to the Plant are seven abandoned Fire Engines – exposed to such dangerously low concentrations of homeopathic contamination that they can never be used again – they will eventually be entombed in concrete where they lie.

Local Fire Chief, Boutros-Boutros Jones gave a frank account of the current situation; ‘We have to accept that we’ve lost the battle locally, two water treatment works may never be safe to use again, but the fight to contain this and prevent further dilution is still on. Clearly if this reaches the sea, it’s game over.’

It never ceases to amaze me when I visit there just how popular homeopathic remedies are in France.

Posted in Completely Different, Science/Medicine | 1 Comment

Eight Years!

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

I started this blog on Sept 15, 2003.

And it’s still going despite everything.

If you are a regular reader and haven’t done so already, please take a minute and tell me a little about yourself.

And thanks for stopping by.

Posted in Discourse.net | 2 Comments

If We Can’t Trust Our Elections…

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Michael Froomkin

A society that can’t run a fair election is not a democracy. We really should make it a priority to be a democracy.

This platitude is inspired by two sets of postings:

I should probably add in regard to the Eye on Miami series that while I think they have done extraordinary work documenting a huge problem, I think there is a fairly strong legal argument that any solution to the terrible local absentee ballot fraud issue will require something different from what they advocate. After Bush v. Gore, would not a solution — tighter rules on how ballots are cast and authenticated — have to be state-wide, not local, for equal protection reasons? And that runs into the problem of the same people who created the mess we’re in: the Republican legislature, some of whom are beneficiaries of the frauds if not actually paymasters and instigators of it.

Posted in Civil Liberties, Law: Constitutional Law, Miami | 5 Comments