Lack of Feedback Means Supreme Court is Literally Out of Control

The first concept taught in system control is feedback. It is via a feedback arrangement that a system can be brought under control. The systems that are most associated with elegant responsiveness are all under feedback control (e.g., free markets; electronic circuits; "Darwinian" control in evolution)

With this in mind, it is interesting to think about our three branches of government. The legislature and executive face significant feedback in the form of elections. A lot of people are not happy with the electorates judgment but it does judge and sometimes harshly. The judiciary, except the rare local or state judge facing election, receive little controlling feedback. The Supreme Court, which cannot be reversed, faces none.

The decision prohibiting the death penalty for child rape, unintentionally ironically called "Kennedy v Louisiana", has been roundly blasted by some legal authors, (e.g., Scott Johnson, Andy McCarthy, Jim Lindgren, Orin Kerr).

To this layman, the Justice's argument that there was a consensus in society against the death penalty for child rape seems risible. Louisiana clearly, and the nation probably, sport a consensus in exactly the opposite direction. The court here, and often, seems simply to rationalize its own values and hold the intent of the constitution (underlying the actual words) reflects values that (imagine the coincidence) match their own. In other words, a court which does a lot of what it simply wants. A court out of control.

An Anti-Poverty Program That's Working: Millionaires Rise

An annual report from the consulting company, Capgemini, about the wealthy in the world was just released. Interesting stuff. They make estimates of the number of millionaires (excluding housing) and ultramillionaires. (all numbers here are real dollars, i.e., corrected for inflation)

For me, the fascination in these numbers is their pattern of growth. This is hard to measure, but two estimates are available from this company and they agree. One estimate is to simply average the recent growth of the number of millionaires (having the advantage of using a fixed methods and definitions). Over the last couple of years that average is a 7%. The other way is to look at the growth of the total wealth of the wealthy. Here, future growth is easier to estimate since this is among the consultant's specialties and they have access to (private) data. They estimate that wealth will grow about 8% per year over the near future, which also produces a estimate of about 7% for the increase in millionaires (based on past history which suggests millionaire number in the US grows slightly more slowly that total wealth of the wealthy).

There is little agreement on the number of U.S. millionaires, partly because the data are not good and partly because it depending upon definitions. Reasonable estimates range from 1% to 4% of the population. Nonetheless, what is clear is that a 7% growth in the number of millionaires (which causes a doubling in 10 years) applied several times is a tremendous program to eliminate material hardship. Could the median U.S. household have a worth of a million in 2050?

Across the world, the economic growth of China and India has been, by far, THE success story in alleviating world poverty. In the U.S., economic growth will have massive, human benefits too. Millionaire status does not provide opulence, but it's not a bad start or average.

Mainstream Media Death .... Ruled Suicide

The biggest story on the front page (paper version, above the fold and all that) in the USA Today this morning was "Utilities cut off more homes." Examples of sloppy thinking are fairly common, but this was still remarkable. It hits on all cylinders. In the first three sentences, it manages to pull three major logical errors, misdirection, data selection and a biased source.

The silliness begins with the title which defines the thrust of the article. Any actual interest in such an issue would, one hopes, want to find an underlying cause, essentially an independent variable. The utilities are turning off power because the bills are unpaid, same as always. The utility companies are essentially irrelevant in this. The writer does mention 'skyrocketing' food and fuel costs but makes no attempt to sort out income, outflows, and utility costs in people's budgets.

To 'prove' the case, the reporter (Paul Davidson) brings out the other two corkers. First he writes "Electricity and natural gas shutoffs are up at least 15% in several states. Totals for some utilities have more than doubled." ummmm ..... data selection is your friend, eh? Why not just give the U.S. avg? The intelligent reader, far from being convinced, is left wondering why he selected that data .... does the rest fail to support his case?

For his third logical error, the writer pulls a quote from the head of the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association. Is there any earthly reason to suppose this person unbiased? Energy assistance organizations advocate for and help fund those who are, or are in danger of, power cutoffs. This can be thought of as a noble effort, but there is little possibility of an neutral viewpoint.

Now, perhaps the author simply wanted to bash the utilities, seeing greedy plutocrats lighting cigars with $100 bills squeezed from the blood of the poor. Fine. Just write and editorial. Editorials on the front page, unlabeled, should be an embarrassment

.

Casualty Rates, Fishing and Fighting

A recent measure of Iraq War coverage shows the TV Networks are no longer covering the war. The obvious presumption is that the lack of coverage is because casualties are down. Many blogs suspect political motivations (e.g., Glenn Reynolds and John Hinderaker)

While it is obviously impossible to know what future casualties will be, the steep reduction in Iraq makes it an interesting time point to stop and try to assess.

Such comparisons must be done carefully, both because it must not be seen to denigrate even a single soldier's death as trivial and it must hold up to scrutiny, unlike some claims. Nonetheless, comparisons of casualty rates is critical to provide perspective and the total human cost of the war. In the following, the focus is on death rates as they are both most important and not subject to definition and category problems.

There have been about 4,000 U.S. Armed Services people killed in the Iraq War and about 450 killed in Afghanistan. These come from among the slightly greater than one million armed services personnel, so the annual death rate over the 5 years of the War on Terror is about 100/100,000.

Occupational death rates are available from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. They list forestry and fishing as the most deadly (major) occupation with an annual death rate of 112/100,000.

One may argue, of course, that the 'proper' base group for war death rate is the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan rather than the entire armed forces. With this subset of the armed forces, the annual death rate is about 400 or 500/100,000. There is, however, a deadlier subset of fishermen too. The crab fishermen of Alaska (featured in the documentary "Deadliest Catch"). These fishermen are subject to a similar, 400/100,000 annual death rate.

It is the nature of the world that all men die. Some lose their lives fighting for a cause. One can argue that the Iraq and Afghan wars are or were mistakes, but one must keep a perspective on the risk. The mainstream media, in their obsession with casualty rates, never achieved perspective.

Salmonella by the Dashboard Light

Sometimes you just have to whistle at the irony. I was doing a Google search to find how much attention was being paid to safety in the rage to discuss small cars and gas mileage.

I had the idea that there would be more media focus on the salmonella tomatoes (killing perhaps 5) than on the move to small cars (killing thousands). So, I did a search on "$4.00 gas" and "safety." A healthy 50K results came up and I dug in to read the first few. The first listing was useless, having the "safety" entry in a inane flame among the comments. The second produced the whistle. The main article discussed the usual techniques for maximizing gas mileage. The irony was in the location of the "safety" hit. It was in a side list of categories of previous articles, the group was "food safety."

Somehow, I suspect if I did a search on "salmonella" and "safety", I wouldn't get much on the effect car size has on survival chances in car crashes.

Regardless of the lack of media interest, don't be foolish. Buy a mid-size or larger car. In an average driving life in America, you have about an even chance of getting in a potentially fatal car accident.

"When hunting rabbits in lion country, beware of lions. When hunting lions in rabbit country you may ignore the rabbits." Eat tomatoes and buy big cars.

Charter Schools, Experimentation and Free Markets

The USA Today has an editorial debate on the value of charter schools. To their credit they seem willing to examine the charter experience carefully and try to encourage success where it occurs.

A (actually, this) scientist, viewing the intellectual landscape of the education debate might despair. There are too few controlled experiments and too few calls for them. Both are outrageous. Despite that, we occasionally learn something with controlled analysis (e.g., teacher certification is worth little or nothing) and despite its importance, the lesson is not applied.

If the governmental or central approach to schools was going to work in improving schools, it would be by the above, scientific approach. Pretty clearly that path isn't working. We probably teach no better than the classical Greeks.

But, this is America. The land of free markets, independent thinkers and doers. There is another way. We can "Let a thousand flowers bloom, let a hundred schools of thought contend". Apt, ignore the quote's source or remember that lovely flowers grow in manure.

This perspective makes particularly amusing the invited Opposing View to the USA Today editorial by Alfie Kohn. His lead point is "Will charters strengthen public education — or pave the way for vouchers and other privatization policies? As superintendents George and Mary Garcia warned, "The law of supply and demand, where winners make all the money and losers go broke, is a tragic idea to introduce into an institution whose purpose is to transmit democratic values and ensure equity for all." "

Wow. Do these fools think the winners and losers here are the children? The losers will be the bad charter schools, and a good thing that will be. The winners will be the good charter schools, and all the children after the bad charter and bad public schools close for want of "customers".

Stop Light Coalition: Red, Green, and Yellow

The long primary fight among the Democrats has pushed the winner, Barack Obama, left, or more accurately, prevented him from tacking right, toward the political center. This was caused, of course, by the need to appeal to the American left which has a dominant place in the Democratic Party and has coalesced into a stop-light coalition.

The three legs of a modern political alliance are economic policy, social policy and foreign policy. The left is currently Red on economics (well, pinkish actually) advocating a strong redistribution ("from each according to his ability; to each according to his need"), Green on social policy (major sacrifice to cut CO2, strict, even strangling, regulation of industry and commerce) and Yellow on foreign policy (talk to anybody, retreat from anywhere).

John Kennedy is rolling in his grave.

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." - John F. Kennedy

Old People Got No Reason to Live

Anyone who goes to a gym regularly has shared the experience. Gyms are filled with young people. Some of us have been shaking our heads over that for years; young people should work out, old people must work out.

The value of exercise for older people is widely reported. It seems likely to delay osteoporosis, fight cardiac disease and (perhaps via improved circulatory function) slow dementia. Hard to argue with the benefits.

Yet, unfortunately, few seniors exercise. Perhaps worse, recent publicity campaigns and the spread of the culture of exercise hasn't budged the exercise habits of the seniors. According to CDC surveys published in a USA Today column by Kim Painter today, about 20% of seniors exercise regularly. A number that is essentially unchanged over the last 10 years.

What does it mean? Old dogs really don't learn new tricks. Exercise appears to be a habit that the seniors won't learn. Sure, the amount of pub on 'exercise and aging' could be doubled or redoubled, but the message actually has been delivered, particularly of the last 10 years. It just hasn't been generally heard. There is no earthly reason to suppose that will change.

For the vast majority of people, it looks as though the only practical solution is to start young. Easy to say, hard to do. Perhaps, just not as hard as starting when old.