In a data driven world . . .

we are always trying to understand more about how people make decisions.  One of the unintended consequences is that you end up with a lot of answers that don't make a lot of sense.  Asking people about why they made a choice can easily lead you astray.  The fact is they often don't know why they did this or that.  But because you are asking, they feel compelled to give you an answer.  An answer that is often false, leaving the questioner less informed then when they began their questioning.  In fact, the very fact that people will have to explain themselves, effects the choices that they make. 

I write this because we seem to be in a quest for more of everything, even knowledge.  And too often we forget to ask ourselves what we are really learning from all this data collection.

Radio Lab (a great show, by the way) covers this well in an episode called Choice.

Here is an interesting blog post about the subject as well.

Rooting for the Republican Party

Those who know me may be surprised to read the title of this post, but I truly am. I can root for them, because the only way that they are going to be able to come back is to have better ideas. I want to have a choice as to who to vote for, and they have not given me one in quite awhile.

The link below talks about the start of a 3rd party -- an idea that at least seems intellectually plausible. But is it really necessary? When we look back at history we see that the party's have been very loose structures, with coalitions often crossing party lines. Regional differences often separated those within a single party. In essence, what our congress, and by proxy, what governed us were coalitions. They were not that different from the coalitions that permeate the governments of Europe. Hubert Humphrey (D) had a hell of a lot more in common with Everett Dirksen of Illinois (R) then he did with Richard Russell (D) from Georgia. See the breakdown of the regional votes for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 below as an example.

The original House version:

* Southern Democrats: 7-87 (7%-93%)
* Southern Republicans: 0-10 (0%-100%)

* Northern Democrats: 145-9 (94%-6%)
* Northern Republicans: 138-24 (85%-15%)

The Senate version:

* Southern Democrats: 1-20 (5%-95%) (only Senator Ralph Yarborough of Texas voted in favor)
* Southern Republicans: 0-1 (0%-100%) (this was Senator John Tower of Texas)
* Northern Democrats: 45-1 (98%-2%) (only Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia opposed the measure)
* Northern Republicans: 27-5 (84%-16%) (Senators Bourke Hickenlooper of Iowa, Barry Goldwater of Arizona, Edwin L. Mechem of New Mexico, Milward L. Simpson of Wyoming, and Norris H. Cotton of New Hampshire opposed the measure)


The Gaucho Politico: At What Point is a Third Part Viable

friendfeed please . . .

bring back your drop-down options  -- the following is quoted from: The Inquistr

Did someone send out a memo about hating dropdown lists and I missed it?

Everywhere it seems in Friendfeed, including its bookmarklet, dropdown lists have been banished to some netherworld. Instead we have some fancy combination of a text entry box and a auto complete dropdown. What this means is that if you don’t want the item that is displayed in the text area you click on the little ‘X’ to make it go away. Then you start typing the name, group or whatever in the text area and magically a dropdown list will appear with a list of items Friendfeed thinks you mean based on the letters you have typed in.

Gee, thanks. Good luck figuring that out all you new users as it was it took me a minute or two to figure about what the hell was going on. so tell me – other than being a way to show off some ninja javascript skill WTF is the point? Are proper dropdown lists so un-cool, even though they are simple to figure out and use, that they need to be replaced with a ridiculous option. C’mon give me a break.

In the end

Friendfeed has lost some of the best things that made it attractive and as a result it has become more work. I have always said that Friendfeed was one of the best tools out there for people need to keep their fingertips on the pulse of what is happening.

Couldn't agree more

Pelosi, Bush, . . . whoever was involved, no matter what party.  I don't necessarily want criminal prosecution, but we need to investigate. I wouldn't rule it out. 

Buckley

I enjoyed this article by Christopher Buckley -- I may pick up the book.

In a way I miss the arguments from the right from someone like Buckley.  While I did not often agree with him, at least the arguments were interesting.  And he certainly was a character.  I can't say that anybody has filled that void.

I enjoy Brooks and Andrew Sullivan, but the problem is that they both (at least I know Sullivan did) voted for Obama in the last election. 

I am posting this using Scribefire, seeing how it works.  So far so good.

Friendfeed

I added some Friendfeed Widgets on the right side of the page -- feel free to comment or even join my rooms.

I enjoy and get Friendfeed more then I do twitter, though I understand how twitter is more useful in some circumstances. What I like most about Friendfeed is that I have a little button in my browser that allows me to feed any of the ten or so "rooms" I am a member of. It is easy to then embed those "rooms" in other blogs, or nings or whatever. It is also easy to have information automatically post to these friendfeed. In my "Joe's Blogs" widget I have Eschaton, and Andrew Sullivan, as well as others to come, publish there.

Populist Anger

I do think that people can go too far in their anger toward those who earn money and have done well. It is important to remember that elements of capitalism require that people attempt to obtain wealth.

Earn is the operative phrase here. Anger is justified towards those who whine about what they should get, no matter the circumstance. This Matt Taibbi piece about the AIG executive who published his resignation in New York Times captures this perfectly.

I really enjoy Gram Parsons songs . . .

, in fact I often enjoy covers of his songs more than the original. Raul Malo's version of Hot Burrito #1 is one of the my favorite songs. Tribute albums very often disappoint, Return of the Grievous Angel does not. It is an Emmylou Harris project, and she really matches the songs to people who get the most out of those songs.

Norah Jones is not on the album, but this rendition of She is really quite good.

I don't know what he is doing with the guitar . . .

but I love it. It's a Daniel Lanois song (it may be him playing the guitar), producer of Emmylou, U2, Peter Gabriel, and you can actually hear common elements between all of them, even though the music itself is very different. And by the way, this album Teatro is amazing.

Featuring Derek Trucks . . . named for

the album from which this song came

c-span video

This is why we watch Jon Stewart

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

CNBC Gives Financial Advice

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Joke of the Day

If you can get through this . . .

you have a stronger stomach than I -- Parts I and II below

Fiction vs. Non-fiction

Watching Revolutionary Road today I am reminded of how little fiction I currently read. As I said in a previous post, the movie reminded me of the novel Something Happened by Joseph Heller. It has been at least ten years since I read it, but many scenes remain vivid to me, more vivid than the many history books that I have since read.

I know that in some ways I began to feel that reading fiction was not as informative -- it did not cover real events, and in some way felt frivolous. I don't feel that I have time to escape into a world that was created in the imagination of an author. And yet, those works of fiction are often able to get at greater truths than non-fiction accounts. Depictions of real events too often get sidetracked by the facts.

Revolutionary Road

There is a scene early in Revolutionary Road that works only in retrospect. Frank (Dicaprio) and April (Winslet) have an emotional argument by the side of the highway. It was difficult to assess the merits of the argument since we do not know the couple yet. I was uncomfortable watching them, for the acting seemed mannered and the outrage manufactured. I was worried that I was in for a "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf" tug of war. I need not have worried.

I enjoyed this film. Not because it breaks any new ground, but because it is so well presented, especially the acting. Kate Winslet is riveting. Her quiet intensity throughout the movie provides the prism to understand her disillusionment.

I kept thinking of Joseph Heller's novel -- Something Happened. The themes are similar to Revolutionary Road. It is this familiarity that requires that the movie be well executed to be successful, and it is.