08 July 2010

What Growing Cancer Epidemic? - Update - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

New cancer trend statistics being released today are heartening. Eurekalert headline announcing the new cancer stats reads: "Cancer Deaths Continue to Drop." Which is happily quite true, but actually misses the even more amazing fact that "Cancer Incidence Rates Continue to Drop."

What Growing Cancer Epidemic? - Update - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine

Let there be higher wages

Money quote:
"If Mr. Obama follows Dean Edley’s advice, low-skilled workers’ wages will indeed change – specifically, the wages for many of these workers will fall from their current levels (say, $7.25 per hour) to $0 per hour. Firms seeking government contracts will replace low-skilled workers with machines; hire fewer such workers and work them harder; or use a smaller number of higher-skilled workers to perform tasks previously performed by a larger number of low-skilled workers."

Cafe Hayek — where orders emerge

removal_of_mariner_exam_questions.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Money shot:
"Coast Guard will no longer post actual mariner examination questions on the NMC website. Effective July 12, 2010, the full set of deck and engineering questions and answers will be removed from the NMC Website"


Not for the record, the questions were released under a court order. This will be interesting.

removal_of_mariner_exam_questions.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Pournelle on Berwick

Money quote:
Berwick is certainly qualified to head a national health care system (for a pro-Berwick piece see the Washington Post). He's also a realist about what that implies. A few years ago he said that sick people tend to be poorer, and poor people tend to be sicker, and if you want an excellent, humane, and rational health care system it is going to be redistributive. It has to be. An excellent national health care system requires redistributing the wealth.

Of course that's true. It's also the last thing Obama wants debated this summer and fall.

Current View

We Must Stop the Avalanche of Low-Quality Research - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Hat tip: Dr Peter Boettke!
Consider the post-investigation of the so-called "Climategate". A internationally recognized scientist asserted that many are reluctant to release their research because they worked so hard to obtain it.

However, high-quality research must be able to be duplicated. No one should accept, "This is the result we found and we're right."
- I'm minded of the cold-fusion issue of the last century.
- I'm minded of the hockey-stick of climate change; shown to be a tricky mathematical process that was all-but-guaranteed to produce hockey sticks.
- I'm minded of Dr Jerry Pournelle:
"I'll believe it's an emergency when people who say it's an emergency start acting like it's an emergency."

We Must Stop the Avalanche of Low-Quality Research - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education