Happy Friday, everyone.

Jeff Bezos, who wisely laughed Ezra Klein out of the Washington Post, says "umm, hey, we weren't kidding about that Amazon.com drone thing."

And speaking of delivery by air, it looks like the A-10 is only mostly dead.

Posted by: andy at 03:02 AM | Comments (312)
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Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:32 PM | Comments (690)
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Heckuva job, Seebey.

In case you think her resignation was caused by the fact that Obamacare and especially Healthcare.gov were disasters, nope, Ezra Klein, head of the comedy start-up Larfz.com, says different:

Oh, you'll be happy to know that Seebey's replacement is a non-partisan straight-shooter who only works on behalf of the American people.

She's the one who unilaterally ordered the Government Shutdown Theater in October, even demanding that the National Zoo's "Panda-Cam" be turned off.

To save taxpayer money, you know.

Posted by: Ace at 05:29 PM | Comments (52)
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A much-publicized Washington Post/ABCNews poll claimed that Obamacare had suddenly garnered near-majority support from the country.

But a new USAToday poll finds that Obamacare is as unpopular as it's been for years, so that ABC poll was, as many suspected, simply an outlier, the 1-in-20 they mean when they warn that 1-in-20 times the poll will simply be wrong.

USAToday finds that Obamacare is at 37% approval, 50% disapproval, in line with all other polls. Except for that one ABC one.

And even worse, a majority says that Obamacare will have a major impact on how they vote this November.

Now progs are doing what progs will do, which to attempt to prove how clever they are by demonstrating that facts are not facts at all, but social constructs we invent in our minds to justify racism or something.

You prove your cleverness by saying things which aren't true, but which aren't true in a clever way.

They're claiming that a majority actually supports Obamacare... or, rather, supports either Obamacare or a more leftwing alternative. They're adding that 37% support for Obamacare to another figure that says something like 12% would prefer a "more liberal" law, and coming up with 49% in favor of Obamacare or something even worse.

You will not be surprised that the neutral, objective news organization CNN is pushing this Conspiracy Theory of Numbers.

At Mediaite, Noah Rothman calls this twaddle, citing, as his chief analyst, the rightwing hatchetmen at... Huffington Post and 538.com.

Recently, partnering with the polling firm YouGov, Huffington Post polling analyst Mark Blumenthal attempted to duplicate CNN’s method of divining support for the ACA among those who do not support the ACA. To clarify CNN’s findings, he performed one extra step. “In your own words,” HuffPost asked select respondents, “what do you mean when you say the health care law is not liberal enough?”

“[V]ery few said they opposed the law because they would prefer a ‘single payer’ system (6 percent of those answering) or would prefer either the ‘public option’ or an alternative to ensure “healthcare for all” (4 percent),” Blumenthal revealed.

A much larger portion of the not-liberal-enough group referenced high costs (15 percent), the mandate to purchase health insurance (12 percent), or more general complaints about a lack of choice or too much government control (13 percent).
“I don’t think forcing everyone to buy insurance is liberal at all,” one respondent told Blumenthal.

“Liberal means choice to me at least and it leaves us no choice, we are forced to buy insurance we may neither need or want,” another said.

These are not promising results for the set of ACA supporters who had convinced themselves they were members of a new silent majority.

Remember, there's a Wonk Gap, and there's a situation of Asymmetrical Stupidity, and they're just smarter than you, so shut your stupid mouths and go back to blowin' on your whiskey jugs, you unlettered, unshoed Unpeople.

Click on Rothman's link to read the rest, including 538's analysis of prog claims that a lot of people don't think Obamacare goes "far enough." As well as a roundup of all the usual useless retransmitters of progressive memes writing furiously about this Exciting New Way to Look At Numbers.

Spoiler Alert: They don't seem to mean what progs believe they mean.

Posted by: Ace at 12:08 PM | Comments (316)
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Yup.

Kids shouldn't have to wait until they're 30 to make this realization, like I did, last year. (Ahem.) They should be taught the Lessons of Kaboom while they're still young enough to give up without exerting too much futile effort.

The pic (at the link) shows a Common Core question. What they want kids to do is this:

Rather than just memorizing that 13 - 7 = 6, they instead want them only to memorize the minus tables up to ten.

Then they want them to realize that 13 = 10+3, so the problem of 13-7 can be thought of as (10 + 3) - 7. 10 minus seven is three. So, three plus three. The answer is six, of course.

Here's the problem with this, and I've said this before, so I won't belabor it: The method that they are offering to avoid rote memorization or the mechanical method of subtraction involving two digit numbers is actually more conceptually difficult than the memorization or mechanical "carry-over-the-one" method.

It is true that there is a mathematical insight in realizing that 13 is just 10+3, and that various mathematical laws (the Associative property, maybe? I forget) permit one to subtract 7 from 10 and then add 3.

But this is a higher-level, higher-conceptual-insight view of the problem.*

Confronted with kids who aren't proficient with the low-level, low-conceptual-insight view of the problem, they decide... we'll teach them the high-conceptual-insight method of doing it.

If kids "aren't getting math," it seems to me the wrong way to go is to go higher concept on them.

In addition, parents don't understand this. Parents were taught the old method of doing this problem. And parents are, let's face it, the primary teachers of children. (The actual in-class teacher is really just the pacesetter for any kid who's learning -- because that kid is really learning at home, from his parents. It's the parents who sit with him over homework and serve as in-house personal tutors, after all. A kid who is learning primarily from his teacher probably isn't learning very much at all, alas. Ultimately, you either learn from your parents or you learn on your own.)

The mistake here seems to be the exact same mistake that these Professional Education Theorists made with respect to reading. They realized that high reading ability kids weren't using Phonics to sound out words, but instead were reading new words via the "whole word" method-- they were just looking at the word and saying it.

So educators said, "Hey, let's stop teaching this stodgy Phonics stuff, and start teaching Whole Word reading, like the proficient readers employ!!!"

Well, one problem with that: The proficient readers had begun as Phonics readers, but then, having become adept at reading, then began Whole Word reading only when they were reading at a near-young-adult level.

By attempting to treat the lower-level readers like the more accomplished readers, the educators stopped teaching the lower-level readers the skill that the accomplished readers had used to become accomplished readers in the first place. And that skill was Phonics.

Similarly, it seems these people have realized that kids who have internalized the times tables and arithmetic tables have, after a few years of fluency with them, noticed certain patterns and rules they could employ -- tricks, shortcuts. Stuff like breaking 13 into 10 and 3 (and invoking the Associative Property, even if they don't know what that is) to make computation simpler.

And once again they are trying to teach lower-performing kids the tricks that higher-performing kids are using, but skipping over the basic stuff that higher-performing kids had to internalize themselves to become higher-performing kids.

This just seems wrong to me, and faddish, like Whole Word learning was -- the Cult of the New, you know. If it's New, it must be Better.

Right?

Well, if Whole Word reading was indeed Better, why can't Johnny read?

* Frankly, these tricks usually occur to someone when they understand the subject well enough that they no longer need tricks at all. At least not to get the answer; but understanding the math, they begin looking for faster (or at least different) methods of getting the answer.

I really do not get the idea being sold here that the way to make a kid who's struggling with math understand math better is to teach him the insights that come from a deeper understanding of the material.

He doesn't have the basics down yet. Why are you getting tricky with the second and third order deductions?

Understanding that 13 - 7 is the same as 10 + 3 - 7 is a very useful insight. And all higher mathematics -- and note that modifier, "higher" -- relies greatly on such manipulations-of-the-numbers-for-computational-convenience.

Right? Algebra is (almost) nothing but manipulating figures for computational convenience. When you factor out (x -2) from x(squared) -4 so you can divide both sides by (x-2), that's manipulating the expression to make it easier for you to work on.

But note this manipulation of expressions for computational convenience is chiefly introduced at... the algebra level, 8th grade at the earliest. (Oh, sure, the ideas of the Communicative and Associative properties are introduced before that, but that's like a day or two in the lesson plan.)

It's a tricky business. Memorization and mechanical operation ("carry over the one...") are boring, of course, these methods will get you the right answer.

And they're conceptually dead-simple. Why is 13-7 equal to six? Because 1, it just is, but 2, if you don't believe me, count out 13 jelly beans, then take away seven of them, and count up what you have left. You have six jelly beans left.

Dead simple from a conceptual standpoint.

People mistake memorization as some kind of high-level mental task. It's not. It's hard, it's tedious, it takes time. But it's conceptually easy. Just like walking 5 miles is conceptually easy. I don't want to walk 5 miles, but I know exactly how to do it. As a conceptual matter, it's as easy as putting one foot in front of the other. It'll take hours and hours, but it will be done with little mental exertion.

Executing a proper flop on a high-jump is much more conceptually difficult, although, once you know how, it will only take a second.

I am very skeptical that the way to cure a problem in learning conceptually-simple things is to teach some revolutionary new method of conceptually-difficult things.

That's why they were taught as the primary pedagogy in math for like... 2000 years.

Until now, I guess. Now our kids, who are struggling, are all geniuses who are going to be routinely manipulating expressions for computational convenience just like the first-track eighth grade algebra kids.

Posted by: Ace at 01:47 PM | Comments (472)
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Wow.

If this is a joke, it's not evident from the written transcript:

Lord Lawson of Blaby (Con):
My Lords, is it not clear that my noble friend the Minister is completely mistaken in saying that it is not a question of mitigation or adaptation but both? There are competing claims on resources, and we have to decide which is our priority. Is it to decide single-handedly to decarbonise the world and thus, to no useful purpose, push up British energy prices, make fuel more expensive for British homes and litter the countryside with wind farms and solar panels? Is it not better instead to devote our resources to increasing our resilience to extreme weather events, whether or not the frequency of such events is marginally increased by global warming?

Baroness Verma:
As always, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for his intervention. However, I am also grateful to him for allowing me to say that the UK has among the cheapest energy prices in Europe. I think my noble friends will agree that this is about measures that address the issues of today, but which also look forward to ensuring that we have a much better future.

Viscount Simon (Lab):
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Judd, mentioned food in his initial supplementary question. In a programme some months ago on the BBC, it was stated that this country has the largest production and consumption of baked beans in the world. Can the noble Baroness say whether this affects the calculation of global warming by the Government as a result of the smelly emission resulting therefrom?

Baroness Verma:
The noble ViscountÂ’s question is so different. He raises a very important point, which is that we need to moderate our behaviour.

I suppose that Viscount Simon might have been making a joke-- but he's Labor (the left). And the BBC doesn't indicate that he was joking.

Now, actually, yeah, those smelly emissions are methane and methane is in fact a greenhouse gas.

In fact, one of the major sources of greenhouse gases are cows' smelly emissions.

But this idea that we have to "moderate" our farting to save the planet...

Posted by: Ace at 10:48 AM | Comments (517)
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And start the "peace process" again.

Palestinians and Israelis have reached a deal to extend peace talks beyond an April 30 deadline, Al Arabiya News Channel reported on Thursday.

The deal will see an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners released from Israel jails and a freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank.

Posted by: Ace at 09:48 AM | Comments (335)
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You know, the racist.

Stephen Colbert, the host of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," will succeed David Letterman as the host of "The Late Show," CBS Corp. CBS -2.52% announced on Thursday.

CBS said in a statement that it had signed a five-year agreement with Mr. Colbert to take over its flagship show when Mr. Letterman retires next year.

Mr. Colbert will retire the character he plays on his Comedy Central show--a send-up of Republican talk-show hosts--and will be himself as the host of the CBS show, the company said.

Craig Ferguson meanwhile has what's apparently called a "Prince of Wales" clause that guarantees him the show upon Letterman's retirement. However, that guarantee isn't solid; CBS can just pay a hefty penalty to him if they don't give him the show.

So I guess they'll be doing that, and I guess Ferguson becomes a free agent, and might just retire.

I imagined CBS might have trouble imagining Ferguson as an 11:30 host (although I'm not really sure there's such a terrific difference between an 11:30 show and a 12:30 one).

But then I don't see how you give Ferguson the middle finger in order to hire a different oddball with a narrow appeal and a weird vibe.

Ferguson's weird vibe is both more original and less alienating than Colbert's own weird vibe. Sure, Ferguson's show is essentially Pee Wee's Playhouse, as hosted by a recovering-alcoholic Scotsman. But the weirdness -- involving puppets, gay skeleton robots, and pantomime horses -- wasn't the sort of weirdness with an animus towards anyone.

Colbert says he'll be playing himself on the new show. Well, fine... but I've never seen Colbert play himself before. I've seen him play (very well, I have to admit) the strange homophobic gay history teacher Chuck Noblet on Strangers with Candy, and I've seen him play a strange mutant Bill-O'Reilly-As-Glimpsed-in-Progressive-Nightmares character on clips from the Colbert Report.

Basically I've seen him play a lot of strange characters. I assume there's a reason for that, that that's his metier.

What evidence does CBS have that the real Colbert will play with a large audience?

Okay, One Last Point: Sorry to be campaigning so hard for Ferguson, even after it's too late to matter.

But here you go.

An 11:30 host has been thought to need two things to succeed.

First, he had to be funny, obviously.

But more importantly -- remember, there are a lot of funny guys out there, and very few are asked to host an 11:30 talk show -- he had to be likable, "relatable" (as they say in Hollywood focus groups), and someone the audience had an easy feeling of rapport with.

This is part of the reason there was such a big tumult regarding the Leno vs. Letterman choice NBC made so long ago. Neither man seemed to have Johnny Carson's easy charm. Letterman was odd and often bitter in his humor; Leno was odd and often off-putting in his puppylike need to ingratiate.

Both men were clearly bored during most interviews.

If either man had had that Carson-like Relatability Factor, there would have been no controversy at all.

I don't know who Colbert is as a real person. I've seen him play the Chuck Noblet character and the Mutant Bill O'Reilly character. (And, by the way, the Mutant Bill O'Reilly character is more or less exactly like the Chuck Noblet character, except not gay.)

I have become a fanboy of Ferguson's, however, and not just because he's funny. Oh, the show is funny, sure. But I watch the show because he's likable, and he seems interesting.

So on the likability front, CBS has evidence that Ferguson has it. They have no such evidence (apart from, I guess, some impromptu "test interviews") that Colbert does.

Craig Ferguson Will Net $8 Million for Not Being Hired. $8 million penalty clause if he isn't hired to replace Letterman.

Chickenfeed, really. Letterman's deal with CBS (which NBC would have had to match clause-by-clause if NBC wanted to keep him) included a $50 million penalty clause if his show didn't air at 11:30. (That is, CBS intended to air it at 11:30, so had no problem writing in this huge penalty; but if NBC tried to match the contract (NBC had matching rights, the right to duplicate any third party contract and compel Letterman to sign with them instead of the third party), but keep Letterman on at 12:30, they would have had to pay him $50 million for the privilege.)

Now that I read a few articles (and commenters' posts), it does seem like Ferguson's ratings have taken a big hit, losing audience to Seth Meyers.

How that happened, I have no idea. Before the Fallon/Meyers debut (and I don't expect those high ratings to last), Ferguson's show was getting good ratings and he was building audience.

They Made the Right Choice: You can't top Big Funny like this.

“Simply being a guest on David Letterman’s show has been a highlight of my career,” Colbert said in a statement. “I never dreamed that I would follow in his footsteps, though everyone in late night follows Dave’s lead.”

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go grind a gap in my front teeth,” he quipped.

Bazinga.

It's possible Ferguson just didn't want the show that much. He's previously expressed equanimity about continuing on with his current show. (However, I suspect those expressions of reluctance were made at about the same time he was negotiating a new contract.)

Posted by: Ace at 08:31 AM | Comments (484)
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Moving right along, meet the "Drop Dropbox" campaign.

On April 9th, Dropbox announced that Condoleezza Rice will be joining their Board of Directors. Dropbox's CEO, Drew Houston, posted the following message:

..We're proud to welcome Dr. Condoleezza Rice to our Board of Directors. When looking to grow our board, we sought out a leader who could help us expand our global footprint. Dr. Rice has had an illustrious career as Provost of Stanford University, board member of companies like Hewlett Packard and Charles Schwab, and former United States Secretary of State. WeÂ’re honored to be adding someone as brilliant and accomplished as Dr. Rice to our team.

This is deeply disturbing, and anyone — or any business — who values ethics should be concerned.

Why is this? Because she was a part of the Bush administration? Because she is a Republican and we should hate Republicans? I mean, come on, isn't Al Gore on Apple's Board? He's no saint!

No. This is not an issue of partisanship. It makes sense that Dropbox would want an accomplished, high-level, well-connected individual on their Board of Directors as they prepare for their IPO.

President Bush's National Security Advisor during the lead-up to the Iraq War, and was intimately involved in the decision to go to war with Iraq and spoke publicly in support of it. She was an integral part of the Bush administration's campaign of lies surrounding the war, working to further public support of the war by lying about Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

And finally:

Condoleezza Rice should not be on the Board of Directors of Dropbox and her selection shows that Drew Houston and the senior management at Dropbox are ethically short-sighted.

Tell Drew Houston: drop Condoleezza Rice or we will #DropDropbox

Thanks to ADC.

Posted by: JohnE. at 07:28 AM | Comments (323)
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This is just a great clip all around.

It's funny watching the question of Hillary's greatest accomplishment asked and laughingly rejected as ridiculous at first, then having it slowly dawn on the panel that none of them has an answer.

John Heilemann, realizing he had nothing, decides he "doesn't want to do an ad for Hillary" and they finally throw it to reliable Democrat cheerleader Chuck Todd who is able to come up with impressive feats like frequent flyer miles and something about Egypt.

Hillary 2016: She's Already Passed The Globetrotting Vacation Test more...

Posted by: JohnE. at 06:00 AM | Comments (464)
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