Orton's Arm

Glad to see the Left is still trying to destroy the reputations of those who disagree with its own warped political views. But James Dobson? Hey, while they're at it, why not put Mother Theresa on the list? She opposed abortion after all . . .

An excellent article. I hope Branson's idea succeeds.

This from someone incapable of a single intelligent observation about statistics, genetics, economics, or just about anything else.

I once had a certain amount of respect for you. But over the last few months, it's almost like you've been trying to be as stupid as you possibly could be. Because nobody could possibly be dumb enough to believe even half the junk you've written over that time. Could they?

I treated you as though you were capable of an intelligent discussion about economics and the environment. Please accept my apologies.

Ramius is an ignorant loudmouth. You'd be amazed at how uninterested I am in his opinion about me, or about any other topic. Wait! I take that back! I am interested in Ramius' opinions: if he thinks an idea is stupid, it's a sign I need to at least consider taking it seriously. Conversely, if he's in love with an idea, I need to start searching for whichever flaw made him fall in love with it. It's not a perfect system, because he often parrots what he's been told. He sometimes parrots correct ideas; in ways which show only a surface understanding. Darwinism comes to mind--he claims he believes in it, but he lacks the conceptual awareness to comprehend the implications of that belief. His posts about statistics have shown an equal level of intellectual shallowness. There is, in short, nothing Ramius could possibly write which I would consider anything more than the ignorant ramblings of a half-evolved Neanderthal who's still learning the rudiments of human speech. "Punch in the face." Ha! If Ramius wants to harm my face, he'll need to use his fists. In time, he may learn to use primitive stone tools. Winning a war of words is far beyond him.

Toward the end of his career, Steve Tasker became a surprisingly good contributor at WR. It was too little and too late to keep people from thinking of Tasker as an exclusively special-teams guy. But he was there long enough to learn a thing or two about running pass routes and getting open.

Why do you want to make government officials more efficient? When that CEO you mentioned gets more done, his company makes more money. A congresscritter getting more done generally means one of the following: 1. The taxpayers' money is being given away for political reasons 2. Harmful new regulations are being created 3. Laws are being changed to help the likes of the RIAA at the expense of the American people 4. Bureaucracies are being expanded 5. Social programs are being created or expanded 6. The government is finding flimsy excuses to meddle where it doesn't belong 7. Miscellaneous actions which hurt the country as a whole in oder to help some special interest group or corporate lobby or government union. The less these people are able to do, the better off we'll all be.

The police officer wasn't being thin-skinned. Part of an officer's job is to send the message that if you mess with someone wearing that uniform, you're going to pay.

An interesting comment coming from someone who isn't capable of any form of thought, whether critical or otherwise.

Joe Six Pack's answer is a good one: build nuclear power plants. But even if you use fossil fuels to generate the electricity, electric cars are far more environmentally friendly than gasoline powered cars. You say my plan shouldn't be adopted because it would create added stress on the national grid. Tell me, does your concern for the national grid also influence your views of immigration? Because one obvious way to reduce the rate at which electricity demand is increasing would be to radically slow the flow of immigrants.

And yet you get so annoyed when I point out that you make unfair and inaccurate assumptions!

This may shock some people, but in real life my name's not Holcomb's Arm. It's Jeff Mark Troy Troy Hostetler Rypien Aikman Aikman. Those four years were pretty rough for a guy like me. Good thing I'm not a women's basketball fan.

That's one of Connor Byrne's better articles. He may be right: based on some of Marv's quotes I've seen, the Bills may not be looking to address the DL early in the draft. I got the feeling Marv thought improvement at DT should come from within--presumably by improvements from Kyle Williams and John McCargo. That's not necessarily what I'd do if I was the Bills' GM. I'd re-sign Kelsay and Clements, and then do this:: Round 1: Okoye, DT Round 2: OG Round 3: OG Rounds 4 - 7: LB, FB, WR, CB, in no particular order Well, you say, why draft Okoye when McCargo might well turn into a dominating presence? McCargo might not dominate, in which case you need Okoye. But if McCargo does dominate, think of the DT rotation the Bills would have! McCargo and Okoye would be at or near the Pro Bowl level, and their backups would be Larry Triplett and Kyle Williams. All four men would get their share of playing time. That would be one solid DL! Assuming my first three picks worked out, the Bills could easily have one of the ten best offensive lines and defensive lines. At LB the starters would be Crowell at MLB, and Ellison and Spikes on the outside. The 2007 secondary could resemble the one from 2006, except that Youboty would compete with McGee for that starting spot opposite Clements. On offense, the only weak link on the OL would be Melvin Fowler. At QB, you'd have Craig Nall waiting in the wings should Losman struggle. The Bills would be a little weak at WR once you got past Evans, but the Bills can get by at WR and TE with guys like Peerless Price, Josh Reed, Roscoe Parrish, Robert Royal, and Ceislak. RB would be decent with McGahee and Anthony Thomas. Is the above scenario perfect? No. But it would considerably strengthen the Bills; and probably boost the team into the playoffs. You'd have to fill in a few more holes before you could start talking about the Super Bowl though.

Your dice example showed that when initial test results are determined entirely by random chance, retesting those who obtained extreme scores will, on average, result in complete regression toward the population's mean. I'd never disputed that point. I'm not sure what you hoped to add to the discussion by bringing in your dice example; but it certainly did nothing to contradict the statements I'd been making from the very beginning. The specific claim I made was that if you gather a group of people who scored a 140 on an initial I.Q. test, and if you ask the group to retake the test, the people in the group will, on average, score somewhat less well the second time around. You ridiculed the claim when I first made it. After I found support for that claim from Stanford, the University of Chicago, Duke, the University of Washington, and the EPA, you admitted the phenomenon itself was valid. Oddly, that admission didn't deter you from continuing to poke fun at the phenomenon, or at me for having described it.

I'm sorry, but you clearly know too little about economics to try to point out fallacies in my posts. Say you worked the tax so that it was $0 for an electric car, $1,000 for a Honda Civic, and $10,000 for a Hummer. You force the car dealers to put that tax information on the stickers when they're selling the cars. Taxes like that will radically affect consumer behavior. That, in turn, will radically affect the behavior of car manufacturers. @GG: good article on the gas tax. I'm certainly in favor of a higher gas tax. But I like the above tax even better. 1) It hits potential SUV buyers upfront; where they're most likely to pay attention, 2) you can structure the tax in a way which creates very little punishment for a sensible, fuel-efficient vehicle, but drastic punishment for a gas guzzler. That would create a more drastic vehicle buying change than merely making gas more expensive, and 3) the tax I've described would do little or no harm to the little guy. The little guy typically isn't engaging in conspicuous consumption by buying an SUV in the first place, or else he's buying his car used. The gas tax hurts the little guy a lot more than the tax I'm proposing.

You seem to think that a comment like "you're too stupid to understand variance" constitutes a perfectly intelligent and legitimate contribution to a discussion of regression toward the mean. I'm sorry, but your inability or refusal to contribute anything constructive or useful would get you laughed out of any intellectually credible discussion forum.

When was the last time you had any sort of thought, original or otherwise? As for the parallel examples: I'd been giving my own I.Q. test example for some time before I came across Stanford's (nearly identical) example. To suggest I was "parroting" Stanford is almost as stupid as the other things you've written about regression toward the mean.

I'm saying that the best response to the negative externality is a per-unit pollution tax. In the absence of such a tax, it's impossible for the free market to respond to pollution in anything close to an economically efficient manner. The reason such a tax doesn't exist for SUVs is because of corporate lobbying efforts. The way the problem should be addressed is for new vehicle sales to be taxed on the basis of how much pollution the vehicle produces on a per-mile basis. Such a tax would create an economic incentive for companies to create the cleanest vehicles they can. The tax would force those who buy SUVs to internalize the costs of their own conspicuous consumption.

My conceptual explanation was the same as Stanford's. The fact that you chose to ridicule said explanation demonstrated only your own inability to intelligently discuss statistics.

On the contrary, had you understood the statistical concept that I and other sources had presented, you wouldn't have disputed it. We could have moved on. Instead, your ignorance and incomprehension resulted in over 50 pages of debate.

Yes, pollution controls have been in place for decades. But the proliferation of SUVs and light pickup trucks shows that our pollution-related behavior is very far from being economically optimal. A per-unit pollution tax has the potential to fix this problem; but won't be implemented anytime soon due to political pressure from the automakers and oil companies. Yes, I do have "some bug" with the auto industry, because SUVs and light trucks are an obvious example of corporate lobbying and other factors resulting in pollution that's very clearly unnecessary. Coal power plants already trade pollution allowance certificates. The problem is there are too many such certificates, which means their price is too low. It's better than nothing, but not economically optimal.

Should they ever remove your gallbladder, there'd be nothing left of you. You're 50% gall, and 50% bladder. I described the regression effect (a.k.a regression toward the mean), which you ridiculed. I found a Hyperstats article to support what I was saying, which you ridiculed because it was named Hyperstats. Then I found articles from Stanford, the University of Chicago, Duke, and other credible sources; all of which supported what I'd been saying for the last 50 pages. You bringing up regression toward the mean is like Kevin Gilbride bringing up the Comeback Win.

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was published in 1962. We've had the last 45 years to realize pollution is a problem, and to deal effectively with it. We haven't done so yet, and I don't expect things to change anytime soon. Sure, it's possible that a combination of new technology and higher oil prices will force us to be somewhat less irresponsible about vehicles in the future than we are today. But a per-unit pollution tax is absolutely essential in order to force polluters to internalize the costs they impose; and I don't see that happening anytime soon. As for the wood pricing example I mentioned, that was merely to illustrate how, in general, the free market's pricing mechanism produces economically optimal outcomes. Negative externality behaviors such as pollution are an exception to that general rule.

I'm trying very hard to be patient here, so I'll overlook your use of words like "idiot" and "moronic." Let's just talk about economics without calling each other names, okay? The power of a free market lies largely in its pricing mechanism. Goods and services naturally flow to their highest-valued use. If there's a shortage of wood, the price will go up. That will encourage those who place the lowest value on wood to find alternatives. This pricing mechanism applies to almost every aspect of a free market, and generally results in economically efficient outcomes. But there are exceptions, such as the negative externality example I gave. The factory owner had to choose between a pollution control system which would cost $250,000; or imposing $750,000 in pollution costs on other people. The economically efficient outcome is for him to buy the pollution control equipment. The problem is, that he internalizes the cost of that equipment (i.e., he writes the check), but he does not internalize the $750,000 in pollution-related costs he would impose on other people. In the absence of regulation, most factory owners will choose not to buy the pollution control equipment. The reason for this involves contracting costs. Let's say that 100,000 people would be affected by the factory's pollution. In theory, you could get those 100,000 people together, and have them negotiate with the factory owner. The factory owner would say, "I propose to increase my pollution level by X, and in return I'll pay each of you Y." The factory owner would continue to increase his bid until over half the people voted to accept it. Or in this case, the factory owner would install the pollution control equipment, because that would be cheaper than purchasing the right to pollute from the affected community. Clearly there are a host of problems which prevent the above example from ever being implemented. A much simpler way to address the problem is to create a pollution tax. A pollution tax would force the factory owner to internalize the costs of his own pollution; and thereby cause him to invest in the pollution control equipment. Whether the pollution tax was too low ($500,000) or too high ($1,000,000); its outcome would encourage more economically optimal behavior than no tax at all. Generally speaking, pollution without an associated per-unit pollution tax results in an above-optimal level of negative externality behavior. Only a per-unit pollution tax can cause polluters to make economically optimal pollution control decisions. Do you see a per-unit pollution tax on SUVs? Do you see one on gas-powered lawn care equipment? Other than coal-generated power, do you see much of a per-unit pollution tax anywhere? Because of the absence of such a tax, people and companies are making non-economically optimal decisions about pollution control. They're not forced to internalize the costs of their own polluting behavior, and so choose to pollute at a higher level than is economically optimal.