Author Archive: Paul Epps

Which Experts Predicted a Florida St-Auburn Title Game?

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A few months back, we outlined the prediction ineptitude of baseball pundits, who went 0-for-63 on predicting either the Red Sox or Cardinals to make the World Series. In fact, not one pundit picked the Red Sox to win even their division. Well, the MLB pundits now have some company, as none of the 30 college pundits we tracked (from ESPN, CBS, and NFL.com) picked either Florida State or Auburn to make the BCS Title game. — Pundit Tracker Read more →

Unconstrained Thinkers

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Unconstrained thinkers either do not recognize, or refuse to come to grips with, the fact that not everything that is good is worth the cost of its achievement — and that not everything that is bad is worth the cost of its obliteration. Unconstrained thinkers are also typically gripped by romantically unrealistic notions of the abilities of people wielding power, as well as of the trustworthiness of such people. Unconstrained thinkers, because they can imagine people with power exercising that power for the greater good and only for the greater good, are unwilling to suffer any imperfections in reality –- for why suffer such imperfections if a Great and Good Leader (or Great and Good Council) can possibly make the world a better place? — Don Boudreaux Read more →

ADHD in the Making

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My family and I are enjoying a meal at a Japanese restaurant. In the booth behind me are a husband and wife and five kids, the oldest of whom looks to be about 12. One of the kids, a boy of about 5, is standing up and running a toy car back and forth along the divider between his booth and our booth. He gets bored with that after a while and starts drumming on the divider with a pair of chopsticks. The boy’s activities don’t bother me much . . . what bothers me is that it takes 15 minutes for one of the parents to tell him to stop it and sit down. He doesn’t do either and nothing else is said or done about the matter. In the near future, this boy’s inability to sit still and follow directions will get him “diagnosed” by a schoolteacher as… Read more →

The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend. — Aristotle

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. — Friedrich Nietzsche

We’re Still Smarter Than You Are

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Teens from Asian nations dominated a global exam given to 15-year-olds, while U.S. students showed little improvement and failed to reach the top 20 in math, science or reading, according to test results released Tuesday. — Why Asian teens do better on tests than US teens – CSMonitor.com Why am I not shocked by that? Because Americans on the whole are dumb and lazy. We have lots of dumb, lazy parents raising dumb, lazy kids. The average American kid doesn’t compare well academically to the average kid in an Asian country where academics and hard work are valued, or to the average kid from a small, homogenous European country where it’s easier to get everyone pulling in the same educational direction. The U.S. is a big, diverse country and the average academic results are pulled down by a lot of dummkopfs. But still, the smartest people in the world are… Read more →

The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates

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“Do not ride your bicycle around the corner,” the mother had told the daughter when she was seven. “Why not!” protested the girl. “Because then I cannot see you and you will fall down and cry and I will not hear you.” “How do you know I’ll fall?” whined the girl. “It is in a book, The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates, all the bad things that can happen to you outside the protection of this house.” “I don’t believe you. Let me see the book.” “It is written in Chinese. You cannot understand it. That is why you must listen to me.” “What are they, then?” the girl demanded. “Tell me the twenty-six bad things.” But the mother sat knitting in silence. “What twenty-six!” shouted the girl. The mother still did not answer her. “You can’t tell me anything because you don’t know! You don’t know anything!” And the girl ran… Read more →

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. — Albert Camus

Waving Bibles at Scientists

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The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that a public school district was legally justified in firing science instructor James Freshwater, who waved a Bible at his students, distributed religious pamphlets and talked about creationism in evolution lessons. Personally, I’d fire him just based on the look of smug, benevolent certainty on his face. He doesn’t look like a man who struggles with doubt, which is the essence of science. Read more →

IRS Refunds $4 Billion to Identity Thieves

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The Internal Revenue Service issued $4 billion in fraudulent tax refunds last year to people using stolen identities, with some of the money going to addresses in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Ireland, according to an inspector general’s report released Thursday. The IRS sent a total of 655 tax refunds to a single address in Lithuania, and 343 refunds went to a lone address in Shanghai. In the U.S., more fraudulent returns went to Miami than any other city. Other top destinations were Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta and Houston. — Associated Press Hmmm . . . aren’t there some sort of sanity checks built into the IRS system? Doesn’t a warning bell go off when 655 tax refunds are sent to a single address in Lithuania? Does this erode your confidence in the federal government’s ability to manage complex systems and gigantic sums of money? I’m sure they’ll do a much better job… Read more →

Another Smoking Gun on “Keep Your Coverage”

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The conversation below took place more than four years ago — June 23, 2009 — at a congressional hearing on Obamacare. The topic was the keep-your-coverage promise, and the participants were Christina Romer, then chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, and Rep. Tom Price, who is also a doctor. The conversation plays out like one of those word puzzles where you start out with one word and change one letter at a time to get a completely different word. Watch Romer’s responses on keeping your coverage go from “Absolutely” to a stammering “I’d have to look at the specifics.” It’s also yet another reminder of what a pig in a poke Obamacare was. Even the people advocating for it had no idea what was in it. REP. PRICE: You also mentioned, as other folks have, that the president’s goal — and it’s reiterated over and over and over —… Read more →

Why Aren’t Women Interested in Computer Science?

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According to this recently published research paper, women aren’t interested in computer science because of media portrayals like “The Big Bang Theory,” in which technologists are depicted as socially awkward, interested in science fiction and video games and physically unattractive. If that seems like a compelling line of reasoning, you can read a more complete write-up in this WSJ.com article. What I’ve never been able to figure out is why people are so interested in why women aren’t interested in computer science . . . Read more →

Are Walmart Employees Underpaid?

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Santa arrested @Walmart: 'Even Santa's elves are paid a living wage.' #walmartstrikers pic.twitter.com/MHeWRBUuBs — Warehouse Workers (@wwunited) November 29, 2013 Attention, disgruntled Walmart employees! What does it mean to say you’re underpaid? Doesn’t it mean that there’s at least one other employer willing to pay you more than you make now? If that’s the case, go work for another employer. If that’s not the case, then you’re not underpaid. You’re lucky to have the job you have. Read more →

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