HB Origin of the Species

Time for a reminder that today is the anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. As noted in previous years (2006, 2007, 2008), one can get a copy for free for the U.Va. Library.

Let’s talk about health care

I am very glad that the US Senate has agreed to have a public discussion of a plan to provide health care coverage for the citizens of the United States. As do many of my fellow citizens, I do not agree with each and every aspect of the current bill, but I am glad to have something that achieves important goals for my country.

If the USA is to be a world leader, we must ensure that our citizens are capable of accomplishing new, important tasks—inventing, creating, reproducing—and being healthy is a critical part of it. Moreover, ending exploitive actions by health insurance entities (today’s equivalent of Teddy Roosevelt’s trusts) will help the US be more competitive, too.

Give the US a sensible health-care policy, and it will be in a better position. Let’s have the debate. Let’s figure out how to make it a good policy, regardless of political affiliation.

Some Google fun

Google suggests searches as one types in the search box. An apparently rapidly-developing community of folks are playing with the feature. A site called “Question Suggestion” by Justin Talbott has been aggregating examples of some pretty wacky results for the since the spring of 2009.

Flash of the electrons to the ever-entertaining and -informative David Pogue for the post about this in his blog. See more from Mr. Talbott (check “nuclear power pants”; it’s a hoot).

KAJ deserves a statue

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—who played basketball, writes books, coaches basketball, and advocates for worthy public causes—has leukemia. Although Mr. Abdul-Jabbar has known he has chronic myeloid leukemia since December of 2008, he only revealed it publicly 9 November 2009. The diagnosis has apparently been confirmed by checking for the Philadelphia chromosome abnormality.

As a long-time admirer of Mr. Abdul-Jabbar (I remember going to see him play on the UCLA freshman team when they played a game at Pasadena City College), I am saddened by the news. To be sure, it’s oddly good news for those who have or who study chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia, as the disease suddenly has a much larger public profile. As my brother Frank noted, it will probably do for this form of leukemia what Magic Johnson’s and Lou Gerhig’s inflictions did for AIDS and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, respectively.

Apparently, I’m not alone in my admiration for Mr. Abdul-Jabbar. Broderick Turner, the reporter for the Los Angeles Times who reported about Mr. Abdul-Jabbar’s revelation that he has the disease, followed up that earlier story with a note about others’ expression of concerns.

Majorities and minorities

Ice cream by eye color	Yes	No
Blue	16	43
Brown	224	151

Suppose we asked a few more than 400 people whether they preferred strawberry ice cream over chocolate and, as they answered we also noted their eye color. If eye color was related to their preference, we’d see disproportionally more folks with one eye color saying “Yes.” In fact, the data might look something like those in the yellow table. Following the majority-rule concept, we’d conclude that people prefer strawberry to chocolate.

Of course, such a conclusion hides something pretty intriguing. The preference differs depending on the color of the respondents’ eyes. We might still agree that the majority prefers strawberry, but following the majority runs quite clearly counter to the interests of the minority, no? Why, we might wonder, is there this difference? Is there something to be learned from the minority?

Stupak-Pitts by gender	Yes	No
Female	16	43
Male	224	151

As far as tastes in ice cream, there’s probably not much of importance. However, the data in the table are not actually about ice cream preferences. I took those numbers from the vote by members of the US House of Representatives on the Stupak Amendment to HR 3962, the “Affordable Health Care for America Act.” Representative Bart Stupak (with Representative Joe Pitts) proposed an amendment that restricted coverage of abortions under the health care plan; insurance plans that are purchased with government subsidies may not cover abortions. That includes privately purchased health care insurance. The amendment passed with strong support from men, but not from women.

Over 70% of female representives, who may not be the minority in the population but are in the House of Representatives, voted against the Stupak-Pitts amendment (see blue table). Nearly 60% of male representatives voted in favor of it. It appears to me that those women must know something those men don’t know. More importantly, it appears to me that the majority’s decision has run counter to the expressed concern of the minority. ‘Majority rule’ is a good thing, but in our system it has to be accompanied by protection of the minority’s rights.

Now, the analogy to eye color doesn’t really fit well. One chooses neither her eye color nor gender, to be sure. However, requiring blue-eyed people to eat strawberry ice cream isn’t as much of a big deal as requiring women to live with laws restricting their access to health-care procedures.

I am sorry to report that our representative, Tom Perriello, was among the 224 men who voted to restrict insurance coverage for abortions.

Although one can find these data in a lot of places here is a source for them. In case there’s a statistically intrigued reader, the chi square of 21.94 with 1 degree of freedom is significant with a probability of 0.00000282. (I understand that the p value is not an index of the strength of the relationship.)

While I’m at it, here, please take a few minutes to see how some of the erstwhile debate about the health care legislation went.

Rafman’s reflections on Google street view

Thanks to my brother Frank, I got a chance to read “IMG MGMT: The Nine Eyes of Google Street View” by Jon Rafman over on Art Fag City. Mr. Rafman, whose new book entitled Sixteen Google Street Views probably contains images similar to those in this essay, has a marvelous essay discussing the images he’s found among the Google images from street view. Highly recommended.

Security blogger: Don’t bank on Windows

According to Brian Krebs, who writes about computer security for the Washington Post, people—especially bankers—should not use computers that have a Windows operating system for banking transactions. He explained his reasoning in a blog entry entitled, “Avoid Windows Malware: Bank on a Live CD” that appeared 12 October 2009. Here’s his lead:

An investigative series I’ve been writing about organized cyber crime gangs stealing millions of dollars from small to mid-sized businesses has generated more than a few responses from business owners who were concerned about how best to protect themselves from this type of fraud.

The simplest, most cost-effective answer I know of? Don’t use Microsoft Windows when accessing your bank account online.

Mr. Krebs’ recommendation is based on what he learned while investigating thefts of $10s to $100s of thousands around the US. He explained that all of the thefts had one common element: “They succeeded because the bad guys were able to plant malicious software that gave them complete control over the victim’s Windows computer.”

Mr. Krebs explains that he is not the only person making such recommendations and provides links to other agencies and individuals who have arrived at the same conclusion. He also offers solutions, but you should read them from this column. Get there by following this link.

Newsy

Newsy seem like a worthwhile idea: Aggregate news coverage from multiple sources, leading to a meta-level understanding.

One’s got to wonder, of course, what rules Newsy editors will follow in selecting sources to aggregate. For example, one could select only from a certain subset of sources and, thus, spin the news in that way. This was the problem with many literature reviews in science, a problem that was address by the development of methods for integrative literature reviews or meta-analyses.

More about "Newsy;" posted with vodpod.