Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Quotes of the Day

1. Many years ago, there was a comic book character who could say the magic word "Shazam" and turn into Captain Marvel, a character with powers like Superman's. Today, you can say the magic word "diversity" and turn reverse discrimination into social justice.

MP: Might this be an example? (Full data here.)


2. Someone pointed out that blaming economic crises on "greed" is like blaming plane crashes on gravity. Certainly planes wouldn't crash if it wasn't for gravity. But when thousands of planes fly millions of miles every day without crashing, explaining why a particular plane crashed because of gravity gets you nowhere. Neither does talking about "greed," which is constant like gravity.

~
Thomas Sowell
Originally posted at Carpe Diem.

6 Comments:

At 8/11/2009 8:32 AM, Blogger juandos said...

Thomas Sowell said: "Over the years, unions in the private sector have been declining, while unions in the public sector have been thriving. The United Automobile Workers are getting a big return on their investment in the election of Barack Obama because the government takeover of General Motors makes the UAW more like a public sector union, whose demands can be met at the taxpayers' expense"...

Hans Bader of OpenMarket.Org notes: Retirees, Taxpayers Ripped Off to Subsidize UAW

'The government is now doing the same thing at General Motors, giving much of the company’s stock (plus $10 billion in taxpayer dollars) to the UAW while refusing to make good on GM bonds, which were purchased by some people to put their kids through college (and by some non-union employees to help fund their own retirement)'

 
At 8/11/2009 9:48 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

How is it that unions are allowed to organize against the people of the United States?

 
At 8/11/2009 10:04 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't understand the medical college acceptance table. The GPA column is sorted in descending order of GPA, but has substantial gaps and repeats two GPA ranges with different MCAT scores. The MCAT column has no particular sort order.

When I see research designed and data presented like this, I question its credibility. Was the data presented to further someone's cause? It appears the table was designed to fit the data instead of being designed first with data entered later.

The GPA column should include all GPA ranges from high to low. Likewise, the MCAT column should have all MCAT ranges sorted from high to low. If any GPA range has another MCAT score range, all ranges should. After a design such as this, a valid analysis and possible conclusion of college acceptance rates be made using all the relevant data.

 
At 8/11/2009 10:15 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

anonymous,

The National Labor Relations Act that authorizes collective bargaining was enacted into law in 1935 by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Roosevelt.

Personally, I believe corporations have benefitted more from political favors and corporate laws than labor has from labor laws.

Everyone belongs to some type of special interest group even if it’s through age or gender. The complaints usually arise when your special interest group is left out.

 
At 8/11/2009 1:09 PM, Anonymous Junyard_hawg1985 said...

Walt,

The chart came from another article posted by Mark Perry (look down the blog further). In the other article, he posted the link to the raw data. It is a large table that would be difficult to show and read if you include all of the data. Here is the link to the data:

http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/2008/mcatgpa-grid-3yrs-app-accpt-raceeth.htm

If you only look at MCAP test data which is colorblind compared to GPA, here are the acceptance rates based on MCAP:

MCAP White Black
39-45 89.5 88.9*
36-38 84.3 97.8
33-35 77.7 86.4
30-32 67.7 87.0
27-29 50.0 79.1
24-26 26.2 68.5
21-23 11.0 46.1

* Data for black scoring 39-45 not statistically significant as there were only 9 who scored this high compared to 1,120 whites in this score range.

 
At 8/11/2009 2:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I don't dispute the data. I build my tables first and then insert data. For example,the raw data has GPA descending up-and-down and MCAT scores ascending in order left-to-right.

Data that does not follow any type of ordered design make me question that it was cherry-picked whether it was or not. I am just as picky with charts. I admit I am hard to please :)

 

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