Bughouse Square

Links and commentary -- Thrilling!

 

Midterm Massacre

A blogger has dug up a news report illustrating how our current turnover from the house differs from the one that occurred in 1994.  I think you'll find for all the howls that Newt promised a lot more aggression that Pelosi is doing:

Eye of Newt

posted by: JohnnyAngel at 11/14/06 08:33 | link | comments |

Olberman's 'Logical Fallacy'

What Olberman calls the 'Logical Fallacy' is a strangely generic term for what I think is better known as the 'Post Hoc' fallacy.  Or, more accurately, the 'Cum Hoc' fallacy -- Cum hoc, ergo properter hoc.  Along with this, therefore because of this.  I appreciate his warnings to think for ourselves, but the fact is he presents a fairly weak case for a connection between news events inconvenient to the administration and terror alerts.  Plenty of such events have occurred without a corresponding terror alert, and plenty of terror stories have arisen without anything worth covering up at hand.  The strongest cases are those in which the information was clearly already available well before the stories were announced, so the timing of those announcements is suspect.

Terrorism and the News Cycle

I find it interesting how often New York comes up in these terror alerts, given that the share of Homeland Security money that goes to New York has famously been slashed, citing a lack of good terrorist targets.  Obviously, we know why.  Homeland security has become another label put on pork barrel expenditures, and a democratic state like New York gets left out when Republicans control the purse strings. 

posted by: JohnnyAngel at 11/01/06 07:19 | link | comments |