June 12, 2009
Best. Excuse. Ever.
During a town-hall style meeting in Green Bay President Obama wrote a note excusing an attending fourth-grader's absence from school, then walked off the stage to deliver it to her. Kennedy, the fourth-grader, will present her teacher with a note that says, simply, "To Kennedy's teacher: Please excuse Kennedy's absence. She's with me. Barack Obama." If nothing else, Obama is a pretty fucking cool president.
June 08, 2009
Nate Silver confounds me again
A pretty fascinating fivethirtyeight post from yesterday: The Palin Paradox: Women More Likely to Elected in Male-Dominated Districts.
His findings are exactly what it sounds like they are. Even when he isolates Democratic-leaning (and thus more likely to elect a woman at all) districts, "the most male-dominated from among these strongly Democratic districts elected women in 10 out of 15 instances. The 15 most female districts elected just 3 women."
So, "all told, after controlling for the district's partisan affiliation, male-dominated districts were more than twice as likely to elect a Congresswoman as were female-dominated districts."
What he doesn't have, of course, is explanation for this seemingly - counter intuitive phenomenon. But he has some interesting thoughts:
"It's possible, and maybe even somewhat likely, that there is some sort of latent variable affecting both the sex ratios and elections to the Congress that I haven't accounted for .... Perhaps in male-dominated areas, women are more likely to violate traditional sex roles including something like running for political office, which has traditionally been a male-dominated occupation -- the Sarah Palin frontierswoman caricature works well here. It would be interesting to know whether there more women actually running for office in male-dominated areas, or rather, whether they are winning more often when they do run. Or perhaps this is a phenomenon that goes beyond politics, and career growth is retarded for the dominant gender when there is an insufficient number of the opposite one. Or perhaps there is even something more Freudian: a lack of female companionship (or vice versa) triggers a yearning for it that is manifested in the way we vote."
His findings are exactly what it sounds like they are. Even when he isolates Democratic-leaning (and thus more likely to elect a woman at all) districts, "the most male-dominated from among these strongly Democratic districts elected women in 10 out of 15 instances. The 15 most female districts elected just 3 women."
So, "all told, after controlling for the district's partisan affiliation, male-dominated districts were more than twice as likely to elect a Congresswoman as were female-dominated districts."
What he doesn't have, of course, is explanation for this seemingly - counter intuitive phenomenon. But he has some interesting thoughts:
"It's possible, and maybe even somewhat likely, that there is some sort of latent variable affecting both the sex ratios and elections to the Congress that I haven't accounted for .... Perhaps in male-dominated areas, women are more likely to violate traditional sex roles including something like running for political office, which has traditionally been a male-dominated occupation -- the Sarah Palin frontierswoman caricature works well here. It would be interesting to know whether there more women actually running for office in male-dominated areas, or rather, whether they are winning more often when they do run. Or perhaps this is a phenomenon that goes beyond politics, and career growth is retarded for the dominant gender when there is an insufficient number of the opposite one. Or perhaps there is even something more Freudian: a lack of female companionship (or vice versa) triggers a yearning for it that is manifested in the way we vote."
Strangely Badass IV: Mark Malkoff.
Here are the reasons Mark Malkoff is making this list of strangely badass people:
1. Mark is the audience coordinator for The Colbert Report.
2. Mark visited all 171 Manhattan Starbucks in one day:
2. Mark lived in Ikea for one week:
3. Mark started the first-ever Guns 'N Roses tribute band composed entirely of children. The band is known as Little GNR.
4. Lastly, Mark is living for one month (June 2009) on Air Tran jets to get over his fear of flying. On his peak days he will fly twelve flights. He will sleep overnight on the planes after the other passengers have disembarked.
Mark at one point in one of the videos I have seen also claims to have started the Naked Cowboy in Times Square. I can't verify this and it seems a dubious claim.