February 17, 2014
Briefly
- From Stuff: Having a nasty bout of shingles is becoming more common in New Zealand [no data or anecdote given to support this], with the numbers of those at high-risk of infection on the rise. [when that’s defined just as older people]
- An interactive demonstration of conditional probability. I don’t know if it’s useful, because I already understand conditional probability, but it’s pretty.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »
The first story is a facinating example of using a solid, scientific process of discovery to uncover a problem, then using nothing but emotions to explain it.
The student’s intuition, combined with his knowledge about the demographics in his state led him to suspect that something odd was going on. He closely and patiently went through the data and uncovered a clear violation. So far, so good.
Then he (or more likely, the author of this article) threw all of that work out the window to make baseless assumptions about motives. Other than the fact that the NRA violated Rhode Island state law, the article offers not a shred of evidence that this was an intentional violation. As the article itself put it:
“Put another way: the NRA didn’t even attempt to hide what plainly appeared to be suspicious activity.”
As someone who has an above average understanding of U.S. tax law, I know how very easy it is to run afoul of it. Federal campaign finance laws are even more complicated, and that’s before you take into account that all 50 states have their own laws.
It is quite disappointing to see such a promising inquiry drop the ball. This is a situation that cries out for an investigation of other PACs in Rhode Island. I for one would be very interested if this is a systemic problem caused by confusion over legalities, a systemic problem caused by lax enforcement, or a specific problem with only one bad actor (and if that is the case, is the NRA systematically violating similar laws in other states? A much more serious offense).
11 years ago