Neo conmen

DarkSyde at Kos on Charles Krauthammer and his neocon buddies:

Krauthammer is no adolescent ditto head writing on Myspace in his parents basement. He surely has to know these facts. This is afterall a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist who is said to be critical of Intelligent Design Creationism, pro-choice and, astonishingly, an advocate of embryonic stem cell research. So why the deceptive spin job?

Maybe it's because Charles Krauthammer is a neoconservative by some accounts. And if there’s one thing that distinguishes neocons these days above other US political factions past and present -- aside from their stunning incompetence in handling everything they touch, followed by a confession of abject ignorance -- it’s their willingness to lie at the drop of a hat on TV, in print, online, in a train or on a plane, to salvage their failed ideology and miserable track record. Given the choice between intellectual honesty and political expediency it's pretty clear where he landed. And in that capacity, intentional or not, Charles Krauthammer delivered.

So true!

All of which reminds me that I'm reading a great book right now entitled Super Crunchers by Ian Ayres of Yale about the power of data mining and data crunching to solve society's problems. I haven't finished the book yet, so perhaps it's too early to criticize, but I'll off two possibly premature criticisms anyway. First, he seems to overlook the fact that there are hundreds of charlatans out there (hell, I was one of them when I was in the "think tank" business) using statistics to "prove" falsehoods everyday. Most "studies" produced or commissioned by trade associations and lobby groups are perfect examples. To just swallow claims of statistical "proof" that this, that, or the other public policy works is to be incredibly naive. I'm sure Ayres isn't naive, so I suspect he tackles this issue somewhere in the book. If not, that's a big flaw.

Second, however, there are the neo conmen, most professional Rethuglicans, and the religious right out there who, no matter how convincing and iron clad the proof that they are wrong, will continue to claim they are correct. Good statistics will get you nowhere with these guys. It's all a matter of faith (in God, in ideology, and in garbage). Even two plus two is not equal to four in their alternative universe.