tlambert | September 30, 2004This is David Hemenway's response to criticism of his book Private Guns Public Health by Kevin Baker at The Smallest Minority.
September 27, 2004
I was asked to respond to what is claimed to be a critique of my book by Kevin Baker. I have neither the time nor inclination to have a detailed response to the many assertions and arguments he makes, many of which are wrong or misleading.
It turns out that Baker isn't really discussing my book Private Guns Public Health, but a magazine article about it. Unfortunately it seems that Baker may not have read my book (or the hundreds of journal…
tlambert | September 29, 2004 I don't think I've ever written a "go and read this post" post, but go and read this post. Please.
tlambert | September 29, 2004 Lott has an article in the National Review Online where he claims that the Washingtonian DC handgun ban caused crime increases:
Crime rose significantly after the gun ban went into effect. In the five years before Washington's ban in 1976, the murder rate fell from 37 to 27 per 100,000. In the five years after it went into effect, the murder rate rose back up to 35. During this same time, robberies fell from 1,514 to 1,003 per 100,000 and then rose by over 63 percent, up to 1,635.
I've graphed the homicide and robbery rates for the ten years on either…
tlambert | September 29, 2004 There's an election coming up in Australia. I haven't blogged about it because other people are doing a much better job than I ever could. A special plug though, for Tom Vogelgesang, who is running for Senate on a libertarian platform and has the good judgement to run a blog, choose to study computer science at UNSW and live in Maroubra.
However, I will comment on what the two rival candidates for Prime Minister have to say about guns. Prime Minister John Howard (Interview on 2GB 17 Apr 02: listen)
we will find any means we can to further restrict them because I…
tlambert | September 28, 2004 The Power Line blog informs us that the Kerry campaign has mounted a "terrorist attack on Australia":
"We all know that Kerry's sister is over in Australia telling the Aussies to vote for their [leftist] candidate if they want to be safer from terrorist attacks; that they need to pull their troops out of Iraq, and not help the U.S. (because that's why they will be, and have been attacked). So, how is this NOT a soft terrorist attack on Australia from the Kerry campaign? She goes over there, and with words instead of bombs, terrorizes the…
tlambert | September 27, 2004 60 Minutes (the Australian version) has done a story on the use of deadly force in self-defence.
Unfortunately it sufers from the same problem that many of these stories do. Tony Martin (who was convicted of murdering a burglar) gets to present his account of what happened which makes it look like he acted in self-defence.
TARA BROWN: What led to you firing the gun?
TONY MARTIN: Fear.
TARA BROWN: Were you under attack at that point?
TONY MARTIN: I thought I was, yes, or was about to be attacked. Because the people downstairs, as I went down the stairs…
tlambert | September 27, 2004 Sandor is collecting blogger's results on the political compass quiz. My own collection is here (now over 500 blogs!). Actually I think the Political Survey quiz is better, but hey, you can try both, enter your results into my table and send them to Sandor if you are so inclined.
tlambert | September 26, 2004 A commenter on my earlier post on John "I hate guns" Howard wondered: "If Latham wins, will the public generally credit this issue?" Some shooters have a plan to try to make it an issue:
You Can Send John Howard And Canberra A Message From NSW Shooters
Stop victimising sporting shooters
Crime control, not gun control
Stop confiscations and buybacks
Restore our rights
In this election the Coalition of Law Abiding Sporting Shooters is standing candidates under the Outdoor Recreation Party banner to send a message to Canberra about gun laws. All candidates are…
tlambert | September 25, 2004 For a webzine that has "Where free markets meet technology" in its masthead, Tech Central Station sure seems to have little faith in the ability of free markets to provide consumers with what they want. Consider this column by Glenn Reynolds. Reynolds reckons that bookstore employees are driving customers away:
Even my hard-core lefty colleagues have noticed the wall of Bush-bashing books that are prominently displayed at the entrance to every bookstore in town, and to my surprise, one of them told me the other day that it was turning him off.…
tlambert | September 19, 2004Summary: Lott and Hassett have not analyzed their data correctly---it actually shows no evidence that headlines are biased against Republicans. (My previous posts are here and here.)
The essence of Lott and Hassett's case that newspapers are biased against Republicans is given in their presentation:
"In the case of unemployment, 44 percent of the headlines under the Clinton administration were positive while that same number was only 23 percent under Bush II. By comparison, the average unemployment rates were fairly similar, 5.2 percent under Clinton s eight years and 5.5…
tlambert | September 16, 2004 Crime statistics for the last 12 months in NSW have been released. Most crime categories have decreased significantly.
Indecent assault, act of indecency and other sexual offences
Down by 11.9%
Robbery with a weapon not a firearm
Down by 19.7%
Break and enter - dwelling
Down by 9.4%
Break and enter - non-dwelling
Down by 17.6%
Motor vehicle theft
Down by8.7%
Steal from motor vehicle
Down by 13.7%
Steal from retail store
Down by 17.4%
Steal from dwelling
Down by 5.1%
Steal from person
Down by 17.8%
Fraud
Down by 12.3%
Murder
No significant trend
Assault
No…
tlambert | September 15, 2004 Glenn Reynolds writes
Here's some helpful advice for CBS: "A source lies to you, and you find it out, you burn him. Period."
Damn straight. So, Professor Reynolds, who was the anonymous source who lied to you, falsely claiming that Steve Levitt was "rabidly antigun"?
tlambert | September 15, 2004 The story of the University of Newcastle plagiarism scandal continues:
Professor Marimuthu was 18 days from signing a new five-year agreement that increased the annual fee payable by the Institut WIRA in Malaysia, where the campus was based, from $50,000 to $300,000.
He asked the offshore program co-ordinator to review the problem essays "more generously" and warned recruitment could suffer "if word gets out" about large numbers of students failing, the commission heard yesterday....
Despite all students having received anti-plagiarism instruction in…
tlambert | September 14, 2004 The AEI now has a video of the Lott/Hassett show alleging media bias against Republicans. (My previous post is here.) What is wrong with their study can be explained very briefly. First look at the graph on the left of unemployment rates. Now, here's what Lott and Hassett say:
"In the case of unemployment, 44 percent of the headlines under the Clinton administration were positive while that same number was only 23 percent under Bush II. By comparison, the average unemployment rates were fairly similar, 5.2 percent under Clinton s eight years and 5.5 percent…
tlambert | September 14, 2004 It has now been two years since I asked him for evidence that he had conducted a survey. The original email is here. In all that time, the only evidence for a survey that he has been able to come up with is David Gross's story.
tlambert | September 13, 2004The Syney Morning Herald has the latest evidence from the plagiarism scandal at the University of Newcastle (my previous posts are here and here) (my emphasis):
The University of Newcastle sat on its "most serious" plagiarism allegations for more than four months, only acting when a television show peppered the institution with questions, the Independent Commission Against Corruption heard yesterday.
But the vice-chancellor, Roger Holmes, told ICAC it was coincidental that one day after the media inquiries, the university finally began…
tlambert | September 13, 2004 By popular request I'm going to comment on Lott's LA Times oped on the assault weapons ban. Basically, I agree with Lott here. As I noted earlier the ban doesn't make sense.
However, Chris Mooney has a point when he writes:
Providing balance is one thing, and it's something op-ed pages should strive for. But if op-ed editors can't get the other side from a credible expert---which Lott emphatically isn't---they shouldn't just publish anybody for the sake of having different perspectives represented.
It's not as if the LA Times couldn't have found someone…
tlambert | September 12, 2004 Lott has teamed up with Kevin Hassett to study whether economic reporting is biased. The paper, Is Newspaper Coverage of Economic Events Politically Biased?, concludes, surprise, surprise that the newspapers are biased against Republicans.
The trouble with their study is that the economy was stronger under Clinton than under either Bush, so of course the reporting of the economy under Clinton was more positive. Lott and Hassett claim to have controlled for this with a multivariate analysis but you should only find this persuasive if you have complete…
tlambert | September 10, 2004 McKitrick has added a correction his page describing his paper that purports to find economic signals that I posted on here. McKitrick admits to mixing up degrees and radians but claims:
There was a small error in the calculation of regression coefficients in our paper. Our conclusions were not affected by this problem
As I noted in my post, correcting the error halves the size of the economic signal in the warming trend, reducing it from 0.16 (out of 0.27) to 0.09. McKitrick's correction states:
Outside the dry/cold regions the measured temperature change is…
tlambert | September 10, 2004 In the latest installment in the U of Newcastle plagiarism scandal, Ronald MacDonald tries to outdo Robert Rugimbana (emphasis mine):
The deputy vice-chancellor of research and internationalisation, Ronald MacDonald, said yesterday that he had originally believed the plagiarism claims by Ian Firns. Mr Firns had written to him in late February 2003 protesting at the handling of the matter.
In an email, Mr Firns wrote that "it is particularly galling to know that the top mark for this assignment was awarded to an identified cheat".
However, Professor MacDonald said that he had…