Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Bad Metrics

The international community is again beating us about the head and shoulders while our domestic Left cheers them on. This time it is our health care system. The world doesn't like it much and John Stossel is suspicious:



Michael Cannon, the Cato Institute's director of health policy studies, summed up what's wrong with the study: "The report does nothing more than reveal which nation does the worst job of satisfying the subjective preferences of the people who conducted this study."

Bad assumptions lead to bad metrics. Bad metrics lead to bad conclusions.

I suppose if you define beauty by girth and screechy volume, Rosie O'Donnell beats out Parker Posey or Meg Ryan. Or Jessica Alba. Or Grace Park, while I'm thinking of her. Or Jennifer Aniston.

Hey! This blogging is getting fun!

Erm, what were we discussing, again?

Oh, right. Metrics. I'm getting distracted here; but my point is, would any sane man with working eyes, functional ears, and a minimally sparking brain stem conclude that Rosie beats any of these women in the looks department? Or most women? Or even commercially available inflatable dolls? Choose the right metric, people.

When the values of the international community are imposed on us, we can look bad whether we are talking war or health care. Something to keep in mind as an American.

UPDATE: Engram describes how we do not in fact have 47 million impoverished working Americans (with families complete with John Edwards' coatless waifs coughing up bits of lung) who cannot afford health insurance. I'd read this inconvenient truth before, but didn't want to cite it without a reference. Thank you Engram.

And as long as I'm updating, Rosie is not more attractive than Liz Phair:



From Liz Phair's photo page.


Arthur K. said I needed to add control group pictures if I want to drive traffic.