Don't believe the hype

Well, this is odd. According to this report in the San Antonio Expressed-Views, the prevailing wisdom concerning Texas and the death penalty is little more than, well, "prevailing".

Texas ranks 16th in condemning 2 percent of murderers to die, while Nevada and Oklahoma top the list, handing death sentences to about 6 percent and 5 percent, respectively, of convicted killers.

This report from this month's Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. I don't know what kind of, you know, agendas prevail in said journal, but that "Empirical" part should say a lot, if it's true. I'm going to assume it's true. Obviously. It's like I say at work: "DATA! Not anecdotes!" I'll freely admit that I didn't do all that well in statistics classes at A&M--it was dull for one and my first stat teacher was a geeky grad student with the most amazing legs. It wasn't as bad as the second MATH 141 (College Algebra, usually the first math class you take at A&M if you're not an engineer) class I took. Hard to watch the chalkboard when she's got such an interesting backside. I got my C, though!

Maybe that was Math 142. Still, she was hot. By the way, all you hot Math grad students that taught a class in the Blocker building (Texas A&M) in the Summer of 1997, I'm talking about you. Same goes for Statistics grad students, except I think it was Spring of 1997.

Where was I? Oh yes, I like statistics. Plenty of art and science and dead reckoning. Not for the faint of heart, like being a psychometrician. And these good folk have actually run the numbers on convictions, death row, etc. Read it!

What does this mean? Well, that's a little odd. They're talking a big game about the difference between counties using the death penalty. There are only 7 or 8 counties in Texas that have the resources to fully pursue capital punishment--those prosecutions are expensive because of the appeals and such. Takes a lot of money to make somebody be dead. On the political side, I think the facts are dead on this. Not that they're untrue or don't matter, but the meme has been out there for ages. Explaining that application of the death penalty in Texas is really a confluence of factors, and the state ranks differently against a wide range of jurisdictions on various facets of the death penalty issue is useless at this point. Deeply Held Belief has a death grip on this one. Hell, I was surprised something like this even made the Expressed-Views.

SCOOT Report

I probably should have said something about this earlier in the week, but I'm lazy. Had an incident in SA this week in which an "elderly couple" drove down the wrong side of the interstate. So they took the afterlife express. I don't mind that so much, but they also managed to injure one of the Useful Class on their way out. What's the Useful Class? Here's how to determine whether or not you're in the Useful Class. Think of how much money you make by working. Subtract money you receive from the government or family (living or dead, since the Useful Class rarely includes idle heirs). If you come up with a positive number, you are in the Useful Class.

Hint: It's hard to be elderly and still be in the useful class.

Texas A&M Basketwhat?

People at work have been giving me, one of 2 Fightin' Texas Aggies on the crew, all kinds of hell about Texas A&M's "basketball program." I usually reserve the Reuter-quotes for stuff like Texas Tech "University" and Texas State "University" and so forth. But yeah, I'm goin' after my Aggies on this one. I graduated in '98 (but am class of '97!) and basketball doesn't matter much more now than it did the whole time I was there. I remember Lynn Hickey, the women's basketball coach back then, actually handing out fliers in front of the dining hall so more people would show up. I'm not a basketball fan, so I didn't go. But I appreciated her efforts. For all the good that does the "basketball program."

I was sure she would have torn R.C. Slocum to shreds since he (by all accounts) didn't, um, interact much with the student body at large. Fat lot of good that did him. Nope, I did baseball games and the rare football game. Football games were a lot of work. Baseball was far better suited to my sedentary and verbally abusive mindset.

So I was talking about the TAMU "basketball program". They lost to Baylor. BAYLOR! The Baptists are, in theory, the whipping boy for the Big XII. Remember that Simpsons episode when they're watching that bootleg Army briefing film and the general is explaining "Operation Whipping Boy," in which all the launch sites would target Springfield for calibration? That's Baylor. Victor over Texas A&M University's "basketball program."

Frankly, A&M's basketball team could win every single one of their games, find a cure for Parkinson's, and fend off Mongol hordes and the most they'd get from me is:

700 SAT, Baby!

Dallas Morning News Seeks Right-Winger

I don't care about the DaMN. Rod Dreher was jabbering about it on the Corner today. They've given him a section and he's looking for people that aren't lefties to write for that section. Because us right-wingers are known to adore the journalistic arts.

Another Wednesday

Plenty to update for this week, for whatever reason. I picked up Tron 2.0 this weekend. Nice. Real nice-like. Looks and feels as much like the movie as is reasonable, and it's got some interesting elements to set it apart from most first-person shooters. Of course, every FPS has a hook. Well, it's a bunch of nifty hooks, okay? I'm stuck on some damn sniper level right now. It's starting to feel like Mission 4 in the original X-Wing game from Lucasarts. I'm going to assume nobody else remembers a particular level in a game that came out while I was still in high school (damn...). It was a damn Kobayashi Maru scenario. I like the idea of the Kobayashi Maru scenario (if you don't know what that is, just email me with blind ridicule), but you know, you're only supposed to have to do it once and learn something valuable about yourself, etc. when it's over.

So anyway, it's gotten kind of annoying. I'm looking for a cheat code to get around the level. I have supposedly found it, but I've gotta test it.

In closing, play Tron 2.0.