Statistic, Damn Statistics, and Lies

I was reminded of Mark Twain several times last week.  One was his quip that "lies make it halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes."  (Or something close to that.)

The other was the report coming from DOJ about Ferguson.  I have no doubts there are some things that really need to be cleaned up there--and in many other parts of the country.  But I heard one person, whose name escapes me, in discussing the report conclude that racism was evident there because, while the black population of Ferguson is 67% (I think that's what she said), 90% of the arrests there are of blacks.  I don't know if that's true.  I will assume the "arrests" don't include traffic stops, but they might; I don't know.  Still, such a comparison of percentages is far off the mark.  A much better way to draw conclusions is to compare the crime rate among blacks with the arrest rate.  If this woman's logic were accurate, then I think we'd also have to conclude the Ferguson PD is also biased against men.  After all, without even know any of the stats, I'd assume that 50% of the arrests there are not women.  Hmmm......  Let's at least play fair with numbers.

And I'm still amazed that two guys can try to carjack a car from five people outside a night club and, when their crime is resisted, they open fire.  Two of the resisters (I think) were killed and the three others were wounded.  That happened about a week ago here in Detroit, on the East Side.  Where do such attitudes originate??????  Somewhere, Someone must be teaching that it's OK to steal something that belongs to someone else and, if there's any resistance, it's OK to shoot them.  Such stories seem to come on a weekly basis here.  I wonder if that's the same all over the US.

I see, too, that the federal gov't is getting involved in the broadband business.  Well, what the FCC is trying to do is to overturn state laws that prohibit cities, counties, etc. from creating their own tax-payer funded broadband connections.  First, states have authority over their municipalities; so states the Constitution.  Some federally-appointed commission doesn't.  More important, states acted to help taxpayers/citizens in preventing cities, counties, etc. from wasting their money.  The list of cities which have tried to create broadband connections and failed while spending tens of millions of dollars is long.  There may have been some successes (I don't know), but the list of failed attempts can start at Groton, CT, Provo, Ut,  I'm reminded of federal attempts over the years to get involved in other enterprises and ended up wasting millions and millions of dollars, if not more.  Again, we can make a list of such fail endeavors, starting with the fur trade and transcontinental railroad.  No wonder history isn't deemed important in the schools by the Establishment.  Correctly learned, history might provide some lessons on the folly of government enterprises.