Thursday, January 29, 2004
DC catches up a little with Iraq
A 19-year-old Southeast Washington man died Monday after being shot several times Saturday evening in the 800 block of Barnaby Street SE, D.C. police said. Jeffrey R. McIlwain, who lived in the block, was found about 5:30 p.m. Saturday, and died about 11:30 a.m. Monday at Washington Hospital Center.
According to the MPDC website, the 2004 DC homicide count is now up to 23, so DC is catching up to Iraq where U.S. fatalities remain at 39.
It's now time to be fair to DC. One might get the impression that DC is like a warzone (given that the murder rate is very similar to an actual war zone). Well, I suppose that the bad neighborhoods in DC are like a warzone. Note the location of where the man was shot. Southeast DC is the bad part of town. The nice parts of DC, where the rich people live, and where tourists visit, aren't any less safe than any other city in the United States. All the murders take place in the parts of DC where I never go.
So please don't cancel your visit to Washington because of my website. But do complain to the newspaper editors at the Washington Post, who put U.S. combat deaths on the front page, but bury the local homicides way in the back. One would think that a warzone existing right here in the capital of the free world would be a bigger story than one in the Middle East.
Maybe, after we have the Iraqi militia trained, we should bring some of them back here to patrol the Southeast quadrant Washington.
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
The Fed hints at future interest rate hike
The Fed made comments after its meeting today that leads analysts to believe that the Fed is preparing to raise interest rates in the future.
This is exactly what I expected. Alan Greenspan wants W to lose the election, so he's going to start raising interest rates in order to derail the economy and ensure victory for the Democrat, who looks likely to be Kerry. This is the same thing that happend to the first Bush.
DC vs. Iraq
There have been 21 homicides so far this year in Washington, DC (MPDC). There have been 39 U.S. military fatalities in Iraq so far this year (Lunaville). So I guess it's slightly more dangerous to be a soldier in Iraq than it is to live in DC, but not by an especially large amount. You would expect a war zone to be many times more dangerous than living in the nation's capital, but it's only 86% more dangerous.
According to the Washington Post, Washington was the murder capital again in 2003 with a higher murder rate than any other big city in the United States. DC's murder rate was six times higher than that of New York City. Link to Washington Post article.
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
It doesn't look good for Howard Dean
Dean was supposed to be the favorite in New Hampshire. Defeated by a substantial margin, it seems to me that this is the end of Howard Dean's campaign. People who believe in conspiracy theories might believe that certain powers decided that they didn't want Dean to win the nomination because they thought that Kerry had a much better chance to defeat W, and they are desparate to get W out of office. The news media seized upon Howard Dean's speech last week as an excuse to discredit him.
I don't see how Dean can win anything in the South if he couldn't even win in his home area of New England. At this point in time, it now looks like Kerry will be the nominee, and most likely the next President of the United States.
Monday, January 26, 2004
Physical attractiveness and the teaching ability of college professors
Interested-Participant has a blog post entitled Professors Paid Better for Good Looks. This is a quote from a research study that allegedly shows that better looking professors get better teaching evaluations:
To the extent that teaching is an important component of job performance, and to the extent that teaching evaluations accurately measure performance, basing salary on measured teaching performance implies a significant wage premium for beauty, even for college professors.
Interested-Participant goes on to make the following conclusion, which I disagree with:
Although not stated but implied by the research is that actions taken by teachers to maintain their appearances can be directly correlated to job performance. Additionally, actions taken to enhance one's appearance can be easily justified by increased rewards in stature and salary.
I suspect that this conclusion is for the most part false, because correlation doesn't prove causation. What I believe is going on is that physical attractiveness when one is young, especially in high school, has a lasting impact on one's personality. The person who is attractive in high school develops better self-esteem and better people skills. It's this self-esteem and these people skills that help the professor later in life to be a better teacher.
Of course one can't completely discount the impact that current physical attractiveness might play in a subjective evaluation of teaching ability, but I very strongly suspect that it's mostly past physical attractiveness, and not present physical attractiveness, that is correlated with teaching ability.
