Is There a Dumbass in the House?

Megan picks the weirdest things to opine about. I'm not sure if she's trying to be edgy or if there is some secret personal reason for each of the topics she espouses on, but the only unifying thing I can find is that she's stupid on all of them.

Perhaps her recent foray into best medical practice is motivated by her multitude of chronic aliments. Whatever the cause, we can say for sure that Megan knows better.

She starts with a long excerpt of someone else's writing. The veterans will not need to be notified that it is quite a bit longer than her own musings, though no less well informed.

And so, NICE has decided, on the basis of "the evidence", that acupuncture and chiropractic are a good way to spend the NHS's money.
(...)
As Edzard Ernst points out, the Cochrane Institute (the other great temple of evidence-based medicine) actually found chiropractic to be more or less useless, while the evidence for acupuncture is that all of the ancient wisdom and theory of the meridians and qi doesn't actually confer any great benefit over and above that which can be gained from simply lying on a table and being poked with sticks.

I see. So one investigative body says that chiropractors and acupuncture work, and another does not. Naturally, since those two things aren't "modern medicine" this is proof that the skeptics are right. Also, the fact that both report that acupuncture works is central to his point. The real problem here is the acupuncture works even if you're doing it differently than is commonly done, proving that acupuncture doesn't work and is total bullshit.

The rest of the excerpt extols on how medicine is complex and so we can't know anything for sure. This is both insightful and proof that we know for sure that acupuncture and chiropractors are crocks.

Now we get to Megan.

This is part of a broader problem with medicine and other sciences with physics envy. Medicine, like economics, is really messy. You can't do the same kind of controlled experiments that you can do on rats or quarks, and as a result, the results are often hard to interpret.

Hmm, you can't do experiments in medicine? Wow, those MD-PhD's are gonna be pissed to find out they wasted a decade of their life pursuing the impossible. I Love the analogy to economics, too. We all know that studying individual ailments and studying the complex interactions of millions of people are roughly equivalent. That's why medicine and economics have both come out with so few concrete improvements for our day to day lives.

But this doesn't stop doctors, or policymakers, from acting as if the studies or metastudies can deliver vastly more certainty than is possible from such inherently sloppy science.

Which is why our muse calls herself an economist.

This is why, for example, I am broadly sympathetic to Paul Campos' claim that medical guidelines on obesity tell you much more about the attitudes towards fat in the upper middle class social stratum that doctors occupy, than about reliable scientific evidence on same.

Right, the fact that medicine cannot produce reliable evidence is proved by the fact that medical claims aren't backed by the available evidence. The available evidence which cannot be produced.

But policy demands certainty. And so you get obesity guidelines advising everyone to diet and excercise to shed their excess pounds, even though it's as close to a scientific certainty as anything is that most people simply regain any weight they manage to diet off. And you get absurdly precise economic forecasting, even though in many cases, the better answer would be "who knows?"

It's not that Megan is wrong all the time. It's that no one can ever possibly be right about anything. Oh, and the fact that fat people have a hard time losing weight is apparently proof that being overweight is not detrimental to your health. Also, since most people don't lose weight no one should try, ever. Or something. She has a point. She swears.

In both cases, I don't see a better alternative. But we should be more skeptical of both the institutions, and their claims.

Oh, that explains her constant cheer-leading for the implementation of the things she just attempted to disprove.

Round and Round

Today we learn again that "The Rich Really Are[sic] Different" (Ooooh, so close with the capitalization, there.)

A quick search of The Atlantic "Voices" section reveals we've learned this 38 times from the various voices in The Atlantic's head. At least five of those voices are Megan McArdle's, but I'll be fucked if I'm going to do a full count.

I still can't figure out whether she is so stupid she forgets how often she says the same thing over and over, or if she really thinks that using common phrases most writers abandon is clever. I mean, I just glancingly look at her life in disgust and I catch this shit. She's fucking living it! Well, now that I think about it, living the life of Megan McArdle must be horrible enough to make anyone distracted.

BONUS FUN:Two hits back on the search is McArdle's post on Heath Ledger. Ah, the halcyon days of when she was callous about a man's life and death in one fell swoop while being completely ignorant of his consequence. Oh, wait, those days are still here! Fun times!

PS Don't click those last three links. Seriously, don't.

Dear Keith Olbermann

Andrew Sullivan is a noted proponent of the Bell Curve. He is, to be blunt, a racist who dresses his views up in academic terms.
Having him on your show is reprehensible. He does not deserve that platform. You're better than this.

Let's Not Get Crazy Here, People!

Yeah! She's talking up affirmative action!

But hey, we all get things we don't deserve. I'll go further: almost all of us get something we don't deserve as a result of our race, including white people. Perhaps even especially white people.

Yes, perhaps. It might be that white people are overwhelmingly represented disproportionately in the ranks of the privileged. Or, maybe black people are just stoopid, too. I dunno. Too hard to tell, really.

If you don't believe it, ask yourself why repeated studies show that resumes with identifiably black names get fewer interview offers than identical white resumes.

Which is why she modifies her statements about racism? Wait, when she says "if you don't believe it" is she implying that she's trying to convince someone that racism exists? Perhaps not.

Sonia Sotomayor is not manifestly unqualified to be a Supreme Court justice, so focusing on affirmative action is completely irrelevant.

But the fact that your cohorts are doing it is only maybe, kind of, and indication that they're racist, short-sighted dicks. Perhaps.

You can argue with her politics or her legal judgement, and hey, I'm all ears.

Liar.

But the affirmative action complaints aren't advancing our quest to find out whether or not she'd be a good justice. They're just alienating the people you want to convince.

Megan, consistent with her uncanny ability to be about one or two years behind the conventional wisdom of even the most stubborn moron, is just now realizing that Republicans have gone insane. Perhaps.

On the Lighter Side...

This is so cute I almost cried.

When the Tide Goes Out, The Ocean Sweeps Itself Back, I Guess.

No words, just stupid.

Read for yourself. She's actually playing neutral on the "republican car dealership closures" scandal.

Yes, Megan, it does look bad indeed. It looks very bad when you're a total moron who doesn't understand simple statistics even when Nate Silver explains them in kindergarten style.

Oh, and read the comments if you really want to die. You will either explode or collapse from despair at the stupidity of the world.

Quiet on All Fronts

I'm on vacation this week, so blogging will be light. GM will have to have its death throes largely without me.

So it goes, so shall we all.

I wish I had as much vacation time for as little work as our muse, but we've said that before. Then again, what's to be said that hasn't been said already? How oft have that question itself been asked? Like a Tootsie-Pop, the world may never know.

UPDATE: It's gotten to the point where I post without even reading her all the way through. So I put that up without reading on, figuring it'd be a boring bit that wouldn't interest me. I was wrong:

But I do want to point to two articles that point to a growing problem that the Obama administration has failed to address in any serious way: the exploding deficits, and the resulting need to borrow heavily.

Um, that's only one problem. I posted the following comment over there, which may finally get me banned. I'm so tired of sweeping back the ocean. I am not reading any further for this particular piece.

We will "cure" the budget problem by not passing a 800 billion dollar stimulus in the future budgets. We will raise revenues by not having our economy in the crapper in the future.

If either of those don't happen, we have bigger things to worry about.

Unless of course you're talking about the pre-stimulus deficits, which are somehow Obama's failure. I couldn't think of anyone else to blame that one on. Of course, we must think forward, so I guess we'll blame Obama for not fixing the economy AND the problems we had before the economy tanked?

You are seriously the world's worst econoblogger. Seriously, do you ever think? That's not trolling. It's backed by fact. You are a horrible blogger and you never think. We've documented this for a while now. Perhaps your desire to do a job with a modicum of competency would cause you to pay us heed?

The Burr Beneath Her Mini-Cooper Upholstery

Absolutely w/ NutellaonToast on this. Bored, & unable to deal w/ econo-blogging. Saw this mess on memeorandum, & was depressed by the mere idea of dealing w/ it. (brad?)

However, working from the comments to NoT's item immediately below, & some other assumptions, I can only conclude that Ms. McArdle prefers researching the intimate details of someone's life, Michelle Malkin-style, to statistical research on econo-facts. (Especially when you can make the facts make the victim look like a perp.)

Correct me if I'm wrong, or assuming something not in evidence.

Also referring to the comments below (Being a contributing ed. has its privileges: Imagine the indignity of being forced to reply in the comments!) I thank Dillon for clearly stating my, at least, attitude:

Similarly, FMM's mission is to cause Megan to be fired with extreme prejudice, or failing that, to marginally irritate her to the point where she does some research.

Hey, what's important is that it piss off the liberalslibertarians, right?

Mission Accomplished

I'll leave the inanity of the post for someone else to cover. Frankly, I'm bored with McMegan lately and kind of busy, so whatevs. I would like to take this moment to modestly state that this blog kicks ass! Though we've not gotten McConomist fired, we've certainly made her feel the pressure. She felt us nipping at her heels and put it in overdrive. Look at her output, lately. It's fucking Foster-Wallacian!

See, we had to fight her over there in order to prevent her from fighting us over here and we've taken care of all the bad guys while winning the hearts and minds of the general citizenry!

Yes, it is clear victory for us today. Why, look at this post. It contains actual, independent research! Can you fucking believe it? Our muse actually searched through PRIMARY documentation! At first I thought she must be plagiarizing someone else's work, but she confirms in the comments that it's her own! Hallelujah! Praise the lord! Freedom marches on!

Now, if we could just get her to stop being stupid.

Trying Too Hard

Megan again tries to be cute. It barely works for her appearance, & it never works when she types.

Whatever you think of, say, children who decided to be born poor,

One can only assume (or hope) that she is, in her sad way, actually mocking those who think po' folks are completely responsible for the situation they find themselves in, but when she qualifies it w/ "whatever you think," as if those who think the poor deserve to be screwed on a daily basis have a point somewhere besides the tops of their pinheads, she manages to undercut whatever point she may have been trying to make.

Self-loathing? Just plain dense? World's worst typist? I neither know nor care any longer. My only hope is that The Atlantic will be out of business soon. Then she & her insignificant other can spend all their time sleeping on the streets, except w/o a new iPhone waiting for them every morning.

Let justice be done!

Also: As a California native & resident, I'd just as soon we secede from your United Snakes. Unlike shitholes like Texas (no offense to those few rational beings still living there) we can do just fine w/o the rest of you. Maybe Oregon, Washington & British Columbia will join us, & we can give the finger to East Coast elitists, Midwest morons & Southern shitheels.