Phil, your comment about the third-order polynomial reminds me of something I learned as an undergrad – that, if you want to make a straight-line graph, just use logarithmic scales for both axes. A log-log plot is almost always a straight line, and almost never proves anything (e.g. take a log-log plot of, say, the GDP of Sweden versus world pole-vaulting records – it will be, near as makes no difference, a straight line).

I mean people who adhere to a rigid ideology (left, right or whatever) and see the bogeymen of the other side (ie everyone else) in every shadow, but you backed off on the oppression rhetoric, so never mind.

There is no modern ideology that has has a majority lock on the truth or intelligence. This is a big problem because too many continuously quaff their selected ideological poison.

Saying “liberal = smart” is just about as meaningful to me as someone saying “Evangelical = more moral”. It’s also a fallacious way of shutting down debate. The problem with conservatism in this country right now is its infection by religion. Barry Goldwater, a classical conservative (which was much was closer to libertarianism), warned against this very thing decades ago. My hate for the GOP probably transcends that of most “liberals” because they have completely polluted the debate about the balance between the public and the private sectors. Conservatism has forever been shackled to religious idiocy by these pious a**clowns.

But overall I’ve seen too many liberals and conservatives (and all the other ideologues) who espouse the same “solutions” over and over despite there being a lot (in some cases *centuries*) of evidence that it DOES NOT WORK. The fact that a large number of my fellow skeptics cannot apply their skepticism to their [golem voice]precious[/golem voice] political ideologies concerns me a great deal.

And… why would you use a polynomial fit to data that’s periodic (insofar as it’s sequential at all — it’s more catagoric than anything)?

Wow. So much bad math out there.

@CanadianLeigh: if Bolt is not from this planet, how do we determine his star sign? Oh noes!!one!

Oh hum.