The Ambrosini Critique

Suppose you and I got in a car accident and both suffered from total amnesia. We’re in a hospital somewhere, neither of us have identification, but luckily all of the deeds of our possessions were in the trunk of the car and now lay before us on a hospital bed. Oh, also, there are results of the IQ test we apparently took together before the accident. One of us is a bit smarter than the other, but we don’t know which.

We can’t tell by the short conversations we’ve had who is the smarter nor who would have owned what.

Now we’ve been discharged from the hospital, but before we go on our separate ways we have to decide how to divvy up the possessions. Clearly, one of us is smarter and has the means to earn a higher income. What would be a fair division the deeds?

Now here’s a rather unrealistic catch: suppose we were deciding, today before we leave the hospital, how to divvy up our possessions, whatever they may be, a year from now? What would be the most fair way to do so?

By my calculations, even after tonights wins, Clinton has to get 61% of the vote in the remaining primaries to win the nomination. Tonight is being narrated as a big win for Clinton and she only got 51-52% of the votes.

The next big primary is Pennsylvania on April 22. If you don’t have a calendar in front of you, that’s 7 weeks from now. Then the next (and last) big state to hold a primary will be North Carolina two weeks later. If those elections were held today (and by pollsters), they’d split those two states by about the same margins (about 14%). To win the nomination, she’d have to win by even more in Penn and do a complete 180 down in Carolina.

Granted, Pennsylvania comes first so Clinton could win big there and then use the momentum to turn her fate in North Carolina. I don’t know about you, but it seems unlikely that she’d be able to swing so many voters especially given the demographics. Also, for her to win she’d have to get about 2/3rds of the vote in the smaller States. She’s only won one State (*ahem* Arkansas *ahem*) by this margin.

In what universe does it make sense for Mrs. Clinton to stay in this race? If she does, she’ll spend the next 7-9 weeks softening up Obama for the general election. In what way can this help Obama or the democrats?

UPDATE: If Clinton only wins 45% of the caucus vote, Obama will actually win more delegates in Texas (despite losing the primary vote)… weird.

(This is the first installment in my “Screaming at the Internet” series of posts.)

If someone makes a point using scientific-y claims and you think they’re wrong, don’t go on and on, in platitudes, about how silly you think the point is without countering those claims of fact. Don’t claim exhaustion with “repeating the debunking exercise”. Don’t give us “ecological interpretations”. Refute the damn facts or garner your own facts in a counter-claim.

Some of us may think facts matter and we may not be as well informed as you about them. So clue us in.

Don’t assume your factless argument isn’t making factual claims, either. It is. Because even without stating specific counter-facts, you are making a scientific claim. Your silence is suggestive and sympathetic readers may impute from it very strong facts. If you don’t refute the fact about the difference in size between men and women’s brains, for example, we may come away from your general denouncement with the impression that there isn’t such a difference¹.

If your point is to just state your opinion or to provide ideological cheerleading, then you’re being just as bad as those you criticize. You, like they, are just providing an air of science to an otherwise unsupported claim.

Update: fixed a typo

1. This is a problem given there is, if fact, such a difference, even controlling for body size. [↩]

From a review of Erykah Badu’s new album:

Think Sly Stone’s There’s a Riot Goin’ On filtered through the lens of left-field hip-hop, played at a Hindu death procession and recycled for a malfunctioning video game about an Afrofuturist apocalypse.

Well jee, it sounds like a broken video game. I’m sold.