Just 8 Republicans voted Aye, and 44 Democrats voted Noe. The mapping onto House members’ ideal points is pretty tight, but not perfect. Check out this graph.

I picked a bad day to be here on the West side of LA. Lots of choppers in the air over UCLA right now. Time to get out of Dodge.

It isn’t every day you came across this juxtaposition, let alone in the New York Times

The phrase appears in a lovely article on echidnas by Natalie Angier…

It is a rare day that I find myself even partially agreeing with Miranda Devine. But her take on The Chaser’s recent efforts makes a good point.

Take the pranks in an American diner and hardware store in last week’s show, or this week’s skit tricking Americans into eating hay.

Americans are easy targets, not because they are stupid or gullible, but because they are polite and tolerant of eccentricity. Living in a large melting pot, they are used to encountering people with habits, behaviours and values different from their own, so are more accepting of bizarre antics that would raise the ire of a less diverse culture. This is one of America’s greatest qualities, and those who sneer at it are exposing their own lack of sophistication.

I’d add that an American who has stopped to be part of a sidewalk info-merical (the ruse used by the Chaser crew, I presume) understand their role, and will be compliant to a fault. And on this score I think you’d get similar results if you tried the same stunt in Sydney.

This screencast costs USD9.00, but promises to be useful (I found it via Gruber’s Daring Fireball).

This is the kind of thing that some of our grad students could use. Knowledge of a *nix command line is a real dividing line, imho, since it maps pretty cleanly onto who can code, and who can’t.

/Users/jackman[44] find . -name '*.[rR]' -exec grep -l pscl {} \;

um, or else…

Does Intrade have a betting line going on this? How many negative votes will Sotomayor get in her Senate confirmation vote?

Any guesses?

Gruber linked to this video short by Chris Milk, “Last Day Dream” .

I found it both lovely and unsettling.

Maybe because, like, dude, is that Pauly Shore at 0:21?

Yes it is (screen shot, closing credits):

Will Bullock asks:

Offhand, do you know if there’s a way in JAGS to replicate the cut() function that’s available in WinBUGS (page 40)? I’m trying to estimate two separate models within the same JAGS model, with the parameter estimates from the first model being used to produce the data values for the second model. Without something akin to the cut() function, estimation of the second model will affect estimation of the first model, which I don’t want.

And I replied:

I don’t know for sure. It is a good question. I tend to think not, but a good look at the JAGS manual is called for. there is a lot there…

can the data{} block help you? Martyn talks about at p30 of the JAGS manual. if you had the parameters of a posterior density for, from a previous run, you could put those in the data step. but I think that is about as close as you can get.

And then there is the whole issue of whether you want to be doing “cut” at all… Even the WinBUGS authors seem a little ambivalent about it. I’ve done things with it; e.g., measurement models where you want to separate the “measurement” model from some “downstream” model in which the latent quantity being measured appears as a predictor of something else, say, z. But if you believe the model, then z should be allowed to contribute information to the latent stuff being measured, in general (imho).

The “quasi-real-time” rollcall data being maintained by Jeff Lewis (PoliSci, UCLA) is rightly treating Specter (D PA) as a separate legislator, with the voting history of Specter (R PA) now closed. The “new” Specter has 14 recorded roll calls. Treating everyone else as having just one ideal point, we get the following picture (thumbnail below).

Specter (D) is a fairly conservative “D”, but he’s get 10 Democrats to his right; note that with just 14 votes we don’t estimate the ideal point of Specter (D) with much precision. More votes will make the picture clearer. Specter (R) had just two Republicans to his left (the Maine senators).

I estimate that Specter was the 3rd most liberal Republican; see the (thumbnail) graph below, based on all recorded votes of the (current) 111th U.S. Senate.