President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Part of the problem today is that if you can't agree on what facts are facts, then you'll never agree on what they mean. It's like we've taken a step back from disagreement in interpretation. We're now disagreeing on what should be interpreted.

 

It's not necessarily the reliability of the number, it's the method by which the number was arrived at. What counts as a live birth? If country X calculates its infant mortality using one definition and Y calculates it using another, they're going to have different rates even if there's no underlying difference. Further, I don't think one is ill-advised to assume that Cuba is going to adopt a fairly generous (for it) methodology.

 

And how to wear an obscene amount of denim.

 

Crawfordsville is one of the worst speed traps in eastern Arkansas.

 

Right. I'm assuming the CIA somehow vets the numbers it uses. This could be a poor assumption. But I'm more likely than most here, I suspect, to have faith in data from government institutions.

EDIT: I realize I just said I trust the CIA, and I realize exactly how dumb that sounds.

 

Exactly. I think that is dangerous.

 

Thing is, I'm not even disputing the number.

I'm disputing that its simply being lower is a good thing. It's not. It's artificially lower, due to some pretty heinous things, including an abortion rate almost twice that of the U.S.

In Cuba, an Abundance of Love but a Lack of Babies

 

The evening drive show on KFAN in Minneapolis has a special guest named "Carl Gerbschmidt," who checks off every Packers fan stereotype: whiny, entitled, defensive, accent, "owner." It's a bit (I think), but as a Packers fan I cringe whenever the segment comes on because it has a ton of truth to it.

 

This is a fair point. I can see how infant mortality is a tricky statistic, although, like life expectancy, I do think it's often used to compare relative levels of national health.

On that measure, by the way, the U.S. ranks 31st at 79.3 years. Interestingly, Cuba ranks 32nd, at 79.1.

 

Life expectancy is really not a good indicator of "national health," either. Far too many confounds -- e.g., vehicle accidents and gun violence -- are in play in it.

 

So we use... Broccoli consumption per capita?

 

I moved to Minnesota two years ago. I'd agree that Franken gets generally good marks. He typically does the proverbial legwork and kept a low profile for a while, though after releasing his book he seems to be emerging from that shell. It's worth noting that he didn't just decide to run because, but credits a lot of it as picking up the torch for Paul Wellstone, who was a close personal friend, apparently.

Ventura's time as governor has been pretty heavily derided. Without a base to get an agenda moving, it seemed as if he got erratic and had a tendency to take his frustrations out on the media.