I'm with Scott Galupo on the bruhaha over the New York Times' Nate Silver:
I’m not a trained numbers guy. But I’m a hungry consumer of data-driven analysis about both politics and baseball. Occasionally it crosses the line of self-satisfaction, as if to lament that the world is full of innumerate mouth-breathers. But far more often, the “quants” are humble about their claims and even overemphatic about the complex interplay of variables and “unknown unknowns,” as a former secretary of defense famously put it. I’ll take Silver’s transparent model over Scarborough’s hunch-level insider bluster any day of the week.
There's been a ton of mocking over his model's indication that Obama has a high odds of winning next week's election. After all, how can a reasonably close race be reflected in such a way?
The answer is simple: math.
And what do we do with idiots like Dean Chambers, the character behind Unskewedpolls.com -- and the fool who wrote what is perhaps the most egregiously stupid and petty op-ed I've ever seen?
I'm a Romney supporter, but if an Obama win would mean an opportunity to silence the fools, charlatans and sophists who profit considerably from paranoia and stupidity, then so be it. Alas, I don't think a direct message from the Archangel Michael himself would do that trick.
