Last weekI beat on the silly $3 quadrillion story for its lack of context and perspective. It’s the kind of story that brings out the stupid and of course it did just that as Oyster points out. In his postOyster calls the matter of aMr Vandeleun’s stupid to the attention of Ashley Morris in hope that Ashley will deliver his “trademark subtelty and finesse” to one Mr. Vanderleun.Ashley in turn delivers and I highly recommend reading all of it but here is a taste…
He calls New Orleanians “legions of hustlers, grifters, drunks, junkies, pathics and drooling layabouts“.
Hmmm…I wonder which of us he’s talking about. People like me, with a
PhD and two jobs? Others on my blogroll, with JDs, PhDs, MBAs, MDs,
MFAs, and other advanced degrees? Oh, that’s right. He’s one of those
who probably couldn’t cut it, and so his ‘conservative‘ response is to slam the ‘liberal bent in higher education‘
and denigrate our achievements. People in New Orleans are working
harder than anyone, jackass, regardless of educational level. If you
only have one job (and I don’t know a PhD in this town that only has
one job), then you probably spend the rest of your time fixing up your
house. Yes, we’re still doing it. Most of the gutting is over, but
people are still hanging drywall, painting, hauling off debris,
patching roofs and in general rebuilding their homes and lives. There’s
also little affordable childcare, so our kids are either helping us
with the work, or else we have to postpone the rebuilding time until
after the kids are in bed. So, for clarification Mookie, does that make
us “pathics” or “drooling layabouts“?I love how people who have no grasp of mathematics, statistics, or
even simple arithmetic still try to use numbers to help support their
points. The twit who sued for $3 Quadrillion is what we call anoutlier.
We don’t consider him when determining weighted averages. He won’t make
a big difference when calculating the median. But that doesn’t stop
Mookie from using thisoutlier to cipher an average. As we say about the lottery, it is a tax on those who failed statistics.
Mookie must direct deposit his paycheck to the lottery, and picks the
same numbers, week after clueless week after clueless week.