Pennsylvanians United for Single Payer Healthcare

The local Pittsburgh chapter of Healthcare 4 All  PA is launching it's own site with several talented authors.  The link with the first post on gender and racial differences in Pennsylvania's uninsured can be seen here.

Pennsylvanians United for Single Payer Healthcare

year	% uninsured white	MOE +/- %	% uninsured black	MOE +/- %	% uninsured hispanic	MOE +/- %
2008	9.10	.20	15.10	.70	21.50	1.00
2009	10.10	.20	16.20	.70	22.60	1.00

What Shaq can teach us about Climate Change

This week the UN is holding it's 17th annual climate change conference, COP 17, in Durban, South Africa with the US not in attendance (with the possible exception of famous climate change denier Sen. James Inhofe R-OK who may address the conference by video).  Last year I posted one of my all time most popular posts on how Barry Sanders playing stats can teach climate change deniers about how one should not dismiss all of climate change science every time the local weather gets colder especially here in the US.  I thought this year I would present another sports example as the NBA's season is finally about to get underway after a lockout and many deniers such as Inhofe are also SportsCenter junkies in my unscientific opinion.

Shaquille O'Neal is the 5th all time scoring leader in NBA history but his career free throw percentage is 52%.  He was in the 12th percentile of all NBA players in the 1999-00 season while scoring 29 points per game (the league leader that year made 95% of his free throws while scoring 12 points per game).  To deny global warning based on one or two weather events would be like keeping Shaq out of the Basketball Hall of Fame just based on his free throw shooting.  One needs to consider and act on all of the data before making a decision.  I don't know if NBA fans are as right wing (except Charles Barkley who once aspired to run for the GOP nomination for governor of Alabama) as some NFL fans like Rush Limbaugh are but we should all be able to agree that keeping Shaq out is wrong regardless of what we think of him as a person.  

**Update**

Think Progress has reported how the billionaire Koch brother's group American's for Prosperity has bullied Congressional Republicans into publicly doubting climate change.  Will Charles Barkley be bullied into opposing Shaq's induction into the Hall of Fame?

**Related Posts**

Global Warming, Wikileaks, and Statistics: What Barry Sanders Can Teach Us.

The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science | Mother Jones 

 

Statistics and Old Beliefs