William M. Briggs, Statistician & Consultant

Somebody at Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit kindly linked to an old article of mine entitled “Do not smooth series, you hockey puck!”, a warning that Don Rickles might give.

Smoothing creates artificially high correlations between any two smoothed series. Take two randomly generated sets of numbers, pretend they are time series, and then calculate the correlation between the two. Should be close to 0 because, obviously, there is no relation between the two sets. After all, we made them up.

But start smoothing those series and then calculate the correlation between the two smoothed series. You will always find that the correlation between the two smoothed series is larger than between the non-smoothed series. Further, the more smoothing, the higher the correlation.

The same warning applies to series that will be used for forecast verification, like in the picture below (which happens to be the RSS satellite temperature data for the Antarctic, but the following works for any set of data).

The actual, observed, real data is the jagged line. The red line is an imagined forecast. Looks poor, no? The R^2 correlation between the forecast and observation is 0.03, and the mean squared error (MSE) is 51.4.

That jagged line hurts the eyes, doesn’t it? I mean, that can’t be the “real” temperature, can it? The “true” temperature must be hidden in the jagged line somewhere. How can we “find” it? By smoothing the jagginess away, of course! Smoothing will remove the peaks and valleys and leave us with a pleasing, soft line, which is not so upsetting to the aesthetic sense.

All, nonsense. The real temperature is the real temperature is the real temperature, so to smooth is to create something that is not the real temperature but a departure from the real temperature. There is no earthly reason to smooth actual observations. But let’s suppose we do and then look at the correlation and the MSE verification statistics and see what happens.

We’ll use a loess smoother (it’s easy to implement), which takes a “span” parameter: larger values of the span indicate more smoothing. The following picture demonstrates four different spans of increasing smoothiness. You can see that the black, smoothed line becomes easier on the eye, and gets “closer” in style and shape to the red forecast line.

How about the verification statistics? That’s in the next picture: on the left is the R^2 correlation, and on the right is the MSE verification measure. Each is shown as the span, or smoothing, increases.

R^2 grows from near 0 to almost 1! If you were trying to be clever and say your forecast was “highly correlated” with the observations, you need only say “We statistically smoothed the observations using the default loess smoothing parameter and found the correlation between the observations and our forecast was nearly perfect!” Of course, what you should have said is the correlation between your smoothed series and your forecast is high. But so what? The trivial difference in wording is harmless, right? No, smoothing always increases correlation—even for obviously poor forecasts, such as our example.

The effect on MSE is more complicated, because that measure is more sensitive to the wiggles in the observation/smoothed series. But in general, MSE “improves” as smoothing increases. Again, if you want to be clever, you can pick a smoothing method that gives you the minimum MSE. After all, who would question you? You’re only applying standard statistical methods that everybody else uses. If everybody else is using them, they can’t be wrong, right? Wrong.

Our moral: always listen to Don Rickles. And Happy Fourth of July!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Internet Advertising Company to Fund Itself With Advertising

New York – July 4, 2009 – Word leader in being a new company engaged in ways of bringing advertising to the internet, Hoovem.com announced today that it will fund its operations by selling ad space on its advertisements.

“Making money on the internet is hard,” said CEO Malcom Impsnead. “Most sites don’t think about how they are going to pay off their investors. Look at Twitter, Facebook and the rest. Tens of millions out the door and not one penny coming in. We have figured out a strategy to change all that.”

Hoovem.com serves banner, rich media, flash, and other “lifestyle experience” ads to a number of leading web sites, such as Yahoo.com, ESPN.com, and Foxnews.com. When surfers go to one of these sites, chances are the ads they see will come from Hoovem.

“All those ads we serve take up a lot of bandwidth, and bandwidth costs money,” explained Impsnead. “To pay for that, we’re going to sell advertisements on the advertisements we serve.” Impsnead went on to explain that any site on the internet that is making money is doing so by selling advertising. “We’re sticking with what has been proven to work.”

Internet strategist and writer Bill McTwoon said, “Nobody has attempted what Hoovem’s doing. If it works—and there’s no reason it shouldn’t since advertising is all what drives the internet—we’ll see this implemented at sites everywhere. The time to get in on this is now.” McTwoon said that he thinks the ads Hoovem is selling on the ads is serves, might also serve as platforms for newer, tinier ads.

Contact:
Malcom Impsnead
mimpsnead@hoovem.com
New York, NY

###

I am re-posting this book review because the movie came out today, and it might be of interest.

Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-1934

Bryan Burrough

Recommendation: read

It was one of those rare confluences in history where the notable and notorious reach critical mass and all manage to bump into one another. It happened when Dorothy Parker, Robert Robert Benchley, George S. Kaufman and others coalesced at the Algonquin Round Table; times were right for Werner Heisenberg, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr and other great brains in Europe to meet and create modern physics; and so with Machine Gun Kelly, Ma Barker, Bonnie & Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, Dillinger. These Midwest kidnappers and bank robbers—or yeggs—flourished during the same brief time.

These underworld entities kept running into each other. Verne Miller, hit man responsible for the notorious Kansas City Massacre—a botched rescue of yegg Frank Nash, who was killed along with several agents—was being chased by cops in Chicago and ran into an apartment building. “In a bizarre coincidence, this was the very building where John Dillinger was then living.” Miller and Dillinger didn’t know each other.

If you were raised in the States in my generation or earlier, you will have heard of most of the names (probably from Bugs Bunny cartoons). These criminals were celebrities, with all the disgusting whitewash that status brings. For example, if you’ve only seen the movie, and haven’t read Mike Royko’s classic column reviewing it (near bottom of link), then you don’t know Bonnie & Clyde. Human scum. Murderous dreck. In the book, I cheered when Bonnie & Clyde’s car crashed and caught on fire, burning her down to the bone. She was in well-deserved agony for weeks. Both ran like terrified animals, scared and mentally defeated most of the time—but still managing to get in a murder or two—until they were finally hunted down by a Texas Ranger and some Louisiana cops and given the death they so richly deserved.

The book also details the creation of the FBI and the rise of Hoover, a man unknown to the world until he was able to ride the crime wave to shore up the struggling Bureau. Burrough argues that Hoover would have disappeared had he not had the all those lucky kidnappings and bank robbings that needed policing. The FBI was no certain thing.

There aren’t as many details about the FBI as there are of the crooks. We do learn that Hoover took his job seriously and that he sought publicity for the sake of the Bureau and not just for himself, but he wasn’t against exaggerating. He painted Ma Barker, in life a lonely solver of jigsaw puzzles, as the brains behind the Barker outfit after she was accidentally killed in a shootout by a stray bullet. His concocted story was better than explaining how an innocent old lady got shot. My guess is that Burrough will follow this book up with another focusing on Hoover.

Crime buffs will love the detail, sometimes given minute by minute. But it’s a lot to go through. Names come at you fast, actions are sometimes hard to follow. This isn’t Burrough’s fault: his stated purpose is to be complete, and he had access to newly opened FBI files, but there’s work involved on the reader’s part to keep up. But the writing is good and pleasurable.

We meet everybody who was anybody in criminal and law enforcement circles—except for those in the Chicago syndicate and New York mob, organizations which had few ties to the outlaws—but it’s Dillinger that’s star of the show. Charismatic bank robber, one time murder of a cop who tried to arrest him, and by all accounts a very charming man. He knew he was a media darling and played up to his image of a tommy-gun toting robber of the rich, using it at one point, with assistance from his mafia-connected lawyer Louis Piquett, to make an escape from jail easier.

Hoover assigned initially Melvin Purvis to the job of hunting crooks, but he turned out to be a walking CF (a precise, and deeply meaningful term I learned in the military: the first letter stands for cluster; if you don’t know the whole phrase, it means screwup). Purvis was lazy, negligent, and couldn’t even find his own hat, let alone any crooks. But guess who the media gave the glory to? The man Hoover sent to supervise Purvis—Samuel Cowley—never cared for credit, and never got it, even after he was murdered by Baby Faced Nelson (at one point, Dillinger was a member of Nelson’s gang). Once reporters find an angle, they stick to it, truth be damned (some things never change).

Hollywood writers are the same. There is a moved “based on”—which almost always means “some of the names are right, all other details are changed”—the book about to appear. The trailer makes it appear that the flick’s title is “Dillinger versus Purvis: Battle to the Death”. Johnny Depp looks OK as Dillinger, but intensity-ham Christian Bale comes across goofy as always. Anyway, there is no way the movie can capture the rich details of the book.

Dillinger, it must be said, is highly filmable and had excellent taste in dress, a “clothes horse.” Discussion of dress salts the book. One passage sees Dillinger buying “sassy cravats” to go with his sharp boater. Another incident describes him donning a pair of size 24 Hanes briefs, “a pair of lightweight gray slacks, black socks, red Paris garters, and white buckskin Nunn Bush shoes. He buttoned his white kenilworth broadcloth shirt and twisted on a red-print tie.”

Hoover was no sartorial slouch, either. One picture shows that he knew that when wearing an overcoat, one must also wear a scarf for balance; and he didn’t neglect the pocket square. This was the time when male elegance was at its peak, and kids dressed like adults instead of the other way around.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is calling for the heads of “deniers” again. In his “Betraying the Planet“, he says that anybody who doesn’t agree with his understanding on climate models should be labeled a traitor.

He made use of his common tropes: unforgivable, treasonous, betrayal, etc. I wonder if knows the definitions of these strong words. I think he does, but then it means that he has worked himself into an irrational tizzy over the House vote.

Here’s my letter to their editor. Naturally, I think there is low probability it will be published.

Dear Editor,

Your columnist Paul Krugman is rather excitable on the subject of global warming. Treason? Denial? Unforgivable? Ill-considered, extreme words used in haste. Mr. Krugman has failed to appreciate the limitations of predictions and is unforgiving of those of us who do.

Mr. Krugman is correct to say that some climate models are predicting warmer temperatures. Those same models have been so predicting for quite some time. But they have been over-predicting, meaning that they have guessed the temperatures would have been warmer than they have turned out to be. Climate models have been poor in practice. They have done well in simulating, or reproducing, past climates, but when checked against their actual (future) predictions, they have been too hot.

It is rational, therefore, to believe that they will continue to over-predict, until what is broken in the models is fixed. So to say that the output of predictive models should be acted on without question or else one is treasonous is not rational.

My expertise is in verification of forecasts (among other things, I serve on the American Meteorological Society’s Probability and Statistics Committee). When making a decision based on a forecast—whether to “cap and trade” or regulate—one must take into account the skill of that forecast. More skillful models should be trusted more than less skillful ones. So far, climate models have not demonstrated consistent skill, thus we should be cautious when acting on their predictions.

This in no way says that the models should be ignored and that no decisions can be made safely based on their output. It does mean that there is room for honest scientific disagreement. Shouting, in effect, that those who disagree with Mr. Krugman’s views should be painted as traitors is just plain silly.

William M. Briggs, PhD

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Radio

Who do you think Charlie Gibson, newsreader over at ABC, voted for in the last presidential election? Tell the truth, now: be honest. How about Paul Krugman and most of the other reporters over the the New York Times? Katie Couric from CBS? Brian Williams from NBC? Lou Dobbs from CNN? Chris Matthews from MSNBC? Those flat-voiced folks over at NPR who host Morning Edition and their other programs? All those reporters from the Washington Post?

If polls are of any use—always a good question to ask—we know that about 90% of media people vote for Democrat party candidates. Be safe and subtract 10%, even 20%, from that number, and then add to it the evidence contained in the news broadcasts and written reports from the above-named outlets, and we conclude that the majority of media skews left. Which is no surprise to anybody.

Conservatives, having no other outlet, and television being too expensive, turned to radio. Eventually, conservatives got Fox News on cable and one or two newspapers, but only long after radio had become dominant.

Advertising pays for news. Watch a half-hour broadcast news show and build your desire for a new car. Watch one on cable and soon you will crave storm windows. Crease open a big-city paper and lust after polished rocks strung together on a string. Thus, a typical lefty person, setting down his Times and switching on the tube to soak up the sedate offerings of Keith Olbermann, will find nothing unusual when it’s time for “these important messages”.

But suppose our open-minded lefty says to himself, “I wonder what this Mark Levin is all about? I might learn something by exposing myself to a different viewpoint.” So he tunes in the radio and hears the appalling “Kars for Kids” suicide-inducing jingle begging him to “donate” his car, then he hears a man pretending he is the radio host interrupting the show to bring you “a public service announcement” for which he wants to give you the phone number but can’t locate it…wait—shuffle, shuffle—here it is, call today! He hears a boast that you can “make money on the internet” and not have to stock any merchandise, nor will he even have to pay for it! Money will simply stream in!

He will hear about green tea for bursitis, peach pit extract for erectile dysfunction, fish oil for zits, snake oil for splenetic fever outbreaks, homeopathic miracle cures, salves for any wound, just apply your credit card liberally.

Our lefty will quite rationally infer that anybody who responds to any of these ads is an idiot. Or deluded, or troubled in spirit, or willfully stupid. He will guess something has gone wrong, that synapses have misfired.

And who, he asks himself, are listening to these ads? Conservatives! No wonder they are such dim, poor souls. Lefty’s reflexive Desire To Help will kick in, and he will wonder whether the government can impose a fairness doctrine so that radio listeners can be saved from themselves.

Radio, in short, will have frightened him badly, but he will falsely conclude that only conservatives are fools. He will not—he will not need to—tune in Ron Kudy, Rachel Maddow, Charles Binder or other hosts at the leftist Air America, so he will not discover the commercials found there are identical to those aired on Sean Hannity. Barely ethical and shady ads have nothing to do with politics, they are inherent to the medium. NPR understands this, which is why it uses the euphemism “sponsorships” for its advertisements.

Even if you are not a conservative (I am certain I do not qualify) but you enjoy the human voice and want to hear different opinions from those broadcast on TV, then it would behoove you to write to your station’s program manager and ask him to soften his greed and reject the edgiest ads.

————————————————–

Note Before you add your undoubtedly hilarious, “Here’s another reason leftists think conservatives are idiots”, be aware that those folks have a list just as long as yours.

Our title comes from a famous paper by Lester Dubbins and Leonard Savage which appeared at the beginning of the Bayesian Theoretical Resurgence, a movement which, I am delighted to report, has now largely infiltrated nearly all of academia.

Import as this movement was, it was slight in gambling because analysis of games of chance were always Bayesian. Prove this by picking up any undergraduate text in statistics and find the chapter on probability (always, bizarrely, hidden in the interior whereas it should come first). You will see examples like this: “A die has probability 1/6 of showing a 6, therefore the probability of two die (or one die thrown twice) showing two 6s is 1/6 * 1/6 = 36.”

Valid answer, but an invalid, or at least incomplete, argument. Close enough, however, because of the implicit recognition that (Bayesian) logic allowed us to deduce the probability of the die showing 1/6. Once that deduction is in hand, we can prove theories of what will happen to that die under scenarios, which come in two flavors.

Simple gambles are those where the physics of the game allow us to deduce the probabilities of events of interest. Examples: “two 6s on two throws”, “a pair of jacks showing from a poker deck”, “00 showing on a roulette wheel”, “three cherries showing on a slot machine”, and so on. Casinos provide simple gambles.

Complex gambles are different from simple ones because we cannot deduce the probability of the events of interest. For example, “The person to my left in this poker game holds a hand superior to mine”, “horse A will win the race or at least come in third”, “stock B will increase in price over the next week”, or “the Detroit Tigers will win tomorrow’s game.”

Unless you are the owner of a casino or a bookie, it is impossible to consistently make money with simple gambles. You might, but probably will not, consistently make money with complex gambles. Here’s why.

Any casino game that does not involve the intelligences of other human beings can be analyzed as simple gambles. This means we can, without error, compute the probability of any outcome of any game, which we can call A, for example A = “the roulette wheel shows red”. We will always know, given the properties and setup of the game, the probability A will be true. For ease, call that probability P(A), which I emphasize we know.

It costs you D dollars to bet on A, and you will win with probability P(A) and will be paid W dollars if A happens. The casino sets the required bet D so that it is more than W * P(A) (alternatively, W is set less than 1/P(A) for every dollar bet). They do this on all simple gambles.

For example, if A = “7 shows on an American roulette wheel” then we can deduce that P(A) = 1/38 (the numbers 0-36 and the symbol “00″ are on the wheel). It costs (say) 1 Dollar to play. If you win, you receive 35 Dollars. In this case, W * P(A) = 35/38 which is less than the 1 Dollar it costs to play. Roughly, the casino takes in 8 cents for every dollar bet, meaning you lose 8 cents.¹

Meaning you will go hungry if you make gambling on these games a career. The only exception to simple gambles is blackjack, where strategies exist so that D < W * P(A)---you can make money. But because casinos have more money than you, and politicians desire to have that money, casinos are able to buy laws that make these strategies illegal. Just as you go to Walmart to purposely part with your cash, you are meant to go to a casino to lose money.

Money can be made with complex gambles, but it isn’t easy. In simple gambles, everybody has the same information about P(A). This isn’t true in complex gambles where to win, you need to have better information about P(A) than the person or persons betting against you. Those cigarette-wielding guys huddled around the OTB entrance aren’t just dosing themselves with nicotine. They’re trying to gain an advantage in information by subtle probes of their compatriots. Brokerages ponder quarterly reports for the same reason.

Problem is, everybody else is trying to gain an edge the same time you are, which usually means your information is not much better than the next person’s. Plus, in betting horse races and the stock market, there are transaction fees. Tracks skim a percent off the top and set the payouts by the amounts bet, making it extremely difficult to win money. Brokers and banks charge transaction fees which cause the same difficulties.

Besides bar bets and cheating, the only gamble with potential is poker (and its business equivalents, negotiating) which depends on bluffing and the ability to detect it. Being able to read tics and tells is a great skill; but it’s a rare talent and expensive to acquire.

The lesson is: stay away from simple gambles and only take bets where you are sure of your information.

——————————————–
¹This figure is “on average” and is, therefore, metaphysical. But we can calculate the exact probabilities of winning for the casino given an assumed number of bets and amounts; the probability the casino wins is nearly 1.

I’m at Cornell, teaching my now-annual statistics course to a group who have come up from the city and are there enrolled in a Masters program. Cornell requires students to spend time on campus before it awards degrees, maybe to prop up College Town, which is now half deserted.

My evenings are free, so when I saw the sign announcing, “Advanced Life-Purpose Philosophy Seminar”, I decided to go. It would let me kill time in the evenings and give me the chance to learn something new.

I got to Caldwell Hall at the appointed time, but I was the only one there. I wondered if I’d misread the sign. Finally, as I was about to leave, a man walked in. He had a manila folder stuffed with papers, some making their escape from the edges. He was fifty-ish, running to fat, his glasses pinning a badly realized comb-over to his ears. Jeans, of course, ill fitting, and a knit pullover that had seen better days. He spoke with a soft accent—Belgian, I guessed, but only after he told me his name was Verd Antoine.

We chatted about the always dismal weather and how he usually taught this class in the fall to undergraduates but because he was on sabbatical this year he switched to the summer.

“So, you’re looking for a Life Purpose?” he asked.

“Well, not exactly—”

“There are many ways to engage in a Life That Makes A Difference,” he cut me off, “but I shall teach you the optimal. Now, we can agree that the best life is one that changes the world, so?”

“I’d say that every person just by living changes the world in some way.” Seemed a trivial observation.

“And how can somebody change the world,” he went on, ignoring me, “unless he or she has a purpose?” He lifted his eyebrows in anticipation of my agreement. I shrugged my shoulders.

“The natural question becomes, ‘How does one arrive at a purpose?’ The obvious answer is to think of a problem that needs solving. And what problems need solving? All of them, of course, but does it not follow that the most pressing problems require the most immediate attention? And among those, don’t the most potentially damaging demand first look?”

“I suppose so.”

“Now, it is well known that what disaster is defined to be the most potentially damaging is in part subjective; it depends on the life story of the individual, so? We must carry out an exercise that will allow you to find out what potential disaster is most meaningful to you. Ready?”

“Sure.” I tried to peek at the clock without making it too obvious.

“I want you to use your imagination. Can you do that for me?” I nodded and he went on. “I want you to create a vision of a trifling annoyance. Then slowly let that small itch become a raging infection. Imagine it infecting the largest group of people you can think of. Do you have something?”

“I…almost.” This wasn’t easy; by nature I am too cheerful.

“Any small vexation will do! Find it and let it grow. Work on your fundamental fear and irrationality. Call to the innermost part of your being where you are most primitive. Look to the place where Worry is trapped free it, set it loose! What do you see?”

His words were hypnotic and I felt myself falling away. Suddenly, visions came upon me! “Yes! The CERN facility might create a black hole to suck us all up! Obama wasn’t a natural-born citizen and will take over all private businesses on his path to dictatorship! Global warming will destroy us all by increasing temperatures by almost a whole degree Celsius! Evolution will no longer be taught in schools thus some students won’t appreciate fully the golgi apparatus! Second-hand smoke increases the anxiety in non-smokers that smokers are enjoying themselves more than non-smokers! The horror! The horror!”

I slipped into a black reverie and experienced eschatological fantasies of millions suffering minor inconveniences that could be avoided if only I could do something. I awoke to find my shirt covered with tears but I had no memory of shedding them.

Antoine was silent for a moment; then he said, “You now see that in order for mankind to be happy, you must be able to believe the worst that can happen will happen. You must become miserable. And only when you learn to spread your torment to others, only when all share your agony, only then can the world reach a state of perfection.”

He reached into his folder and withdrew a paper, took out a pen and wrote something on it. “Here,” he said, “Display this proudly.”

It read “Certificate of Activism“, and it had my name on it.

The story is confusing, but Derek Jeter’s tailor is having legal difficulties.

Either Ramchandani, who is the tailor, or one of his ex-pupils is having immigration troubles. Judging by the picture, I am not surprised.

Cornell

I am off to Cornell for two weeks to teach. Postings will be somewhat slow in appearing during this time.

Conversation was thick at the Cigar Inn today. Mostly over lunatic James W. von Brunnm who walked into Washington, D.C.’s Holocaust museum and murdered guard Stephen T. Johns, who had the bad luck to be on duty. von Brunn was shot, but unfortunately he is still alive. Word is that he is in critical condition, so there is still a chance for justice to take place.

Irv Levine (we call him Lefty because he always grips his butts with his left thumb and pinkie) was holding forth, as usual, but with special passion today, as you might imagine. He raised his Cohiba to his lips, which engulfed the cigar. He was so near apoplexy that he forgot to light it.

“What galls me is that it happened in a place whose entire purpose is to teach tolerance and acceptance of other people’s views.”

“You mean,” I chimed in, “that we should tolerate and respect beliefs other than ours?”

“Exactly. Especially if they’re different.”

“What if those beliefs include the thought that all Jews are evil and should be shot inside museums?”

Lefty didn’t answer and silently chewed on his cigar, glowering.

Finally Bob Greene laughed. “He’s got you, Lefty. All that tobacco smoke has had its way with your noodle. You’re not thinking straight.” Greene didn’t smoke, but the Cigar Inn was close to his corner on 72nd street, where he distributed literature and tried to win converts for The Earth is Doomed. When the action was light, he wandered in and vainly warned us of the dangers of smoking.

“You just never understood, Lefty. Some opinions are so wrong that they just can’t be tolerated.” He waved some non-existent smoke from his face. “You should know that better than anybody.”

“You heard about this “Insolent Braggart” guy, Greene? A blogger who said that people who don’t believe that global warming will be that harmful should be jailed or executed.”

“Global warming is serious business. The Earth is in peril and if we don’t do something now, the end could be near.”

“Maybe so. But I heard Dr. X and others are bandying about words like ‘treason’ and ‘traitorous’ for anyone holding a skeptical view. That the way you see it?”

“Well…”

“And traitors should certainly be jailed, maybe even executed, right?”

“I wouldn’t say…”

Lefty chimed in, “Hey, Greene, how about gassing the skeptics? That outta teach ‘em.” He had his cigar lit by this time and blew a choking blue ring towards Greene.

While this was happening, Lefty’s wife Dorothy came in, as she frequently did, to let him know it was time to leave. Lefty refused to carry a cell phone, but he was found easily, as he was either here or at Finnegan’s Wake soaking up a beer.

“Now just you start being nice,” she said. “You shouldn’t talk like that.”

Lefty mumbled a barely audible, “He started it.” Then louder, “I’m not ready” holding up his cigar to show it had barely burned. Dorothy rolled her eyes and looked at her watch.

The TV was on a news channel and a picture of Sarah Palin appeared. Dorothy, already primed to be upset, said, “I can’t stand that woman!”

“I don’t know,” I said, “she’s pretty hot for a governor.”

Greene, whose eyes were tearing from the smoke, added, “She’s evil.”

I said, “I heard that David Letterman made a joke about one of the Obamas’ kid, one of the little girls. They brought the girls when they visited the city last week. Letterman said, ‘One awkward moment for Michelle Obama at the Yankee game, during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.’”

“WHAT!” Dorothy screamed, “THERE IS NO WAY HE SAID THAT!” She stood over my chair and thrust her finger right at my head. Dorothy was a big Obama supporter and active in women’s rights.

“Yeah, statutory rape is hilarious isn’t it?”

But before she could jump down my throat, I held up my hands and said, “No, you’re right. Just kidding. Letterman actually said it about Sarah Palin’s 14-year old daughter.”

Lefty smiled but kept quiet. Dorothy looked like she had just been asked an algebra question and had her foot stepped on at the same time.

“I think Letterman was irked that Palin wouldn’t come on his show so he could make fun of her in person.”

“Wait a minute,” said Greene. “I heard about this. Letterman later said he meant Palin’s 18-year old daughter and not her 14-year old daughter.”

“Oh, that makes a big difference,” said Lefty.

“Letterman lied,” I countered. “The man’s entire career has been devoted to inane chitchat with half-rate actors and actresses. There can’t be much left upstairs. What else could he think of saying?”

Dorothy had recovered her composure. “Let’s go, Irv. Right now.”

As she was picking up his raincoat, I said, “Slutty flight attendant.”

Luckily, Lefty had stood up to put out his cigar and was able to stop Dorothy from gouging out my eyes.

“Not you. Letterman also said Palin looked like a ’slutty flight attendant.’”

“NOW, Irv.” Lefty put on his coat. Dorothy marched out the store, Greene trailing behind her, late for his shift. Lefty took another glance at the television and said, “She don’t look bad at that.”

I nodded. “That’s tolerance what is all about.”

For reasons that are obvious to all, I have have been studying the imminent arrival of the apocalypse. Whether you are a Christian millenarian, or you thought the Mayans were on to something with 2012, or you are a Buddhist awaiting Maitreya, most indications are that we are going to hell in a handbasket.

This is a metaphor I have never entirely understood, incidentally, because I have always pictured handbaskets as something one takes on a picnic or leisurely stroll. But we must respect our elders.

Riding the dreaded F train regularly is enough for anybody to think that The End Is Near, so I have tried to be careful to look for signs elsewhere to avoid bias. And, lo, there was no shortage. Wars and rumors of wars abound.

But just when I was convinced that I should take to the hills, small signs began to appear that Gave Me Hope.

Here is my list. What’s yours?

• I saw a young man (wearing jeans but had no TSD) reading an Alexander Kent novel. I spoke with him and, yes, he revered O’Brian. This young man will go far.
• Reports are that several new gins are coming to market. As Stan the Man would quip, ’nuff said.
• A confluence of flappers and zombies occurred this weekend at Governor’s Island, in the New York Harbor. This is true. I was there and saw it. And as I gazed, I consumed several St. Germaine cocktails and heard the best ever rendition of Red, Red Robin, a song I thought previously was for kids. Nelson Riddle was right: it’s all in the arrangement.
• A juicy thunderstorm shot through Manhattan last night, and another is on its way.
• Roger Scruton fights back! (from A&LD, ‘natch) “Only comparative judgments are acceptable [at university courses on music], and the comparison has to be between one piece of pop music and another. This is in fact an interesting exercise. You can learn a lot from comparing Peter Gabriel and the Kooks which you probably will not learn from comparing Bach and Vivaldi—a lot about the varied forms of self-indulgence in music, and the many ways of failing to make voice-led harmonies or melodies that are capable of prolongation. But you are not allowed to judge.”
• My Montecristi Fedora from Panama Hats Direct will soon be here, direct from Ecuador. It will go beautifully with my new cream linen suit.
• Bank robber falls and dies leaping from train platform in chase “He didn’t come close.”