An open letter to Chik-Fil-A supporters

Hello, I hope that your stomachs are full of great chicken sandwiches and brain full of satisfaction of supporting a good Christian company. What could be better than filling your bellies and giving a dollar to a great company, right?

I have a couple of thoughts for you to ponder as you ride the wave of your food coma endorphin rush.

  1. Thank you for making such a big deal out of Chik-Fil-A’s support for the “biblical definition of marriage.” This is a topic that needs a lot of attention, and you helped bring that attention on.
  2. I enjoyed that pic you posted onto Facebook from your iPhone of you and your friends giving a thumbs up to a back of chicken sandwiches. I also saw a couple of Ford pickups in the background there. And your toddler looks so cute in those Huggies! You do know that Apple, Ford, and Kimberly-Clark, makers of these fine products, donate money to support marriage equality, don’t you? Uh oh, it looks like you inadvertently split your money vote.
  3. You probably got bristled at some point by some hippy or flaming gay rights supporter claiming that Chik-Fil-A supported the “Kill the Gays” bill in Uganda. You know, of course, that the Chik-Fil-A family did not nor would they ever do such a thing. You can just put it out of your mind, because, what’s a couple of degrees of separation from picking up the stone yourself?
  4. I’m so glad that someone in Dan Cathy’s position has spoken up for the “traditional definition of marriage.” I get tripped up, however, because I don’t know which definition he is using. Our modern marriage has only been around a couple of hundred years, with it becoming the dominant (and legally recognized as the only) form in the last hundred and fifty or so.

So I’m glad you picked up that chicken sandwich. In that tiny act of capitalistic slactivism, you have helped force some of this self-examination of one of our society’s most sacred institutions into the spotlight.

Review of the Samsung Intercept and Epic

Over the last month I have tried both the Samsung Intercept and Epic. Here are my thoughts.

I really wanted to like the Intercept, but in the end the quality wad so poor I couldn’t stand it. The phone frequently locked up and crashed, making it unusable. It had great features for the price, but a low price for junk out still money thrown away.
So I got an Epic. Right now I’m composing this entry on the Epic using the swype system, and even through I’m not used to the system it’s pretty fast. It has great apps and looks beautiful. I plan to stress test the phone in the next few days to check the camera and battery.

Tracking food: a 30-day trial

Armed with the Sparkpeople website and an Android app, I am tracking everything I eat for 30 days. I am on day 3. So far, I have noticed the following:

* tracking is hard with all the composite foods

* coffee cream has a lot of calories

* I didn’t intend to change my eating habits, but I have automatically

My BMI is around 28, so I’m due to lose a few.

Another Joint Statistical Meetings retrospective (A CRO statistician’s perspective)

Up over at Ask Cato.

The curse of missing data, and potential regulatory action

Joint statistical meetings 2010 – reflections for biostatistics

Joint statistical meetings 2010 – second half

Joint statistical meetings 2010 – first half

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More on the petabyte milestone