At this point in time this is a hobby site. I have degrees in Statistics, but currently work for the US Federal Government in that field. This is a site that I have a vision of expanding and getting more involved in when I retire and have considered setting up for a few years. I went ahead and got it started a bit early when I saw an article in the Washington Post that I took issue with – it is the very first post for the blog – and I had been working with WordPress for a Photoblog.
Since I am still working I fully expect that my entries will be rather infrequent. I will also recluse myself from commenting on any data or analysis of that data by any party that is derived from federal source, surveys, or whatever. Some how I feel that would be a bit of a conflict of interest. No one has said that is so, and I have not asked if others consider it so, I just think it best if I view the world that way.
The impetus behind this site is my longstanding frustration with the way statistics are used. It has been said “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.” I would say that statistics themselves is not the problem. Rather the problems are in how they are constructed and how they are interpreted. With that in mind the readers can expect me to got beyond the statistics themselves to raise questions about how they were derived and also to delve into the logic that is used in the analysis of the data.
I invite the reader to interpret the posts in the blog with that background in mind.