The Summer of Numerical Discontent

July 28, 2010

I went walking with a friend last night and we got to talking about Obama’s polling numbers and the general uselessness of trying to project forward to 2012 and his political fortunes. So I went looking. John Woolley and Gerhard Peters have an excellent site where they publish their work on The American Presidency Project. [...]

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Winning The UnWinnable

July 2, 2010

At the risk of beating a dead horse . . . Yesterday I blogged on what I regard as the craziness of spending billions of dollars on Afghanistan.  My lens on the problem was primarily the math but mostly it was about the impossibility of success given the frame on the problem. Low and behold [...]

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The Madness of Afghanistan and a Little Trick I Call Math

July 1, 2010

For the past decade I have made a living helping people and corporations make smarter decisions.  I say that by way of disclosing my bias when I think about nearly everything.  Yesterday I blogged about General Petraeus’ testimony before the Armed Services Committee in advance of his taking over as the overlord of the “not [...]

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What I Wish David Petraeus Said

June 30, 2010

Opening Statement General David H. Petraeus Confirmation Hearing: Commander, ISAF/US Forces–Afghanistan 29 June 2010 Mr. Chairman, Senator McCain, Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. And thank you for the rapid scheduling of this hearing. I am, needless to say, humbled and honored to have been nominated by [...]

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It’s the Unknown Unknowns that Really Get You

June 21, 2010

A wonderful article/interview in the New York Times with David Dunning, one of the rock stars of decision-making . . . you get to be called that, at least by me, if you have an entire principle named after you (Dunning-Kruger Effect).  Donald Rumsfeld said it best but we were too stunned to hear him . [...]

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And Suddenly We Bought A Car

May 17, 2010

So my wife and I were driving from point A to point B last Saturday.  Just a regular day running errands and spending time with each other. Honest to God, no kidding, I have not been thinking at all about getting a new car . . . though I have to confess that I never [...]

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It’s All Obama’s Fault. Or Not.

May 4, 2010

It’s been an interesting ten days for Obama (and the rest of us) . . . Oil rig blows up, sinks, and unleashes a torrent of oil. It is Obama’s fault because he authorized offshore drilling and / or he didn’t respond quickly enough or in the right way. A couple of FBI guys blow [...]

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Innovation Never Goes Out of Style

May 3, 2010

I get emails every week at www.decision-quality.com asking for permission to reprint, quote, and distribute one or more papers I wrote on decision-making.  It’s been forever since I actually looked at what I wrote so I went back and looked.  Here’s a snip from a paper on innovation I wrote.  The words seem useful even [...]

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Why Don’t I Think The Lost iPhone Was Really Lost?

April 29, 2010

In case you missed this or don’t care, tech blogger gizmodo recently came into possession of a prototype of the latest blockbuster to be next gen iphone setting off a first class 21st century brouhaha.  So why bring it up here? As an exercise in decision-making, three thoughts . . . Thought 1: John Stewart just devoted [...]

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Survival Comes in Threes

April 12, 2010

You cannot survive . . . 3 seconds without spirt and hope 3 minutes without air 3 hours without shelter in extreme conditions 3 days without water 3 weeks without food 3 months without companionship or love Roughly right and worth remembering.  Everything else takes care of itself.

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