“I would have had him autograph my forehead, but I have to wash my forehead.”

Bob Pease (president and chief executive of the Brewers Association) in an Op-Ed published by The New York Times:

America’s beer drinkers want choice. They want variety. They want quality and authenticity. As an industry, we need to give them that — but we can do so only if the market is a level playing field.

Yes. Yes we do.

[I]t is particularly important to note when Mr. Trump’s statements go beyond the merely provocative or absurd and instead represent a threat to America’s carefully balanced political system. This is such a moment. It is not too late for Republicans who revere that system to question how they can embrace a nominee who has so little regard for it.

– The New York Times Editorial Board

This story? Basically Season 6 of The Wire.

Today in horrible algorithms: COMPAS (Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions).

[A] ProPublica analysis has found the risk scores remarkably unreliable in forecasting violent crime. Only 20% of the people predicted to commit violent crimes actually went on to do so. When a full range of crimes were taken into account – including misdemeanors such as driving with an expired license — the algorithm used to determine the score was somewhat more accurate than a coin flip. Of those deemed likely to re-offend, 61% were arrested for any subsequent crimes within two years.

The analysis also found significant racial disparities. In forecasting who would re-offend, the algorithm made mistakes with black and white defendants at roughly the same rate, but in very different ways.

The formula wrongly labeled black defendants as future criminals at almost twice the rate as white defendants. White defendants were mislabeled as low risk more often than black defendants. The disparity could not be explained by other factors.

Horrible, horrible, horrible. There are no other words.

Peter Thiel’s addendum to an essay on his political ideology is amazing.

I believe that politics is way too intense. That’s why I’m a libertarian. Politics gets people angry, destroys relationships, and polarizes peoples’ vision: the world is us versus them; good people versus the other. Politics is about interfering with other people’s lives without their consent. That’s probably why, in the past, libertarians have made little progress in the political sphere. Thus, I advocate focusing energy elsewhere, onto peaceful projects that some consider utopian.

What a hypocrite.

Felix Salmon is worried about the company Thiel keeps or rather the companies that might keep Thiel. In particular, Facebook:

One can only hope that Zuckerberg’s motivations, and those of his wife Priscilla, are more noble than Thiel’s. Because Zuckerberg has pledged to spend almost all of his fortune on trying to change the world, and is open to spending it in non-tax-deductible ways if those have a greater effect. If Zuckerberg agrees with Thiel that this kind of activity is noble and philanthropic, then the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative could wreak enormous damage on the world.

Thiel sits on Facebook’s board, alongside Silicon Valley mega-investor Marc Andreessen. If he remains there, after these latest revelations, that’s a clear sign that Zuckerberg places great stock in how Thiel thinks and acts. And that is worrying not only in terms of Facebook’s future, but also for what the world can expect to see from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and other likeminded philanthropic ventures.

Latest best evidence that Facebook is not a force for good.