John McCain Man Without Honor

The Obama campaign released an attack ad linking McCain to Ralph Reed.




They stick to demonstrable facts. However, there is a back story (rumor?) which I feel free to stress and which, if true, makes the known facts incomparably more damaging to McCain.

I believe that Reed was the principal behind the appalling smear in S Carolini in 2000 which suggested that the McCain's adopted Bangladeshi daughter was the product of McCain's adultery with an African American woman.

Just ask Marshall Wittmann

The embodiment of this coalition was a key operative who implemented the anti-McCain assault in South Carolina -- former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed, a Karl Rove crony who was also on the payroll of Enron. Reed had been my boss when I worked as legislative director of the Christian Coalition. Before the primaries, Reed warned me that he would implement an under-the-radar slime assault on McCain if he posed a threat to Bush -- just what happened in South Carolina after Bush's loss to McCain in the New Hampshire primary.

That's about as personal as it gets. Now I don't have proof, but I don't have doubts either. I'm sure McCain at least suspects Reed.

That he is willing to ask Reed for favors shows not only that McCain has no honor or shame, but also that he has no pride. He is willing to do anything to be President.

Pre Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc a gogo

Ever since John McCain declared that the surge caused the Anbar awakening, wannabee maverick statespeople have been trying to find another application of pre hoc ergo propter hoc logic.

Andy McCarthy (who risks causing his last name to be associated with crazy ideological slander) suggests that Russia invaded Georgia because Putin anticipated that Obama might be elected.

Not to be outdone, many people have suggested that Georgia invaded South Ossetia because Saakashvili anticipated that McCain might be elected.

This is superficial. The crisis began when South Ossetians shelled an ethnic Georgian village in South Ossetia (I will call it Dzhugashville as no one has published its name). I assume they did so, because they anticipated that Ralph Nader might be elected and he has known South Ossetian sympathies.

Of course, for all I know, the Dzhugashvillagers insulted South Ossetian mothers, because they anticipated that Cynthia McKinnehy might be elected.

You know, it isn't always all about us.

I thank the F**ing* spaghetti Monster that the underappreciated Andrew Northup exists.

I have no doubt that there are very well-considered legal and moral arguments about how Russia has done a terrible thing, and I’m sure the World Police and International Relations Jesus will spurred into action by their eloquence and power. Similarly, I’m sure Russia doesn’t give a fuck, and Russia has the under-appreciated advantage of actually existing.

* count the asterixes ... uhm except for the last one.

He's Baaaaaack

Wow that was a long week, but it's over. Matthew Yglesias is back on the web at his new spot at thinkprogress (whose main blog is good too).

Ron Suskind Claims that in late 2003, the Bush administration attempted to fake evidence suggesting that Saddam Hussein had assisted al Qaeda and bought Uranium from Niger. In particular it is alleged that Tahir Jalil Habbush, former chief of Saddam's intelligence service wrote a memo to that effect, addressed it to Saddam Hussein and backdated it to 2001 (this is called a "forgery" on the web).

This claim is based on interviews with two CIA officers who have (implausibly) denied saying what they say on tape. I'd guess the story will die due to the incredible denials as they totally destroy the credibility of the sources.

Another problem is that many think it is implausible that the Bush admininistration would have asked the CIA to plant the memo, since Cheney et al hated the CIA.
à

Joe Conason has some new evidence supporting Suskind's theory --

On Dec. 11, 2003 -- three days before the Telegraph launched its "exclusive" on the Habbush memo -- the Washington Post published an article by Dana Priest and Robin Wright headlined "Iraq Spy Service Planned by U.S. to Stem Attacks."

"[snip]

and Ayad Allawi, leader of the INA, are spending much of this week at CIA headquarters in Langley"

I didn't know that Allawi was the source of the memo (this was anything but a secret at the time, but the memo was discredited so quickly that I never heard of it).

Indeed Conason writes "the credulous [Daily] Telegraph coverage is still significant now, because Coughlin identified the source of his amazing scoop as Ayad Allawi."


Ahhh now it makes sense. The Iraqis in contact with the DOD -- Ahmed Chalabi and associates -- were totally discredited by then. The CIA and State Department were the only organizations who had long term trusting relationships with Iraqis who were powerful enough in the new Iraqi intelligence and security services to plausibly get their hands on the memo yet not totally discredited. They would be Ayad Allawi and associates.

Doug Feith's anti-CIA was no longer able to pull it off as there Iraqi friends had already been caught lying (and boasting about it after the invastion). If Cheney decided to do such a thing, he would have to ask for help from the CIA or State.

One mystery resolved.

Evidence still virtually non-existent.

h/t Americablog

The price is wrong III
I made a booboo MCMLDXII^(XXII)

I just redid a calculation which suggests that fertilizing the ocean is a cost effective way to fight global warming and that I have made at least one arithmetic booboo (in this post or the one where I said it wasn't).

Basic points are

1) in some areas of the Ocean carbon fixation is limited by the availability of phosphorus (I read it somewhere on the web. In any case lack of minerals is certainly key in crystal clear equatorial waters)

2) Some Carbon fixed in the Ocean goes away effectively forever as sediment.

3) tossing Phosphate into some Oceanic areas will cause some Carbon to go away effectively forever.

4) C02 emissions credits in the EU cost a ton (about 20 euro per ton)

5) phosphate fertilizer doesn't cost very very much (although the price seems to have quadrupled recently).

So let me try the math again. First one mistake in an old post of mine was to look at the Stoichiometry of phytoplankton (if you ever look at the stoichiometry of phytoplankton don't come complaining to me that I didn't warn you). I should look at the stoichiometry of oceanic sediment -- that is basically the ratio of Carbon to phosphorus in oceanic sediment.

I read in a pdf somewhere on the web just now that it is 106/1 in moles
so equal to 106*44/95 tons of CO2 per ton of phosphate.

20 euros is about $30.

Phosphate costs about $400/tonne (the spelling convinces me that this too is a metric ton)

So $ 1 of Phosphate would end up fixing -$30*106*44/(95*400) worth of CO2 which is more than $3.50 !!!

so why did I calculate otherwise before ? I'm afraid that the price of "phosphate" isn't the price of, you know, P04 or even H2P04 but rather the price of the fertilizer farmers call phosphate which is only partly phosphate. I get phosphate rock (definitely not as rich in Phosphorus as "phosphate" "contains about 18 per cent P" so the formula becomes

$1 -> -$30*106*44*0.18/(31*400) > 1.5 still works (and calling phosphate rock "phosphate" is way cheating against it working).

Now spreading the stuff in the Ocean would cost money (and it better disolve and not just sink to the bottom so I should be pre-disolved and carried in a tanker) but it looks to me like there is a killing to be made in Ocean fertilizing IF the EU can be convinced to subsidize something which will make fertilizer cost still more than it currently does (of course the oceans will be fertilized by flying pigs long before that happens).

Obama Clinton Carter Waldmann

Excess profits tax or excise tax. The Carter era "windfall profits tax" was actually an excise tax. That is the amount paid depended on barrels of oil sold (with a complicated formula designed to make the tax lower on oil extracted with new marginally profitable techniqes). So it did depend on the quantity and did not depend on the price.

update: My claim that it did not depend on the price is totally wrong. See comment below.

This makes it very different from what I would call a windfall profits tax in which payments are a constant or function of time (say a constant equal to average sales in the 3 years before the tax) times the price minus hte pre-windfall price.

The two policies would have opposite effects on the supply curve. An excise tax causes it to shift up (no big deal if it is roughly vertical) while a tax on the price causes it to shift down so long as competition is not perfect.

I have advocated the policy above, which I call a windfall profits tax, but I hereby reconsider here.

I think an excise tax would be better policy, because I think the price of gasoline in the USA is way to low (half what I pay not that I am consumed with spite and envy as I watch the Euros go up faster than the liters). There are externalities from gasoline consumption. Imperfect competition brings the price closer to the socially optimal price. The money goes to oil company shareholders not the tresury, but the effect on demand is the same. If we Eliminate imperfect competition in the supply of petroleum products the house by the sea where I am typing will be drowned sooner.-

I give Carter an A- and Waldmann a B- (I'm a very generous grader).

If the revenues of the excise tax are used to fund a fixed grant to each family, the excise tax and lump sum transfer policy would also redistribute from rich to poor.

I give Obama an A (lowers his GPA which was A+ because of the mini semi flip flop on offshore drilling)

Recall Clinton pandered by arguing that the tax on gasoline should be replaced by a windfall profits tax. This is 5.5 of one and half a dozen of the other (petroleum is used to make some things other than gasoline). Now if you oppose a gas tax holliday, you must either support an excise tax (called a windfall profits tax) or argue that the current taxes are exactly right and should be neither increased nor decreased. As Paul Krugman once said, zero is not an especially important number, but you wouldn't know it given how many people oppose changes in (roughly) opposite directions with (roughly) identical enthusiasm.

Clinton gets a B (for Bull***t).

from comments

The windfall profits tax was both a tax on volume and a tax on price.

But the tax on price was what dominated.

That is the reason that the tax effective ended when the price fell below $35. It stayed on the books for several more years even though no revenues were collected. It was finally rescinded as just a book keeping exercise just to clean up the tax code.
# posted by Blogger spencer : 7:53 PM

OOps I really should check the facts before posting but hey so should Gary Becker who claims that the repeal of the excess profits tax supports his view that it was a fiasco. His claim about its introduction is also totally totally false (as I demonstrate in a post below).

Drugs and US Happiness

The distribution of self reported happiness in the USA has become more equal since 1972

Thinking about this graph Ezra Klein writes a second post on it.

He writes "Reading through findings that societal happiness has slightly declined over the past thirty years, I wondered what would happen if you'd taken the various anti-depressants, anxiolytics, and assorted other psychiatric medications out of the mix. After all, they're in pretty wide use, didn't really exist in the 70s, and should have had some sort of positive impact on the nation's mood."

Oddly he seems to have forgotten the fact he stressed in his earlier post.

Update: it seems I didn't understand what he wrote. The next two paragraphs now appear to have nothing to do with Ezra Klein except as miss-understood by me.


Median happiness has remained about the same, the lower percentiles of the distribution have improved. Most people, even in the USA, don't take anti-depressants. People who take anti-depressants tend to be depressed (some just want the side effects like weight loss). If anti-depressants were really effective long term, one would expect exactly what one sees in the lower tail of the US happiness distribution.

The decline in happiness among the happier half has nothing to do with anti-depressents -- they aren't taking them.

Klein also reports an odd idea from commenter meh. meh thinks that the decline in Nicotine use has caused a decline in happiness. I doubt it. I think that nicotine makes you mildly happy only while your level of addiction is increasing. My sense is that stable nicotine use has zero effect on anything as habituation is complete.

I base my thoughts on personal experience. Since 1987 I have been a nicorette abuser and have immense levels of nicotine in my blood. Didn't make me happy. Since 1995 I have taken 20 mg of Prozac a day (except when I forget to take it -- it's that non-addictive. Just noticed I haven't taken it yet today (2:23 pm here)). It
changed my life.

Update: Ezra Klein came here to comment. Uhm his comment is a bit critical (as I was critical of him).

Ezra Klein has left a new comment on your post "Drugs and US Happiness The distribution of self r...":

I think you may be misinterpreting my comment: I'm interested in how much of the leavening affect at the bottom end has to do with medication. Is it half of it? 200 percent of it and happiness would have gone down without new drugs? In other words, I'm not confused by what role the drugs played, but how big of a role it was.

As Emily Lettela said: Never mind.

However, I still like the topic. The increase in the lower percentiles of the US distribution of self reported happiness is (very weak) macro evidence that the new psychopharmaceuticals actually work. This is interesting as the micro evidence is, to a very considerable extent, based on brief trials. The long term effect of an anti-depressant might be low compared to the effect after 6 weeks if the brain habituates (consider my view of nicotine). There is pretty strong evidence that sleeping pills do not help people get to sleep except when they first start using them (or compared to when they first quit).

Now the evidence in the graph I got from Klein is minimal, but, I think, international comparisons might be interesting.

Hilton vs McCain is an international hit.

The web page of La Reppublica Ital 's number one daily newspaper presents Paris Hilton's response to McCain.

Look Paris, I know you think your hot but you don't know jack about how to run a Presidential campaign in the 21st century . What's this serious discussion of policy ? that is just not how it's done.

Sam Wang explains why he reports a 99% probability of an Obama win and fivethirtyeight.com has only a 62.4% probability.



I learned a lot from his post due to my incredible ignorance. I go to www.fivethirtyeigth.com often enough that Firefox proposes it first when I type www, but I had never bothered to read the description of the method used to calculate the probabilities.


In case others are as lazy as me (unlikely) or have lives (likely) I will discribe my ignorance below after discussing issues of interest to the non pathetically ignorant.

Today I’d like to outlline the basic contrasts between this calculation and a popular resource, FiveThirtyEight.com. That site, run by Nate Silver, a sabermetrician, is a good compendium of information and commentary. However, both our goals and methods differ on several key points. The biggest difference is that this site provides a current snapshot of where polls are today, while he attempts a prediction. His approach also has a conceptual problem…

I think the conceptual problem is that Silver calculated probabilities from 10,000 simulations and Wang uses an analytic formula.

Silver’s approach is to carry out thousands of simulations, then tally the simulations. That method reflects the fantasy baseball tradition, in which individual outcomes are often of great interest. However, such an approach is intrinsically imprecise because it draws a finite number of times from the distribution of possible outcomes. The Meta-Analysis on this site calculates the probability distribution of all 2.3 quadrillion possible outcomes. This can be done rapidly by calculating the polynomial probability distribution, known to students as Pascal’s Triangle.

Wang claims that Poblano (AKA Nate Silver) should have obtained a normal distribution for electoral college votes. I don't agree. This is only true if there is no correlation between shifts in support for Obama and McCain in different states. As usual, I argue using an extreme example. Assume no sampling error (each poll is of the whole population) and perfect correlation of changes in support in different states. If this were true then the ranking of states by Obama minus McCain would not change and there would be only 50 different possible outcomes in the electoral college. That's not a normal distribution. I think that the argument is valid unless changes in support in different states are independent. This is a very implausible assumption. (note young Ezra who is neither a statistician nor a political scientist made this argument before I did).

Now Wang also argues that 10,000 simulations aren't enough. I agree. I recently calculated something using 1,000,000 simulations for each of several different parameters (actually just 2 sample sizes). This was a distribution which I think I derived analytically. The millions of simulations were to check my reasoning, my algebra and, especially, my typing when writing the program which calculates the analytically exact distribution (the fact that I fail to reject the null that it is accurate with 1,000,000 simulations convinces me that I typed write for wunce).

The convention that simulations are repeated 10,000 times is a historical artifact of the slow pc age. I would like to ask Silver how long his computer takes to simulate. I would guess that his simulations are quicker than some of mine and waiting for 1,000,000 simulations was barely a nuissance.

Just to go back to my other obsession. I blame microsoft. I don't think people fully realise just how much faster cheap pc's have become, because microsoftware is designed to run intollerably slowly on any but the latest generation computers so computers take as long as ever to boot up, open a word file, open excel or well all that stuff even though they also take as long to do 1,000,000 simulations as they used to take to do 10,000.

I'd guess that 1,000,000 simulations won't change Poblano's calculated probability much and I would bet that he does them and reports the result.

OK what I should have known already.

I knew that Poblano (AKA Nate Silver) used old polls as well as the latest polls. His success during the primaries shows that true shifts in opinion were of limited importance. I did not know that he used a weighted average with the weight decreasing exponentially so that they fall by half after 30 days (weight = 0.5^(age/30days)*(other stuff) and that in past elections this calculation predicts better than others he tried. I see that just as I finally read the old faq (the link above) Silver wrote a new one (still doing 10,000 simulations)


Worse I didn't even know that he considers the correlation of future changes in support for different candidates in different states.

It can reasonably be argued that I'm essentially double-counting the amount of variance by accounting for both state-specific and national movement. That is, some of the error in state-by-state polls is because of national movement, rather than anything specific within that state. However, I have chosen to account fully for both sources of error, because (i) this is the more conservative assumption, and (ii) I suspect that 2004, where voters divided into Bush and Kerry camps early, was inherently a more stable sort of election than 2008 is likely to be.

I had assumed that he did something like what Wang did, so the 67% was a snapshot not a forecast. I am pleased and reassured.

Not to be presumptious or anything but this site came up first in a google search for
"I have become a symbol of America returning to our best traditions"

More on Dana Milbank and Jonathan Weisman and "I have become a symbol of America returning to our best traditions" vs context then "I have just become a symbol ...".

I missed Milbank's chat with readers, which is a wonderful feature of www.washingtonpost.com. Much too late, I now have a question. Did Milbank go back to his original source and ask him or her if the alleged context is accurate. Milbank notes that there is no tape, but the source should be able to come up with some context [probably been working on it]. Other people in the room will coordinate, but the can't coordinate instantly. I think Milbank can find out who chose to distort. In fact, I suspect he has and knows that it is the original source.

I am pleased to note that someone got to this blog googling: full answer I have become a symbol of America returning to our best traditions which gave it as the first hit.

I am less pleased to note that google has no hits for the second version of the quote "I have just become a symbol of America returning to our best traditions" [I elided from "symbol" on as did the person who contested the quote]

Ouch

...John McCain's dopey Britney & Paris attack ad ...The youthful insouciance that for many years has helped McCain charm reporters like me is now channeled into an ad that ... McCain's own mother called "stupid."

His own mother.

Oh and here is one case in which I think granting anonymity is justified

"bunker mentality among aides that one GOP operative, fearing excommunication from Team McCain if identified, describes as "lacking only a Luger and a cyanide pill."

Comparing one's parties candidate to Hitler is rarely a good career move.

Excellent Article by John Heilmann On McCain and the Low Road Express

here

Highly recommended by Josh Marshall.

I want to quibble. Heilman writes

Measured against the generic Democratic ballot, Obama continues to underperform dramatically. And since shifting to a more harshly negative posture, McCain has gained ground on Obama in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, according to recent Quinnipiac swing-state polls.

OK quick pop quiz, when was the last time an actual Democratic candidate outperformed generic Democrat ? All my life, more Americans have identified with the Democrats than the Republicans, yet the Republicans have won most Presidential elections.

Still worse is cherry picking polls. I thought we were past that (the blogosphere certainly is). There are so many polls that you can find one shifting in either direction. Consider Florida where Heilmann claims McCain has gained ground. Here is the Pollster graph showing Obama surpassing McCain. Heilman's claim about Florida is based entirely on the statistically insignificant decline in Obama's lead from 4% to 2% from mid June to late July. This, the only Quinnipiac poll since the smears began is above the pollster trend line (Obama by 0.4%). Ohio a 2% lead compared to the trend line of 2.6% (and McCain ahead by 10% in a Rasmussen on 7/21). Penn latest Q poll Obama up by 7% compared to trend line of 8.1%. So this is averaging below the trend line by less than 0.034 % per state. Come on.

On the other hand the Gallup and Rasmussen daily tracking polls showed a statistically significant bounce for Obama followed by a statistically significant return to a virtual tie. That is evidence that the negative ads are working. But why bother with valid evidence which is available when an absurd argument can be made.

The rule seems to be that a clearly invalid interpretation of polls which fits a narrative is perfectly OK.

Actually, I'm not so convinced by the article as a whole. Heilmann is convinced that Obama should go negative against McCain. His only hope is that McCain is too decent to do the full swift boat. He should notice how many former McCain fans in the press have declared that they don't know the many anymore. It is very possible that if McCain doesn't flinch and Obama doesn't go negative the media narrative may be that McCain is desperately flailing, dishonest, bitter and has abandoned his honor and integrity, because of his ambition. Attacking can work, but staying above the fray as everyone else attacks is much better. I think the huge contrast between McCain's lying nastiness and Obama's calm might be useful to Obama.

At least it's worth a try.

On the subtle distinction between context and text

hint removal of letters without an ellipses is not removal of context although one might argue that it is removal of ...text

T.A. at Mediamatters allows Dana Milbank to get away with a blatant lie. Milbank claims to have quoted Obama based on a single anonymous source. The alleged quotation has been contested, as other people present when Obama spoke, claim that it is inaccurate. Milbank claims that this contestation did not occur, asserting that deletion of a word without indication is an alleged removal of context.

This is astonishing. Milbank claims that no one is challenging the quotation. However, the quote is contested. Based on a single anonymous source (that is bad journalism) Milbank claimed that Obama said "I have become a symbol ..." that quotation is challenged by people who claim that Obama actually said "I have just become a symbol...". Removal of the word "just" without a ellipses is not removal of context. This is what a quotation which is not challenged except for alleged removal of context would look like "I have ... become a symbol... "

If this occurred it would be an innaccurate quotation. Since there is no recording of the conversation we can't tell who misquoted Obama, but we can tell, without any doubt at all, that the quote was challenge. Thus we know that, on an elementary matter of uncontested fact, Milbank wrote an undeniable falsehood in the online chat.

Only someone who is incapable of understanding the meaning of the words "challenging" and "quote" could have honestly written what Milbank wrote. He is not a complete idiot. He has chosen to lie to the readers of the Washington Post online chat.

update: Many typos corrected

The world's ten oldest jokes

compiled by Dave
via Thoreau


I agree with him that this is funny

8. Augustus was touring his Empire and noticed a man in the crowd who bore a striking resemblance to himself. Intrigued he asked: "Was your mother at one time in service at the Palace?" "No your Highness," he replied, "but my father was." (Credited to the Emporer Augustus 63 BC – 29 AD)

Also this is rude but semi-funny

10. Asked by the court barber how he wanted his hair cut, the king replied: "In silence." (Collected in the Philogelos or "Laughter-Lover" the oldest extant jest book and compiled in the 4th/5th Century AD)

Bowling to Beat McCain

Obama has this problem. He can't prove that he is modest, given the fact that he has nothing to be modest about --- well except bowling.

I think he better get back to the bowling alley and struggle to score 100. There must be something else at which he is not outstanding, but I can't think of it.

Globalization's gems:

Late night (early morning here) I explore the strange fate of Geordie (Child ballad 209).

Folk On

Geordie's fate lamented by Chyi Yu accompanied by some instrument which is more suited to the ballad than any harp or guitar



Note that the extreme decline in fertility from "She pleads for his life, mentioned the children she had borne him, usually seven, or twelve; she may still be pregnant with the youngest, or the youngest has never seen his father." to "the third lies in my body" was declared by Joan Baez and has nothing to do with current policy in the PRC. There is a theory that Geordie was George Gordon (not lord Byron but related).

I met the song (sung by my 11 year old daughter) in it's Italian version translated by Fabrizio de André (think of a cross of Leonard Cohen and Tom Lehrer) sung by de André and Joan Baez (who manages to sing in Italian with one tenth of my accent)




I recognised the melody and thought that I had heard the ballad. In fact I think I heard it sung in English by Baez. I couldn't remember the lyrics.

de André is an Italian with a three digit IQ so don't be surprised that he was a communist when he translated Geordie. Geordie's royal parentage is suppressed and his crime is diminished from 16 to 6 deer. De André was not an extremist. In the song he offers to compromise with the judge and have the hanging just delayed until winter.

Anyone for a betting pool on when Steve Benen's list of McCain flipflops reaches 80 ?
How about if it reaches 100 before election day ?

The Company You Keep

Dana Goldstein has found an amazing fact which, if middle class parents believed it was representative, would make the world (and in particular the USA) a much better place

So were the litigious Fairfax parents correct to freak out about South Lakes? Let's look at the numbers.

At South Lakes High, 46 percent of students are white, 20 percent are black, 16 percent are Hispanic, and 11 percent are Asian. One-third of the school's population qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch. In other words, this is both a racially and socioeconomically diverse school. How does this affect the most academically talented/privileged proportion of the student body? Well, more than half of white kids and almost half of Asian kids participate in the IB program, as do about 20 percent of blacks and Hispanics. An overwhelming majority of all the students enrolled in IB score a 4 or better, indicating excellent instruction and achievement. As for the SAT, the average combined score for white kids at South Lakes is 1730 out of 2400.

Now let's look at Oakton High School, which affluent parents sued to get their kids into. Oakton is 67 percent white and only 11 percent black and Hispanic. Less than 9 percent of students there qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Oakton has an AP program in which white students are just as successful as their similar white peers at South Lakes are on the IB exams; of the black students participating in AP though, less than half scored three or higher. Tellingly, on the SAT, Oakton's white kids score 1734, essentially the exact same score as white students at South Lakes.

My point: The educational outcomes of privileged kids are remarkably similar across schools with similar curricula, while it is the least advantaged students who show more differentials. When parents are considering where to send their kids to school, they should look at the relevant numbers.

via Ezra Klein.


Sad to say, the whole world isn't Fairfax county (well that would be a very boring world, ethnicly diverse but culturally a bit focused on US politics). In most developed countries, average educational attainment of mothers of students is positively partially correlated (positive significant regression coefficient) with individual student performance (on the PISA test) even if the educational attainment of the student's parents is included in the regression.

see this (mainly for the references)