Graph of the Day

From Conor Clarke, via Matthew Yglesias, with the following excerpt of the original post:

The section of the chart that appears in bright, bumblebee yellow is the percentage of publicly traded American companies owned by the United States.* I don't see much bumblebee yellow. What I do see is that Microsoft Excel feels the need to portray the percentage of American companies owned by the government as an exponential number. That's 5.07^-02, or %0.0507 of the value of American companies that is owned by the United States government. (When I ask Excel to display this breakdown without the exponential it just becomes "100%" and "0%.")

Fun With Math

According to the 2006 estimate from the Census Bureau, there are 6,740,374 people of voting age in North Carolina.

According to the State Board of Elections, there are 4,876,543 registered voters in North Carolina.

According to the poll results from yesterday, 4,216,993 people voted for President in North Carolina.

Candidate	Votes for	%age of vote
Barack Obama	2,101,986	49.85
John McCain	2,089,826	49.56
Bob Barr	25,181	0.59

So that means:

62.89% of eligible NC voters voted and,
86.47% of registered NC voters voted.

Can you say "Wow!"?

George W. Bush: Profile of Putrescence

Oh, what is it this time, you ask?

He speaks up for his BFF John "I Never Met An Issue I Couldn't Flip-flop On" McCain, and says we should open up the continental shelf for oil drilling.

From the NYT article:

President Bush urged Congress on Wednesday to end a federal ban on offshore oil drilling and open a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil exploration, asserting that those steps and others would lower gasoline prices and “strengthen our national security.” [snip] The party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, used a speech in Houston on Tuesday to say he now favors offshore drilling, an announcement that infuriated environmentalists who had long viewed him as an ally. Florida’s Republican governor, Charlie Crist, immediately joined Mr. McCain, saying that he, too, now wants an end to the ban. [snip] ...Mr. Bush’s father signed a presidential executive order in 1990 banning coastal oil exploration, and Mr. Bush’s brother Jeb was an outspoken opponent of offshore drilling when he was governor of Florida. Now, though, President Bush is considering retracting his father’s order. Although the chief White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said Mr. Bush “is not taking any executive action” on Wednesday, two people outside the White House said such a move was under serious consideration, and a senior White House official did not dispute their account.

But here's the best part:

No one knows for certain how much oil is in the moratorium area. The federal Energy Information Administration estimates that roughly 75 billion barrels of oil in the United States may be found in all areas of the country that are now off limits for development, and that 21 percent of this oil — or about 16 billion barrels — is covered by the offshore moratorium.

According to consumption statistics from 2006, the US uses 20,730,000 barrels of oil per day. So ... carry the one... that works out to approximately 711 days of oil consumption. In 2006. And I'm sure that in the eight to ten years it would take for those oil wells to begin producing that we would never increase our consumption of oil over 2006 levels.


George W. Bush. Still a douche. 215 days left until FREEEEEDOM!!!

Scientific Polling... NOT!!

A few days ago, I posed this question:

With Fredo Gonzales' resignation, the post of AG is open. Will the Current Occupant:

A) Make a recess appt. at some point
B) Nominate a lackey (Chertoff, et.al.)
C) Nominate a non-partisan
D) Leave the "Acting" AG until Jan 2009

And the votes are in!

An overwhelming 60% say that George III will nominate a lackey! 40% say he will leave the Acting AG in place until he leaves office. Oddly, no one thinks that a non-partisan will be nominated to fill the position of Attorney General.

Hyperbole Weakens Debate

From Josh Marshall, via Shakesville, I read the following:

“I must say this really does make my day. ‘None of the Above’ has surged into the lead in the new GOP primary poll out from AP/Ipsos. The only thing funnier is that this is even surprising. McCain’s campaign has imploded. Giuliani’s the fading pro-choice contender, which is sort of redundant. People seem to be catching on to the fact that Fred Thompson is a one-term senator and lobbyist not Reagan 2.0. And that leaves you with Mitt Romney, the avatar of transcendent phoney-baloneyism. Okay, I’m done.”

Melissa adds a clip of Nelson's (from the Simpsons) signature "Ha ha!". While I join in the laughter most wholeheartedly, and it is most satisfying to see the discord and dissatisfaction in the GOP, I must object to the misleading wording of the quote.


From the actual poll, (page 9 of the pdf) we find that "None" is actually only 8%:

Other 2
None 8
(DK/NS) 15

(once again, I apologize for my inability to align a table in my posts)

You may say that I'm picking nits here, but the wording is an exaggeration. I highly respect Marshall and Talking Points Memo (and read it every day), but by using hyperbole in his posts he is, IMHO, lowering himself to the level of the Faux Noise Channel.

I understand the temptation, but what we need in this country is more reason and less emotional reaching.

While I'm on the subject, I find the same tactics being employed by many people and websites that are left-leaning (and even totally fallen over to the left). A prime example of this is Robert Scheer - both on his website Truthdig and in his regular role as a commentator on the NPR program "Left, Right and Center". Scheer's arguments are less dissuasive because of his propensity to rant. I find it personally bothersome when I can more readily agree with the (in my opinion) far right Tony Blankley - whose positions are often antithetical to my own - simply because he puts forth reasoned arguments. I find myself feeling the same way when watching "The McLaughlin Group", which is even more disturbing because I sometimes find myself in agreement with none other than Pat Buchanon. Ick.

Another Gender Myth Exploded!

Men talk every bit as much as women do, U.S. researchers said after painstakingly counting every word that 400 volunteers spoke.

Their study, published on Thursday in the journal Science, challenges the common wisdom that women are somehow biologically programmed to talk more -- but the researchers said people do often fulfill gender roles when it comes to subject matter.

"Women and men both use on average about 16,000 words per day, with very large individual differences around this mean," the researchers, led by psychologist Matthias Mehl of the University of Arizona, wrote.

16,000 words per day. Really? This was me today:

Yep.
For a little while.
Thanks.
Hey, *****!
Do those side windows open?
Yeah, I was wondering when your husband would be home.
If you don't mind.
Hey, man.
Uhuh.
Yeah, I figured that out.
Four hours of actual work, then....
OK.
You want me to call in the morning?
All right. See ya.
Thanks. Have a good'n! Get inside where there's AC!
Hi, my name's ***** ****. ******* said he'd leave an envelope here for me.
Thanks. Have a good evening.
No, you go ahead. My stuff is in a cart.
No problem.


That's all. 92 words. Now, granted, I was working alone today.

Oh, I forgot something. I did scream, "No it's not, you stupid pile of shit!" at the radio when NPR played some sound bite of the Current Occupant.

That makes 100.

16,000?

For a more loquacious discussion on this (and for the link to the story about the study) go to Shakesville.

And, no, I don't think my gender has any bearing on the number of words I speak.

The End Is NERE!!!

The Newsweek Poll, 31 March 2007, included, after the perfunctory political quiz, questions on religion. The answers to these questions (and, indeed, the questions themselves) provide more evidence that America is becoming a third world theocracy and dumber than a fencepost (no offense to all you fenceposts reading this) to boot.

Let's start with the first God-themed query:

12. Which one of the following statements come closest to your views about the origin and development of human beings? Humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process [A] (or) Humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process [B] (or) God created humans pretty much in the present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so [C]?

Of course, there's always "the question is bs because there ain't no God", but that answer had to settle for the "other/don't know" [D] column. And by the way, why is other/don't know lumped together? Which is it? there's a big difference between "other" and "don't know".

A B C D
Current Total 30% 13% 48% 9%
Evan. Prot. 18% 4% 73% 5%
Non-Evan. Prot. 42% 9% 39% 10%
Catholics 42% 11% 41% 6%
Agn./Ath. 27% 45% 13% 15%

A "point of order" here. Under which of the above four categories does Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Pagan, etc, fall? it’s not like the poll didn’t ask “What is your present religion?”(question #20). But I, like the populace of Uhmurrrrica, digress.

The percentages, while sad, are not that surprising - except for the responses of the Agnostic/Atheist. I would assume that the Atheist portion of those respondents picked [D], but 40% of this category chose one of the answers that had God at least partially involved in the process. According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, agnostic means:

1[noun] : a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god
2[adjective] : a person unwilling to commit to an opinion about something

Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t this sort of preclude attributing anything to the actions, or indeed, inactions, of God? Of course, the literal translation of ‘agnostic’ is ‘without knowledge’, so maybe those respondents were just that.

Okay. Next question:

13. Do you think the scientific theory of evolution is well-supported by evidence and widely accepted within the scientific community?

This time, the choices are “Well Supported” [A], “Not Well Supported” [B], or Agnostic - I mean, “Don’t Know” [C]. Apparently no one came up with any ‘other’ on this one.

A B C
Current Total 48% 39% 13%
Evan. Prot. 25% 63% 12%
Non-Evan. Prot. 57% 24% 19%
Catholics 58% 33% 9%
Agn./Ath. 73% 18% 9%

The fact that any non Evangelical would answer anything but [A] is sad. Evangelicals are just plain sad. Next question!

14. Do you believe in God?
Yes No Don't know
91% 6% 3%

This one I’ll accept (even though it’s scary). This tells us that 6% of respondents are atheist and 3% are agnostic - but wait! Question 16 (I’ll get to 15 in a minute) is:

16. Would you describe yourself as an atheist?
Yes No Don't know
3% 96% 1%

As Mama Shakes, over at (the newly renamed) Shakesville, says, “What the Poop?” Maybe I need to check the definition of atheist (Merriam-Webster again):

one who believes that there is no deity

Hmm, that’s what I thought. So, let me get this straight. 6% do not believe in God, but only half of those identify as “one who believes there is no deity”. Ohhh-kay. My head hurts.

Alright, back to question 15:

15. People who don't believe in God are called atheists. Do you personally know any atheists, or not?

Yes No Don't know
49% 48% 3%

This tells us that atheists, remember- only 6% (or is it 3%) of the population, really get around. My question to them is, why haven’t you introduced yourselves to the other 48%? Do they smell bad or something?

Check out the entire poll, if you haven’t already. I need a nap.


DISCLAIMER: I apologize for the poor structure of the block quotes. I can't figure out how to get them aligned properly. I hope it's not too confusing.