Congress to Obama--

We're not going to go English House of Commons on you, but we'll be at least as raucous as the Dutch.

Discussion Question

Has America's level of distrust in its leaders and the corresponding apathy made America fundamentally ungovernable?

Lyin' and Cheatin' Midwest'ners

So, Rod Blogojovichmuskanuwazzisnameagin' has been accused of a corruption. This proves the Illinois political machine is the worst oiled int eh country, yes? Well, sort of. Chicago is historically a hotbed of trouble. It's hard to get somewhere in IL without involving Chicago, and to do that means rubbing shoulders with some freaky business. But I was a little surprised at this article. So I had to read it. I mean, seriously, those cattle traders need to be watched, yes?

It turns out that the situation is probably more flash and sparkle from USA Today, who did the analysis, than anything actually newsworthy. North Dakota is not, as the headline implies, the most corrupt state. It does top the particular analysis of corruption, however, so no lie has been made. The analysis that it tops? Take the number of federal convictions for corruption during ten years and divide by the state population. Um... okay? First off, even though some factor is being divided by a population, it's not being divided by the right population. What percentage of the people in the state could be involved in corruption? Theoretically everyone, but in practice no state is that pure of a democracy. Second off, federal laws are not the only laws that could be enacted against corruption.

A better measure for the first point, why not consider what percentage of the population is involved in government? Here are a few states

WY 11,810
SD 12,150
VT 13,682
ND 14,597
MT 17,013
RI 18,511
DE 22,810
AK 23,647
LA 77,597
IL 105,471
MI 118,667
OH 119,147
PA 141,478
FL 171,342
NY 236,719
TX 259,578
CA 334,432

Now, what is the ratio of state government employees to population in those states?

WY 2.259%
SD 1.526%
VT 2.202%
ND 2.282%
MT 1.776%
RI 1.750%
DE 2.638%
AK 3.460%
LA 1.801%
IL 0.821%
MI 1.178%
OH 1.039%
PA 1.138%
FL 0.939%
NY 1.227%
TX 1.086%
CA 0.915%

(Note that I cheated a little. I used November 2008 employment with 2007 populations. But my main point lies in the first digit or two of the percentage, which won't change much.)

Notice anything about those states? The smallest states by population (1,000,000 or so and under) have about twice as many state employees as the largest states by population (about 10,000,000 and over). This is an estimate for the amount of government in the state, and is probably related to the amount of people likely to be involved in corruption. True, it misses local and federal employees. Those should to be factored in as well, along with convictions on non-federal charges.

But seeing that small states have bigger governments, loosely speaking, raises a question. If we divide convictions on corruption by relative size of government, would states like North Dakota still be on top of the heap? In other words, if we took the number of corruption cases divided by the number of people in position to be corrupt, would the numbers line up the same way as when convictions are divided by population? My guess is no. States like Illinois would probably be higher. Disagree? Then why is a state like Louisiana, which the article mentions as pretty darn corrupt, conveniently located with a government to population ratio close to the smaller states?

If anyone has time to kill, a more detailed analysis (including all government employees, not just state; doign all states; etc.) would be fun to see. Of course states like Illinois and New York would probably end up on top, so in the end it woudln't be news.

Ahhh... the dabate....

Mythbusters was pretty darn good tonight. They were shooting arrows at a ninja. It had violence and adrenaline and, most importantly, substance.

Debate Deshamte... Where's the Juke Box in This Dump?

Lousy town hall, really. That's all I have to say.

I want Bob and Chuck to come so we can hear something relevant, Cynthia to come make a fool of herself, and Ralph to come lobby for fewer airbags in the debates.

On an unrelated note, I've been thinking about the Queen song "Flick of the Wrist" every time I hear Obama's name today. Worse could happen, I guess. I could have "The March of the Black Queen" stuck in my head. Or "Radio Ga-Ga."

How Can Anyone Vote For

A ticket where the vice president wants to use Alaska's energy resource to make America energy independent? What the heck? I mean, we use a quarter of the world's oil, and how much of it's coal? What are we going to do after we use the 3% of the world's oil that's in Alaska? And then the however much it is of the world's natural gas? Are we going to burn down the southern forests, then kill all the seals and squeeze their oils into our gas tanks?

Ugh!

Words Can't Describe

Man says it would be a terrible thing to vote for McCain, but changes his mind. Make what you want of it.

SNAFU of the Decade?

Do we have any Republicans or Democrats around here? I'm just a bit curious to know what those parties are doing or saying about this minor matter.

Oh, Please....

It's bad enough that Dobson and company have their little legal shelter so that they can spout their political opinions all they want to pander their conservative fundamentalist audience and still keep their main organization non-profit. It's worse that they do stuff like this-- say something that many of your followers would like to hear and will take seriously and then, after a few complaints, remove it saying it was a joke. I can't judge intent, but I can tell you when the parties involved smell fishy (so to speak; I can't smell them from here).

The good news is that these people haven't lost any more of my respect. It's been at zero for a good while.

More Word Definitions

Elitist: Modifier used by default to describe any idea coming from some source other than some lowbrow social group. If the source of the idea is a member of one of these groups, the word elitist will only be used by a member of the same or another group who either perceives himself less worthy, due to social norms within those groups, or who considers the holder of the idea to be arrogant, due to a host of bad reasons that people use to say someone else is arrogant (such as "we disagree" or "he was smiling when he said it.")

Lowbrow social group: Any group that someone decides is not worthy to be a regular social group. Because politicians and bored high-academics use the word elitist in the manner of lowbrows, their groups may be considered for lowbrow status on a case-by-case basis.

Judge: A person who, for the common good, either interprets and executes the law or who reviews the consistency of law.

Authority of a judge: What a judge is and is not allowed to do. In colloquial language, a judge has the authority to make good legal decisions but not to make bad legal decisions.

Good legal decision: One that goes your way.

Bad legal decision: One that doesn't go your way.

Activist Judge: A judge who makes even one bad legal decision. Especially in plural, judges are accused of being activist without regard to good legal decisions, which must be ignored for rhetorical purposes.

Clinton In June

Okay, let me see if I understand this. Hillary Clinton thinks it's fine to stay in the race until June because of all of the past times that the nomination was not decided until June or later.

Does this make sense? No. Nominations are decided based on votes, not dates. The votes have moved earlier on the calendar in the past decade or two. So bringing up the calendar as if it is more relevant than votes is, in my opinion, dumb.

So, am I misunderstanding her, is she misunderstanding the world? And are Americans, like her supporters, really dumb enough to fall for what would be called reasoning if it wasn't so bad?

A Few Bits

I think that anyone with more than a third of a brain and who has paid any attention to the presidential campaigns will appreciate this wonderful little piece titled Wake me in October.

In other news, Ron Paul received something like 30 percent of the Republican votes in Juniata County, Pennsylvania. When I was up there the Friday before the election, there were radio ads brought to us by [name of citizen] and people on the street who really thought that Paul would win the Republican nomination and go on the be the next President. Barak Obama should get his head of of Hyde Park and carefully consider whether people like this can even be bitter. I, for one, know that I trust them with guns.

The New York Times (Late Edition) last Wednesday had a one page photo spread of Pennsylvania polling places. The largest picture? Danielsville, PA. I liked the dead animal heads on the walls.

McCain Goes Veeping

Well, he had to do it eventually, so I don't see why it's news. I did pick up a cute little bit near the end, though.

Turning to the future, McCain said Americans are cynical about their country and their idea of liberty is "the right to choose among competing brands of designer coffee."

My comments are

1) True, but that last part is about apathy and the paralleling lack of education more than cynicism.

2) What Americans obviously need to do is care less about coffee. They should care more about supporting the Patriot Act, winning a war where the definition of "win" has not been defined, and begging for tax cuts to keep the deficit up.

3) Do we have any non-designer coffees running for president? All I see are spoiled career politicians. Where's the political equivalent of tall glass of sweet tea with a slice of lemon?

Now that Mighty Casey has struck out

what's up with all you erstwhile Pennsylvania Republicans? Still planning on being Democrats for a day, or will you stick around a while longer?