Statistics

Considering the recent debates on gun laws and school safety in the United States, I looked up a few figures to aid us in our debates.  Feel free to use or abuse them as we move forward. 

Some of the data may surprise you.  For example, I expected accidental deaths to be a higher percentage of the totals among death of children due to firearms.

Number of Schools in the United States (2009-10 School Year)

Public: 98,817

Private: 33,366

Number of Teachers in the United States:

3.7 million full-time-equivalent (FTE) elementary and secondary school teachers in fall 2011

    This above information and additional data is available at the National Center for Educational Statistics.

Number of Gun-Related Deaths in the United States (2010 - excludes small percentage of deaths due to law enforcement)

All Ages

Total: 31,328. (Breakdown not provided at this source.)

Kids, Ages 1 to 14:                                      
Homicide: 208                    
Suicide: 81
Accidental Death: 62
Totals:* 369

Kids, Ages 15 to 19:
Homicide: 1,554
Suicide: 668
Accidental Death: 72
Totals:* 2,315

    The information above and additional data is available at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The data above came from a report compiling statistics on gun-related deaths from 1999 to 2010.

As you can see in the charts at the CDC link above, the rate of death by firearms relative to the population has overall been flat in the U.S., with the possible expception of the rates of death among teens (ages 15 to 19), which seems to have been dropping over the time period.


* Why the totals do not add up exactly, is not clear.

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Oy.

We once laughed at ideas now advocated by Congressmen.

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Who ARE We?

Steve and I just had a quick back-and-forth at the end of the comments section of the previous post, in which I list a few suggestions that don't and do bug me.  I agree with Steve:  let's do that next, because we start to hash-out some actual policy suggestions that have come up recently, and of which there will certainly be more as Congress will apparently begin to actually debate this issue.

But for now, after reading posts like this, I simply need to say:

Who the hell are we??  What kind of society do we live in where we actually suggest that having armed teachers is a good thing??

Accidental-discharge deaths aside, nobody anywhere arms their teachers because it is just...wrong.

So seriously.  In what kind of strange alternate reality do we dwell where arming teachers like airline pilots and US Marshalls seems like a reasonable suggestion?  Are we so insane, so fearful and so violent that we feel like from now on, we need armed people in classrooms?  This isn't some sort of minor issue from the nutbags.  This is a seriously-debated topic here in Lansing among Serious People.

Or that maybe the reason the kids died is let's-blame-the-victim-because-they-shoulda-bum-rushed-the-gunman?

Good fucking holy mooley on a beach, people.

Look, if the folks who want some gun control measures have to claim the Dirty Hippies and pro-ban-on-everything people on their side, then the anti-ban folks have to claim the "let's arm the teachers" people on their side.  Then we can summarily dismiss them.

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My Poor Michigan.

If one wanted to destroy a community, how would you do it?

A good way would be to increase taxes on average people, parents and retirees. Then you would defund local government, and starve it of resources for cops, firefighters, and libraries. You would drive up the cost of higher education to unaffordable levels. You would implement laws to push down wages. You would endanger children by allowing weapons in classrooms, churches and sporting events. You would pass bills alienating one of the state's largest religious minorities. You would finally implement laws to prevent it from being undone.

 If you think the above is just hyperbole, consider all the ideas above were passed by the Republicans in the Michigan legislature this session, most in the last 12 hours.

 Why would any young person remain here?

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Bastion of Democracy

Finally, this past Saturday, four whole days after the election, Florida was called for Obama.

This is, of course, after waiting nine hours to vote, some voters finally leaving the polls at 1:00 in the morning.

Say nothing of over 340,000 ballots yet to be counted in Arizona, of course (unsurprisingly, many of those votes were cast in infamous Maricopa County).

This is in addition to instances of voter suppression and intimidation, from voter i.d. laws that had to be struck down to SCOTUS poised to possibly strike-down the heart of the Voting Rights Act.

An Oregon poll worker was fired for allegedly changing ballots, filling-in blanks with Republican candidates.

In some areas, Dems were told to vote in the wrong place.

Voting machines switched votes, as voters watched, from Obama votes to Romney.

Flyers were mailed to Ohio voters, giving not only the wrong precinct information (do people not proofread???), but the wrong election date.

I could go on, but the point is made.  For all of our bluster about freedom and democracy, we're not that good at running elections.  Waiting in line until 1:00 in the morning is not something a Secretary of State should be proud of.  The fact that votes were being counted almost a week or more than a week after the election is something to be ashamed of.  I hate to quote Aaron Sorkin, but he's right in this fictitious TV speech:

And with a straight face, you're going to tell students that America's so starspangled awesome that we're the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom, Japan has freedom, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, Belgium has freedom. Two hundred seven sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom.

Until we get our shit together as "the world's foremost democracy" maybe we should STFU about it.  I understand a little mayhem; it's one day where all of a sudden a bazillon people all show up to do the same thing.  But my heavens, some of this shit is orchestrated.

I submit to you, in case you forgot, PA House Majority Leader Michael Turzai:


Let's get our shit together and have serious conversations about how we get people to vote, about how we encourage people to vote, about non-partisan redistricting, about voter registration.

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Numbers

XKCD, FTW

Also, thanks to everyone who came over last night.  Smitty's Pub converted to a fine election night war room, and the beer was passable.

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Tracking the Election Results.

If you are a complete mathematical and political nerd and want to track and predict the election results faster than anyone else in your house, visit Sam Wang's helpful guide to political geekdom.

Complete with graphs!

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Vote!

Get off your dead ass and go vote.  Now!

While I clearly endorse Obama, those readers in Michigan should vote NO, actually vote HELL NO, on Proposal 5 and 6.  Do NOT turn us into CA with restrictions on raising taxes and please don't preserve a billionaire's bridge monopoly.

Go now.



Still here? 



Go vote.

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Political Nerdly Goodness

Here at ATK we haven’t been posting much election stuff this year, which is a shame because during Presidential elections we typically have great traffic and a good time ridiculing conservatives.

It’s also a shame because of the target-rich environment this election offers. Between various nutty rape-obsessed freaks on the right, to the asshole, sociopathic, blue-blooded liar that IS Mitt Romney, it would have been such a great summer to mock and laugh at their expense.

Since we are pretty uncreative this year, I offer some great political nerdiness. Below you will find three great election prediction websites to indulge those political geeks, who also love science and mathematics. The following statisticians, neuroscientists and Poly Sci Professors will make you wonder why the hell we are spending $2 billion on an election when they predicted the likely outcome in June.

Take a look:

Nate Silver is the most well-known election predictor, having appear on the Daily Show and NPR. Silver is a former baseball statistician and FiveThirtyEight.com creator, who last year imported his blog over to the New York Times.

     Check out FiveThirtyEight.

Prof. Sam Wang's academic specialties are biophysics and neuroscience. The Princeton University Professor has been predicting elections longer than Silver, and with equal accuracy.

     Check out the Princeton Election Consortium.

Drew Linzer is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Emory University. His site, called Votamatic is less frequently updated, but interesting nonetheless.

     Take a look at Votamatic.

Utah Valley State University’s Political Science and History department have their own model.

     Check out Jay DeSart at the DeSart and Holbrook Election Forecast.

UPDATE 1:

Here is a fifth source:
Wesley N. Colley is a senior research scientist at the Center for Modeling, Simulation and Analysis at the University of Alabama in Huntsville who has joined with J. Richard Gott, III, a professor of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University.  The run various sports and election predictions.

     Go to Gott and Colley's Median Poll Statistics.

UPDATE 2:

For those pissing their pants over this single poll or that single poll, I recommend you look at these sites, which better look at various soruces of data.  Some rely on state-wide polls only (Wang and Linzer); weight and agregate national polls with state polls, along with econmic data (Silver); or weitake the median of the state polls (Colley).

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NY Times Brews and Reviews White House Honey Ale

As you may have read, a few of us gathered a week or so ago to help Smitty brew his own, all-grain version of the White House Honey Porter, which is to be followed up by an extract version of the White House Honey Ale.

The New York Times has beat us to it, enlisting the help of a Brooklyn, New York brewer who brewed the Ale.  The NYT followed up with a positive review.  




I look forward to Smitty's improved, all-grain version made with his favorite grain, hops and the sweat and love of ATK.

UPDATE:  Over at Streak's Place, our friend is also brewing and bottling the Porter.  Too bad we live a half-country away and cannot do a back-to-back taste test.

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Obama Brew!

In the most imporant news of the day, it has been reported that the White House now brews its own beer!

According to the DesMoines Register, not only does the White Brew two varieties of beer, they carry it with them on the Presidential tour bus.

Maybe you think Obama is the 2nd coming of Christ, who saved the world from economic collapse and brought honor back to America.  Maybe you think he is the illegitimately-elected Kenyan usurper of the Constitution. 

Not matter your political affiliation, I think we at ATK have to say that this action alone warrants an endorsement from our editorial board.  What say you ATKers?

UPDATE:  In a related article from CBS News:

"...the White House's own brew, made with equipment the Obamas bought with their own money -- the first beer ever made at the White House, according to historians.


It is White House Honey Ale."

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Gun Laws in Wake of the Colorado Shooting

I didn't mean to hijack the previous post and turn it into a gun debate, so I thought I would start another discussion for just that purpose. I keep hearing how we, as in the US, can't have a discussion on this topic for whatever reason. I am skeptical of people making this claim. If I had to guess, most of them are saying this because they just don't want to hear from the "other side." Like any other political/social issue, this one can get heated. I figure that the readers we have are rational and reasonable people, so why don't we have a discussion? What changes do you think are needed?

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They're Short.

Moments ago, Mitt Rmoney (R-Flip flopper) just chose Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Tea Party) as his running mate.  So, can a Presidential candidate pick a running mate who wants to turn Medicare into a voucher program and not lose senior votes?  Is Florida now an easier win for Obama?

This just reeks of a campaign that cannot shore up the support of its base.

Let's kick off this campaign season a bit late and let me know your thoughts.

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Worth Reading Again

Its long, but I bet you relate...

You used to be fearless, but somehow you ended up afraid all of the time.  Afraid of everything and everybody, afraid of change, afraid to hope, and afraid of anybody different, people like me for example.  You live in the freest nation in the world and in a time of nearly unlimited opportunity, you have enough to eat and a warm place to sleep and unfettered access to endless information, you’ve got fresh water and healthcare and a sanitary place to take a shit without it ending up in your food supply and you’ve got all the goddamned guns you can afford. Your worst damned day is better than what ninety percent of the world’s population will ever experience, ever, in their entire miserable short brutal lives.  But you’re still afraid.

Read Stonekettle Station here.

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Quiz of the Day

What is wrong with this statement and who is the moron who said it?

“This week, President Obama will release a budget that won’t take any meaningful steps toward solving our entitlement crisis. The president has failed to offer a single serious idea to save Social Security and is the only president in modern history to cut Medicare benefits for seniors.”

Answer here:

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Fun with Graphs - Job Growth

It took three years to stop the slide and make up the lost ground, but unemployment is finally back to where  it was when Obama took office.

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Pile On

When your top public health and medical advisory board officials resign over your decision, that tells me there is more to this Komen story than a bunch of dirty hippies getting pissed they lost a few bucks to screen women for breast cancer.

It tells me some conversations were had internally that led people to believe that they cannot have their name associated with Komen any more.

Funny that this internal struggle inside Komen that led to this short-sighted, politically-based decision coincided with the hiring of a former conservative Georgia gubernatorial candidate who has nasty things to say about Planned Parenthood.

Finally, this article discusses the short-sightedness of this particular decision.  It ends with a particularly interesting quote:

In a ghastly coincidence, the same day Komen pulled the money from Planned Parenthood because Stearns thought they were spending federal funds on abortions, the Journal of the America Medical Association published a damning study that almost half of women receiving second surgeries after lumpectomies didn't need the procedure. Painful, disfiguring, unnecessary surgery. At least three of the four sites studied in the JAMA report -- the University of Vermont, Kaiser Permanente Colorado, and the Marshfield Clinic -- has a relationship with the Komen Foundation. Kaiser Permanente is a "corporate campaign partner," the University of Vermont received a research grant, the Central Wisconsin Komen affiliate sponsors programs at the Marshfield Clinic. Maybe Komen should concentrate their granting criteria on whether the recipients are actually helping cancer patients.

***UPDATE***
Well well well.  Look who came to their senses.

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Seven Big Lies About the Economy - Robert Reich

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Playing with Fire?

Some time ago, I predicted an Obama landslide if Newt Gingrich were to be picked as the Republican nominee.  Is it just my bias playing games with me?   Would Gingrich be more formidable than I predict?

Today is the S. Carolina primary.  If FiveThirtyEight is correct, it seems Gingrich's embrace of the southern strategy is propelling him to victory there.

Am I crazy to hope for a Gingrich primary victory or am I playing with fire?

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SOPA

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