Free Republic

Media & Authorities Slow or Reluctant to Acknowledge Mass Murderers Come in All Colors: Playing the Race Card: Does it Apply When Not Politically Correct? According to FBI statistics, at any given time there are 30 to 50 serial killers roaming the United States, seeking out their prey. 76% of all serial killers worldwide perform their dark and evil murders in the United States. Europeans represent 17% of the world's serial killers. In totality, the United States and Europe combined make up 93% of all mass murderers internationally. In the U.S., California holds the dubious distinction of the most homicidal...

The U.S. Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced today that construction spending during September 2009 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $940.3 billion, 0.8 percent (±1.8%)* above the revised August estimate of $933.0 billion. The September figure is 13.0 percent (±1.9%) below the September 2008 estimate of $1,081.2 billion. During the first 9 months of this year, construction spending amounted to $715.2 billion, 12.1 percent (±1.3%) below the $813.3 billion for the same period in 2008. PRIVATE CONSTRUCTION Spending on private construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $613.9 billion, 0.5 percent (±1.1%)*...

A major medical paper on primary heart disease prevention admitted that cardiovascular disease risk factors have proven useless for predicting heart disease among our population and that reducing risks factors doesn’t translate into reduced clinical disease or fewer premature deaths. But the solutions to this conundrum were the most unbelievable examples of ad-hoc reasoning.

“J’accuse! A statistician may prove anything with his nefarious methods. He may even say a negative number is positive! You cannot trust anything he says.” Sigh. Unfortunately, this oft-hurled charge is all too true. I and my fellow statisticians must bear its sad burden, knowing it is caused by our more zealous brethren (and sisthren). But, you know, it really isn’t their fault, for they are victims of loving not wisely but too well their own creations. First, a fact. It is true that, based on the observed satellite data, average global temperatures since about 1998 have not continued the...

Employment is the most important economic indicator, yet any knowledgeable person realizes this data is garbage. ... I find it harder and harder to believe that the government is not manipulating the numbers to keep the headline unemployment under 10% no matter what it takes!

How's the President really doing compared to the promises he's made? We can tell you that he's about 83,000 plug in hybrid cars behind his campaign goal, heading the wrong way on trade and the deficit. On the green front, he's added CO2 to the planet but still manages to cool it off. Our project is that we should be able to measure the success of any administration by how well it accomplishes intermediate goals, and so far, the Obama administration is a total failure. Either it is failing intermediate goals, or, it has no plan. If Democrats say that...

Let us assume all parties agree that we need to reform our health care system despite the fact that 80% of Americans are at least somewhat satisfied with their health care and their health care insurance [according to a recent Washington Post - ABC News poll]. However, reform must not be a slash-and-burn revolution but rather a rational, judicious evolution of an industry which is far too profit oriented and ineffectively regulated. For the vast majority of Americans a true health care “crisis” does not exist. It’s instructive to examine the statistics concerning the millions of uninsured. According to the...

The integrity of the United States Census may be at risk. That’s certainly what some Republicans are concerned about in the Obama era. For years, liberals have rightly pointed out that the decennial census undercounts certain groups — minorities, illegal immigrants, transients. An internal Census Bureau analysis from 2003 also determined that the last census overcounted whites and Asians. The liberals’ solution? Statistical sampling, in which census workers would study closely the populations of selected sample areas and use the resulting numbers to correct the numbers obtained by direct enumeration. Statistical sampling was a hot political issue in the late...

On July 24, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released an extensive statistical portrait of Mormons in the United States.-SNIP- Race » Nearly nine in 10 U.S. Mormons (86 percent) are Anglo, compared with 71 percent of the general population. Just 3 percent of Mormons are African-American and 7 percent are Latino.Education » Six in 10 Mormons (61 percent) have at least some college education, compared with half the overall population. However, the proportion of Mormons who graduate from college (18 percent) or receive postgraduate education (10 percent) mirrors the population as a whole (16 percent and...

In February, President Barack Obama signed a $787 billion stimulus bill while making lavish promises about the results. He pledged that "a new wave of innovation, activity and construction will be unleashed all across America." He also said the stimulus would "save or create up to four million jobs." Vice President Joe Biden said the massive federal spending plan would "drop-kick" the economy out of the recession.

The Wall Street Journal is helping Leonard Mlodinow tout his book The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. Among other things, Mlodinow, like academics Tversky, Kahneman, and Gilovich before him, wants to show that streaks in games like basketball don’t exist. Or, rather, they do exist, but they can be “explained by randomness.” Listen: randomness can’t explain anything. Statisticians imagine—I choose this word carefully—a basketball player has an ineffable probability of making a free throw, and they try to guess the probability’s value through modeling. Suppose a guess is 80% for a particular player and then suppose our player...

The latest employment data produced either really good news or really bad news depending on which portion of the report you emphasize. In May, employers cut 345,000 jobs whereas consensus expected employers to cut 520,000. At the same time, the unemployment rate went up to 9.4% whereas the consensus expectation was that the rate would go to 9.2%. That is a mathematical anomoly. On the one hand we didn't lose nearly as many jobs as we expected, and yet, on the other hand, our unemployment rate went up a lot more than expected. How did this happen?

In recent years, it has become increasingly clear to those who follow US economic statistics that there is something dubious about the numbers released by official government agencies and used to guide many aspects of social and public policy. The details and chronology of the corruption of economic data are presented in a new book by Kevin Phillips, the political commentator and former Republican Party adviser who has become something of a muckraking critic of the “excesses” that he helped set in motion. The book is entitled, Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism...

Remember Mitch Snyder? For those of you who don't, he was a tireless advocate of the homeless who had his 15 minutes in the '80's for going on hunger strikes to raise the national level of attention to the plight of the homeless. He ran the Community for Creative Non-Violence, which operated a shelter that catered to the needs of a great number of homeless persons in the District of Columbia. For a time, he was very popular for the principled stand that he took on behalf of the homeless. Unfortunately, that's not the only thing he was known for....

WASHINGTON, March 10, 2009 – Defense Department officials today announced across-the-board recruiting and retention successes in February, with every service meeting or exceeding its active-duty, reserve and National Guard goals. The statistics reflect solid recruiting performance during a month that Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman noted is traditionally a slow recruiting period. Both the Army and Marine Corps, which are in the midst of growing their forces, exceeded their February goals. The Army led active-component recruiting, signing on 324 more soldiers than its 6,000-soldier goal for February. The Marine Corps, with 1,752 new accessions, topped its monthly goal by a...

Lies, damned lies and statistics. One of the more deceitful arguments for socialized medicine hinges on the assertion that Americans don’t live as long as citizens in other industrialized countries because we don’t provide health care for everyone. The press is complicit in this prevarication by running stories like this one from the AP: "WASHINGTON—Americans are living longer than ever, but not as long as people in 41 other countries. For decades, the United States has been slipping in international rankings of life expectancy, as other countries improve health care, nutrition and lifestyles. Countries that surpass the U.S. include Japan...

It's not just Eric Holder, James Clyburn and Al Sharpton playing "race card" poker! Introducing Otis Moss Jr: Father, Reverend, Racist, Friend of Communism, Terrorist Sympathizer and BFF of Rev. Wright.

With the economy in an ominous recession of uncertain depth and duration, the incidence of material hardship in America will surely spike in the year (or years) ahead. But amazingly, Washington lacks the statistical tools to assess--and thus address efficiently--the coming surge in need. ... According to official figures, America's lowest poverty rate ever was in 1973, at 11.1%; in 2006, a prerecession year, America's official poverty rate was 12.3%. This is nonsense with decimal points. Does anyone seriously believe that a smaller fraction of Americans lived in absolute poverty in 1973 than today? According to the Census Bureau, inflation-adjusted...

The news of Antarctica's warming is being met with cheers by the Gaia worshipers and their enablers in the media. They had been frustrated that despite the ozone hole, hockey stick graphs, and gaseous hot air spewing forth from the Reverend Al Gore, this icy continent has not been warming. Well, someone left their cake out in the rain, I don't think that they can take it, it took so long to bake it, and they'll never have that recipe again... (Apologies to Donna Summer) Christopher Booker at the Telegraph reports that the claim by Professor Eric Steig is based...

Robert Heinlein once said that every story you read in the paper is invariably true, except for that rare story in which you witnessed the event yourself. While I was living in Los Angeles an old contracting officer explained to me how the official inflation numbers were thoroughly cooked. This fellow was no lightweight - when the government purchased a GPS satellite, he was the one who signed the check. It started me thinking and doing some research. It doesn't end there with the CPI. Debt, terrorism, unemployment, the climate... the list goes on and on. I'll present some of...

The Chinese Devil Wears Prada: Why 0% Growth is the New Size 6.8% Nouriel Roubini | Jan 22, 2009 The Chinese came out today with their 6.8% estimate of Q4 2008 growth. China publishes its quarterly GDP figure on a year over year basis, differently from the U.S. and most other countries that publish their GDP growth figure on a quarter on quarter annualized seasonally adjusted (SAAR) basis. When growth is slowing down sharply the Chinese way to measure GDP is highly misleading as quarter on quarter growth may be negative while the year over year figure is positive and...

Who elected Obama? By Mark Alexander web posted January 19, 2009 Last week we answered the question "Who is Barack Obama" by posing questions that Obama did not answer during the presidential campaign. This week, we take a look at who voted for him. On 20 January, Barack Hussein Obama will be inaugurated as the next president of our United States, according to our Constitution. However, his largest constituencies tend to view this event as either the coronation of the "royal one" or the ordination of the "holy one." Before we further define those constituencies, here, for the record, is...

2008 Early Voting Statistics Interesting for analysis. See link

In recent months, investors have been unjustly chastised for their lack of consistency. In truth, they have an unblemished record of drawing the wrong conclusions. Last week’s 2nd quarter GDP report provides the freshest evidence of market cluelessness.... Without raising an eyebrow on Wall Street or in the press, the GDP deflator, used in the report to downwardly adjust GDP to account for inflation, was shown at just 1.2% annualized.... the lowest deflator in ten years. In other words, to arrive at a 3.3% growth rate, the government assumed that inflation is running at a ten-year low! In contrast, the...

There are 5 contracts that I intend to examine to get a start on finding some kind of number to quantify Liberal Bias on Intrade. The first contract is 2008.PRES.CLINTON(H) which seems like it should have zero value. This gives a good glimpse at a baseline bias value. Taking into account the volume of the contract, bias might be expressed as Price * Volume of such a baseline contract. In this case it's 3.2 * 522834, but that's unnecessarily high because the volume is over the life of the contract. So I would use the volume since the convention ended,...

When DNA from hundreds of people is pooled together, it has been impossible to identify any individuals. In what could be a boon for crime-fighters, however, a statistical technique now makes the task possible--allowing forensic detectives to determine whether a suspect handled a gun, for example. But the technique also creates a privacy concern about health data; the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, is now backpedaling on a policy mandating genetic sharing developed just 8 months ago for fear that the health information of people who participated in the studies could be identified. The authors of the...

Selective Math at Census by: Jesse Masai, September 02, 2008 Tuesday’s release of Census annual report on poverty and income for 2007 had some news, and it has now been left to experts to decide whether the report bodes ill or good: • The average American household’s income rose for the third year running; • Income inequality fell yet again, meaning the gap between the rich and poor decreased; • Poverty rate inched up very, very slightly from 12.3 percent to 12.5 percent; and • Every August, economists rush from their vacations to offer their opinions on this report. In...

A Rise in Poverty by: Irene Warren, August 29, 2008 The number of American families living in poverty in the United States “increased 1.3 percent between 2006 and 2007,” according to the latest data released by the U.S. Census Bureau. And, in terms of those who lacked healthcare coverage, the report showed an increase in the number of people who were without healthcare coverage in 2007. Data collected, using the Current Population Survey (CPS) and the Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) Survey, in 2008 showed that “the nation’s official poverty rate in 2007 was 12.5 percent,” as the U.S....

...In fall 2006, political scientists, including us, representing about 30 universities conducted a survey of 16,000 Americans, the Cooperative Congressional Election Study. The survey asked respondents whether they read blogs and, if so, which ones. We analyzed the answers, and the result is the first detailed portrait of political blog readers. About 34% of the respondents said they read blogs, but only 14% named at least one blog that focuses on politics. Who are these political blog readers? Compared with those who don't read political blogs, they are more likely to have a college degree and, obviously, are more interested...

Statistics Phenomenon On The Pitch: Often Two Players With The Same Birthday At The World Cup ScienceDaily (Jun. 12, 2008) — The German defender Philipp Lahm and the Portuguese midfield star Maniche were both born on 11. November – and they were both playing in the game for the third place at the World Cup 2006. Anyway, in more than half of the games at the World Cup 2006 at least two persons on the field had the same birthday. That is what Yanina Lyesnyak found out within the scope of her bachelor thesis supervised by Prof. Walter Krämer. And...

Surprising research suggests that childhood cancer is most common in the Northeast, results that even caught experts off-guard. But some specialists say it could just reflect differences in reporting. The large government study is the first to find notable regional differences in pediatric cancer. Experts say it also provides important information to bolster smaller studies, confirming that cancer is rare in children, but also more common in older kids, especially among Caucasian boys. The study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is based on data representing 90 percent of the U.S. population. It found that cancer affects about...

When I started researching my column on illegal immigration several months ago, I knew illegal immigration wasn't a good thing. Turns out, I didn't know the half of it. I am a product of legal immigration. My ancestors fought in the American Revolution, the Civil War, and World War II. (Yeah, I know. We can't get along with anyone!) As Kathleen Parker's column last week said, "We love to boast that we are a nation of immigrants — and we are. But there’s a different sense of America among those who trace their bloodlines back through generations of sacrifice." This...

One hundred nine historians already nearly unanimously agree. They call the presidency of George W. Bush a "failure." The History News Network (HNN), who polled the historians, failed to name them or where they work. Wonder why? American Enterprise magazine, in 2002, examined voter registrations to determine the political affiliations of humanities professors at an assortment of colleges and universities, public and private, big and small, located in the North, South, East and West. Of those registered with a political party -- and most were -- historians overwhelmingly belong to a "party of the left" (Democratic, Green or Working Families...

Hard numbers: The economy is worse than you know Ever since the 1960s, Washington has gulled its citizens and creditors by debasing official statistics, the vital instruments with which the vigor and muscle of the American economy are measured. The effect has been to create a false sense of economic achievement and rectitude, allowing us to maintain artificially low interest rates, massive government borrowing, and a dangerous reliance on mortgage and financial debt even as real economic growth has been slower than claimed. The corruption has tainted the very measures that most shape public perception of the economy: • The...

In words that he has come to regret, Barack Obama opined as to why he was having a hard time winning over many blue-collar voters: "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or antitrade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." ...Who are all these gun owners? Are they the uneducated poor, left behind? It turns out they have the same level of formal education as nongun owners, on average. Furthermore, they earn 32% more per year than nonowners. Americans with guns are neither a small...

This just struck me. Members of the homosexual lobby like to claim that 10% of the population is gay. However, something like 90% of the gay population votes democratic. So does that mean, if democrats get about 40-45 percent of the male vote, that about 1/3 of the men that vote democrat are gay, by their own statistics? And considering how heavily the black community skews Democratic, wouldn't that mean that an even greater percentage of white male democratic voters are gay? Perhaps 35% to 40%? Now I don't necessarily believe this, since i reject the 10% figure, and my...

I am attempting to find a US Government source for the number of small and medium business in the US. I have gone to the US Dept of Commerce site with little luck. Can someone point me to a useful URL that would provide any kind of useful and "official" numbers (even estimates) that would allow me to be able to assert the following: Total number of SMBs for 2000 through 2006 or 2007 Number of SMBs for the each year per state

The NYT's agenda journalism defames another generation of veterans, and gets sharp response

It might not come as a surprise to learn that the cars Britons own are smaller than the cars Americans drive or that Swedes favour safe, politically correct SAAB's and Volvo's. But there's more to be said. To begin with: WHO'S RICH, WHO'S NOT? - Swedes claim they enjoy the highest standard of living in the world and they also say poverty, in absolute terms, is extinct in their country. The income distribution is known for being extremely even. If this really is true, how is it reflected in Swedish car consumption? Furthermore, for the first time since the 19th...

I just excerpted the portion on BLS statistics: "For many months now, there had been plenty of warning that recession was lurking out there in the tall grass. ...economy was tanking, led by manufacturing, which was supposed be enjoying a boomlet thanks to the debased dollar and demand from abroad, and retailing, which presumably could always count, in fair weather or foul, on consumers to consume. Alas, it ain't necessarily so. Came Friday and with it the crusher in the form of an exceptionally ugly report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on jobs -- or more precisely, the lack...

This opens up all areas of life to statistical treatment, carefully balanced with human judgement. "Take MRSA for example. Each night there are about 100,000 people being cared for in English hospitals, and about 18 of those will be diagnosed with MRSA infection. That figure is pretty constant, so at a national level you can make stable predictions of how many people will contract the disease. But to assess an individual's risk is another matter. You could say it's 18 in 100,000, but that's just for an average person. In reality everyone is unique. The risk will vary according to...

The 2007 Human Development Report says Iceland now leads annual United Nations Index. Iceland has narrowly passed Norway to take the top spot on the Human Development Index (HDI), according to the 2007/2008 Human Development Report (HDR) released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today. Norway had held the number one ranking for the previous six years. This change in ranking is a result of new estimates of life expectancy and updated GDP per capita figures, stress the Report authors. Introduced with the first HDR in 1990, the HDI assesses the state of human development through life expectancy, adult...

November 6, 2007 8 percent of the U.S. population are veterans. In 2006, there were 23.9 million veterans in the United States. Of that number, • 33 percent served in Vietnam; –18 percent served in the Gulf War; –14 percent served in World War II; –13 percent served in the Korean War. • the largest group—38 percent—are over 65. –Another 25 percent are ages 55 to 64; –16 percent are ages 45 to 54; –12 percent are ages 35 to 44. –The smallest group is the under-35 age group: 8 percent of veterans are under 35. (........more at the link)

This article is a compilation of income and wealth statistics by percentile. It is fairly comprehensive. Among the quotes are: "...Whenever I slip these tidbits into cocktail party chatter, people are surprised to realize how little money it takes to win a gold star from the Fed. If you and yours are bringing in $40,000 a year, you're doing better than half the households in America. Or, as a Washington think tank recently pointed out: If you're a teacher married to a policeman, your combined household income puts you in the top 25 percent of all households in the nation....

RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- The Air Force Personnel Center here recently published its demographics report offering a snapshot of the service's active-duty and civilian force, as of Sept. 30. More information can be found at the center's analysis branch website: http://wwa.afpc.randolph.af.mil/demographics/. Statistics are rounded to the nearest tenth.

Mr. Meangenes stopped by for coffee, and we got to talking about illegal immigration - which we both hate -and going over some of the statistics bandied about.

Check out this very remarkable video presentation about world population and health statistics, one that debunks many common myths. Freepers should find it fascinating. Here's a link to the video: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/92

...as long as the things they are gullible about confirm their prejudices. I've got a newfound - interest - in military welfare these days. So I pay particular attention to news items that cross my computer screen that touch on issues about the welfare of our military. A few weeks ago, I saw the release about rising suicide rates in the military, and to be honest I was concerned. Army soldiers committed suicide last year at the highest rate in 26 years, and more than a quarter did so while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new...

Leading Causes of Death in the United States As compiled from data reported by the National Vital Statistics Report, Vol. 50, No. 15, September 16, 2002

Despite overwhelming military superiority, the world’s most powerful nations failed to achieve their objectives in 39 percent of their military operations since World War II, according to a new University of Georgia study. The study, by assistant professor Patricia L. Sullivan in the UGA School of Public and International Affairs, explains the circumstances under which more powerful nations are likely to fail and creates a model that allows policymakers to calculate the probability of success in current and future conflicts. “If you know some key variables – like the major objective, the nature of the target, whether there’s going to...