Infographic Of The Day

Sometimes simple statistics can put how really great we have things in perspective:

If "compassionate conservatism" has taught me anything it's that poor people should just get more money. Worked for me.

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Tea Party Racism And The Black Vote

James Taranto, the editor for the Wall Street Journal's conservative editorial page, lays out his theory for why the tea party movement has come under fire for accusations of racism:

The political left claims to love racial diversity, but it bitterly opposes such diversity on the political right. This is an obvious matter of political self-interest: Since 1964, blacks have voted overwhelmingly Democratic. If Republicans were able to attract black votes, the result would be catastrophic for the Democratic Party. Even in 2008, the Democrats' best presidential year since '64, if the black vote had been evenly split between the parties (and holding the nonblack vote constant), Barack Obama would have gotten about 48% of the vote and John McCain would be president.

To keep blacks voting Democratic, it is necessary for the party and its supporters to keep alive the idea that racism is prevalent in America and to portray the Republican Party (as well as independent challengers to the Democrats, such as the tea-party movement) as racist. The election of Barack Obama made nonsense of the idea that America remains a racist country and thereby necessitated an intensifying of attacks on the opposition as racist.

The title of his piece is "Why the Left Needs Racism" but it seems to me that the entire premise for his article is somewhat based on a racist assumption, or is at the very least intellectually insulting if you're a black American. That premise is that black people vote overwhelmingly Democratic because they've somehow been tricked into thinking that the Republican party and its affiliate members are racist. That's it: black people were tricked a long time ago and that's why they vote the way they do. It couldn't possibly be because of Johnson's Great Society or the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Voting Rights Act or the expansion of entitlement programs for those lower on the socio-economic scale or affirmative action laws or hate crime legislation or gun control laws or reformation of drug laws because everyone knows that black folks don't care about any of that stuff, right? And the added fact that the current incarnation of the Republican party is older, whiter and more Southern than it has been in generations isn't exactly sweetening the deal either.

So if there are a myriad of reasons for blacks to vote for the Democrats and very few for them to vote for (as well as several for them to vote against) the Republicans, how exactly does Taranto think that Democrats are going to lose or Republicans are going to attract black voters? Positing a fictional scenario in which McCain split the black vote with Obama is convenient in that it helps him make the point that McCain would have won had it happened but it's also fairly useless to Republicans because it's extraordinarily unlikely to happen anytime soon in real life. And if there is no credible threat of any impending exodus of black votes from the Democratic party then his theory of an organized and institutional racial smear campaign against Republicans on behalf of the Democratic party holds little water as a debatable point. Democrats don't need to lie about race because the political racial reality already works out mostly in their favor.

I can however point to one more reason why blacks might be more inclined to vote Democratic rather than Republican: white conservatives like James Taranto writing ridiculously shortsighted things like "The election of Barack Obama made nonsense of the idea that America remains a racist country..." in publications like the Wall Street Journal. Or as I wrote last year:

...according to these same people the day we elected a black man as president all the racism in this country just magically dried up and blew away. We made one of them president, what more do black people want!?

Stating that there is no longer any more racism in America is insulting enough to minorities who still have to deal with it on a consistent basis but when those claims are coming from a well-fed, middle-aged white man who writes mostly about money and Wall Street (a bastion of whiteness in itself) while he carries water for the Republican party (a similar bastion of whiteness) it's little wonder the black vote goes overwhelmingly to the Democrats. The tea party movement isn't entirely racist of course but by dint of its demographic makeup it does have a racial undertone that nobody within it's ranks is willing to publicly decry and that coupled with the Republican party's persistent obtuseness when it comes to race relations in this country has insured that Democrats won't have to worry about losing the black vote to them anytime soon. Rather than being easily conned dupes black folks are entirely capable of surveying the political landscape just fine for themselves and when it comes to the tea party movement the vast majority of them have obviously decided that they just don't like what they see out there.

[Update: Apparently RNC Chair and moustache aficionado Michael Steele agrees with my analysis:

Appearing Tuesday at DePaul University in Chicago, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said that the Republican Party has not given African-Americans a reason to vote for them.

"You really don't have a reason to, to be honest -- we haven't done a very good job of really giving you one. True? True," said Steele, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

Steele said how the Republican party had been founded as a pro-civil rights party, with Frederick Douglass among its early members. However, Steele explained, the Republican Party has alienated those voters: "For the last 40-plus years we had a 'Southern Strategy' that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South. Well, guess what happened in 1992, folks, 'Bubba' went back home to the Democratic Party and voted for Bill Clinton."

And tubby neocons will defend this bankrupt agenda to no end, despite contrary evidence from real folks on the ground.]

Bill O'Reilly: Still Crunching Those Numbers...

In a previous post I took FOX News to task for a misleading report about the Netherlands by using actual facts and data to counter their claims about Holland being a moral cesspool because of the high levels of atheism amongst the population there. Bill O'Reilly then followed this up by claiming that Amsterdam was being overrun by crime and corruption because of their permissive legalized drug and sex policies, which spurred a native Dutchman to make this video countering his claims.

Well now he's claiming the same thing about the Netherlands again but this time he's refuting the Dutch statistics using the same logic he once applied to Canada:


Is it any wonder I love watching this guy? In Bill O'Reilly's world (and it seems that most of the less intelligent right-wingers live in this same world) the United States is inherently superior in whatever category you're measuring simply because that's what they want to believe. Verifiable facts and provable data say something different? They use different math in those countries, what do you expect?! And failing that of course, just rub some Wikiality on it:

You see O'Reilly and Colbert don't need literal facts, just the right facts. And in both cases those facts are the ones they make up for themselves, the only difference being that Colbert is actually playing a character making fun of serial conservative liars like O'Reilly. I'll say it again: The bar for getting your own television show in this country is set depressingly low.

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The South: Home Of The Birther Movement

Yet more evidence to indicate that the modern Republican party is fast becoming the almost exclusive province of the Southern United States:

The news that American southerners are the most likely to question whether President Obama is actually a native-born citizen got a lot of attention last Friday, when a Research2000 survey on that question was released by DailyKos. Eleven percent of all Americans apparently do not believe Obama was born in the United States, but 23% of southerners (compared to roughly 5% of people from the other regions of the country) share that belief. I thought it would be interesting to see what various trend-culling tools might add to this picture.

A look at Google Trends is certainly illuminating. The top ten states where people are searching on the phrase "Obama birth certificate" are:

1. Louisiana
2. Mississippi
3. Colorado
4. Oklahoma
5. Alabama
6. Tennessee
7. Arkansas
8. Missouri
9. South Carolina
10. North Carolina

One would hope that this is not also evidence for the eventual redneckification of Colorado. Keep watching your South Park, Coloradans! And mad props to my home state of Texas for managing to stay off of this list full of wingnuts. Now if they could just climb out of last place for child homelessness, residents over 25 without a high school diploma, average credit score, voter participation and residents without health insurance they'd really have something. Good thing Governor Perry refused all of that stimulus money, huh?

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[Update: Obama finally debunks the Birther conspiracies:


After Barackula I suspected that maybe the vampire myths were true but I guess they've now been debunked as well. Of course, don't expect this to deter the wingnut Vamper movement...

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[Update II: Found it:
Just as damning as they said it would be. How could I have been so wrong?

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[Update III: Almost forgot that today is his actual "birthday" so here's the theme-appropriate card:
The truth hurts, doesn't it you dirty Kenyan bastard? Happy Birther Day, Mr. "President".

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Pat Buchanan Sees White People

Is there anybody older and whiter than Pat Buchanan left in the Republican party? Bob Dole I guess but is that guy even still alive, Viagra not withstanding? Regardless, he's obviously not making the recent talking head circuits because Buchanan is totally bitch-slapping his ass when it comes to making racist comments that can only hurt their party:

A provocative article by Pat Buchanan argues that contrary to conventional wisdom, Republicans shouldn't worry about alienating Hispanic voters, they should just focus on getting white people to like them more:

In 2008, Hispanics, according to the latest figures, were 7.4 percent of the total vote. White folks were 74 percent, 10 times as large. Adding just 1 percent to the white vote is thus the same as adding 10 percent to the candidate’s Hispanic vote.

If John McCain, instead of getting 55 percent of the white vote, got the 58 percent George W. Bush got in 2004, that would have had the same impact as lifting his share of the Hispanic vote from 32 percent to 62 percent.

And he sees race-baiting attacks as the way to do it:

Had McCain been willing to drape Jeremiah Wright around the neck of Barack Obama, as Lee Atwater draped Willie Horton around the neck of Michael Dukakis, the mainstream media might have howled.

And McCain might be president.

His specific argument about Sonia Sotomayor is that Republicans need to get more explicit about the idea that, as a Latina, she will make rulings that disadvantage white people and that white America ought therefore band together to stop her. This is already the subtext of their arguments but I guess he feels it’s not close enough to the surface.

Yeah! Put those dirty brown people in their place by ignoring them and focusing on the demographic that already overwhelmingly supports you, jackass. They're only the largest growing voting bloc in the United States but the answer is obviously to get more nonexistent white people to vote Republican. Uh huh, because white people have been wholly unaware up until now of how the Republican party can benefit them. Here's another tip: Start showing Friends reruns at your conventions. They'll kill, I promise.

FOX News Trashes The Netherlands

It seems that the decidedly conservative network has a problem with Holland for being what they call "militantly secular", amongst other things:


Cheap legal cannabis, easily acquired casual sex, marriage equality for everyone and death with dignity: yeah, that place sounds like a real nightmare! I've personally been to the Netherlands and I have to say that I quite enjoyed myself there. In addition to the aforementioned amenities it's a beautiful country and the people are extremely polite and friendly to foreigners, so I decided to do some research to help explain the discrepancies between my own experiences there and FOX News' partisan condemnations.

Less than an hour on the Internets dredged up some very interesting information:

- life expectancy: Holland is 28th in the world; the U.S. is 45th

- per capita income: Holland is 10th; the U.S. is 15th

- percentage of the population living below the poverty line: Holland has 10.5%; the U.S. has 12%

- health care systems as ranked by the World Health Organization: Holland is 17th; the U.S. is 37th

- heart disease mortality rates per 100,000: Holland has 75.1; the U.S. has 106.5

- obesity rates: Holland is 20th with 10% of the pop. being obese; the U.S. is 1st in the world with 30.6% of the pop. being obese

- infant mortality rates per 1000 births: Holland has 4.7; the U.S. has 6.3

- teen pregnancy rates: Holland has 172 births per one million people; the U.S. has 1672 births per one million people

- murders per capita: Holland is 51st; the U.S. is 24th

- rapes per capita: Holland is 22nd; the U.S. is 9th

- firearm related deaths per capita: Holland is 22nd; the U.S. is 1st in the world

- divorce rates: Holland is 20th; the U.S. is 7th

- suicide rates per 100,000: Holland has 9.4; the U.S. has 11.1

- freedom of the press: Holland is tied for 16th with three other nations; the U.S. is tied for 36th with five other nations

- religious affiliations: Holland has 39% of the population claiming such; the U.S. has 83.1% of the population claiming such

- subjective well-being (happiness) ranking: Holland is 8th; the U.S. is 16th

The only significant statistics I could find where both countries basically tied were for literacy rates, alcoholism rates, drug abuse rates and STD infection rates, several of which would seem to defy the puritanical calls for harsher laws in the failed "war on drugs" in this country. But the obvious conclusion we can come to after processing all of this scientific data is this: The Netherlands needs more religion in their society! I mean, if they're only leading the most powerful nation in the world in each of these 16 categories with less than half as many religious citizens per capita then they're obviously failing as a country. Where's God to conveniently clean up their mess? I'm not sure but am I wrong here?

Now, am I saying that the Netherlands is a subjectively better country than the United States or that I'd rather live there than here? Fuck. No. I love my country and I absolutely love living in the lush, verdant bosom of Northern California. Now of course I'm not going to definitively say that this is "the greatest country in the world" in that knee-jerk fashion that conservatives and jingoists like to use because based on the percentages detailed above, how are they even logically coming to this conclusion? And for whom, other than their own obviously self-absorbed personas?

But I will say this: It's been the greatest country in the world for me to live in thus far and I've been to many other countries in my lifetime, so that's saying quite a bit. And might I suggest that what we as Americans need right now in relation to the rest of the world is a little less definitive declaration about how great we are and a little more measured qualification about how great we can become with a bit of hard work and some honest self-realization. We were once the shining city upon a hill and I truly believe that we can again achieve that goal, we just need a sufficient amount of measured humility and educated inspiration to show us the way. Proost!

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Scientists Are Smart. Americans, Not So Much...

Gee, I wonder why we're consistently lagging behind other industrialized nations in science education:

"Nearly all scientists (97%) say humans and other living things have evolved over time," while only 61% of the public agrees, according to a new report (PDF, p. 37) from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Asked which comes closer to their view, "Humans and other living things have evolved over time" or "Humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time," 97% of scientists responding chose the former option, as opposed to only 2% choosing the latter option; 61% of the public responding chose the former option, as opposed to 31% choosing the latter option.

We see the same denial on the issue of global climate change. Evolutionary biologists and climatologists spend their entire professional lives studying these very subjects yet a solid proportion of Americans continually refuse to listen to them because the scientific data disagrees with their preconceived notions and is something they just don't want to hear. And do you think that it's a coincidence that no matter what he said or did as president that George W. Bush's approval rating never really sank below 30% either?

Infant Mortality Rates Worldwide

The recent murder of abortion doctor George Tiller (more about that incident later today) made me think of this appalling statistic. As an American this has always bewildered and embarrassed me:

Here's the list of nations with a lower infant mortality rate than the United States (in order from lowest to highest):

1) Iceland
2) Singapore
3) Japan
4) Sweden
5) Norway
6) Hong Kong
7) Finland
8) Czech Republic
9) Switzerland
11) South Korea
12) Belgium
13) France
14) Spain
15) Germany
16) Denmark
17) Austria
18) Australia
19) Luxembourg
20) Netherlands
21) Israel
22) Slovenia
23) United Kingdom
24) Canada
25) Ireland
26) Italy
27) Portugal
28) New Zealand
29) Cuba
30) Channel Islands ( Jersey and Guernsey)
31) Brunei
32) Cyprus
33) New Caledonia
34) United States

Until the anti-choice legions begin to support free and universal healthcare for pregnant mothers and post-natal families, it's difficult to take them seriously on abortion -- "life" doesn't end at birth.

The question that ought to be resolved: Are private healthcare profits and "anti-socialism" talking points more important than protecting children with free and universal healthcare?

We're getting beat on this front by Slovenia and New Caledonia. If you know three facts about either of these countries or can even point to them on an unlabeled map you're a better man than I, yet they have lower infant mortality rates than we do here in the richest and most powerful nation on the planet. But hey, we still have the biggest guns and the most bombs so that means we're winning, right? USA! USA! Oh what, fuck the children? Alright, but can I still shout "USA! USA!" at the top of my lungs? Sweet, then we're still winning. The system works.

New Passport Rules Take Effect Today

If you're driving to the Great White North or Old Mexico remember to bring your little blue book:

Headed to Canada, Mexico, Bermuda or the Caribbean? Here's a tip: Take your passport to avoid a headache coming home.

Beginning Monday, the slow squeeze of border security will tighten further when a rule takes effect requiring U.S. and Canadian citizens to present passports -- or a very limited number of other travel documents -- when entering the United States at land and sea borders.

Air travelers have been required to carry travel documents since January 2007. But the number of people crossing land borders is far greater, and the June 1 deadline has been viewed with some trepidation, especially in Canadian border communities where cross-border travel by citizens of both countries historically has required minimal documentation.

I feel safer already. This always reminds me of one of my favorite fake statistics: that only 10% of Americans have a passport. According to the State Department the number is closer to 30%, which still doesn't make us the most curious travelers in the world but considering how large the country is and how expensive overseas travel can be it's understandable.

The Futility Of Online Polls

I was watching Greta Van Susteren on the Fox News channel a few days ago as they cut to the next show (Bill O'Reilly, I think) and they asked the question: Who's funnier: Jon Stewart or former House Speaker Newt Gingrich? If you ever needed an online poll to prove to you that online polls are extraordinarily and utterly useless, here it is:

Really? Really!? Now you can see why it's so futile to try and reason with these people. The phrase "living in their own world" doesn't quite cover it.

Voting Down Gay Marriage Bans

Per my post from yesterday in which I predicted that "Texas is a long ways away from establishing marriage equality for its gay citizens" comes this map from The Scroll Blog using data from statistician Nate Silver predicting when states will vote down bans on gay marriage. By "long ways away" I was thinking longer than a decade (more like as long as it takes everyone over fifty in the state to die) but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

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What You Should Fear Instead Of Terrorists

In the past I've written that the relative odds of getting killed by terrorists are worse than those of being wiped out by a killer asteroid, yet polls repeatedly tell us that for the majority of Americans terrorism is one of their greatest fears. John Goekler has crunched some numbers in order to put the odds of a possible terrorist attack in perspective:

The single greatest killer of Americans is the so-called “lifestyle disease”. Somewhere between half a million and a million of us get a short ride in a long hearse every year because of smoking, lousy diets, parking our bodies in front of the TV instead of operating them, and downing yet another six pack and / or tequila popper.

According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, between 310,000 and 580,000 of us will commit suicide by cigarette this year. Another 260,000 to 470,000 will go in the ground due to poor diet and sedentary lifestyle. And some 85,000 of us will drink to our own departure.

After the person in the mirror, the next most dangerous individual we’re ever likely to encounter is one in a white coat. Something like 200,000 of us will experience “cessation of life” due to medical errors – botched procedures, mis-prescribed drugs and “nosocomial infections”. (The really nasty ones you get from treatment in a hospital or healthcare service unit.)

The next most dangerous encounter the average American is likely to have is with a co-worker with an infection. Or a doorknob, stair railing or restaurant utensil touched by someone with the crud. “Microbial Agents” (read bugs like flu and pneumonia) will send 75,000 of us to meet the Reaper this year.

If we live through those social encounters, the next greatest danger is “Toxic Agents” – asbestos in our ceiling, lead in our pipes, the stuff we spray on our lawns or pour down our clogged drains. Annual body count from these handy consumer products is around 55,000.

After that, the most dangerous person in our lives is the one behind the wheel. About 42,000 of us will cash our chips in our rides this year. More than half will do so because we didn’t wear a seat belt. (Lest it wrinkle our suit.)

Some 31,000 of us will commit suicide by intention this year. (As opposed to not fastening our seat belts or smoking, by which we didn’t really mean to kill ourselves.)

About 30,000 of us will die due to our sexual behaviors, through which we’ll contract AIDS or Hepatitis C. Another 20,000 of us will pop off due to illicit drug use.

The next scariest person in our lives is someone we know who’s having a really bad day. Over 16,000 Americans will be murdered this year, most often by a relative or friend.

After that, it’s an overdose on “non-steroidal anti-inflammatories”, acetaminophen or aspirin. About 7,600 hundred a year, perhaps due to the aftermath of those tequila poppers.

Next most dangerous thing is going to work. About 5,500 of us will buy the farm due to “occupational trauma”.

If that’s scary enough to skip work, we might want to skip lunch, too. Next most dangerous thing is the food we eat. About 5,200 of us will hurl our lives away due to “foodborne agents”.

Another 4,000 of us will drown. A significant percentage will be fishermen found floating with a high blood alcohol content and an unzipped fly.

When you also take into account the fact that the vast majority of Americans live far away from any major cities or other "hot" targets that terrorists may be planning to hit in the future our collective fear seems almost laughable, but then again collective fear seemed to be one of the primary reasons for many of the Bush administration's policy positions in the first place, didn't it? Here's hoping that an Obama administration can and will do better.

Who's Reading Brain Rage?

This map shows the location of the last 500 hits to this blog around the world; a little more diversified than we were about three months ago but we're still eagerly awaiting our first hit from the frozen continent of Antarctica. If any of you know any research scientists or penguin wranglers stationed down that way, please forward them a link to this site to help us crack the elusive seven-continent barrier; doing so would carry me to Roger Bannister-heights of elation. And yes, I recognize the sad, pathetic emptiness of that accomplishment.

Something Telling Someone Else Said

"With all due respect again to Governor Kaine, he's been a governor for three years. He's been able but undistinguished. I don't think people could really name a big, important thing that he's done ... [Kaine] was mayor of the 105th largest city in America. And again, with all due respect to Richmond, Virginia, it's smaller than Chula Vista, California; Aurora, Colorado; Mesa, or Gilbert, Arizona; North Las Vegas, or Henderson, Nevada. It's not a big town." -Karl Rove

Palin has been the governor of Alaska for less than two years of a state with 600,000 people, compared to Virginia's 8 million. Before that, she was mayor of a town with 6,000 people, compared to Richmond's 200,000. When do you think he'll square this with his opinion of Sarah Palin? I'm not holding my breath. And yes, the picture's real and I absolutely love it.

430 Crucial Delegates

Perhaps the election analysis has gotten a bit too specialized:
Quite a coup for Obama locking up the "Famous Swayzes" vote, huh?

Tallying Your Votes

As you can see in the column to the right, your votes for "personal commentary" and "long, train of thought rants" beat out "humorous videos" and "political posts" quite handily. Thank you to everyone who took the time to participate in the process; I hear what you're saying and I'll be happy to try focusing more on these areas. To be honest, I prefer writing the longer screeds (I've gotten several compliments on this post in particular) to just putting up stuff by others that I find funny or interesting but it takes a lot longer to create those posts so the frequency of updates may start to decrease as a result. Regardless, the people have spoken.

Vote Or Die (Or Don't Vote), But Vote

If you read this blog on any kind of regular basis, please take the time to vote on what you'd like to see more of in the right side bar; that's hot, and you know it is.

Soda, Coke Or Pop?

A map plotting the usage of these words across America, represented by yellow, red or blue, respectively. I say coke myself but I grew up in the South; and it's all soda out here in California, so I guess this map is pretty acurate. If you live in the US, is your area of the country correctly mapped?

Who's Reading Brain Rage?

This still frame was snapped just after midnight this morning, depicting the locations of the last 500 hits to this blog. Green dots indicate the last 10 locales while the red dot is the most recent visitor, which last night was Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 8056 miles away. I've reset the settings on my Sitemeter account to allow anyone to access the info about this site and it's visitors; just click on the green counter in the right hand column of this page. When I look at this map, I feel like a god lording over my digital dominion; that's sad, isn't it?

Luda's Hos' Codes

Ever wonder what a map detailing the area codes of all of Ludacris' hos might look like? Wonder no longer.