William M. Briggs, Statistician

I thought it would be fun to compile a list of self-important celebrities who promise to move to Canada/England/Russia etc. when McCain wins the election. If anybody knows of any that I’ve forgotten, drop me an email at celebrity@wmbriggs.com and I’ll add them. Please include a verifiable link. More on this in a moment.

You might recall quite a few actors, actresses and sundry entertainers made similar promises to emigrate when Bush won his second term. Not one of them did what they promised they would do. I even remember getting an email from a pal of mine when Bush was elected stating that “George Bush is not my president!” He didn’t move either.

Problem is, this time I could only find two celebrities who say they’ll move when McCain wins. Just two! I even found one C-lister who promised to shift countries if Obama won (Stephen Baldwin)!

This, and other evidence, leads me to believe that McCain will win this fall. If the celebrity left can’t work up enough moral dudgeon to oppose McCain, then little stands in his way (except the press, of course).

Anyway, here’s the list (last updated 31 August 2008).

Conan the Barbarian was asked “What is best in life.” Arnie’s response: “To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.”

Mike Royko, no conservative and man whose writing I admire deeply, talked of his love of John Wayne, the admiration then as now seen to be an embarrassment among the elite. Royko said that he was standing on the armrests of his chair and hollering encouragement when, in True Grit, one-eyed Wayne faced evil Ned Pepper and two of his henchmen across a glen and yelled “Fill your hand you son-of-a-bitch!”

Admiral William “Bull” Halsey said that his life “reached a climax” when the dejected Japanese foreign minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signed the treaty of surrender aboard the battleship Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay 1945.

All of these men, real or approximate, took pleasure in the defeat of their enemies, real or adopted. I was with you Mike. I still jump on the couch when I see Wayne’s shocked look at Pepper’s last taunt (”Pretty bold talk for a one-eyed fat man!”). I admit to feeling part of Halsey’s pride. I can understand the surge of joy when victory is gained over the bad guys. This, after all, has driven the entire career of the Governator.

So are these emotions any different than those espoused by anti-American movie-maker Michael Moore who recently said that because a major hurricane is soon to hit the American coast, there was “proof there is a God in Heaven”?

See, Moore doesn’t want the Republican convention to pass without interruption and he delights in the idea that external events might force a suspension or cancellation in the GOP’s gathering.

Like a lot of his ilk, though, Moore would have his victory at the expense of hundreds or thousands of innocents, something John Wayne or Halsey would never have countenanced. Moore must have figured out his comments were asinine because he later added he hoped “nobody gets hurt” when the hurricane hits. This is nonsense, of course, because it is only the deadly destructive power of the storm that causes it to be of note in the first place. Even if nobody is physically injured, the storm will still cost everybody in its path a packet. Only a fool or an idiot doesn’t realize this. Moore knew what he was wishing for. He knew what would happen.

Moore is a member of the “Victory at Any Cost” club of the left. Whatever has to be said or done in order to gain power is acceptable. Because once in power, these elites reason, all will be put right. Utopia is just around the corner! And nobody or nothing should be allowed to stand in their way.

Update. I’ve been browsing the blogs to find out about Palin. Most fascinating of all is that fact that everybody is comparing here to Obama and not to Biden. Like I said below, people seem confused about who is actually the presidential candidate. It’s either fear, or people are tacitly admitting Obama’s experience.

Put it this way. Palin and Obama are about the same age (two years difference). Palin has served two years as Governor, Obama two years as Senator. They each had smaller, even similar, jobs before coming to their current one. Obama was an activist and organizer and Palin a city council member and mayor.

Of course, Obama spent about three-quarters of his senatorial service running for president, not actually serving as senator, where the majority of his votes were “NV”, or “No Vote.”

Palin served all of her time as governor, governing. And by all accounts accomplished quite a lot.

By any measure, Palin is better qualified for President than is Obama.

Which is why it is strange the only complaint heard so far against Palin is her “lack of experience” when she has more than Obama (especially on energy and oil).

Don’t forget, too, that we are selecting between McCain and Obama, not Palin and Obama. But you wouldn’t guess that by the commentary so far.

We can ask the Obama camp, why so nervous? I smell fear (I have a large, sensitive nose). Their reaction to Palin is an over-reaction.

Palin might turn out to be less than hoped for, but it’s unlikely. We’ll see when she debates plagiarist Biden.

I was charmed by the way she named her youngest son and impressed by the way she courted Hilary supporters.

Part II of the leadership comparison of McCain and Obama

How much of the President of the United States’ job has been in the capacity of Commander in Chief?

To start—but in no way to finish—answering this question, consider this (difficult) picture:

This charts all major military activity of the USA since its birth in 1776. Only wars and conflicts of importance are included; that is, not every use of military force if plotted. For example, Commodore Perry’s mission to Japan, while vastly influential, is not included. The Boxer Rebellion, because it directly used a minimal number of troops, was of tremendous consequence, and so is presented.

The political parties in power at the times of the conflicts are shaded (red for Republican; blue for Democrat; green for Whig; purple for Democrat-Republican; and yellow for Federalist or none). For example, Democrat presidents presided over the beginning of the First and Second World Wars, the Cold War, Korean War, and Vietnam War. Republican presidents were there for the start of the Civil War, Grenada Invasion and both Gulf Wars.

Different wars and conflicts are colored variously, and the lengths of the activities are shown. There has only been one period in American history without major conflict: from roughly 1819 to 1831. Two men were President during this time: James Monroe (1817-1825) and John Qunicy Adams (1825-1829; both were Democratic-Republicans). Of these two men, only Adams did not govern the White House during a time of major military conflict (Monroe managed wars earlier in his administration).

Thus, of the 43 presidents so far, 42 of them had direct command over significant military events. Obviously, the military is in use even when not engaged with the enemy. Presidents regulate the military strategically and tactically, for example as a deterrent. A current instance is the placement of missile-defense batteries in Poland to annoy Russia. And the military cannot spring into action suddenly without adequate training and support in times of peace, tasks which require significant interaction.

Whether or not any conflict on this list was preventable or abhorrent or necessary or just, all of human history suggests it is rational to believe conflict and wars will happen in the future. There is no evidence to suggest otherwise. All this implies the obvious: the president must have adequate capabilities as Commander in Chief as it is very likely he will have to exercise these duties. The stated desires of the occupant of the White House also do not correlate with the occurrence of conflict.

It is true that only Congress has the power to declare outright war. Therefore, you might argue, the President’s role in warmaking is limited. But it is also only Congress who has the power to pass the budget: they control the purse strings. to be consistent you would also have the say the President’s domestic role is similarly limited.

To say that these powers belong to Congress obviously does not, and has not as history has shown, lessened the powers the President has and will have in guiding policy, both foreign and domestic.

Lastly, Obama’s own view on the subject are seen at the end of this video:

Don’t forget to see today’s post, which continues this one

Barack Obama served 143 days in the senate and no days in the military before he began his run for president. John McCain served 26 years in the senate and 22 years in the military before he began his campaign. (These numbers are from Roger Kimball’s blog.)

There are some immediate problems with these numbers. The “143 days” came about this way

From the time Barack Obama was sworn in as a United States Senator, to the time he announced he was forming a Presidential exploratory Committee, he logged 143 days of experience in the Senate.

That’s how many days the Senate was actually in session and working.

The one single Senate committee that he headed never even met — once.

After 143 days of work experience, Obama believed he was ready to be Commander In Chief, Leader of the Free World, and fill the shoes of Abraham Lincoln, FDR, JFK and Ronald Reagan.

But during the 26 years McCain was a senator, the upper house was not in session continually, so to be fair we would have to only count the number of days the senate was actually in session over those years. This is unnecessary, because we all know that government and political business does not stop just because the gavel sounds. Therefore, we should give Obama, just as we are giving McCain, full credit for his time in service, which is to say 3.5 years since his swearing in as a senator in January of 2005. He still gets 0 years (or days) for military service. We also have to, since we gave it to Obama, award McCain his extra half year for the first part of 2008.

Let’s put that in table form for easier comparison:

Which is to say, McCain has about 14 times as much experience as Obama. However, this still isn’t an entirely fair comparison because McCain, who is 26 years older than Obama, has had a greater chance of gaining time on the job. To make the match up commensurable, we have to adjust for age.

Obama has had about 26 years opportunity to gain career knowledge (we don’t count the first 20 years of life for either man). McCain has had 50, or about twice as much time. So let’s redo the table dividing by the total amount of time available, which gives us the fraction of experience to available time. I’ll then multiply by 100 to turn the number into a percentage. We also have to be careful to note that when McCain was serving as a senator, he obviously could not serve in the military, and vice versa. For example, the amount of time McCain could have served in the senate was 50-22=28 years, of which he spent 26.

The conclusion is that McCain spent nearly all his time in direct training for the position of Commander in Chief, and Obama has spent about a little less than one-seventh of his.

You could argue for the inclusion of Obama’s time spent in other activities, such as the 3.5 years when he served on the eight-person Chicago-based Woods Fund “Poverty” Board with terrorist bomber William Ayers (whose reward for calling for the killing of his fellow Americans was to be made distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois-Chicago). But most people aren’t anxious to bring attention to this service. However, in the spirit of generosity, let’s award him the full time. That ups Obama’s experience percentage to 27%.

Also, Obama served on the Illinois state legislature, which affirmatively counts as government experience. He served 7 years there, but that time overlapped entirely the time he spent sitting next to, but certainly never approving of or chatting with, radical leftist Ayers. The final table is (remembering again, that when Obama was in the State house, he could not be in the senate, etc.):

Thus, even in a generous counting, McCain still has more than twice as much experience as Obama.

This analysis assumes that any government service counts for gaining experience to the position of Commander in Chief, but surely direct military experience should be weighted at least slightly higher. I do not attempt such calculations.

Update. Thanks to LarryA who notes “Senator McCain was sworn into the Senate for the first time on Jan 6, 1987, 21.6 years ago, not 26.5 years ago as stated in the article. He was elected to the House four years before that, but the article is comparing Senate experience.” So the tables above should be changed from “Senate” to “Congress”.

“Zombie attacks to increase due to global warming” rang the headline on this blog seven moons ago. So said eminent zombiologist and scientist Dr Harrister, BS, MS, PhD, OMGWAG.

Who would have guessed that Bob Hope was ahead of us all?

I’ll tell you who! Pepsodent! With irium!

Thanks to Rob Avrech for reminding us of Hope’s wisdom.

Quick Quiz: what do you call an exceptionally nervous busybody who perpetually overestimates risk and on whose lips are forever the phrase, “Something must be done!”

Answer: That person is an activist—activism is a manner of life which nowadays can even be proclaimed a profession.

What, then, do we call somebody who rationally attempts to quantify risk and who soberly (on most days of the week) weighs his options and sometimes proposes that the best course of action is no action at all?

That person is an inactivist.

Isn’t that a great name? I love it! But I didn’t think of it. Frank Bi, who runs a site called The Journal of Inactivism, did.

Old Frank’s intent is that the label be taken ironically. To him, an inactivist is to be despised. Let me tell you something about irony, Frank. There’s an art to it that few possess; its use requires a rare talent. I sometimes flatter myself that I can successfully wield this heavy sword, but I fail nearly every time, as regular readers of this blog can attest.

And so have you failed, Frank, but do not despair. We can rescue your neologism and put it to good use. It can lead a second life of good service.

Thus, I counsel that we adopt the moniker “climate inactivist” at once. Just look what it has going for it.

“Climate skeptic”, a term many favor, is apt to be misleading. I, for example, am not skeptical that there is a climate. Inactivist, however, neatly captures and succinctly describes the attitude of many of us.

We, who do not deny that mankind influences climate, even sometimes harmfully, but who reckon that our uncertainty in the mechanisms of the hideously complex global climate system and the imprecision its forecasts, coupled with the glut of extravagant and ridiculous claims of evils that await us, are not strong enough evidence to yet warrant government-imposed mandatory taxes and regulation. We, who do not deny that that day might come, and who do not discourage voluntary and personal actions. We propose to take no action until our certainty is much stronger.

We propose to be inactive—we are inactivists.

This proposal will be voted upon at the next secret meeting.

Incidentally, to take us on a tangent to an unexpected dimension, Scott Kurtz presents the evil Statistician Magician! (I don’t have a cape.)

(This analysis was suggested by reader Joy C., who provided a link to the medal tables.)

China, even disregarding its cheating, grabbed the most gold medals (51 to the USA’s next best 36), but the USA took the most overall (110 to China’s next best 100). Either country, then, could be argued the better one depending on whether you value just gold or all medals.

But are there better ways to compare success than raw totals? For example, tiny Jamaica won 11 total medals, while Poland which is over 10 times as populated took only 10. Obviously, countries with enormous populations have a better chance at taking more medals because they have a larger pool of athletes to draw from. China, for example, has over 1.32 billion souls, with the USA has less than their decimal point, with only 305 million. (Population data gathered from Wikipedia.)

Let’s control for a country’s population and re-rank. Here is a table of some of the top countries with the medal totals normalized by population—total medals divided by population in millions. The number “Medals per million” is the number of medals won per million people.

The Bahamas tops the list: they won 2 medals with a population of only 330 thousand, an amazing feat, or perhaps I should say with amazing feet since their medals were in running events. Jamaica has 2.7 million people and won 11 medals. Ranking countries this way puts the USA down at number 44, with China not coming in until 68, with Taiwan ahead of it! Incidentally, the BBC site, one of the many hosting medal count tables, fearfully lists Taiwan as “Chinese Taipei”, which is meaningless because Taipei is only one city in Taiwan. China, with the world’s biggest population, can lower their denominator and do better next time if they institute a new Cultural Revolution. Georgia can also take some comfort for coming in well ahead of Russia (15th to 37th place).

Smaller countries also, as a matter of necessity, have to be more focused. Cuba, for example, won the majority of their medals in various martial arts (boxing, judo, and so on; perhaps they’re expecting something after Castro kicks over). The larger countries have entrants in most sports: both Communist China and the USA won their medals in dozens of events.

Here’s another way to look at the same data. This is a plot of the population (note the logarithmic scale) by the total number of medals won.

Many of the names are tiny and unreadable, but the general drift can be seen: greater populations help win more medals, just as expected. But not always. India ranks in with over a billion residents, but only garnered a couple of medals. Indonesia and Russia are also hugely populated but have few medals to take home.

As always, money helps. Here is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a rough measure of economic output, by total medal count: (GDP estimated from Wikipedia.)

China looks like its GDP is just behind the USA, but it isn’t. For example, Japan is second, Germany third then China. Clearly, though, the more bucks the more bang. But as with population, not always. India’s GDP outstrips South Korea’s and Australia’s but it’s medal total is lower. One of the more interesting things about this graph is the wide range of GDPs: over 6 orders of magnitude!

The next step is to see the joint effect of increasing population and GDP. That’s what this next, more difficult, picture shows:

Each dot is a country’s Population and GDP; the number beside it is the number of medals won. Darker circles help guide the eye to higher counts. The highest dozen Populations and the lowest GDPs are highlighted for easier recognition. The double bang received from having lots of people making lots of money is easily seen, but the relationship is not perfect.

I am not trying to predict the medal counts for the next Olympics, hence this is no real statistical model. To build one would require the data from previous Olympics, summer and winter, tracking the number of events, the changes in politics and inflation and on and on. Too much work and in the end there would be too much uncertainty that the model proposed is valid. Showing the data plainly is the fairest procedure.

Just for fun, and having nothing to do with the Olympics, here are the top and bottom 10 countries of dollars made per person (GDP divided by population). You can think of this as a sort of measure of citizen efficiency.

The USA makes the list at number 12 with about 45-thousand per person. England at number 11 is just about the same, mere dollars ahead. Non-Arabic Africa is at the bottom of all of these lists.

Of course, Luxemborg and Norway, at the top of this list, have less people that live in my neighborhood, so it isn’t entirely interesting. The largest population of the top 10 goes to Netherlands, which is equal to the population of Manhattan. Oh, the well run European countries! we often hear. But they are so tiny! Zimbabwe, the very bottom of the list, has about 13 million people with a paltry 48 bucks per head. North Korea’s population is estimated at about 24 million, but that was before last year’s winter, so their total dollars per capita could increase next year in that communist paradise.

Komodo dragons have been eating a lot of people in Indonesia lately and the locals blame environmentalists, as reported by Yaroslav Trofimov at the Wall Street Journal (a subscription is required; or borrow or buy today’s paper).

Apparently, in Indonesia, people used to hunt deer and leave portions of successful hunts to the komodo dragons. They also used to tie up goats as sacrifices. All of this pleased the dragons, which left the humans alone.

Then entered the Environmentalists from the Nature Conservancy, who sought and were awarded a ban on deer hunting. They also had dogs declared an “alien species”, thus outlawing them. Naturally, being sympathetic souls, they also got a ban on goat offerings. The reason they did all this, according to Widodo Ramono, the policy director of the environmentalist organization, was because he feared the komodo was becoming “domesticated.”

But, even though all the people in this group were no doubt armed with many letters after their names, each with multiple “studies” in hand, they forgot that the dragons had to eat.

So the dragons started wandering down to the villages and learned how tasty villagers and the villagers’ livestock were. “[T]oday the dragons are angry with us,” says villager Hajji Faisal, “and see us an enemies.” A man named Jamain, whose son was eaten, said “I don’t blame the dragons for my boy’s death. I blame those who forbade us from following custom and feeding them. If it weren’t for them, my boy would still be alive.”

Nature Conservancy officials think Jamain’s and other villagers’ arguments that the environmentalist policies are to blame are based on “superstition.” They instead accuse Jamain’s son for looking too delicious (no, my dear readers, I am not kidding). In words I believe he has never himself heeded, environmentalist Putri Naga Komodo said of the connection, “You’ve got to be very careful about extrapolating and drawing any conclusions.”

In banning age old practices, I can only ask, wither multiculturalism?

Be sure and read Trofimov’s full story, from which all the quotes were taken.

The insane level of self-regard and idiotic self-indulgent behavior we accept from our celebrities should embarrass us.

There will always be utterly spoiled brats, but that these blots on humanity should be elevated to glorified status such that they are never held accountable for their tantrums is mind boggling.

The disrespectfully-self-named teen-music singer ‘Madonna’ is the latest in an unfortunately long and growing line of such luminaries. At a concert away from her home country yesterday, she played a song, apparently autobiographical, entitled “Get Stupid”, during which John McCain’s “image was flashed up alongside images of destruction and global warming and of Hitler and Mugabe” (from MSN news.)

This is no different than a rotten child going into the home of another and disparaging and disowning her family because she was denied a treat. It is pathetic, cowardly and ordinarily induces disgust on those who witness the spectacle.

But not if that person is a celebrity. Then, even though fans know better, they reach with all their might to seek justification and a reasonable explanation of their idol’s outburst. They should shun the woman, but they don’t want to deny themselves the small entertainment they receive from the simplistic music, so they relax their own morals. In short, the fans only think of their own pleasures, thus effectively mimicking what they have seen.

Well, all that is not new or even unexpected nowadays. This sort of thing is so common that my indignation probably seems out of place and reactionary.

What makes it worse is the reporting. Try Googling “Madonna Hitler” and you will see numerous headlines like this: “McCain camp blasts Madonna’s Hitler dig,” and “McCain staff slams ‘outrageous’ comparison with Hitler by Madonna.” Note the scare quotes around outrageous which, as the philosopher David Stove has taught us, means “not really outrageous but thought by so-and-so to be outrageous.”

The reporters, people who we are repeatedly told are well educated and discerning, cannot bring themselves to say what is obvious. They instead blame the “controversy”, using their best questions-were-raised style of empty prose, and say it is McCain’s staff that is having the problem.