Well, I think we can put aside the argument concerning God’s love for Tebow. Lest there be any doubt, please consider that Tebow had 316 yards passing.
John 3:16 anyone?
Further, I wonder if any other famous athletes took time on the field of play to give thanks. In more than just a personal small “look in the sky” thing?
I think that Mr. Bavaro would often pray. Here, in this iconic photo, you can see him genuflecting and what seems to be a motion of crossing himself.
I continue to question the GINI calculation comparison of nations in order to determine how well wealth is distributed within those nations. For example, I have a specific problem with the fact that the United States has seen a significant rate of marriage decrease in its population over the last several decades.
As an example, I used a population of 4 and computed the GINI if they were all single:
24,000 – 30,000 – 50,000 – 75,000 The GINI came to .24162
If we marry 2 of those we might see:
24,000 – 50,000 – 105,000 This GINI is .301676
If we marry a different 2, we might see:
54,000 – 50,000 – 75,000 This GINI is .093110
Clearly the makeup of the population impacts the GINI coefficient. In this analysis, I was called on small sample size. Fair enough. I did the data on a population of 10,000.
I took a random sampling of 10,000 salaries. These salaries ranged from $0.00 to $250,000 and formed a near perfect bell curve with an average of $125,000. Clearly this is not how wealth is distributed in real life, but I am simply making a point.
I then created 4 worlds. Each world had a different marriage rate; 80-70-60-50%. An acknowledge flaw in my data is that I do not randomize the single people each time. That is, in the first world where 80% of the population is married, I take the first 2,000 and mark them single. I then marry the 2001st individual to the 6,001st individual. Then the 2002nd individual to the 6,002nd individual and so on.
My results:
As the marriage rate went up, the GINI went down. In other words, as my population increased its marriage rate the inequality diminished. In fact, by moving from a 50% marriage rate to an 80% rate, the GINI moved by 12%.
Let’s do it again. 10,000 new salaries, same constraints:
Again, a continuing trend toward equality.
Does my theory have legs in the real world? I think it does:
Inequality is typically higher as the percentage of married people declines and as the correlation of of partner’s income increases. Inequality also tends to be higher when low-income earners are disproportionately likely to remain unmarried.
In other words, the more people marry, the more equitable income is. Especially when this trend is observed in low income individuals.
Further data suggests that poverty is addressed by marriage:
As expected, the results clearly show that married parents experience lower poverty rates and higher incomes not only than single mothers living without another adult, but also among those unmarried mothers with at least two potential earners. Poverty rates of cohabiting couple parents are double those of married parents; non-cohabiting single parents with at least a second adult had poverty rates three times as high as among married parents. The apparent gains from marriage are particularly high among black households.
The gains from marriage extend to material hardship as well. About 30 percent of cohabiting couples and 33-35 percent of single parents stated that sometime in the past year they did not meet their essential expenses. These levels are twice the 15 percent rate experienced by married parents. Even among households with similar incomes, demographic and educational characteristics, married couples suffer fewer serious material 21 hardships. Moreover, despite their less promising marriage market, low-income and less educated mothers who are married experience significantly less material hardship than lowincome,
less-educated mothers not married.
In short, marriage matters. And for whatever reason, the United States is becoming a less married nation. If you wanna address poverty, inequality and hardship, focus on getting people, especially low-income people, married. Failing that what you are doing is transferring wealth from one population to another in an attempt to “wish” you way out of reality.
This Sunday’s News And Observer’s Letter To The Editor
This week the featured Letter to the Editor focuses on the Republican’s veto override of a bill that Governor Purdue. If you remember, the Republican controlled House called a special midnight session in order to vote on the override. That veto override was successful and now the bill becomes law. In short, the North Carolin Association of Educators can no longer require that dues be collected straight from the paycheck of teachers.
Our citizen points out, correctly in my opinion, this:
I’m not a public school teacher, and I’m in awe of the job they do with my kids every day. Teaching should be an honored profession.
Very few people I know dispute this fact. However, it’s a common setup for the real point:
House Speaker Thom Tillis and his Republican colleagues are targeting these hard-working public servants. They are punishing the N.C. Association of Educators for standing up against budget cuts to the public schools.
Point of fact, the Republicans are not targeting teachers. Rather, they are working to prevent the state from acting as a private organizations bill collector. Imagine if a church required the state to deduct weekly offerings from the paychecks of public employees. Even if they didn’t belong to the church.
Our citizen continues:
To those of us who want high-quality public schools for our kids, however, this is far from a game. The NCAE stood up against budget cuts to our already underfunded schools, and now they are paying the price. Let’s stick up for the teachers who are sticking up for our schools.
The problem is that teacher’s unions don’t care about educating children. They care about power. They care about taking as much as they can while giving as little as they can. These same unions prevent poor teachers from being fired. They prevent merit pay. They prevent innovation.
We all love excellent, proficient and capable teachers. We do not love poor under performing teachers. And we certainly don’t love organizations that are hell bent on protecting those poor performers.
Posted in Education, Politics: North Carolina
Tagged NCAE, North Carolina, Teacher Unions, Teachers, Unions
That is if you believe the Democrats when they say that Voter ID laws are discriminatory. See, the logic goes like this:
The very young, poor, rural, urban, minority Democrat citizens in our nation are disproportionally unable to obtain State ID. Further, this inability to obtain such ID is based solely on cost. State ID’s are prohibitively expensive.
I checked. Here in North Carolina you can obtain State ID by:
With some combination of these documents a resident of North Carolina can obtain a state ID. That and $10.00.
The burden to obtain an ID is not significant or overly burdensome.
So, anyway, back to Illinois. How is the state of Illinois now discriminating against the young, elderly, urban, rural Democrats in the state?
They are requiring the discriminatory practice of providing state ID to purchase…Liquid Plumber. Hat Tip Dan Mitchell
CHICAGO (CBS) – A new state law requires those who buy drain cleaners and other caustic substances to provide photo identification and sign a log.
…
The law, which took effect Sunday, requires those who seek to buy caustic or noxious substances, except for batteries, to provide government-issued photo identification that shows their name and date of birth. The cashier then must log the name and address, the date and time of the purchase, the type of product, the brand and even the net weight.
What possible excuse could the Republicans of the state make for such discriminatory practices?
State Rep. Jack Franks (D-Woodstock) obtained passage of the new law following attacks in which drain cleaner was poured on two Chicago women, badly scarring them.
Truly unbelievable. Democrats feel perfectly okay to require state ID to buy Draino but not to vote.
Politics anyone?
Posted in Fun, Government, Idiots on Parade, Liberty, States Behaving Badly
Tagged Illinois, North Carolina, State ID, Voter ID
I’m watching the fellas in New Hampshire. It’s recorded because watching the Saints-Lions game was more important. And, even the game was delayed due to the family Harry Potter night.
Ron Paul knows he can’t win; he doesn’t wanna win.
He wants to preach.
And we should listen.
States are passing Voter ID laws. The stated reason is that if you have restrictions on who can and can’t vote, it’s a reasonable position to take that these requirements are validated. For example, you wouldn’t pass a speed limit an then refuse to allow officers to use speed detectors. You don’t require that a teacher have a license and then not allow administrators to validate that license.
If you require a thing, you must validate that thing.
Now, Democrats are crying foul claiming that Republicans are trying to prevent other Democrats from voting. I disagree. I think that Republicans are doing what anyone in their right mind would do; allow validation of legal requirements. Further, Democrats will argue that fraud simply doesn’t happen; there are few cases of voter fraud.
Some thoughts:
First, the number of dead voters in Minnesota:
A review of Minnesota’s statewide database of registered voters revealed at least 2,812 deceased individuals voted in last November’s general election, according to a new report by the “traditional values” advocacy group Minnesota Majority.
After obtaining the list of voters who participated in November’s election, the group hired an independent firm who specializes in “death suppression” for direct mailing lists to review the data. The process, which involved matching names and addresses to state death records, bore troubling results.
According to Minnesota statute 201.13, the commissioner of health is to report monthly the name, address, date of birth, and county of residence of voting-age deceased residents to the secretary of state.
Presumably the commissioner of health would not issue incomplete reports (read: no motive), the blame then falls elsewhere – namely, at the feet of Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, whose partisan leanings and curious alliance with vote fraud-magnet ACORN are becoming more salient by the day.
For those of you not familiar, this is in relation to the 2008 election where Al Franken defeated Norm Coleman by 312 votes. This was the election where votes were trucked in by the trunk load of boxes.
For even more history, this was the election that allowed the Democrats to push through the Health Care law.
Franken defeated Coleman by 312 votes.
Three Hundred.
Ten.
And two.
Almost 3,000 dead people voted.
Then, consider the testimony of an ACORN whistle blower:
Former ACORN/Project Vote employee Anita MonCrief agreed. “It’s ludicrous to say that fake registrations can’t become fraudulent votes,” she said. “I assure you that if you can get them on the rolls you can get them to vote, especially using absentee ballots.”
There are even reports of blank absentee ballots being distributed on election day in the Scott Brown election.
When Democrat politicians tell you that fraud doesn’t take place, they are lying. It does take place. And the fact that they don’t wanna address it means that the fraud is taking place in their favor.
Posted in Liberty, States Behaving Badly
Tagged ACORN, Al Franken, Minnesota, Voter Fraud, Voter ID Law
I’ve mentioned before that I have some history with the public schools. In addition to attending a small public school in Minnesota, we had one elementary school, one middle school and one high school, my dad taught in that system. I went on to college to become a teacher and then I taught in an even smaller public school system. This district consisted of three small rural towns. One town had the elementary school, another had the middle school and finally, the third town had the high school.
I’m a big proponent of state mandated education for our children. And I’ve been a big proponent of the public schools. However, as my children age into the system, the shine is wearing off and I’ve begun to see massive flaws in the system.
At the end of last year, my wife and I finally decided to pull our kids out of the public schools. Substandard results with substandard management with substandard teachers was going to be the normal fare for the next 13 years; we already had 3 in and the light at the end of the tunnel wasn’t getting any brighter.
When we started shopping for a private school we didn’t really care if the school was religious or not. All we really wanted was stability, a strong emphasis on achievement, a leadership focus and a sense of community. In the end, we choose a school as much for the community as for the achievement of it’s students. Perhaps we’re lucky in that we have a great school so close to our neighborhood. In any event, the school is Christian; non-denominational, but Christian.
As I mentioned, I grew up in rural Minnesota. It may sound strange to say, but while religion is a big part of the culture there in on prairie, it’s a very private kinda thing. It’s not the type of religion people see on TV. There is no gospel choir, there is no fire and brimstone, there’s no speaking in tongues. People don’t go around proselytizing. In fact, churches in Minnesota are able to save money because they don’t have to build the first three rows of pews [the joke is that good Lutherans don’t sit up front].
I’ve been to church all the way from Seattle to Wilmington. I’ve seen a lot of it. And in Minnesota there isn’t the holding of hands during the Lord’s Prayer. We never hugged people while sharing the peace. Like I said, religion is a private kinda thing.
All of which contributed to my surprise when I attended our school’s varsity basketball game last night. It was a blow-out. Our guys beat ’em by 40. The other team was frustrated, tired and beat up. Tempers were beginning to flare. When the buzzer sounded I started to get the kids into their coats and get ready to go. However, after the players shook hands they all made their way to center court where coaches, cheerleaders, officials knelt and bowed their heads in prayer.
It was powerful.
I love our new school.
Last month I made a claim that one of the reasons the GINI coefficient, a measure of the disparity in income, is not telling the whole picture in America is that it doesn’t reflect the true concept of households. I made the case that:
For example, you could take 4 people with incomes described as:
- $24,000
- $30,000
- $50,000
- $75,000
The Gini coefficient for the above data is .24162
Now, marry two of those wage earners:
- $24,000
- $50,000
- $105,000
The Gini coefficient for THAT data is .301676. Without ANY income changing at all, the Gini increases by 25%. In other words, the same number of people are working the same number of jobs and earning the same number of dollars. The only difference is the method by which they calculate the Gini.
Nickgb over at Poison Your Mind called shenanigans.
You are taking a nation-wide economic statistic, applying it to a population of four, then three, and drawing conclusions as to its usefulness?
Certainly my math was simple. It consisted of a population of 4 individuals. Clearly this was just a demonstration of what could or might occur in a larger group.
However, since then, we have learned that a record number of Americans are unmarried:
Barely half of all adults in the United States—a record low—are currently married, and the median age at first marriage has never been higher for brides (26.5 years) and grooms (28.7), according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census data.
In 1960, 72% of all adults ages 18 and older were married; today just 51% are. If current trends continue, the share of adults who are currently married will drop to below half within a few years. Other adult living arrangements—including cohabitation, single-person households and single parenthood—have all grown more prevalent in recent decades.
Certainly there is nothing wrong with people deciding that they would rather enjoy life’s treasures as a single person rather than a married person, but it is also true that when measuring household income using the GINI coefficient, a drop in marriage rate of 33% will impact the results.
The last few days have been interesting ones here in Raleigh. The state House has been called for a special session in order to determine if they could override a governor’s veto of the Racial Justice Act.
They could not.
However, in a very unconventional move last night, house republicans called an extra special session in order to consider overriding the governor’s veto of Senate Bill 727. This bill was designed to prevent the NCAE from collecting teacher’s dues automatically from teacher’s paychecks. In this case, the House did override the veto and the bill became law:
In an unprecedented move early Thursday, the North Carolina General Assembly voted to hold a special legislative session after midnight for veto overrides, prompting a sharp rebuke from Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue.
Perdue said the Republican-controlled legislature’s actions were unconstitutional.
The House voted 69-45 to override the governor’s veto of Senate Bill 727, which stops the North Carolina Association of Educators from collecting dues from teachers’ paychecks via payroll deduction.
I certainly agree with the legislation though I have a certain distaste for the methods involved. There is nothing stopping a teacher from going down the bank and authorizing a payday deduction for the dues to the NCAE. Nothing at all. Further, it is not incumbency upon a school district to handle the administration of the collection of dues to an outside body; that is admin overhead that should be absorber by that organization.
However, there are certainly valid calls of shenanigans concerning the method of the vote. If a body has the votes to override the veto, by all means, call the issue to the floor and vote for it. On the other hand, calling a special session at 11:15 at night in order to get that override passed in the dead of night is disingenuous.
Is this where we are with our political posturing? Is it really the case that this type of maneuvering is how business will get done? I hope not.