Tangential Ramblings

Department of ______________________________

dan — 11:00pm, Monday 6 October 2008

To save cost and effort whenever the Prime Minister does a re-shuffle, how about the signage for all government buildings is from hereon in made from a white, A2, printed laminated piece of paper supporting the organisation's name?

Or better still, why not put a fridge outside the front of each government building, complete with magnetic letters with which could be written the department's name? Saves dumping them in landfill.

Just a thought.

S. Palin mistake

dan — 9:47pm, Monday 29 September 2008

I bring you potential future US Vice President Sarah Palin.

Oh my days.

Thanks to Francis for pointing this one out, Katie Couric's CBS interview.

Quote of the day: Robert Mugabe

dan — 8:41am, Monday 23 June 2008

"We're not going to give up our country for a mere X on a ballot. How can a ballpoint pen fight with a gun?"
Robert Mugabe, 16 June 2008

Immigration: in is bad; out is fine

dan — 8:03am, Wednesday 21 May 2008

The headline on the front of today's Daily Express reads:

Immigration soars to record levels.

�with a sub-heading of:

It's no wonder so many Britons have moved abroad.

It's interesting to note their stance that inbound immigration is unacceptable, while outbound immigration is understandable.

Who wins the intelligent vote: Obama or Clinton?

dan — 5:43pm, Saturday 8 March 2008

Four years ago, I did some analysis of the voting of US states by their average IQ. It found that John Kerry won the 16 most "intelligent" US states, while George W. won the 26 least intelligent.

A similar analysis of the Democratic voting this time around is less conclusive. Of the 25 states that Barack Obama has won to date, the average IQ ranking is 24.6, compared to 21.7 for the 16 that Hillary Clinton has won. (The averages for Bush and Kerry were 34.7 and 10.5 respectively in 2004.)

Obama won Connecticut, the "most intelligent" state, the next four intelligent states being taken by Clinton (Massachusetts, Jersey, New York and Rhode Island). The top ten for which elections have taken place have been evenly divided between the two candidates.

At the bottom end, of the states whose elections have taken place, Obama has won the four least intelligent states (Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, South Carolina) and seven of the bottom ten.

Obama now needs to walk away with at least 44.5% of the remaining delegates to reach the 2,025 winning post, this being the lowest this figure has been in the entire election. Should be an exciting run home.

Lies, damned lies etc.

dan — 6:54am, Sunday 6 January 2008

The BBC yesterday reported the Tories' claim that the number of children in schools of more than 2,000 pupils has trebled in the last ten years, the Tories linking such schools to discipline problems.

It's certainly a headline grabber, but the truth behind it is unlikely to be as significant as the headline suggests.

Having an arbitrary cut-off of 2,000 pupils defining a large school is dangerously powerful. There were 12,650 such pupils in 1997, rising to 47,540 in 2007. Such an increase could be explained by 18 schools each increasing their register by two pupils, from 1,999 to 2,001 pupils. It's doubtful that this extreme scenario is indeed what has happened, but the reality is also unlikely to be as momentous as the highlighted statistics suggest.

Heads of State: let's quit with the formalities

dan — 7:35am, Tuesday 28 August 2007

This evening, the BBC's ticker informed its readers that President George was giving a warning to Iran.

I think it's quite nice that we're done with the formalities of politics. He almost sounds like a hurricane, which some would argue is accurate: unfathomable power leaving nothing but destruction in its wake.

From now on, we should refer to all our leaders in this way: President George, Prime Minister Gordon, France's duo of President Nicolas and Prime Minister Fran�ois), Germany's Chancellor Angela, Prime Minister Stephen of Canada and China's General Tso. (This last one was a red herring: China's leader is actually President Hu.)