Science, Statistics, Politics, Current Events, Photos and Life.

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Change we can depend on and other phrases

Change we can depend on.
  • Why grocery stores have change machines at the end of the checkout stand.
The ticket for America
  • Because we're speeding too fast into the twentieth century.
A leader you can believe in
  • Unlike God or the tooth fairy.
Life happens
  • At least on Earth
  • At the moment
I may update as I think of some more. Updated 10-01-08

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Red Meat and How Obama Needs to Run Against McCain

I've been feeling that Obama's campaign has been missing the red meat of attacks at Bush. Tonight Tuesday at the Democratic convention, we've been getting some well placed licks in, but there needs to be more.

When people complain that they don't know what Obama stands for, I think they really mean, lay out what Bush stands for and why you are different. Not just who you are for, but what you are for, what you will do and most importantly how that is different from who Bush is for, what Bush has done and what Bush wants for the country.

TalkingPointsMemo has an excellent further discussion that they need to really explain that McCain is worse than Bush. Not the same as, but much much worse. As a marketing gimmick, 'the same as' is bland and boring. The Democrats need to explain what Bush is for, what McCain is for and why that will be even worse for the country than Bush. Not just as bad as, but much much worse.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Who Won the Olympics?

I'd like to congratulate the Netherlands Antilles, population 192,000, for the best Olympic medal points per million capita in the 2008 Olympics, followed by Jamaica, Bahamas and Iceland. Netherlands Antilles had a total medal points per capita score of over 10, and is the only country in the world with a score over 1o.

As in my earlier posts, a country's medal score is 3 for each gold medal, 2 for each silver and 1 for each bronze. Divide by the population size (nearest million, or, if under 11 million, then to rounded 2 digits accuracy) as given by Wikipedia's list of countries by population size (dated Aug 24 2008). Rather than saying "medal points per capita" over and over, lets abbreviate that MPC.

Interestingly, three Caribbean island nations top our list followed by Iceland. Perhaps not so surprising, Netherlands Antilles, Iceland and Bahamas are the three smallest countries on our population list.

In total, 88 countries won a total of 302 gold medals, 304 silver medals and a whopping 353 bronze medals for a total of 959 medals and 1867 possible points in a set of countries with 5.4 billion population, which represents about 81% of the world's population. The average result was .343 medal points per million people. If your favorite country is above .343, they are above average.

Australia (pop 89 mill) was the best scoring 'large' country, defined as a country with close to 100 million or more people, ranked 7th with a score of 4.24 MCP. Britain (pop 98 mill) at 1.61 MPC is ranked 23. The US (pop 305 mill), the overall medal count leader (110 medals) comes in above average at .72 MPC and ranked 45th. China, the overall medal points leader (223 medal points, 100 medals) and the overall gold medal leader with a whopping 51 gold medals ranks only 66th with a below average .17 MPC. Last place falls to India with .004 MPC, 3 medals, 1 gold and 2 bronze, but over a billion people.

In a ranking like this, there is something for nearly everyone. One can rank highly on medals, medal counts, population, wealth, as well as lack of wealth and lack of population. Getting any medals is quite an accomplishment for a small country.

Here with is the full table of all 88 countries with medals. Hope it's readable. Tried saving it as jpeg from pdf. Sigh. At the very bottom is a paste directly from excel which is more readable. Apologies all around.



Notes: Medal counts come from Yahoo, after the closing ceremonies. If gymnastics medals are redistributed following the investigation of various underage gymnasts, or any drug investigations, those medal changes are not included here.

Sorry for the small font. Directly pasting from Excel wasn't wonderful, but I'll do it below, it may be easier to read. And I have no idea what "Click Here" is doing in this table. I deleted it 4 or 5 times, but it insists on reappearing.








points per

Gold Silver Bronze Total Points Pop capita
1 Netherlands_Antilles 0 1 0 1 2 0.19 10.53
2 Jamaica 6 3 2 11 26 2.7 9.63
3 Bahamas 0 1 1 2 3 0.33 9.09
4 Iceland 0 1 0 1 2 0.32 6.25
5 Slovenia 1 2 2 5 9 2 4.50
6 Norway 3 5 2 10 21 4.8 4.38
7 Australia 14 15 17 46 89 21 4.24
8 Bahrain 1 0 0 1 3 0.76 3.95
9 Estonia 1 1 0 2 5 1.3 3.85
10 Mongolia 2 2 0 4 10 2.6 3.85
11 New_Zealand 3 1 5 9 16 4.3 3.72
12 Cuba 2 11 11 24 39 11 3.55
13 Belarus 4 5 10 19 32 9.7 3.30
14 Trinidad_&_Tobago 0 2 0 2 4 1.3 3.08
15 Georgia 3 0 3 6 12 4.4 2.73
16 Latvia 1 1 1 3 6 2.3 2.61
17 Slovakia 3 2 1 6 14 5.4 2.59
18 Denmark 2 2 3 7 13 5.5 2.36
19 Netherlands 7 5 4 16 35 16 2.19
20 Hungary 3 5 2 10 21 10 2.10
21 Lithuania 0 2 3 5 7 3.4 2.06
22 Armenia 0 0 6 6 6 3 2.00
23 Britain 19 13 15 47 98 61 1.61
24 Croatia 0 2 3 5 7 4.6 1.52
25 Czech_Republic 3 3 0 6 15 10 1.50
26 Kazakhstan 2 4 7 13 21 15 1.40
27 South_Korea 13 10 8 31 67 48 1.40
28 Finland 1 1 2 4 7 5.3 1.32
29 Switzerland 2 0 4 6 10 7.6 1.32
30 Azerbaijan 1 2 4 7 11 8.5 1.29
31 France 7 16 17 40 70 64 1.09
32 Bulgaria 1 1 3 5 8 7.6 1.05
33 Germany 16 10 15 41 83 82 1.01
34 Canada 3 9 6 18 33 33 1.00
35 Ukraine 7 5 15 27 46 46 1.00
36 Russia 23 21 28 72 139 142 .98
37 Sweden 0 4 1 5 9 9.2 .98
38 Panama 1 0 0 1 3 3.3 .91
39 Ireland 0 1 2 3 4 4.4 .91
40 Italy 8 10 10 28 54 60 .90
41 Spain 5 10 3 18 38 46 .83
42 Romania 4 1 3 8 17 21 .81
43 Mauritius 0 0 1 1 1 1.3 .77
44 Kenya 5 5 4 14 29 38 .76
45 United_States 36 38 36 110 220 305 .72
46 Zimbabwe 1 3 0 4 9 13 .69
47 Poland 3 6 1 10 22 38 .58
48 Kyrgyzstan 0 1 1 2 3 5.3 .57
49 Greece 0 2 2 4 6 11 .55
50 Dominican_Republic 1 1 0 2 5 9.8 .51
51 Austria 0 1 2 3 4 8.3 .48
52 Belgium 1 1 0 2 5 10.6 .47
53 Portugal 1 1 0 2 5 10.6 .47
54 North_Korea 2 1 3 6 11 24 .46
55 Tajikistan 0 1 1 2 3 6.7 .45
56 Singapore 0 1 0 1 2 4.6 .43
57 Serbia 0 1 2 3 4 9.9 .40
58 Japan 9 6 10 25 49 128 .38
59 Uzbekistan 1 2 3 6 10 27 .37
60 Tunisia 1 0 0 1 3 10.3 .29
61 Moldova 0 0 1 1 1 3.8 .26
62 Argentina 2 0 4 6 10 40 .25
63 Ethiopia 4 1 2 7 16 79 .20
64 Turkey 1 4 3 8 14 71 .20
65 Taiwan 0 0 4 4 4 23 .17
66 China 51 21 28 100 223 1320 .17
67 Thailand 2 2 0 4 10 63 .16
68 Cameroon 1 0 0 1 3 19 .16
69 Ecuador 0 1 0 1 2 13 .15
70 Togo 0 0 1 1 1 6.6 .15
71 Israel 0 0 1 1 1 7.3 .14
72 Brazil 3 4 8 15 25 188 .13
73 Chile 0 1 0 1 2 17 .12
74 Morocco 0 1 1 2 3 31 .097
75 Algeria 0 1 1 2 3 34 .088
76 Malaysia 0 1 0 1 2 27 .074
77 Colombia 0 1 1 2 3 45 .067
78 Mexico 2 0 1 3 7 107 .065
79 I.R.Iran 1 0 1 2 4 70 .057
80 Sudan 0 1 0 1 2 39 .051
81 South_Africa 0 1 0 1 2 48 .042
82 Afghanistan 0 0 1 1 1 27 .037
83 Venezuela 0 0 1 1 1 28 .036
84 Indonesia 1 1 3 5 8 232 .034
85 Nigeria 0 1 3 4 5 148 .034
86 Vietnam 0 1 0 1 2 87 .023
87 Egypt 0 0 1 1 1 75 .013
88 India 1 0 2 3 5 1137 .004

Click Here
Total
302 304 353 959 1867 5438 .343

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Why McCain is dangling Pro-Choice Ridge & Lieberman

Why is McCain dangling pro-choice veep prospects Ridge and Lieberman in front of the hard right anti-choice crowd? Mark Halperin on CNN was saying that he thought McCain was softening up the wing-nuts to more easily accept Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty or former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Romney was pro-choice until he switched to run for president as a Republican.

Whether this is true or not, I propose a second benefit from this major dangle: it speaks to the uncommitted electorate McCain is a `maverick' and `independent' in that he could support a pro-choice running mate. It makes a play for voters for whom being anti-choice is a deal breaker. I believe that McCain's anti-choice position is not widely known. Even during his interview with Warren at the Saddleback church, people could overlook what his beliefs on choice will do to abortion availability in this country.

This is all about politics. It is a play for voters, and not a true tell on his feelings about abortion.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Olympic Update

An update on Olympic medal country rankings by points, with medals ranked as gold=3points, silver=2points, and bronze=1point. This is a list of all countries with at least 10 points. I've also included population rounded to the nearest million, and points per capita (points divided by population). Population was taken from wikipedia's list of countries by population. I rounded population to the nearest million, which, for small countries can introduce a large relative error.

Conspicuous by its absence, India has exactly 3 points, with 1 gold medal.

Winner of the gold in the points per capita category is Jamaica, with Australia and New Zealand as silver and bronze runners up. All three countries are 3.0 or higher. Above 2.0 but below 3.0 we have Denmark and Slovakia. Remember that this is only countries with at least 10 points, which happens to be the top 30 countries at the moment.

Country Gold Silver Bronze Total Points Pop pts per capita
China 43 14 19 76 176 1320 .13
United_States 25 26 26 77 153 305 .50
Russia 10 14 18 42 76 142 .54
Great_Britain 15 9 8 32 71 61 1.16
Australia 11 11 12 34 67 21 3.19
Germany 11 7 8 26 55 82 .67
South_Korea 8 10 6 24 50 48 1.04
France 4 11 14 29 48 64 .75
Japan 8 6 8 22 44 128 .34
Italy 6 6 7 19 37 60 .62
Ukraine 5 4 8 17 31 46 .67
Netherlands 3 5 4 12 23 16 1.44
Canada 2 6 4 12 22 33 .67
Spain 3 4 2 9 19 46 .41
Cuba 1 5 5 11 18 11 1.64
Romania 4 1 3 8 17 21 .81
Belarus 1 3 7 11 16 10 1.60
Poland 3 3 1 7 16 38 .42
Kenya 2 3 2 7 14 37 .38
Kazakhstan 1 3 4 8 13 15 .87
New_Zealand 2 1 4 7 12 4 3.00
Czech_Republic 2 3 0 5 12 10 1.20
Denmark 2 1 3 6 11 5 2.20
North_Korea 2 1 3 6 11 24 .46
Slovakia 3 1 0 4 11 5 2.20
Jamaica 2 2 0 4 10 3 3.33

Note: The table didn't show completely, so I have had to re-edit and repost this.