Bad Math Strikes Again- Part 2- Vicious Vaccines

A friend of a friend who has since friended me on Facebook shared one of their friend's posts today about autism's rising rates in children in recent years. The friend of a friend of a friend (have I lost you yet?) made the bold statement that by 2022, 1 in 9 eight-year-olds will be diagnosed as autistic! This person, hereafter referred to as RD for Random Dudette, photographed and uploaded images of their math to prove this number was correct. The data they used came from the CDC website and showed the prevalence of autism in 8-year-olds for the years 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008. Here is that data for easy reference:

In 2000- they found 6.7 out of every 1000 eight-year-olds had autism- this is about 1 in 150

In 2002- they found 6.6 out of every 1000 eight-year-olds had autism- this is about 1 in 150

In 2004- they found 8.0 out of every 1000 eight-year-olds had autism- this is about 1 in 125

In 2006- they found 9.0 out of every 1000 eight-year-olds had autism- this is about 1 in 110

In 2008- they found 11.3 out of every 1000 eight-year-olds had autism- this is about 1 in 88

Unfortunately, RD removed the post after I pointed out what the correct figure was but before I could fully document why her number was wrong, but the main issues, so that others may not make similar errors, were the following:

- She only observed 2 data points out of the 5 given. Her start point was 2002 and her end point was 2008. I never got a straight answer as to why she did not start with 2000 and use the full range of the data (I assume it was because a decrease in the autism rate between 2000 and 2002 went against the point she was trying to make)

- She extrapolated that there was a 72% increase in the autism rate between 2002 and 2008, a fact that is actually true but misleading, and used that to determine that autism rates were increasing by 13% each year. The calculated a projected 2022 rate based on a 13% yearly increase.

Here is the truth: This data says little to nothing about the future of autism rates!

The sampling is relatively small, doesn't take into account the changing definition of autism or new diagnosing techniques, and has no apparent trend. To give you a better idea, here is another way to look at the data:

2000—0.67%

2002—0.66% down .01% from 2000

2004—0.80% up .14% from 2002

2006—0.90% up .10% from 2004

2008—1.13% up .23% from 2006

This shows the percentage of eight-year-olds with diagnosed autism in each surveillance year (these numbers are each found by dividing the number of children per thousand by 1000[i.e. 6.7/1000=0.0067] and then multiplying that number by 100 to get the percent [i.e. 0.0067x100=0.67%])

We see two things from this new way of looking at things. First of all, the total percent of change from 2000 to 2008 is .46%. When divided by 8 this number becomes 0.0575% per year in increase on average. But looking at the data we see only that the rate appears to be increasing at a rate of less than .25% but more than -.01% every two years. The range appears rather large considering how small the autism rate currently is, but we would need much more data to determine if that were the case.

The problem with RD (and I will use her numbers here, not mine) is that she lays one statistic on top of another which very easily confuses people. The statistic 1.13 is, in fact, a 72% increase over .66 (1-1.13/.66) but this is a percent of change, not the actual change that occurred over the 6 years. The actual change is .47% (1.13-.66). This means the yearly average percent of change was about 12% but yearly average rate of change is just .0783% using RD's own numbers.

Now to throw out some bullshit statistics of my own. If I were to assume that the average yearly rate of change I calculated earlier (with my own numbers, not RD's) would hold true for the next 14 year, which they won't for so many reasons I won't bother mentioning, here is what 8-year-old autism rates would look like over the next 14 years:

2009—1.1875% which is 11.9 out of 1000 and equates out to 1 in 84.0336

2010—1.245% which is 12.5 out of 1000 and equates out to 1 in 80

2011—1.3025% which is 13.0 out of 1000 and equates out to 1 in 76.9231

2012—1.36% which is 13.6 out of 1000 and equates out to 1 in 73.5294

2013—1.4175% which is 14.2 out of 1000 and equates out to 1 in 70.4225

2014—1.475% which is 14.8 out of 1000 and equates out to 1 in 67.5676

2015—1.5325% which is 15.3 out of 1000 and equates out to 1 in 65.3595

2015—1.5895% which is 15.9 out of 1000 and equates out to 1 in 62.8931

2017—1.647% which is 16.5 out of 1000 and equates out to 1 in 60.6061

2018—1.7045% which is 17.0 out of 1000 and equates out to 1 in 58.8236

2019—1.762% which is 17.6 out of 1000 and equates out to 1 in 56.8182

2020—1.8195% which is 18.2 out of 1000 and equates out to 1 in 54.9451

2021—1.877% which is 18.8 out of 1000 and equates out to 1 in 53.1915

2022—1.9345% which is 19.3 out of 1000 and equates out to 1 in 51.6929

This means, to contrast RD's 1 in 9 figure, that my doomsday prediction is that in 2022 one out of every fifty-two 8-year-olds will be diagnosed as autistic. That is still less than 2% of the 8-year-old population, but it is not a number that I would ever want to see a reality. When I gave RD my figures earlier today she said "What does it matter if the number is 1 in 9 or 1 in 51?" 

The truth is that there is a huge difference between a 10% chance and 2% chance, even in a mock situation 10 years in the future. RD's outrageous numbers do nothing more than stir up panic and anger in a crowd that is already on edge from dealing with a child with autism. If my numbers are bullshit then her numbers are elephant shit and, when dealing with a lazy and/or uneducated audience, these numbers are nothing but inflammatory propaganda to support the cause against vaccines.

The cool reality, in my eyes, is that autism is on the rise. Better reporting/diagnosis and the expansion of the definition of Autism (creation of the term ASD- Autism Spectrum Disorder) can account for a large amount of the increase from the first reporting date in 1980 where it was said 1 in 10,000 people were autistic. But now, with these conditions in place for over a decade, we should be seeing a leveling out of the number of cases. Instead the numbers appear to be continuing to rise and this suggests that there is something else causing it. 

The reason why is still unknown. It could be environmental, dietary, evolutionary, or there is a chance it could be related to a vaccine as many people think. The truth is we don't know, but when it comes to vaccines we must weigh our odds and determine the best choice for ourselves and our children. The reality is this, before the MMR vaccine 2.6 million people died each year as a result of measles, in 2008 only 164,000 people died and most of those were children in developing countries where the vaccine is not yet available or widespread. Mumps can cause deafness or meningitis (a swelling/infection of the brain or spinal column) but is not typically fatal, nor is the rubella virus unless it is contracted congenitally while in utero in which case the prognosis is bad. Rubella used to have wide spread outbreaks on a regular basis until the vaccine was introduced and now cases are nearly non-existent in developed countries where the vaccine is wide spread. Compare all those odds to the less than 1% chance, if that since no link has ever been proven, of your child getting autism. Also, consider small pox, which now exists only in a frozen lab somewhere because of widespread vaccination, and the millions of people who are alive because of it.

I would not wish autism on any parent, but it is irresponsible to not vaccinate your child for fear of one disease when the disease you leave your child exposed to could be so much worse, especially when your fear is not grounded on any solid facts. Anyone who believed, or still believes, RD's inflated numbers gets a whopping 8 on the FT scale in my book. Anti-vaccine nut jobs in general get a 6 because anyone who will criticize the medical community's use of vaccines without obtaining any solid evidence, and no your gut feeling doesn't count as evidence, to contradict them needs to pull their head out of their ass and stop blaming everyone else for their problems.

Bad Math Strikes Again- Part 1- Fat, Lazy Americans

Today has been wrought with bad math in important subjects where people should not be misled so I'm going to do another double down day and post on both, starting with the one that's made me less angry. This less aggravating topic comes from an article on msn.com found here.

The article is discussing the obesity problem in America and breaks down what are considered the 10 most obese cities/metro areas in the nation. Their goal is apparently to create a hall-of-shame for these struggling metro areas. It also flaunts the government's lofty goal, set in 2010, to reduce the national obesity rate from 1/3 of all Americans down to just 15%. How does the government plan to accomplish this goal? The only effort listed in the article is a list of 70 ways to prevent and control childhood obesity published in 2010. More importantly, since when is it the government's job to control the weight of its citizens? And by extension what we eat, how much, and when we eat it?

Here are some numbers for you to chew on:

City	Obesity rate	Health care costs	Resident population	Diabetes rate	Poverty rate
Reading, PA	32.7%	$190.2	88,000	10%	35%
Kennewick-Pasco-Richland, WA	33.2%	$116.5	No data	No data	No data
Topeka, KS	33.3%	$109.8	127,473	No data	No data
Lakeland-Winter Haven, Florida	33.5%	$279.3	No data	No data	No data
Charleston, West Virginia	33.8%	$146.9	51,000	17%	No data
Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas	33.8%	$182.8	No data	No data	No data
Rockford, Illinois	35.5%	$179.4	152,000	10%	23%
Huntington-Ashland, West Virginia-Kentucky-Ohio	36%	$146.9	No data	20%	No data
Binghamton, New York	37.6%	$131.5	45,000	No data	27.8%
McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas	38.8%	$410.9	No data	No data	No data
National Rates (gathered independently from the article)	35.7%	?	311 million	8.5%	15.1%

Health care costs are all represented in millions of dollars. This data, except the final row, comes directly from the article.

There are a few important things to note in this table:
1) all but three of the obesity rates are actually under the national figure (which I obtained from the CDC website)
2) all of the cities with data on the resident population are relatively small populations which makes this number more easily skewed in one direction or the other
3) only Lakeland-Winter Haven and McAllen-Eidenburg-Mission have health care costs above $200 million and, in the case of Lakeland-Winter Haven, this may be attributed to other circumstances such as a much larger elderly population. McAllen-Edinburg-Mission's health care costs are so much higher than any of the other cities with similar obesity rates that it is likely that this city also has some other condition that is effecting the health of its people.
4) the metro area with the second highest obesity rate has the third lowest of the 10 areas as far as health care costs, probably due to the extremely small population

Other than the numbers being rather inconclusive, I have several other issues with this article, and the panic over the "epidemic" of obesity in general.

My first issue is the most generalized and concerns how we judge one person to be obese and another person not. I'm talking about the BMI scale. Now, there are actually many different BMI graphs and calculators circulating out there but the concept is that you calculate between your weight, height, and in some cases gender and age, and are given a label such as under-weight, normal, over-weight, and obese. The scale does not take into account any other important factors that can affect weight such as ethnicity, and muscle tone/mass, it just assigns you a label and you become another statistic.

It would be one thing if the BMI labels were fairly liberal to account for the inaccuracy of the scale. The problem with the BMI is that, looking at the various graphs, there seem to be some rather radical determinations. In one graph I found, if you are 6' tall and weigh 135 lbs you are considered normal but if you are 5' tall and 130 lbs you are considered over-weight. In another graph, if you're 6'3" and 200 lbs you're bordering on obese and if you're 4'11" and over 120lbs you are over-weight. It's bad enough that the media idolizes women who look as if, and sometimes do, starve themselves in the name of beauty. Now the medical professions is labeling people as "over-weight" when they are otherwise healthy, active individuals.

The next issue I have with the article regards the health care costs, specifically the estimated savings for each metro area if they drop down to just a 15% obesity rate. Notes 3 and 4 on my table begin to touch on this but I would like to expound on it further by saying that there is no way to accurately predict the amount of health care costs that go specifically to treating complications from obesity. Doctor's don't bill an illness as "obesity" (except maybe in the case of stomach staples). The human body is a complex organism and a myriad of factors contribute to health conditions including genetics, environment, age, gender, ethnicity, and yes, weight. But the article's continued use of diabetes as a "chronic disease associated with obesity" obscures the fact that there are two different types of diabetes and they can affect thin and average people as well. The same goes for heart disease and high cholesterol. True, these illness are seen in greater prevalence among those who are on the heavier side, but they are not exclusive to those who are over-weight and their health care costs should not be treated as such. Would reducing the obesity rate result in a decrease of health care expenses? Highly likely. But the numbers are way too far into conjecture to be reported in a news article with any accuracy.

Finally, as you will note, there are many fields in the table with missing data. I understand that news writers have a limited amount of column space, but the gaps leave many questions unanswered. Were the facts left out to obscure data that contradicts with the overall trend or was it just left out to preserve space? The concluding paragraph of the article makes me concerned:

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index results are based on telephone interviews throughout 2011, with a random sampling of 353,492 adults living in the U.S. Health-care costs were based on the National Institute of Health’s estimate of $1,429 per person, per year, in additional health-care costs for people considered obese, compared to those of non-obese individuals.

The sample size is very telling to me. It is 0.1% of the national population that they are drawing on to make the determination that these ten metro areas are the most obese out of the entire nation. When divided around the country, the number of people polled for these particular locations must have been very small (probably less than 100 in many cases). They list no margin of error in the article or how many people were polled in each metro area so I'm going to have to call bull-shit.

Overall, this article gets a 3 on my FT Scale for both people who read it and take it at face value and the people who conducted the survey if they think there is a strong statistical significance in their data.

When do Children Obtain their Civil Rights?- Day 3

The saga continues today on Children's Rights vs. school authority. Ler's comment to Day 2's discussion is a nice lead in to today's discussion. He said:

"How does this teach values such as freedom of speech?"

And I would say this does the exact reverse. If we allow schools, one of the few forms of authority children see at a young age, to censor students to this extreme we are in essence teaching them that government censorship is okay. What is a school, after all, if not an agent of the government? I give greater leeway to private and parochial schools because they are not an agent of the state and therefore not bound by the tight standards of government agencies, but I would not encourage this trend in any organization.

It is a basic psychological principle we are dealing with called conditioned response. In a nut shell, a conditioned response is a learned trait resulting from a particular set of stimuli. As an example, if every time an infant sees a bunny rabbit someone plays a really loud noise in the baby's ear that baby will flinch, cringe, cry, etc. Conditioned response says that, eventually, if you show that baby a bunny rabbit the baby will have the same reaction, even without the noise. Children are extremely impressionable and in this case a child is being conditioned that, if she speaks her mind, she will get in trouble. Specifically, if she speaks out against authority (her school and it's agents in this case) she will get in trouble. Without any interfering influences, this child would eventually stop speaking out in order to avoid getting in trouble. That is the essence of brainwashing.

The child in the original news story is fortunate to have parents who are willing to stand up for her rights and show her that she should speak her mind, but not all children are so lucky. The ability and courage to speak out against authority is an important check on any powerful figure or organization. Children should learn early to observe and question authority, never bow down to its will or be intimidated into silence. That is the essence of freedom of speech.

When do Children Obtain their Civil Rights?- Day 2

Today I'd like to continue my previous discussion found here about a young girl who was intimidated into giving up her facebook password to school personnel.

Day 2 in my series concerns parenting. Specifically the growing trend of schools usurping the place of parents and parents letting it happen.

In this incident the school has taken it upon themselves to regulate what a child is doing outside of school hours. I can understand that, if the student was truly making sexual comments about another student on a public forum such as facebook, it could cause a disruption in school. But what ever happened to calling the parents and expressing your concern about what is going on outside of school? It is completely within a parent's rights to pry into a minor child's life, including social media, especially when there is suspicion that the child is doing something harmful to them self or others.

Allowing schools to regulate this behavior puts us all in a huge gray area. That is evidenced by the first time this girl got in trouble for posting that she "hated" one of the school monitors. Every child, at some point or another, criticizes a teacher or other school professional. And the truth is sometimes the criticism is justified. To suspend a child for school for saying no more than that they hated someone is a ridiculous level of censorship.

Playing Catch Up

I have been woefully negligent in posting the last week but I do hope to make up for it. I will be taking a slight detour from my series on Children's Rights, but that subject is not to be forgotten.

Today's topic is not the latest breaking news in the country but it does raise an important point. I am talking about the Violence Against Women Act and you can review the general points of the debate here in an article by the Washington Post.

I will start off by saying that I find the Violence Against Women Act an important piece of legislation. Domestic violence is a very real problem and we have come a long way from the days when EMTs would say "she probably deserved it" or "she must have provoked him." To abuse someone you claim to love, even verbally, is a horrible breach of trust.

That said, I have one major issue with this legislation that the government, particularly Republicans, fail to recognize. The fact is domestic violence is not isolated to instances with women being abused by a male partner. Yes, reports of this type are in the majority, but women can be abusive to their male or female partners and a man can abuse his male partner just as easily as a female partner. Unfortunately, due to societal pressure, men vastly under report their own abuse. It isn't "manly" or "macho" to be beaten up by your girlfriend and men may feel ashamed to come forward about the abuse or shrug it off as nothing. I know a man who candidly told me how an old girlfriend smacked him in the head with a frying pan for staying out all night as if this were nothing to be concerned about. Focusing our domestic violence protection funds towards women only reinforces this idea that men are not being abused or that it doesn't matter if they are. To all the men out there, it's not okay, it's not nothing, and you should never tolerate an abusive relationship.

Another concern I have about this legislation is the image of women. I'm not a raging feminist, but even I cringe with the implication that women need a special congressional act protecting them from domestic violence but men don't. Either domestic violence is okay or it's not, we cannot play this game where we actively protect some segments of the population but not others, this is discrimination in action.

A more appropriate name for the act would be the "Domestic Violence Protection Act" with funding allocated to programs for men and same sex couples alongside female heterosexuals. We're all people, and we all have a right to live safe, happy lives without the fear of violence.

When do Children Obtain their Civil Rights?- Day 1

Children are people, are they not? Certainly they are smaller, generally less intelligent, hindered by lack of experience and still developing brain chemistry, but they are members of the Homospien species which makes them human and endowed with the same natural rights as each of us. As a civilized society we have established certain cultural standards that says that children, in general, are dependent (i.e. do not have independence) until they reach the age of 18. Until they reach that age their interests and safety are in the care of their legal guardian who is most commonly a biological parent. This custodian is the holder of all of the minors rights and freedoms, which is why police cannot interrogate a child without the presence of their guardian or if the guardian has waived the right to be present.

With that idea established, I find this article from MSNBC highly disturbing.

The article is loaded enough with issues that I've decided to make it into a brief series treating on the following subjects:

Day 1(today): children's rights
Day 2: parenting
Day 3: brainwashing
Day 4: search and seizure
Day 5: right to privacy
Day 6: freedom of speech

Today's topic I have already about covered but I would like make one additional note:

Now that I have established that the parents/guardians are the holders of a child's rights, I'd like to make a pointed observation about the article. It states "The school district doesn't dispute that it obtained the girl's password, but does say it had parental permission." This raises a very important question of how the lawsuit was brought. Are we really meant to believe that a 12 year old contacted the ACLU and is pressing this lawsuit without the go ahead of her parents? Possible, but highly unlikely. The odds are that, when their daughter came home crying and they figured out what had happened the parent(s) put things into action.

If password prying is a "standard practice" at the school, as the ACLU claims, then odds are that either they have informed parents in the past and obtained permission or, more likely, other students have been too intimidated to tell their parents. After getting in trouble at school, kids are unlikely to come home and tell their parents which could result in even more punishment at home. If the former is the case then I have much fewer issues with the circumstances, but if it is the latter as I suspect this school better be seeing a severe reprimand in the near future.

"You don't need to see his identification" *

The winner today is straight out of Texas, though the article can be found in the LA Times.

The question at hand is: should ID be required to vote.

My short answer, yes!

The article I reference is a fairly unbiased piece and I would like to take a moment to lay out both sides of the argument.

On the Pro (for ID) side, the major case is that requiring ID reduces voter fraud. The minor case includes the more specific point of reducing the ability of illegal aliens to vote, you have to be a US citizen to vote after all. The minor case is not specifically stated in the article, but it can be extrapolated from the circumstances.

On the Con (against ID) side, the major case is that requiring ID is discriminatory. The minor case includes clauses in the Voting Rights Act that has dictated that certain states must get permission from the Justice Department before changing any election procedures. There is obvious historical context here in the great lengths that some southern states went through in order to prevent African Americans from voting before the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965.

The problem with the Con side is that these laws are not singling out any one group or individual. ALL people would be required to show a specific, approved form of ID in order to vote regardless of their race, religion, color, or creed. It's not like the 50s when African Americans were required to guess the number of beans in a jar while Caucasians could vote without this ridiculous hurdle. It is possible for any, and every, legal citizen of the United States to obtain a government issued ID. In fact, as the article points out, ID is already required to open a bank account, board a plane, and many other nearly essential activities. Why should voting be treated as anything less?

It is important to note that the "data" referenced by the assistant attorney general claims 800,000 people, not citizens, are without a government ID and 38% of these are Latino. Yes, 38% is a big percentage, but you must consider it in relation to the overall demographic of the area. The Latino population in Texas is approximately 6.7 million (32%) according to the 2010 census so if about 38% of the 800k figure are Latino, that is roughly representative of the state's demographic.

Data from the Department of Human Services indicates that there are approximately 700,000 illegal residents in the state of Texas, and 54% of those are Hispanic/Latino. This data suggests to me that we do have a problem with voter fraud requiring more stringent registration methods. If all of these numbers are correct (and I'm sure there is a liberal margin of error) there could be more than 75,000 illegal Hispanic/Latino immigrants who are currently exercising a voting privilege that is not theirs. The total number of illegal immigrants in Texas alone who are voting grows to well over 100,000 when all other races/nationalities are taken into account.

The bottom line, cases of voter discrimination should be dealt with harshly, but requiring ID to vote is not discriminatory. This is another case of politicians manipulating numbers they don't understand to make an argument appear valid when it's not.

*So I don't get in trouble with George Lucas, the title quote is from Star Wars Episode IV, A New Hope

Sit Back and Watch the World Burn

I feel the need to write but have nothing of particular importance on my mind this evening. All I have been feeling lately is a general irritation towards the world as we know it. Maybe I've been reading too much post-apocalyptic sci-fi, but I find myself wishing at times that the end of the world would come so we could just be done with it all. If it did I'd either be dead (and whether or not you believe in an afterlife my troubles would be over), or I'd survive and struggle on.

Looking at the world we live in I see more and more of the corruption that has oozed and spread like a plague across the world. Even those who claim to want to save the world only do so by blatantly endorsing the oppression of others. Good, hardworking people can't find a job to support themselves, let alone a family. The government is spending money hand over fist to support industries that are failing and banks that are only in this position from their own stupidity and corruption. We still can't decide if we want rampant spending or higher taxes (you can't have both) so the federal government is going bankrupt. Congress continues to entertain ideas and support laws that violate the constitution (and I'm not just talking the Bill or Rights). Greece has fallen, dictators seem a dime a dozen, China is teetering on the collapse of its housing market.

We built this card house and now a wind has come to knock it down. The cards have already begun to fall and our feeble attempts to hold things together only weaken our foundation more. We've lost site of the important things in life and, at the moment, I don't see how we can repair what we have to stop the inevitable collapse. Sometimes it is better to let the cards fall and start fresh from scratch.

Bring it on Mayans, Nostradamus, or the Second Coming. I'm not afraid of you.

Two for Tuesday

So now that I have gotten my rant against FF out of the way I would like to touch on a socio-religious subject.

This weekend I was talking with a close personal friend and during the conversation we touched on Christian Sunday School topics (don't ask me how we got to that). As we were talking we realized that there is much contained in the Bible that children are kept blissfully ignorant of, intentionally or not, until they are indoctrinated enough to gloss over these shady facts. I believe there are two reasons behind this.

The first reason seems obvious. Any parent who takes their child to Sunday School each week has certain expectations. These expectations include their child knowing all the "classic" Bible stories like Adam and Eve, Noah, Moses, the birth of Jesus, the many miracles of Jesus, the Easter story, you get the picture. In some faiths it is even expected to admonition and to a certain extent frighten children with stories of fire and brimstone like Jonah and Daniel and even parts of Revelations.

Parental expectations do not extend to telling young children about the part in the story of Lot where Lot offers up his virginal daughters to a mob of rapists in order to protect guests in his household.(Genesis Ch. 19) They would also be less likely to take their children to Sunday school if their children learned how, after God led the Israelites out of the desert after 40 years of wandering he commanded them to kill every man, woman, and child among the Canaanites and destroy all of their temples and sacred places. (Dueteronomy Ch. 7 & 12)

The second reason is an attempt to "preserve the faith". I don't know if this is entirely intentional since many of the people perpetuating this system have themselves been brainwashed into blindly believing the doctrine they are taught. The lessons seem to start with the very basics of "God is good" and "God is everywhere" which are not so bad taken by themselves but are very difficult to establish if I child is learning the many atrocities that are outlined in the Bible that God appears to have either overlooked or openly endorsed. Things ramp up into ideas like "God is just" and all that that entails such as a system of reward and punishment based on actions and even thoughts centered around a black and white image of right and wrong. The absolute nature of this statement means that, in order for that to be true, you must make the leap to "God is always right". The problem is not with these statements alone but with their overlay with organized religion.

With time these statements morph as God becomes equivalent to the church thus: "the church is good", "the church is just", and "the church is always right". I'm sure the church would also attempt to be everywhere and see everything if it could, but this is not possible on our dimensional plane. It is this blind following that has resulted in the Crusades and other holy wars over the centuries.

We need more intelligent Christians in the world who can separate the concept of church from the root of their faith which should be God and Jesus Christ.

Wait a Minute...

From FF: "Someone is unrelentingly waving their relationships with First Nations people in the conversation, to distract from the fact that she seems to think that if a handful of First Nations people disagree with a particular First Nations activist (who is of the same ethnicity), she's not going to say it out loud, but that means he's wrong. Which is racist, because it implies that all people of the same ethnicity are expected to adhere to the same set of politics."

I think FF is officially off his rocker. I'm almost ashamed at the fact that this argument needs to be debunked, but as long as FF is spewing these inherent falsehoods I will persevere. Before I argue I need to lay the conditions on which FF's argument is formed:

(a) Person Z believes in some principle/organization/thing/whatever
(b) Persons B, C, & D disagree with person Z on said subject
(c) Persons B, C, D, & Z are of the same race
(d) Person A presumes that person Z is wrong about said subject

Given the above conditions... 1) is person A making the assumption that all people of that particular race should hold the same opinion on the selected subject? and 2) is person A racist because of this presumption?

In both cases the answer is obviously no. The biggest fallacy to FF's argument is that there is no condition stating why person A disagrees with person Z. It could be because person A has heard the arguments from both sides and determined that person Z is on the incorrect side. It could be that person A is friends with person B, C, and/or D and is taking their side because of that relationship. It could be because person A doesn't like person Z and is being intentionally contrary. Or it could be because it's a Tuesday and that is what person A has decided to believe for the moment. Whatever the reasoning, it is illogical to take the above conditions and draw the conclusion that person A is being racist.

My Vote Doesn't Count

In most cases I would say that no matter what, every vote counts, but in the case of US presidential candidate nominations this is not the case. It is barely March, barely a fifth of the states have weighed in and already it is being presumed that Mitt Romney will be the Republican candidate this fall. Super Tuesday is just 5 days away which should more of less decide who the candidate will be but less than half of the states will have cast their votes. This is decidedly unfair to states like Utah, New Mexico, and Oregon who do not have their primaries until late May and the beginning of June.

I understand the theoretical reason why primaries and caucuses are spread out over six months. It gives candidates the chance to focus their funds and attention on individual regions to gain a greater rapport with the local population. This is a great idea, but the implementation is all wrong.

If it was so important to spread things out then why do 33 states hold these nominations between January and March but only 21 from April through June? Granted that 33 includes places like Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and the Virgin Islands that are not included in the November election, but the weighting is still disproportional. To break it up even further, there are 4 in January, 7 in February, 22 in March, 8 in April, 7 in May, and 6 in June. There is no logic to the proportions.

I can suggest 3 better plans:

1) Hold all primaries/caucuses on the same day (like every other election). This should take place approximately 1 month before the general nominating convention and candidates should use the proceeding months to campaign and strengthen their following:
     Pros: Residents of one state will not be influenced by the results of a previous outcome and the race won't be effectively over before all states have had their say.
     Cons: Candidates will not have the chance to focus on smaller chunks of the nation to gain local support. It will also increase marketing costs for candidates as they will have to release more national rather than regional ads.

2) Space state primaries evenly over the course of 6 months. This would mean approximately 26 weeks with 2-3 elections each week or doing monthly votes with 9 states voting on the same day at the end of each month. What state has which slot would be a random draw that could be done the year before so that no state winds up with a historically bad spot at the end of the line like we have now:
     Pros: States will not be stuck with their primary not being effective year after year and candidates can still focus their attention on one segment of the country at a time.
     Cons: Logistical coordination becomes very difficult, especially in states where the primary is tied to other local elections.

3) Determine primary position based on the number of delegates up for grabs moving from least to greatest number. This means the smallest states would go first and be able to set a trend but the larger states that follow would still have enough weight to make a difference in the overall outcome:
     Pros: Determines the delegates in a manner so that smaller states will not be completely overridden by their larger counterparts and delegates can still given attention to local votes.
     Cons: Does not completely remove the possibility of a race being determined before all states can have their say.

Of the three options the third is my personal favorite, followed by number one. Unfortunately I do not have the means or the power to put forth or implement any of these plans so I suppose we will have to live with the FT level 6 system we currently have in place.