The election results II

Bill Baka wrote:

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 12:05:03 -0600, Preston Crawford
wrote:

polls don't lie. A majority of Americans think he was a major
facilitator if not one of the chief backers of the attack.

That is because Herr Bush told them what to believe.

Wrong. Or, you could be the one who actually comes up with a quote to
back up your claim (no one else has been able to do so, of course).

Mark "haven't we put THIS one to bed yet?" Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $695 ti frame

Bill Baka wrote:
As much as we all want to hate Sadman Hussein, it should be obvious
that if nothing else he is not that STUPID. What would he be
thinking..."Let's see now, ten years ago they blew the **** out
of my Republican guard, over Kuwait, so I think it's safe to
attack them directly." Just how stupid do people think he is.

Not nearly as stupid as you just demonstrated YOU are, Bill. (Hint:
terrorism was MADE for people too chicken-**** to "attack them directly".)

You really should get checked out.

--
BS (no, really)

Stephen Harding wrote:

The annual report on charitable giving just came out, and
once again, the richest states (CT, MA and New England)
scored
at the bottom, while poorest states (MS, AL) where at the
top.

The overall data is generously provided at
http://www.catalogueforphilanthropy....by=giving_rank

Being a statistician means I have a strange idea of fun, so
I took a look at the data.
The way they analyzed it isn't wrong, but it's also possible
to reach an entirely different conclusion.

I looked at the average charitable deduction per return,
which is NOT what the catalogue for philanthropy report.

Poor states like Mississippi did NOT come out on top in
their ranking because they gave a lot. They don't; they rank
29th among all states in charitable deductions per return at
$929, versus a US average of $1072.

They come out on top mainly because relatively few people in
Mississippi itemize deductions (21% versus a US average of
31%) and the catalogue divided by the number of returns that
itemized, not all returns.

The average return in Connecticut had almost $400 MORE
charitable deductions than the average return in Mississippi
($1309 versus $929, ranking 5th). But more people in CT
itemize (40% versus 21%).

So, why do the people in CT itemize more than the people in
MS? The answer is simple. You itemize when you have enough
deductions to itemize. MS has lower taxes to deduct, so
fewer people will itemize. If few people itemize, those that
do itemize will tend to be the biggest givers. CT has highr
taxes to deduct, so more people will itemize rather than
take the standard deduction. If many people itemize, then
the donation average per return will be skewed by the fact
that those itemize will not just be big givers, but medium
givers as well.

I would contend that either way of analyzing the data is
useful, but the picture is much different. Overall, states
that look good their way look bad my way, producing a small
negative correlation.

The notable exceptions where the ratings agree are Utah,
which looks generous either way (#8 on theirs, #1 on mine)
and New Hampshire (#50 on theirs, #43 on mine). I would
suspect Mormon encouragement of tithing has something to do
with the Utah results.

More typical are states like Louisiana (#4 for them, #42 for
me) and New Jersey (#47 for them, #6 for me).

If you e-mail me at MikeKr at aolDOTcom I can provide the
spreadsheet with my added columns of calculations; you won't
find the numbers above directly on the spreadsheet the web
link provides.

dgk wrote:
On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 07:18:34 -0500, Stephen Harding
wrote:

The annual report on charitable giving just came out, and
once again, the richest states (CT, MA and New England) scored
at the bottom, while poorest states (MS, AL) where at the top.

That's cause all of our money is transferred through taxes from the
blue states to the red states.

Huh??

This was a measure of *personal* charitable giving. Where government
taxes go is irrelevant to this measure (although it seems a lot of
federal money went to the "Big Dig" in Boston, MA; MA is one of the
more prosperous states of the Union).

The measure was based on average personal charitable giving versus
average per capita income, and the result of poor states like AL or
MS at the top with wealthy states like CT and MA at the bottom, has
been the same for at least the past 8 years.


SMH

Claire Petersky wrote:

"Stephen Harding" wrote in message

The annual report on charitable giving just came out, and
once again, the richest states (CT, MA and New England) scored
at the bottom, while poorest states (MS, AL) where at the top.

Since the vast majority of giving to 501(c)(3) organizations is to religious
organizations (~75%), all that probably tells us is that people in
Mississippi and Alabama are more likely to belong to churches and give to
them, than people in New England. Further, according to the Chronicle of
Philanthropy, people in the South have the highest proportions of their
charitable giving to religious organizations of all the regions of the US.
So, even if those people are giving a lot to their churches, they are not
necessarily giving to the local United Way. The west is where people give

Your post contains some interesting further angles for looking
at the rather shameful statistic of people with less tending to
be most generous in charitable donations.

However I will dispute your apparent contention that donations
to support of one's local church is not the same as true "charitable"
giving.

In the South in particular, but even here in New England, the local
church is the vehicle for much charity, such as clothing drives,
soup kitchens, food banks, car pools, day car, and lots more directed
toward the less fortunate in the local area. Giving to your church
is NOT exclusive of giving to charity.

I refuse to give to the United Way any longer due to some issues
of high director salaries and expenses that came to light several
years back; their politicization pf certain groups (like the Boy
Scouts for not being "PC"); and their method of subtly sending
even donor specified moneys for other groups, to certain favorites.

Perhaps they've cleaned up their act now, but I regard the United
Way as corrupt and now somewhat politically driven. I'll give
my money directly to my favorite charitable groups.


SMH

"Bill Baka" wrote

That does not compute! All the attacks just got him re-elected.
Saddam had to know that much about our country.

So you're linking Saddam and 9/11?...

If 9/11 had
never happened we would not have Bush in for a second term.

Far too many variables to say that.

Pete

On 15 Nov 2004 00:39:58 GMT, Hunrobe wrote:
big snip
Others are free to draw their own inferences but all the above figures
seem to
indicate to me is that approximately 1/3 of those polled weren't paying
attention. What I think is clear though is none of the polls you cite
indicate
that a majority of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was directly
responsible for the 9/11 attacks.

Regards,
Bob Hunt

Just like the theory that Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor
but had to let it happen to get Americans ****ed off enough
to get into the war.
Bush could have, repeat 'could have' known something
was going down before 9/11 but never would have allowed
the towers to be taken down. A single plane into the
Pentagon would have done it, but killing all those people
in the towers was just too much. Government works in
strange ways. Here it is 3 years later and all we know
is that muslims hate us, islamics really hate us, well
maybe they hate everybody, but somehow we stepped into
a big pile of crap. We may never know who really did it
but I heard that most of the hijackers were from
Saudi Arabia, our buddies. I also would not rule
out Jordan or Libya where we are not popular.
It is a mess, and we could just bankrupt the USA fighting
terrorism, like we bankrupted the USSR.
Maybe that was the terrorist goal, to put us into a panic
mode and jump at every little thing.
3,000 people dead from the terrorist attacks.
1,000+ soldiers killed.
5,000(?) people die every day from whatever causes, old age, etc.
We can't just keep running in circles, but we don't have
a real war with a real country. Kind of makes me miss the
good old days when it was just the USSR and Cuba.
Bill Baka


--
Just Bill again