HorsesAss.Org

I started blogging in May of 2004, and within my first two weeks I had already been driven near the point of aneurism by our local media’s refusal to do simple math. Far from a recent obsession, my focus on numbers and the failure of the press to consistently present them accurately and in proper context, has actually been a recurring theme here on HA since the early days of the blog.

Yes, it’s true that even accurate numbers can mislead (“lies, damn lies and statistics” and all that), and so it’s not always easy to separate the truth from the facts. But what frustrates me most is when journalists simply regurgitate the numbers fed them, without ever bothering to run the equations for themselves.

That’s what happened with the early reports on R-71 signature verification, creating a false impression that the invalidation rate started off low—well below the maximum error threshold—only to rise steadily as the count continued. As a result there are some R-71 backers who now suspect foul play on the part of the Secretary of State’s office, accusing them of toughening up the standards in an effort to keep the measure off the ballot, when in fact the projected invalidation rate, from the very first batch, has consistently remained in the 14.5 to 15 percent range, well above (statistically speaking) the 12.43 percent maximum.

Yes, I know, it was the SOS who initially reported a “clean” count, and who misleadingly juxtaposed the early raw rate against a supposedly 14 percent cushion. But those numbers simply didn’t add up if you took the time to add, subtract, multiply and divide them, and even when I did the math for them, and showed my work, I was mostly ignored by reporters who obviously assumed the SOS had more credibility on these matters than some partisan blogger.

No, I’m not a statistician, and my formal math education never extended much beyond Algebra II & Trigonometry, but I know how to use a calculator and I have some experience with the process stemming from the drama over Tim Eyman’s I-917, and I knew that duplicate signatures always comprise a significant portion of the total errors, and that the number of duplicates always increase at a predictable rate as the sample size is expanded. I also knew that total invalidation rates never fall outside a certain historical range, and that there was absolutely no reason to expect R-71 to do so. These facts were indisputable.

Darryl could run simulations showing a 92 percent chance of R-71 failing to qualify after the first batch, and a near 100 percent chance of failing thereafter, but I didn’t need a PhD in statistics to know what I knew. R-71’s failure was apparent from the very first batch, even if HA was the only site to report it. Okay, maybe my intuition, my expertise and my math wasn’t enough to convince newspapers to write headlines declaring R-71’s failure, but it should have been enough discourage writing headlines and ledes implying the opposite.

While my complaints may come off as petty bitching at least, or gloating at worst, as I’ve written before, numbers do matter, and especially when it comes to elections. Since the excruciatingly close gubernatorial election of 2004, and the highly contentious dispute that followed, public faith in the integrity of our electoral process has been undermined by hyperbolic, selective and downright erroneous reporting. And unfortunately, misleading reports like those we’ve seen regarding R-71, do absolutely nothing to restore public confidence.

It is ironic that a press corps that is often so cynical of government and the words and actions of government officials, can at the same time be so credulous when it comes to the numbers these government officials feed them. And it is an unfortunate disservice to the public as well.

The goddamn, knee-jerk liberals on the Seattle Times editorial board endorsed “Yes” on the bag fee yesterday, constituting in my mind, my only 100% unqualified, no caveat miss in predicting their editorial endorsements this primary season:

We do not reach this conclusion lightly. This editorial page is uncomfortable with a City Council always seeking to raise the property tax for pet projects, and always — name the reason — imposing higher rates for just about everything.

But the mayor got the idea from faraway Ireland, which has had a very good experience with its “plastax.” Ireland was able to reduce litter significantly and cut plastic bag use by about 90 percent.

Of course, how could they take the bag fee lightly, when somehow inexplicably conflating it with property taxes and Ireland?

Will says that I was an idiot for predicting a “No” endorsement, that if I had read their editorials on the subject closely (and I admit, I hadn’t) they had clearly telegraphed their position.

But here’s what I think really happened.  They were all set to endorse “No”, but they switched to “Yes” just to fuck with me. I do take this conclusion likely, and I have absolutely no evidence to support it, but it makes me feel better, so I’m sticking with it nonetheless.

The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill to get rid of the infamous crack-cocaine sentencing disparity.

Oregon becomes the latest state to allow hemp farming.

Russ Belville writes about the hypocrisy of television networks who happily air shows about marijuana that are entertaining, but censor content about marijuana when it’s about legalization.

Media Matters breaks down the recent lame attempt by the health care industry to scare old people away from reform. More here.

Bill O’Reilly is still terrible at math.

Publius at Obsidian Wings looks at the new Net Nuetrality bill.

Violence erupted at health care forums in Tampa Bay and St. Louis today, as angry mobs of teabaggers successfully shut down the proceedings, and there’s every reason to expect the violence to escalate. Somebody will get hurt. Somebody may get killed.

But I wonder… would these extremists be so eager to resort to violence and intimidation if they believed that their enemies might respond in kind? Or do they really want the civil war for which they seem to be advocating?

UPDATE:
From a personal account of a confrontation with teabaggers from the town hall meeting in St. Louis:

I am 6’4″ and 250 pounds, and not one to back down from ANYONE. I told the whiner to shut up, he didn’t run this meeting and he should wait for the Q&A session like an adult. I was then told by three male “teabaggers” sitting behind me to shut up or they would shut me up. My adrenal gland opened up. I emptied my pockets and was fully prepared to duke it out. After eight long and deadly years of the Right running this country into the ground I was not about to let those douchebags muscle me. And for them to try and hijack this meeting was making me go nuts. But reason prevailed and I got up and walked out. I had at least ten people slap my back and high five me on the way to the door.

This is the fight the right is itching for, planning for and intentionally provoking, and we can’t always count on reason to prevail. If this keeps up there will be violence.

Today was not a good day for R-71 supporters. With the 5th batch of data, the total of signatures examined is now 27,288 (almost 20% complete), with 3,695 invalid signatures found.

The number of duplicates has risen to 90. (Consider that there were only 7 found by the end of the first day, and you can see how the duplicate count snowballs as the sample grows.) Ninety duplicates in a sample of 27,288 reflects a duplicate rate of 1.67% in the total sample.

Using the methods described here, a good estimate of the number of valid signatures is 118,184, a shortfall of 2,393 signatures of the 120,577 needed to qualify the referendum for the ballot. The total rejection rate should be about 14.2%.

Here is the trend since the start of signature verification:

This graph shows the daily estimates of valid signatures (red) and the number needed to qualify (blue). What is most salient here is that the estimate of valid signatures is extremely stable from day-to-day. If the trend continues, R-71 fails.

Starting today, signatures will be checked in two shifts, with an update in the morning and the afternoon.

CREDO Mobile is sponsoring a handful of blogger awards at next week’s Netroots Nation, and you get to vote… for me for best state blogger. Just text “State Goldy” to short code 27336 between now and 10AM August 15th.

The winner receives a BlackBerry® Curve™ 8330 and one year’s service, which I suppose I don’t really need, but I’d apparently have the option of choosing a $1,000 donation to a charity of my choice. So if you help me win this award, I’ll also ask you to help me choose the charity. More details on the contest here.

The full numbers from Wednesday’s counts were released this morning by the Secretary of State’s (SoS) office. They’ve driven another nail in the coffin of R-71.

A total of 23,457 signatures have been checks, which is 17% of the total. Overall 3,054 invalid signatures have been found and eliminated, including 68 duplicates, 2,764 individuals not on the voting rolls, 221 signature mismatches, and 69 signatures for which the corresponding signature is missing.

The cumulative error rate is 13.3%, if the signatures with missing signature cards (hereafter “missing”) are thrown out, or 13.0% if the missing signatures are fully counted. As Goldy has explained, the cumulative error rate for the sample is misleadingly low. This is because duplicates are exponentially underrepresented as the sample size goes down.

Given the number of duplicates found in this sample, the best estimate is that is about 1.7% of signatures are duplicates on the petition. That gives an estimated total rejection rate of 14.7% (treating all “missing” signatures as valid). A rejection rate over 12.4% keeps R-71 off the ballot.

Rather than focus on percentages, we can use the number of good and bad signatures to estimate the expected number of valid signatures. This figure shows the daily estimated number of valid signatures on the petition (red line) and the number of signatures required (blue line) for the measure to make the ballot:

These estimates are conservative because I am assuming all “missing” signatures will be treated as valid. (I’ve changed my methods a bit since yesterday—a journey through the methodological details begins below the fold).

The important things to notice here are:

• The estimates are stable rather than bouncing around from day to day. This means that there is little evidence for non-sampling error. Such errors can arise if batches of petitions showed widely different error rates (more generally, from non-independence among signatures on petitions and in batches of petitions).
• The 95% confidence intervals are now so small that sampling error is no longer relevant. If God plays dice, she clearly doesn’t want R-71 on the ballot.

The trends, so far, indicate that, short of a miracle, this measure will not qualify for the ballot.

At this point, I am going to totally geek-out and discuss methodological stuff. If you’re interested, venture below the fold.

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKI9be55N00&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Apparently, most Republicans believe there is no fundamental right to health care, but there is a fundamental right to profit extravagantly off selling private health insurance. And that is their main opposition to a public option… that it threatens the profitability of private insurers.

So Democrat Rep. Brian Baird, WA-03, is going to do telephone town halls instead of play along with the infantile tactics of the tea birthers. From The Columbian:

“What we’re seeing right now is close to Brown Shirt tactics,” Baird, D-Vancouver, said in a phone interview. “I mean that very seriously.”

As a friend of mine says, right on with your right on. It’s about time someone called this crap what it is. The right has been throwing Nazi analogies around like it’s going out of style, and now they’ll get their panties all in a bunch about Baird’s comment, no doubt. Too bad.

Oh, they just want to dissent? Then why has a certain right-wing radio host and her Vancouver based Republican blogger been dogging Baird about having town halls since last month?

Too bad for them, Baird is smart enough not to play their stupid game. And to the inevitable cries that Baird is afraid to have a town hall, I think we all know that’s complete baloney. He’s had a ton of them, including the beating he took when he decided to back the surge in Iraq, so so he’s no shrinking violet.

Naturally, what the righties backing the insurance companies want is that everyone lose sight of the true goal, which is decent health care reform. Regular people who don’t believe the birfers need to weigh in, and you don’t need a town hall to do it, telephones and email still work.

Look, the Republicans are enjoying all this because when the only power you have is destructive, that’s what you use, like a misbehaving child. And like a spoiled child, the GOP hasn’t really gamed this out all the way. Health care reform is coming, and if the right’s only reaction is to be destructive, then they have abdicated any moral right to have a say in what happens. They can tell it all to their hired professional liars on AM radio and television, the rest of the country has reality to deal with.

Another half a notch in my belt today as the Seattle Times endorsed Jordan Royer and Robert Rosencrantz for Seattle City Council Position 8. I had predicted Royer, and if they went for a dual endorsement “here’s the reach… Forch.”

So far I’ve been dead on for all my flat out predictions, but missed the mark on the two on which I issued caveats, the admitted reach on Forch, and an ill-advised second-guessing in the City Attorney race. They always like to throw in one predictable surprise, and these two races seemed like the most likely suspects, but alas, I picked the wrong one.

Coming up soon, my last remaining prediction, the Times’ presumed “No” endorsement on the Bag Fee measure.

The SOS counted an additional 6,140 R-71 signatures yesterday, accepting 5,268, for a raw invalidation rate of about 14.2 percent for this batch, and 13.31 percent over the 23,457 total signatures processed thus far. They haven’t provided a breakout of the number of duplicates in this fourth batch yet, but if previous trends hold up it should be about 31, and the total, duplicate-adjusted invalidation rate should now be running about 14.9 percent.

Once he gets his hands on the break out numbers Darryl will pound the final statistical nail in R-71’s coffin, while regaling you with more than you ever wanted to know about the methodology thereof. And sometime thereafter, I’ll attempt to explain why this kind of obsessive coverage matters.

Imagine ten years ago as Bill Clinton was approaching the end of his second term as President. Whodathunk that ten years hence, Hollywood superhero Arnold Schwarzenegger would become an emasculated politician, and Bill Clinton would become a real-life superhero:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv7pIBMYGfw[/youtube]

So the conservative lumpenproletariat had lots of fun during the 2008 campaign claiming liberals are all robots, ie “Obamatrons,” and such. They got a hard on over some idiot bimbo on their ticket, celebrated a mindless liar who claimed to be a plumber, and basically acted like douchebags on a daily basis. But we’re the mindless robots who act on orders.

Yeah, um, okay.

These are the stupid fucks willing to show up at meetings and act like assholes on behalf of giant insurance corporations. These are the stupid birther fucks who insist on spreading absolute bullshit about Barack Obama, as if everyone else in the country is some kind of two year old that will believe any old thing.

Nobody will ever catch on that the whole show is orchestrated through the noise machine.

These are the stupid fucks who bought high while listening to right wing AM radio. You know the type. They never could resist the multi-level greed pitch and the arousing lure of screwing someone over. Now that their greed bubble has been burst, they lash out at anyone and anything they can.

What I want to know is: when are we going to act in kind? This bullshit right wing temper tantrum needs to be answered in Republican Congressional district offices all over the state. We’ll march, shout, make signs, act like douchebags, hang people in effigy and generally be stupid. You know, like them.

Now quick, someone find out where the fuck there are any Republican district offices.

Just sat down in Fado to kick off pre-game festivities for the big game tonight. May post updates in this space if the mood strikes.

UPDATE: Fado is now packed. If the Sounders play as poorly as they did on Sunday, this could be an ugly game. This is like a Spanish pro hoops team playing the Lakers. At least Ljungberg should be back tonight.

UPDATE: The Mariners found some offense tonight. 8-4 in the 4th inning in KC.

UPDATE: Stone Roses on the speakers in Fado. It reminds me that one of the reasons that soccer has been so popular in Seattle is because a lot of people here are familiar with the European leagues. A lot of people wearing both Sounders and Barcelona attire this evening.

UPDATE: Barcelona has pink jerseys. Ok.

UPDATE: Messi is the footballer of the year for a reason. Damn.

UPDATE: 4-0. Disappointing but not too surprising. If anyone can locate Knute Berger’s column in Crosscut about how soccer won’t survive here in Seattle, please post in the comments. Hyperlinks are tough from the Blackberry. Thanks.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtTBkxvBq88&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]