April « 2011 « POWIP

30Apr/117

To Really Screw Up An Election Count, Add Computers…

....and dumb people who don't know how to properly set up systems or check their errors.

While the Wisconsin recount slowly grinds on, I bring you two stories courtesy my membership in the European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group (these stories don't seem to rise to the level of our horror stories, though.)

First, out of Waukesha, we have "Kathy's special program":

Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus was using a software program created especially for her by the state Government Accountability Board when she made the huge error in compiling results for the State Supreme Court race between incumbent David Prosser and challenger JoAnne Kloppenburg. The special program was revealed in an email sent to other county clerks and released by the Kloppenburg campaign to buttress her claim that an independent investigation of Nickolaus’ office is needed.
....
The email, by Rusk County Clerk Denise Wetzel and addressed to other county clerks in Wisconsin, including Nickolaus, was sent on April 8, the day after Nickolaus revealed the vote-reporting error in a press conference.

It reads, “Please note that the program Kathy uses IS NOT the new canvass reporting program that is in the (Statewide Voter Registration System) that we all have been using as of late. It is a completely different program that was created by GAB for Kathy to accumulate her votes prior to uploading them into the program that the rest of us use.”
....
“We ran this for the governor’s election,” she said, “and we ran the same system for the February election. We had no problems.”

Under the system, Nickolaus said municipalities, including Brookfield, are given a template spreadsheet to fill in with election results and email back to her. Municipalities are instructed not to alter the spreadsheet – but on the night of April 5, when Brookfield returned its form to Nickolaus, she noticed it contained “extra columns,” complicating the process of importing it into the database.

The clerk said she called staff in Brookfield to again stress the importance of not altering the template.

Nickolaus, however, didn’t say this complication was the cause of Brookfield’s vote totals being omitted from the initial results released by her office.

Hey, blame an intern. That's what most cubicle warriors do.

But yeah, giving people a data entry template you're going to use to import into your huge database.... WELL DAMMIT YOU WRITE YOUR QUERIES TO CHECK THE FUCKING COLUMN COUNT AND HEADERS.

So somebody accidentally hit "insert column", just to the left of the vote count column, I bet. It would've been an empty column. Oh, I don't know - having data checks before entering them into your database is pretty standard.

Thing is, Kathy isn't a tech person. Indeed, it shouldn't require a tech person to run an election. AND IT DIDN'T - because Althouse is also not a tech person, and she noticed that there was a problem with the magnitude of the numbers being reported.

WHAT IT REQUIRES IS SOME FUCKING COMMON SENSE.

I think the Kloppenburg campaign would have a point of saying "You really shouldn't have someone dumb as a brick running your elections".... but they're not the most credible people to be doing this.

Let's move on, shall we?

Sure, here's another spreadsheet error in an election, this time in West Virginia (and to no effect):

Morgantown City Clerk Linda Little said a computer error led to a discrepancy in vote totals for council candidate George Papandreas.

The candidate -- who was defeated by incumbent Ron Bane -- actually received 99 more votes than was originally indicated in the total listed on the city's unofficial results.
....
Little said election officials had put the total number of votes for each precinct into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. The computer program skipped over an entry when it added the totals, she said.

I think they're trying to make this sound more complicated than it probably was. I bet somebody manually put in a =SUM(:) function, and either forgot to include the first or the last row. That's all. That's not a computer error -- that's a human error.

In both of these cases, the error was with the human, as it usually is.

For those who are interested in preventing some basic errors like these (and how to check), I recommend Patrick O'Beirne's Spreadsheet Check and Control. Also, I have a paper at the Society of Actuaries that can be useful for non-actuaries: Spreadsheet Issues: Pitfalls, Best Practices, and Practical Tips(PDF).

Common sense can be trained up, to a certain degree.

Sheer stupidity, well, can't do much about that but pray for wisdom....

Meep

Meep is a member of the Irish Catholic mafia, having a suspiciously high number of green-eyed, red-haired friends. While she doesn’t have red hair herself [except when she goes into the sun (rare for any vampire)], she does have green eyes. She’s a raving Papist and is a life actuary on the side [i.e., she counts dead people]. An amateur pain-in-the-ass [willing to go pro!], she likes covering retirement, mortality, math, and education issues.

Tagged as: computers, Elections, spreadsheets 7 Comments

29Apr/111

The Packers’ First Three Rounds

Teams without many gaps really can afford to pursue a best player available policy. As a general rule, it's a good idea to have your offensive line taken care of when you've got a franchise quarterback, or before you go drafting a young quarterback who doesn't have the luxury of waiting a couple of years before starting.

The year the Pack picked Aaron Rodgers, most teams had Alex Smith as the clear top QB coming into the draft. When Rodgers fell to the Packers, GM Ted Thompson and Coach Mike McCarthy said that he was the number one QB on their board. Most people thought that they were touting their new prospect, but it's become clear in the past few years that they were probably being earnest.

Last year they drafted OT Bryan Bulaga, who played very well for them at the end of the season when it counted the most, and after they had to shift around the offensive line after a spate of mid-season injuries. Rodgers completed passes all over the field to make up for the lack of production at RB after Ryan Grant missed almost the whole season with an ankle injury. Late in the year, James Starks provided some burst and allowed them to play ball control after they had gotten a lead, and took some of the pressure off the defense, who hadn't been getting much rest when the quick-strike passing game was all of the offense.

Offensive linemen need a little more seasoning, as a general rule, than their counterparts on the defensive side of the ball. A good offensive lineman can contribute for 10 years, but a couple of those are likely to be formative. That's another reason you draft there before the need gets acute. You can go to the defensive side thereafter and expect a first year DE with ability to have an impact early in his career. I don't follow college football very closely, so I've not really watched Sherrod play, but when Thompson says that the Packers had him rated a few notches higher than the 6th-ranked OT in the draft, I'm ready to believe him.

Randall Cobb shouldn't have fallen so far in the second round, IMO. It's true that at that size, 190 lbs, he couldn't be an every down back, nor does he have the speed to be a number one WR, but the Packers use so many four and five receiver sets that they'll find uses for him. He began his career as a QB, so he can throw on the run, and he's also held snaps for field goals, which adds a dimension that opponents will have to be aware of. He's got good vision, good hands, and they're sure to try him out on punt and kickoff returns. Reportedly a great locker room guy, who runs disciplined routes.

The third guy is an RB from Hawaii, Alex Green, originally from Portland. Great burst and collects the ball quickly on short routes. The knock is that he runs too upright, but he hits the hole awfully quickly. I don't think that he's got a problem with vision, having watched some of his video. He's 6'0", 225 lbs, and ran a 4.45 forty at the Combine. He's got size and power, and can be physical. He tends to run at people, and he will have to learn to wait for his blockers and to secure the ball. What he does have, though, you can't teach. He's got good hands for receiving and though it's true that he runs a little upright he makes himself small at the point of attack and hits the hole so fast defenders at the line have almost no time to react. He's at speed at a step and a half and will give opposing special teams players fits if he goes downfield on kick coverage. Where he'd be an absolute monster though, if the Packers decide to make it a bigger part of their repertoire and he can learn to let things develop in front of him, in the screen and the draw. He has the power and physicality to block, so I hope Edgar Bennett is able to develop that.

I'm sure that the Packers would have liked a shot at LeShoure in the 2nd round, but I'm pretty happy with Randall Cobb. There were other backs ranked more highly on other boards than where the Packers got Green (and I was pretty sure that they were going to go for a DE), but one thing I've learned over the past several years is that Ted Thompson is much better at grading and picking players than I am.

I just hope the owners and players get it together ASAP.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Filed under: Too Lazy to Categorize 1 Comment

29Apr/1112

Proactively, for May day

I bring you some more of William Banzai7's creations

Click to enlarge

And another one is a play off of a Soviet era poster

Click to enlarge

Check out the entire group of artwork at the zerohedge link. There are some absolutely hilarious pieces where Ben Bernanke's picture is deftly inserted onto communist propaganda posters, and a particularly funny one of Hank Paulson's as Nikita Kruschev at the UN banging his shoe on the podium. And visit William's personal site as well. He has all kinds of goodies for sale so you can take his creations with you to go.

Also, speaking of May day and communism, check out Laura Ingraham interviewing Harry Alford, president and CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. Dude! he unloads on Obama, calling him and his people "Marxists" and "fanatical", and says:

“Obama wanted the National Black Chamber to dance to his music and have blind allegiance to his crazy programs and agenda, which are totally anti-business. We are a pro-business organization. So we have to stand on the side of business, and the benefit of our members, which are black entrepreneurs.”

"They might as well put on the brown shirts and swastikas..."

But that’s not all. Alford also admitted he only voted for Obama “because he’s [Obama] black,” a move he now regrets.

“That is a lesson I will take to my grave,” he said solemnly, later saying Obama is “wrecking” the country and is “dangerous.”

Keep in mind that this is coming from a man who supported Obama in 2008. See the story with more quotations here. And listen to it at Real Clear Politics.

Rocketman

Tagged as: Communism, Crony capitalism, Fascism, May Day, Obama, POWIP art 12 Comments

29Apr/112

Wolly and the New Tone

One can always count on the progressive left to never let a crisis go to waste. Rahm would surely be proud...

The congressional delegations of these states — Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia, and Kentucky — overwhelmingly voted to reject the science that polluting the climate is dangerous. They are deliberately ignoring the warnings from scientists.

Did you get that? This is the gaia bringing down her righteous rath on the eeeeeevvollll DENIALISTS!, like it's the secular-humanist-radical-environmentalist analogue to Sodom and Gommorah.

CIVILITY NOW!

Speaking of the wrath of gaia, our old pal Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom brings us one of Wolcott's latest hits where the cetaceous-like-homunculus in the silk smoking jacket attempts ghoulishly muses:

I root for hurricanes. When, courtesy of the Weather Channel, I see one forming in the ocean off the coast of Africa, I find myself longing for it to become big and strong–Mother Nature’s fist of fury, Gaia’s stern rebuke. Considering the havoc mankind has wreaked upon nature with deforesting, stripmining, and the destruction of animal habitat, it only seems fair that nature get some of its own back and teach us that there are forces greater than our own.

How empathetic ... More like pathetic, in my humble opinion. To which Jeff replies:

Were Wolcott, by some grand cosmic irony, forced to live in a land fully forested, its coal and ore unsullied by the touch of human hands, he’d last precisely fifteen minutes before the wails of complaint he levied at some soggy log for its conspiracy to cause chafing to his ample buttocks resulted in a cougar attack, and a mess of silk and elastic and butterfat.

Along with some other characteristically delicious stuff. Read the whole thing; Jeff linked to Wolly, so we don't have to. And in his comment thread you'll find several links to statements by actual meteorologists who make it very clear that this is simply a natural phenomenon, and not the result of "climate change".

Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), also dismissed Thursday climate change as a factor in the deadly tornadoes: "Actually what we're seeing is springtime," he said.

Quote via Jammie Wearing Fool.

ACE sums up all of the reprehensible attempts pretty succinctly:

As has been said many times before -- The Left loves "the masses;" they hate actual people. Along the lines of Lenin's famous quip about tragedy and statistics, humans only count to the extent they can be reduced to symbols and abstract political impulses.

Whereas most would say human lives are each precious, the nastiest of the left must always add a caveat: * For some definitions of human life.

Remember this next time someone in your circle is hand-wringing about the lack of civility on the part of conservatives. Also, measure how long it takes President Obama and other prominent progressives to call out these folks for their violent and hateful rhetoric; but don't hold your breath. Just hold the memory, and act on it next time you're in the voting booth.

Rocketman

Tagged as: 2011 tornado disaster, AGW religion, Civility now!, new tone, Wolcott 2 Comments

29Apr/118

Kate Middleton’s Nipples [UPDATED]

Slated to replace "Bob's your uncle."

Stacy McCain, drawing on his vast knowledge of human nature, has for some time now had the top Google ranking for "Kate Middleton upskirt photos." Britons (by rights, I think, since they underwrite it) naturally are interested in the environs visited by the Royal Penises, and relieved, I suppose, after long consideration of Camilla Bowles, that the body attached to the (now) Royal Vagina of their new Princess is comely.

While I haven't any upskirt photos, I do have evidence that Kate Middleton has nipples, or at any rate a nipple (though the other one seem implied):

If you don't care for that, you're a very epicure. The fellow on the left seems keenly aware that he has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to scope things out through a very slender layer of fabric. I imagine that gives one as much an idea of the Newly Royalized Vagina as any upskirt photo might. I hope I can say without any prurience that it appears to me from the evidence available that it is not likely mutant in any important respect. Another British Kate who fills out a bathing suit rather better, IMO, is Kate Upton, which is what you get by mashing together Kate Middleton and upskirt.

But since we bloggers are very much celebrities in our own right, I'm certain that a large number of you have wondered what my wife looks like, naked. I am given to understand that it would be bad form actually to post a photo of my naked wife, but this ought to give you a pretty good idea. Note that I am merely stating that this is quite similar, the important thing being that it's not identical (NSFW):

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Filed under: Too Lazy to Categorize Continue reading

29Apr/111

The Latest on Jim Cruckson, Josie Warner and the FDL Police

There's a new site set up to facilitate discussion on these topics. It's clear from comments, too, that some people have been concerned with the performance of the FDL and other police departments in the area for some time.

Please go over there and visit, and bring whatever you have to the table. My opinion all along has been that the local news media botched the initial reporting. Now it seems that WTMJ want to present one side of the story without really doing their homework on the incident.

Try to think through what you're saying, be open to new evidence, and be (at least) civil to each other. Remember, WHAT HAPPENED is what we're after at this point. If you can establish that, then you are free to place blame where you like, but you must first establish that.

All of the post material here will be linked from there, and some of it reproduced. While you're at it, please visit Emily F's site, as well.

Thanks for visiting and commenting, and I hope to see you there from time to time.

Dan

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Filed under: Too Lazy to Categorize 1 Comment

28Apr/1112

San Francisco “No Circumcision Zone” Sign Contest

So the dick-obsessed dickheads of San Francisco figured that instead of dealing with matters of importance they would dick around by making circumcision in San Francisco punishable by a $1000 fine or a year in jail or both.

In honor of the notoriety they have brought on themselves, I would like anyone who's inclined to make up their No Circumcision Zone signs for the City to post at its borders, in case visitors plan on performing circumcisions (which should be safe, legal and rare, natch).

Best sign gets kudos.

Stacy will have posted about this, naturally, but since we go round and round on who was on the story first, I'm going to play this post.

Sorry not to have been around more today, but not feeling too well. Not as though I could have topped Enoch's patriotic German woman in push-up bikini, anyway.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Filed under: Too Lazy to Categorize 12 Comments

28Apr/110

Happy Birthday to Jimmie Bise!

This is unspeakably late, so my apologies. I'm a little under the weather.

Today's Jimmie's birthday. Apart from being one of the most talented talk-show hosts on the web, and an exceptional blogger, he's one of the kindest and most considerate people you'll ever meet, either in real life of in cyberspace.

Please go over there, wish him a happy birthday, and hit the tip jar if you are able. Most importantly, though, listen to his show when you are able.

Another one of my favorite online people and bloggers is Little Miss Attila. She's been having a fund-raiser this month. She got shafted out of a lot more money by RightNetwork than I did, too, so if you can drop a little cash there, I would be grateful.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

Website - More Posts

Filed under: Too Lazy to Categorize No Comments

28Apr/118

Reverend Vanilla Ice no longer in the hizzy

Too legit to quit?

In news from the windy city, it seems that Cardinal Francis George has finally seen fit to suspend Fr. Michael Pfleger; heretical liberation theology disciples, immigration law dismissing transnational sanctuary movement enablers, and local area professional race-baiters hardest hit:

“Citing what he called threats from the Rev. Michael Pfleger to leave the church, Cardinal Francis George has removed the outspoken priest from St. Sabina parish and has suspended his “sacramental faculties as a priest.”

Pfleger had publicly feuded with the cardinal about possibly being reassigned to Leo High School, telling a radio show recently that he would look outside the Catholic church if offered no other choice.

“If that is truly your attitude, you have already left the Catholic Church and are therefore not able to pastor a Catholic parish,” George wrote in a letter dated today.

Which, in all honesty, is a pendulum swing of large amplitude indeed, considering that not too long ago the Cardinal awarded Pfleger with a lifetime achievement award for his service in pursuit of dismantling racism, injustice and inequalities on behalf of African Americans and all people of color. In addition to Pfleger's insolent quote:

“I want to try to stay in the Catholic Church,” he said. “If they say, ‘You either take this principalship of [Leo High School] or pastorship there or leave,’ then I’ll have to look outside the Church.”

I am tempted to wonder if the Cardinal wasn't also referring to this performance; one of Phleger's greatest hits.

Image courtesy of http://www.sanctepater.com/

Anyway, I guess Reverend Wright, Calypso Louis, Jesse the J, and all of the other folks that use religion as a cover for their race-peddling will have to find another accomplice to provide them the post-racial cred and optics they desire. Or, Pfleger can still provide those, just not with the implied gravitas and imprimatur of the Roman Catholic Church. For a more complete run-down of all Pfleger's antics over the last few years, see this excellent post my Michelle Malkin.

Snark aside, it's always a shame to see a man of the cloth trade his vocation for the ways of the world. We should all pray that Pfleger see the error of his ways, willingly take up his duties, and serve others in the manner his superiors deem the most appropriate. May God have mercy on him, and shepherd him back onto the path that coincides with His will.

(H/T MM and ACE's sidebar)

Rocketman

Filed under: Invincible Ignorance, Ni Una Idea, Politicas Desnudas! 8 Comments

28Apr/117

Show and Tell

Dammit. Lost post.

Been busy building and launching websites. Which is good. Not complaining.

Here's a cool rebuild we just launched: http://www.GermanSteins.com

Proprietors are Kevin and Danica. Husband and wife. Kevin started this company in 2003.

Our mandate was to take two sites, meld them into one, retain the existing rank of the sites, and improve the sales conversion ratio.

Both Kevin and Danica have poured their sweat into the business and are good, hard-working Midwestern people. They live "up nort dere hey" and their business is a true example of determined entrepreneurship.

Theirs is a unique website wherein one can find authentic German Steins, ceramic and glass mugs from Germany, Oktoberfest party supplies, and of course German cuckoo clocks.

If you are looking for unique gifts or something for Dan, or perhaps want to demonstrate your Krautophile-ness, please do check them out.

Support small business. Support good, solid, hard-working industrialists. You know, the people who employ others, contribute to the tax base and generally work their asses off.

Also, so as I can categorize this post...