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New Math: Jobs 'Saved or Created' in Congressional Districts That Don't Exist

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by basso, Nov 16, 2009.

  1. GladiatoRowdy

    GladiatoRowdy Member

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    Actually, I am holding Obama to a MUCH higher standard than I did Bush, but Obama hasn't done anything even remotely approaching the egregious f***ups of the Bush administration.

    In this particular case, Obama has self imposed a standard of transparency that includes trying to account for the money spent in the stimulus bill and report the spending to the American people. I would love for you to show me how Bush's administration ever even attempted transparency (rhetorical question, you can't possibly show me such a thing) in anything they did.

    The difference is that Bush's f***ups were related to real problems with devastating consequences. Obama's "f***ups" are things like not bowing the right way, not having anything other than the Hawaii-approved Certificate of Live Birth to prove his residency, and having some employees who have made stupid statements (Repubs being a**holes).

    The issues of actual consequence, wiretapping, Afghanistan, prosecution of Bush officials, the problems with the healthcare reform bill, have been commented on and Obama has been rebuked by "liberals" both on this board and in the real world. If you can't see the difference, then you need to remove those blinders, they are about the size of Transco Tower.
     
  2. GladiatoRowdy

    GladiatoRowdy Member

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    You didn't actually use the word "conspiracy," but if what you are claiming is factual, then it fits the definition of the word pretty closely.
     
  3. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    BEEP BEEP BEEP backing up a bit are we?

    What are your suspicions? That fraud is involved, hence your series of tirades in this thread, correct?

    My suspicions are of incomplete/improper database administration (which is why every state has an "00" congressional district).

    I'm willing to sig bet that my explanation is more likely to be the correct one than yours - apparently you are now too yes?
     
  4. rhino17

    rhino17 Member

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    Do you really think no democrat would have bashed Bush for doing the meaningless stuff that extreme conservatives are bashing Obama for?

    How am I backing up? Again, I never said conspiracy. I questioned your complete dismissal of the stats that you were looking at. What kind of mistake could have been made to account for 14 additional districts in a state of only 8? I simply said it was something to look into while you completely dismissed it from the beginning.
     
  5. GladiatoRowdy

    GladiatoRowdy Member

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    No, I don't. Hardly anything was made of Bush's "service" in the Champagne Brigade of the Air National Guard, but we had to hear about the Certificate of Live Birth for months. Bush seemed to get a free pass for the backrub incident, but Obama has gotten bashed twice now for what the GOP idjits have defined as improper greetings.

    Republicans seem to forget that the vitriol that Bush earned was over things that matter, starting two wars including one based on false "intelligence," engaging in illegal wiretapping, f***ing up the response to Katrina by appointing political supporters instead of people who could do the job, repeatedly cutting taxes in a time of war, etc. So far, there are a few things that I have a gripe with Obama about, but most of them have to do with not cleaning up Bush's f***ups (illegal wiretapping, Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanimo) as quickly as I would like. So far, Obama has not done anything even remotely approaching the level of clusterf*** that was just par for the course with Bush.
     
  6. basso

    basso Member
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    Obey b**** slaps Ibowma over this issue:

    ---
    A powerful House Democrat used unusually harsh terms to blast the Obama administration's manipulation of stimulus data Monday night, and demanded an honest accounting of results from the $787 billion government program.

    Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wis.), who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, took the administration to task for pervasive errors on the Web site designed to monitor disbursement of the stimulus funds. He called those errors "outrageous."

    "Credibility counts in government and stupid mistakes like this undermine it. We've got too many serious problems in this country to let that happen," Obey said in a statement. "Whether the numbers are good news or bad news, I want the honest numbers and I want them now."

    Obey demanded a commitment from the executive branch that they would "work night and day to correct the ludicrous mistakes." Congress and the public should be able to trust reports by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency (RAT) Board, he said.

    The administration has already slashed 60,000 jobs from its estimates of how many jobs were created by the stimulus, after discovering "unrealistic data" submitted by stimulus recipients. In one extreme example, the stimulus Web site reported that 50 jobs were created or saved by an Arkansas cemetery's purchase of a lawnmower for roughly $1,000.

    Republicans have also pounced on the administration's stat-juking. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, decried the "grossly inaccurate" information disseminated by the stimulus Web site in a letter to RAT Board Chairman Earl Devaney. If the transparency board can't certify that the stimulus has indeed saved or created 640,329 jobs, Issa wrote, the stimulus Web site should carry a disclaimer stating that its figures are unreliable.

    Devaney will appear before the oversight committee Thursday during a hearing on tracking stimulus funds.
     
  7. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Member

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    Glitch or not this is embarrassing and the Admin. should correct it.
     
  8. vlaurelio

    vlaurelio Member

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    you familiar with cartesian products or double counting?
     
  9. rhino17

    rhino17 Member

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    yes

    No, but does it explain districts that don't exist?
     
  10. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    Why don't you cut to the chase and explain to us exactly what you theorize happened - since you are now claiming that this is not a deliberate plot. If it was not a plot, and not a result of an inaccurate database - what is your explanation? Space alien kenyan muslims?
     
  11. rhino17

    rhino17 Member

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    Why do a give a **** what you think? I don't have to explain anything.
     
  12. vlaurelio

    vlaurelio Member

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    state = A, B, C, ..
    districts = 00, 01, 02, ..

    state X districts = A00, A01, A02, B00, B01, B02, C00, C01, C02, ..
     
  13. rhino17

    rhino17 Member

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    That could be an explanation but wouldn't they indicate that if it was the case?
     
  14. vlaurelio

    vlaurelio Member

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    the above falls under glitch/logical error/bug
     
  15. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    well you are the one who busted into the thread claiming that it was "naive" to believe that there was a clerical error of some sort responsible for this.

    Now that you appear to have backed off that position, I guess it is rude to demand your alternative explanation.
     
  16. thadeus

    thadeus Member

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    Socializing the costs, privatizing the profits.
     
  17. rhino17

    rhino17 Member

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    you gave absolutely no explanation to your assumption. That is why I called you naive. Vlaurio gave an explanation, you did nothing of the sort.
     
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  18. Dubious

    Dubious Member

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  19. krosfyah

    krosfyah Member

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    Did you guys catch the Daily Show last night. Biden was on and offered an explanation of the fake districts.

    He said stimulus money was essentially handed out to well over 100,000 people running various agencies/programs. The administration asked that anybody receiving $ to input the results of that money ...all 100,000 people. When each person typed in their respective stuff, there was no automatic validation steps and once published the data was immediately available on the website. Amoung various other attributes of their programs/projects/etc, one field they were required to enter was what district it applied to. Do YOU know what district you live in? Pick 100,000 people -- how many of those will know what district they are in? Biden said about 70 odd people put in the wrong districts. "70 outta 100,000". He said people are going in afterwards to try to correct errors but those errors are immediately visible to the public after each submission.

    That sounds plausible to me. Yes, it sounds embaressing ...but as has been said ...if you think about it, does it matter? A breakdown by district is fairly meaningless. For example, what district is the Grand Parkway project attributed? I'd guess the whole project conceptually goes through 5-8 counties and a dozen or more districts.

    This is another example of the right trying to score political damage ...and you are biting.
     
  20. pgabriel

    pgabriel Educated Negro

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    exactly

    and again i must reiterate, the most stupid thing about is that the president is trying to be accountable about his adminstration's programs, and he's getting a whale of a fight for doing it.
     

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