Oh, irony, where is thy sting? Over here, Canada's Crazy-Assed Racist Redneck™ catches the CTV brazenly, uh ... printing the truth.
"The size of cabinet has increased from 27 to 32 positions, with a smaller percentage of women on the team."
Apparently, though, CTV quietly decided that a decrease from 22.22% to 21.88% wasn't really newsworthy (and it isn't) so, even though CTV's statement was technically and mathematically accurate, they dropped it.
This, as I'm sure you can appreciate, differs noticeably from the behaviour of one Kate McMillan who, having stroked herself into a ragegasm over the alleged non-existence of one "Jamil Hussein," has yet to correct the record.
This has been yet another installment of "Canada's Right: Lessons in Total Wankitude and Hypocrisy."
SPEAKING OF MATH ... It's amusing watching the wankersphere dismissing the insignificant difference between 22.22% and 21.88%, given that these were (for the most part) the same folks who claimed that George W. Bush's historically close victory in 2004 represented a "mandate." Come on ... you remember that, don't you?
But, as we all know, that was different. It always is, isn't it?
8 comments:
CC,
I absolutely HATE it when you do this, its your favourite talking point and ironically your least impressive.
It makes no sense to say Conservative A has a certain opinion, but Conservative B contradicts that opinion, ipso facto, both are hypocrites for contradicting one another (assuming that's what you were implying, correct me if I'm wrong). Do you see the problem with this?
Simply, if you can find a quote where Media Matters for America said that 22.22 and 21.88 is an insignificant difference, to go along with your quote where they said that GWBs margin of victory is significant, you might have a case for inconsistency or hypocrisy or whatever you were trying to say.
Otherwise you're just pointing out a difference of opinion (in different circumstances) within a very diverse group of people.
CC,
Since you brought up the math, you should have picked a better example than the 2004 election. Using the figures in the article you chose, Bush defeated Kerry by 3.6 million votes, which is just shy of 6.5 per cent of Kerry's 55.7 million vote total. A margin of victory of 6.5 per cent of your opponent's total is much more significant than the numbers you are whining about in your post. In fact, it's 19 times larger.
I guess you lefties spent too much time in dialectics class and the history of the proletariat, and not enough in math class. Hell, that shit is just arithmetic, it's embarrassing to call it math.
So, to be clear, you picked a stupid example.
What's really embarrassing is that the difference between 22.22 and 21.88 is in fact 1.5% of 21.88. 6.5% is only a little more than four times larger than 1.5%, not 19. When you start talking percentages, you need to be consistent on what you're taking the percentage of. But then, that would be the difference between arithmetic and mathematics.
So, to be clear, your comment was stupid.
In fact, adam, if you want to push the decimals out, the actual percentage difference is 1.587, or almost 1.6 if you want to start rounding after the first decimal place. Which really does make it a factor of only four, not 19.
Realistically, of course, given such a small sample size as the Harper cabinet, arguing over those kinds of decimal places is mostly irrelevant but, if you want to start complaining about comparative mathematics, you better be prepared to live with what the numbers actually say, hadn't you?
Adam,
I'll type slowly for you: since the 22.22 and 21.88 are percentages of women in the cabinet, those figures are compared to each other straight up. In other words, the difference between them is the percentage difference; it's apples-to-apples.
Comparing Bush's numbers to Kerry's numbers, as a percentage of Kerry's numbers, requires the calculation I did to get an apples-to-apples situation.
I don't expect you to understand.
Sorry, I missed the fact that you were a complete idiot, and not afraid to demonstrate it.
Look, Bush got 59.2 million out of 115 million votes. That's roughly 51.5%. Kerry got 55.7 million, or 48.4%. Now, is the difference them 3%, or is it 6.5%?
Answer: it's 3% of 115 million, or it's 6.5% of Kerry's 55.7 million. It matters what you take the percentage of.
Now, the difference between 22.22% and 21.88% is either 0.34% of the total, or 1.5% of the smaller number.
So, if you want an "apples-to-apples" comparison, you need to either use percentages of the total (3% vs. 0.34%) or percentages of the smaller number (6.5% vs. 1.5%).
So if you want to claim that Bush got 6.5% more votes than Kerry, you have to admit that the old cabinet had 1.5% more women than the new cabinet.
If you still don't understand this, I'd be willing to tutor you, but you'll have to stop trying to condescend to me at the same time.
And of course, you're right CC and the sample size makes the percentage comparison silly anyway. One more woman would make the percentage 25%, which might look like a significant increase, but only if you used math.
They added five new ministers, but only one woman. Those are the simple numbers that best tell the story.
Adam,
I apologize to you, I was wrong to not use the total vote data available. You are correct, as is CC in his post. My mistake, for the world to see. Perhaps you will tutor me? Or I could just take more time to read what is in front of me?
I wish, also, to apologize for my dumbass comments as well. Obviously, I'd have been better to have read and not commented.
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