The Catholic Cricket

Peter decided to draw a picture of a castle in Heaven.

The star on the top right is the one the wise men followed.  That’s Satan in the barred cell in the left-hand tower.  Obviously there are the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the castle walls, and a rainbow over the doors.  What I thought was an apple tree on the left is actually a tomato plant.

A quick and easy meme.  I’ve done the ones in bold.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day

Consider yourself tagged if you have a blog and still bother reading this rarely-updated blog that’ll probably change again in 6 months.

I haven’t updated Lily’s status in ages (partially due to the splitting of www.siekierski.com and catholic.siekierski.com), but since I’m messing around with things, and testing out the gallery plugin, I thought I’d toss in an update.

Lily is now 2.  Wow!  She’s a big sister, although I think her little sister is going to pass her up in size soon.  Her hearing, which was previously determined to be in the “mild hearing loss” range, is in the normal range now, so she’s been trying things without hearing aids for the past month, and will continue to do so for the rest of the year.  After that, they’ll evaluate her speech development and make sure it’s not stagnant (it’s definitely lagging).

She is receiving help through the Macomb ISD, where she has classes, and physical and occupational therapy.

Lily is on absolutely no medication now.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  She hasn’t needed a breathing treatment in months, either.  She’s come a long way.

Anyhow, a picture, if it’ll work.

So say some.

I think there are good reasons to argue so, and they’re listed at the above link.

I’ve heard various people make the claim that McCain lost the election, in part, because of voters’ dislike of what Bush did in office, and then go on a tear about how bad Bush has been.  The same people frequently, in nearly the same breath, complain about the bias in media reporting and how that bias incorrectly shifts peoples’ perception about the economy, the war, and pretty much everything else.

I wonder.  Do the people saying this realize that the same applies to Bush as applies to the reporting on the economy?  For years, the media has been talking down the economy.  Everything is doom and gloom, and so people come to think it’s doom and gloom, even if they personally are doing fine.  In the same vein, the media has spent the past 8 years talking down everything the President has done.  No news story about the President comes out that doesn’t have a negative spin.  And so people become very negative about what the President has done.  Said long enough, and loud enough, it became accepted as fact.

People didn’t vote against the Republican candidate because they were voting against the “failed policies” of 8 years of Bush.  They voted against the negative media-made image of Bush.

If people fail to recognize that, then the MSM will be able to continue misinforming us while influencing our decisions.

I expect that the next four years will be a riot of worshipful articles about Obama, where everything will be spun to put him in the best possible light, just as Bush was always shown in the worst possible.  It is no more true that Obama will have done no wrong than it is that Bush did no right.

Keep that in mind, and remember that your perceptions can be deceived, tricked, if you’re not vigilant.  It’s easy to miss something like this.

I’d like to see the phrase “thrown under the bus” get thrown under the bus.

The bus should then be backed up and run forward a few times, and then the driver can get out and kick the phrase a few times just to make sure it’s dead before pouring gasoline on it and tossing on a lit match, basking in the warmth provided on a cold autumn day.

Please?  I’m really tired of hearing it.  Find some new phrases, everyone.  Expand your vocabulary.

On my way home from work today, I took note of the gas price.

$2.15 (I round that extra $0.009 up)

It seems to me that during the summer, there were times I paid twice that.  $4.30

So what caused the price of gas to drop by 50%?  It wasn’t any government program that I’m aware of.  For all the talking they did during the summer, for all of the concern they expressed, and even that time during the summer recess when Republicans stayed after Speaker Pelosi turned off the lights, our government did nothing that changed the price.

It seems that while the government is ineffectual, the market took care of things all on its own.

I’ve been thinking about all of the polls that are out there on the current election, Presidential or otherwise.  I’ve looked a little bit into how they do things, and I have a question.  If anyone can find the answer to this or explain it in terms I’m likely to understand, I’d appreciate it.

From what I recall of my statistics class, and the programming I did on SPC software, the combination of random selection and a sufficient sample size was needed to reach a reasonable conclusion.  For example, if I had a lot of 5000 parts, and I sampled 100 parts for defects, I could use the number of defective parts found in that sample, multiply by 50, and have a close approximation of how many bad defective parts I have.  Applying some equations that I no longer remember, one could also calculate out a reasonable range that would be right 95% of the time (or whatever the percentages are…that’s not really important.)

Now, let’s take that 100 piece sample and break it down further.  The defective parts fall in one of three categories: bent, cracked, or porous.  The number of instances of each defect in the sample can be further used to extrapolate the actual defective quantities of each defect type in the lot.

Have I confused enough of you to stop reading?  Probably.

Anyhow, I understand that there is a historical aspect to the statistics.  We can know that, over the history of producing that part, we’ve averaged a 2% scrap rate for cracks, 3% for bent, etc.  Those can be expected.  However, if there’s a problem with the manufacturing process in some way, the historical averages can be deviated from significantly.  From what I recall, that’s also something checked for during statistical analysis.  A sudden doubling of the cracked parts is a cause for concern.

Now, inherent in the sampling process is the idea that this current sample of this current lot is a valid representation of the overall lot.  There’s no need to apply any type of alteration to the counts in order to force the statistics to meet the historical trend.  In fact, doing so is counter-productive to the idea of historical tracking of such sampling data.

With all of this in mind, we reach my question (or, more accurately, series of questions): Why are election polls weighted?  Isn’t the random sampling sufficient for making accurate predictions?  If I randomly sample 1000 voters, and 50% self-identify as Republican, should that number (and other applicable responses) really be adjusted down to 35% because that’s the percentage somebody somewhere decided is the real makeup of the country?  Shouldn’t the random sample be representative of the entire “lot” of Americans, with a margin of error?  Or is the margin of error on such a small sample of such a large “lot” just so wide that it makes the polls meaningless without the weighting?

Or am I looking at it wrong?  Are we grabbing a random sample of co-mingled parts?  Doodads, widgets, and thingamajigs all thrown in a large bin, and we know that the bin has about 40% doodads, 35% widgets, and 25% thingamajigs.  If that’s the case, then I would expect a sample of 1000 items from the bin to be around 400 doodads, 350 widgets, and 250 thingamajigs.  I assume that’s where the weighting comes in.

But is that really how our country is made up?  Do we really know the percentage of doodads in the bin?  It seems to me that the random sampling should, in and of itself, account for the percentage makeup of the items in the bin.

Maybe my brother will explain this one to me, because it’s got me confused.

Oh, one other thing.  The polls themselves are all selecting from the same bin.  The random samples are different (with some small chance of duplicated sampling).  Therefore, the unweighted numbers would seem to me to be a good indicator of the actual makeup of the country.

Entirely fictitious example: 
Zogby polls 10 people.  4 D, 4 R, 2 I
AP polls 10 people, 5 D, 4 R, 1 I
Fox polls 10 people, 4 D, 5 R, 1 I
NYT polls 10 people, 5 D, 3 R, 2 I
WP polls 10 people, 4 D, 4 R, 2 I

Do historical weightings needs to be applied when the internals of the multiple polls can be used to see what kind of compositional makeup exists out there?  With a net random sample of 50 people, I’ve got 22 D, 20 R, 8 I.

Wouldn’t such an amalgamation of current data be more accurate than trying to apply historical numbers that may be off?  Current sampling of current people with live data to make live predictions, instead of forcing the mix in the sample to match the last known percentages in the bin (which is surely based on an old sampling anyhow)?  Is somebody already doing this?

Well, I’ve managed to confuse myself.  I hope I haven’t given anyone too much of a headache with this.

I’ve participated in a discussion on What’s Wrong With the World that started out being about Embryonic Stem Cell Research (or, more to the point, how ESCR has disappeared as an issue in this election), but advanced to a discussion about voting and prudential judgment.

Before the comments were closed (it was an older post, with 130+ comments), I noted that there were several one-vote decisions that helped shape this country, and that there’s no way for us to know which time we vote could be “the one”.  Zippy Catholic responded with:

Not in the current presidential contest. Thinking that my vote is going to change the outcome of the current Presidential election in the age of mass market and mass media is like thinking that me buying one can of Pepsi will determine which soda, Pepsi or Coke, is the most popular. It is assuredly more efficacious for the rational man to pray for a miracle.

Now, I can understand such a pessimistic view of elections, but is he right?  (For the record, from what I’ve read, Zippy isn’t buying Coke or Pepsi, he’s going for RC Cola or maybe Jolt).

Now, in my comment at the above link, I noted the story (most likely a stretched version of the truth) of Freeman Clark leaving his deathbed to vote for Kelso for the Indiana state senate, who a year later pushed for Hannigan as one of Indiana’s US Senators, who a year later voted for Texas Statehood.  Kelso won by one vote (allegedly, Clark’s, who allegedly died on his way back to his deathbed), Hannigan won by one vote, and had Hannigan not voted for Texas Statehood, the US Senate vote would have been a tie.

But while Clark’s vote (Clark’s existence is really moot) was important, it was just one of however many Kelso got.  Had any of Kelso’s supporters stayed home, he might not have been elected to the state senate.  It wasn’t just Clark’s vote, it was every single vote that Keslo got that made the difference.

Now, all of those voting in the Indiana state election way back in 1844 (or whatever year it was…the places I’ve seen this story have variations…according to one site I saw, Kelso was a state senator from 1848-1849) had no idea that their votes, cumulatively, would make such a significant difference in the future of the country.

Coke and Pepsi aren’t successful because of mass-media and mass marketing, but because of millions of single votes.  One can boycott both Pepsi and Coke, and the companies will do fine, but boycotts work because of cumulative effect.  And voting works the same way.

Final thought, since it’s so late: I’m not impressed with the idea of voting third party, and I’m definitely not impressed with the idea of not voting at all.  Not voting is ridiculous, and voting third party is equally ridiculous, akin to Obama’s “Present” votes in Illinois.  Oh, I could understand going for a third party if the race was a blowout one way or the other.  But when the race is tight, and the stakes are as high as they are (especially for anyone coming from a pro-Life perspective), it’s utterly foolish to see one’s vote as meaningless.  If it means nothing, why are the candidates trying so hard to get it?

And, as if anyone needed me to state my position, I’m voting McCain.  While he’s wrong on ESCR, he’s right on just about every other Life issue.  I’d rather support a candidate who is 98% correct than deny him my support and let a completely wrong candidate win.  And that’s my prudential judgment.

With McCain, one can hope for (and lobby for) a change in his ESCR position.  The expectations one should have for Obama – well, one shouldn’t have any.  He would support more ESCR than McCain, in addition to signing FOCA, allow government-funded abortions, and everything else the Culture of Death advances.  I’ve started a post on this, and was planning on hitting several other topics on the election, but I don’t know if they’ll ever get posted.  Ahh well, living my life is more important than ranting and raving online anyway.

It’s been a long time since I posted, but I thought I’d throw several things up today during lunch.

We’ve moved. It’s been in the works for a while, but two Sundays ago we realized something: our renters were told they would be able to move in on August 29th. Therefore, we had to be out before then. It was only the 3rd…plenty of time, right? Unfortunately, what dawned on us that Sunday evening was that we were going on an extended family vacation with Heather’s side of the family (mom and her new husband, brothers, sister, etc.) from the 16th to the 24th. This completely eliminates the two weekends before the 29th (a Friday). So, August 3rd, we realized “We need to move this weekend!”

Afterward, a massive amount of work was done by both Heather and me, attempting to get things ready for moving. Heather tackled packing as much as she could, a job made more difficult by her mothering duties, recruited a few people to help on Saturday, and went to the new house to scrub a few things in need of scrubbing. I prepped the new house, painting 3 bedrooms (with some help), and also contacted a few people about helping us move, as well as getting a truck reserved.

To all those who helped us move, thank you. Jeff & Jen, Mike & Jen, Jake, Scott, Sharon, Alex, Kevin, Mom (x2), Dad, Heather & Dale, Courtney & Drew…I hope I didn’t forget anyone. Thanks for the help painting, cleaning, lifting heavy stuff, having a ridiculously heavy washing machine dropped on you, watching the kids, whatever it was. Your generosity with your time on such short notice was very much appreciated.

I’ve been running over to the old house every night, trying to pack up things that didn’t make it on the truck. With not enough foresight on my part, we didn’t have time to pack everything, so there is still about 5 minivan loads worth of things at the house…plus it needs to be cleaned up for the renters. And, since the city inspector is out to verify that the property is fit for renting, I’ll probably have to fix a few things up.

Did I mention we’ll be gone for 9 days?

And we’re still trying to get settled in to the new house. There are a ton of boxes to unpack, some furniture to move, etc.