Statistics and Politics

I just love it how biased people use faulty interpretation of data in order to justify their claims. Recently a friend told me something about China and polution and how they weren't nearly as bad as the US. I found it odd. Upon looking at the statistics, however, you can plainly read that they divided the data by the number of citezens in the country - and since China has over A BILLION people there, their polution rating was way down!

And now the AP (which I praised only last week) is back at their usual by helping Obama attack Palin once again. [Funny side note: It's sad that Obama has to focus on attacking the VP for McCain.. When's the last election you remember when the presidential candidate has to focus all his attention on the VP?!] The AP story is entitled McCain, Palin criticize Obama on earmarks but the article opens by attacking Palin!

Here you go:

"John McCain and Sarah Palin criticized Democrat Barack Obama over the amount of money he has requested for his home state of Illinois, even though Alaska under Palin's leadership has asked Washington for 10 times more money per citizen for pet projects."

What's that it said? Oh yeah, "10 times more money per citizen"! Well that doesn't tell us anything! So what are the real facts? Obama has asked for nearly 1,000,000,000 dollars of pet project money from the federal government to be given his home state. Palin? According to the AP under $200 million last year.

I'd really love to see the news media say anything critical of Obama. Oh, and here's one new bit of statistical data we haven't heard much about from the media: McCain is winning 50-46!