This is pretty rich. Ben Smith finds some minor discrepancies in job creation estimates from the stimulus package, and Rep. Cantor, um, pounces:
A White House estimate of the number of jobs stimulus legislation will create includes some sharp discrepancies between state and local jobs claims.
Those differences — which the document suggests are large rounding errors — was spotted by the office of House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, which assembled the chart above. It comes as the White House is seeking to define the stimulus package as a jobs bill, and to focus locally on the jobs it will create.
The White House document (.doc) projects job creation both by state and by congressional district.
“State totals may not sum due to rounding,” the chart says at the bottom, though in some cases — most dramatically, understandably, in small states — the rounding error represents a large share of the projected jobs. In small states with just one congressional district, which represents the whole state, the difference is particularly striking, presumably a result of different methods of calculating the job figures for the same set of residents.
***A spokesman for Cantor, Brad Dayspring, emails, “I don’t think that the 4600 people in Nevada or 1900 people in Wyoming – not to mention thousands of other Americans – will understand not getting a job due to a ’rounding error.'”
You are probably right, but considering your boss wants to vote against the package, any job creation is greater than the number you intend to create. Unless, of course, there is a Republican alternate math that goes along with their alternate reality, in which zero is greater than 4600. Coming from the party that argued that the Iraq war will pay for itself, this is very possible.
Polish the Guillotines
Hulk SMASH!
I’m seriously getting sick and fucking tired of these peckerheads.
It’s time to go all Rowdy Roddy on their asses and leave the bubble-gum at home.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
You are probably right, but considering your boss wants to vote against the package…
Yeah! Don’t these guys think it’s just a steaming pile of Porkulus anyway?
amorphous
To answer the questions posed in the previous post, this is why Republicans don’t like statistical methods: Rounding errors kill (non-existent) jobs.
JL
It does not matter because if employment climbs higher than they expected, they will say, they could have done it cheaper and if it is less, well fill in the blanks.
Stuck
You keep thinkin’ Cantor, that’s what you do best.
And besides, the Red State Wizards have already declared Obama the worst president in history. Kind of a pile on to complain about math.
bvac
-Ben Smith finds some minor discrepancies in job creation estimates from the stimulus packagesharp discrepancies between state and local jobs claims.
-A White House estimate of the number of jobs stimulus legislation will create includes some sharp discrepancies between state and local jobs claims.
wat.
Rome Again
Two Dayspring guffaws in a week? Where did Cantor get this guy?
ThymeZoneThePlumber
Look, they think rounding is sorcery.
Of course they are terrified of it. It’s magic.
Litlebritdifrnt
OT) but I would just like to say that I sincerely hope that President Obama does not go anywhere near the Ford Theatre EVER AGAIN IN THE HISTORY OF HIS PRESIDENCY, not even in the district, shit I don’t want anyone even sending him a Christmas card with a picture of the Ford fucking theatre on it, I don’t want Ford Theatre and Obama mentioned in the same sentence, or paragraph, or novel. Kthxbai.
The Dangerman
I’m stunned; on the same evening that Obama is making an amazing address at the Lincoln Dinner, professorial in manner and roughly at the collegiate level of understanding, Cantor makes a mistake that would result in an F in Freshman Statistics. High School Freshman Statistics.
I don’t know if I can find the words, but I’ll give it the ol’ academic try: Cantor is a fucking idiot. Don’t grade me too harshly.
El Cid
"And what is this ‘per cent‘ stuff that the Obamessiah keeps putting in there? Huh? Whose cents? Does this mean the government must take all the pennies before jobs are created? And why do they have to be coins?"
Just Some Fuckhead
Nice save, John.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
And besides, the Red State Wizards have already declared Obama the worst president in history. Kind of a pile on to complain about math.
Now, now, don’t forget that the Pubbies were right about absolutely everything they ever said, so this statistical fuzziness offends them.
Joshua Norton
At least the Dem White House actually gives out numbers. Repugs just toss around knee jerk, airy-fairy bumper sticker slogans about how more jobs are created by things like sucking up to corporations with tax cuts and welfare, or deregulation, but can never provide any solid numbers.
Mainly because their predictions never pan out, but that’s another rant….
Warren Terra
El Cid,
A noble effort, but it all becomes clear once you understand that it’s actually a homonym problem – understanding "per cents" is all about sense, and Cantor’s people don’t seem to have any.
Litlebritdifrnt
PS) Wasn’t Cantor the pussy that moaned about Pelosi saying mean things back in September? I mean really you are a polititian and you can’t stand someone saying mean things about you? Really? WTF.
Rome Again
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
TZ? Elements of this thread are sounding like our lunchtime conversation today (particularly lilbritdifrnt and El Cid). ;)
jenniebee
On the flip side, the extra 3000 people in ole Miss who get jobs are probably still going to vote Republican anyway.
Comrade Jake
I think you can safely count Cantor amongst the group of folks who don’t believe in evolution.
John Cole
@Just Some Fuckhead: ?
Just Some Fuckhead
Maybe you could get our Honeymooners a special vibrating thread, John.
Dave
Tell ya what…Cantor can bitch about an accepted mathematical practice such as rounding when he can cogently explain where the House GOP got their six million jobs created by their asinine "tax cuts only" plan.
Oh yeah…Dave +2
The Dangerman
@John Cole:
Maybe he was watching a Hockey Game?
jenniebee
@Comrade Jake:
Prolly not. But what you can bet on is that Cantor would claim in public not to believe in it if he thought it was politically expedient to do so. Tell me which one’s worse.
John Cole
Honeymooners? Did I miss something?
kommrade reproductive vigor
Well this: % could be two sixes back to back and a third would make the number of the beast!
Rome Again
@John Cole:
Yeah, I was laying back, smoking a cigarette and talking to TZ about our concurring Obamagasms.
Litlebritdifrnt
Oh by the way, for those who are tired of typing out my handle in full please feel free to refer to me as Britty, or LBD, they appear to be what everyone has settled on at other blogs I post on. (Where I am known as either Truebrit or Litlebritdifrnt) just trying to save you some keystrokes :)
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@John Cole: Honeymooners? Did I miss something?
Yeah, I haven’t seen a single "Bang! Zoom! to the Moon!" either.
John S.
There are so few Jews in Congress as it is, and this putz who never ceases to haken a chainik has to be one of them?
Oi vai iz mir!
Laura W
@Litlebritdifrnt: I’m fond of Lilbit.
Is that OK?
Warren Terra
I thought that was the House Republican bossman himself, Boehner, at least in the most commonly used Youtube – but I admit that it’s been months since I bothered to watch the clip and pay attention to which nitwit actually takes the starring role, so I could be misremembering.
Comrade Jake
Everyone knows that math is an evil invention by the Democrats, designed to fool average, hard-working Americans like Joe The Plumber.
Litlebritdifrnt
Another OT but when I was playing scrabble today online (you have to remember I am basically being paid to be unemployed) my tiles looked like this P I E N I S O, I was really annoyed that I had nowhere to put the appropriate letters. Oh and POGO needs to get a smarter computer cause I am pretty much tired of kicking his arse.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Laura W:
Works for me, that was the Royal Family’s nickname for Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth) I believe that Prince Philip still calls her that.
Stuck
@John Cole:
it’s for the Daytona 500 fuckhead is focused on. I guess your invited.
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
But of course there is! Michael Steele says Republican tax cuts alone can create 6.2 MILLION jobs:
And a little fairy dust will make us ALL lotto winners.
.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@Rome Again:
I tried the obamagasms link and just got a blank page.
Yes, I caught the litlbit thing about Ford’s theater. I guess because I have been to Ford’s a few times I don’t have any fear of the place. It’s a museum now, basically, which still functions as a theater. Booth is dead.
Now, when I see Barack plowing into a crowd, quite honestly, my breathing stops. Scares the living fuck out of me.
demkat620
@ThymeZoneThePlumber: Yeah, I didn’t like him there at all. Creepy and foreboding.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
Rome Again
@Comrade Jake:
Counting and early Mathematics was an African discovery, therefore Obama will put it to great use.
Calouste
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Cantor can stand having someone say mean things to him, but he just missed being spanked at the same time.
Rome Again
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I feel the same about the Canasta robot. ;)
Try Word Riot, much better (gotta purchase the program to use it though, good game, and no robots). Or you could just play Scrabble one on one with other Pogo members?
Rome Again
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
Dunno what was supposed to be in that second blockquote, but, check last thread.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@Rome Again:
What I like about WordRiot is the team aspect of the game.
That’s its main attraction for me.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
I couldn’t speak.
Warren Terra
If you’re looking for a good online timewasting word game, I’m fond of Wordsplay (pka Weboggle). No strategy, unlike Scrabble, but on the 5×5 board people play at a very high level. There’s even some politics involved in the scoreboard.
camchuck
Its not a rounding error. The second set of numbers is an accidental leak of the secret jobs slated for armies of ACORN commies. /wingnut
Rome Again
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
Cat got your tongue?
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@Rome Again:
Yeth.
sgwhiteinfla
Just so we are clear here, the White House actually published BOTH the local and state numbers correct? So how is this supposed to be framed as come kinda state fucking secret? I swear I really and truly wish we had our own wingnut Democrats in Congress who would just say wild erroneous bullshit every single day to the point where they would over load fact checkers and perhaps even a few of the lies would stick. I am really tired of being a part of a party that plays by the rules so to speak whilst getting the hell beat out of us figuratively by opponents who have no such morals. I mean got damn how many times just today did some Rethug in Congress flog that bullshit $30 million for Pelosi’s rat story? And they pay absolutely NO price for making that kind of shit up. I say we put Roland Burris to good use for the next two years and send his ass out in front of the cameras just to make up shit. Hell what does he have to lose anyway?
Litlebritdifrnt
@Rome Again: I have purchased the scrabble thingy at home where I can play various levels of expertise, so far I have beaten all levels up to elite, and elite is kicking my arse. I am scared what genius is going to do to me. I cannot purchase stuff at work as you can imagine, therefore POGO is all I can do. I consider it practice for when I get home and battle the computer with a infinite dictionary of words on hand. I am doomed.
John Cole
It is even sillier than that. First, the whole notion that the number of jobs can be counted to the job is kind of absurd, as this is not an exact science. Second, the numbers are bound to change. In fact, I would bet the numbers change every time the bill is changed and an amendment to add or subtract something is added to the bill.
CONspiracy!
Brian J
What’s surprising is not so much that the Republicans have no shame in creating a big pile of bullshit out of something so small, nor that they’d pretend everyone is so dense that it’d gain a lot of traction. Instead, I’d bet a lot of money that Eric Cantor sincerely believes that these numbers should be definite, as if there’s a way to determine in an economy our size, interacting globally with many other complex economies, with a number of variables, many of them hard to nail down, the exact number of jobs that will be created in the next few years. Hell, if that were possible, there would be a lot less uncertainty in the economy, because people would have much better information.
So, in short, my biggest problem is not that he’s a lying dickwad. It’s that he’s, as best I can tell, just an idiot.
kay
@sgwhiteinfla:
They’re hitting back hard because they’re losing this debate, and they’re already all in. They can’t back down now. Letting up would sink them, and we’re only three weeks out. He’s President for 4 years. They went berserk in 21 days.
They don’t have anywhere to go now except crazy. It’ll get worse.
Litlebritdifrnt
Oh and last time I looked I was #3 in the WORLD for chicktionary. Yeah I went there, I was up until about 2am playing that damn thing but I ended up #3 in the world. I was impressed with myself. (Although I would like to kill the other two people ahead of me – obviously)
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@kay: They don’t have anywhere to go now except crazy. It’ll get worse.
Bingo. If their idea of bipartisanship now is calling a serious spending bill "Democrat Party Porkulus", I can’t wait to see what they’re like when they’re throwing a tantrum.
El Cid
Why do we need numbers bigger than 10?
I mean, if our forefathers could get by with counting on their fingers, why shouldn’t we?
Shouldn’t Obama just be promising "more than two hands’ worth of fingers of jobs" anyway?
iluvsummr
OT: Two PA judges took kickbacks for sending juveniles to a privately run detention center. They also upped sentences for first-time offenders (to maximize detention center profits?).
Looks like they’d be just the right people to handle the Guantanamo detainee relocation. If they weren’t facing 7 years in jail.
rawshark
How much more?
I paid 13k in taxes last year. $4k more than I should have so I get the $4k back. Am I suddenly on easy street if I got all of it? Ummm no. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Over.
Rome Again
@Litlebritdifrnt:
There are plenty of Pogo games you can play for free. Word Riot is just one that you have to purchase to play it (it’s a premium download, TZ and I play it quite often).
Try Lottso, that’s a lot of fun.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
And she’s better than me.
Er, I.
I am.
Rome Again
Whoops LBD, Lottso apparently is a Pogo Club Members only game. I have a free pass for a weeks worth of play. I can send you. Email me if you want one bgansel9ATgmail.com.
Rome Again
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
Not. You’re good too.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@rawshark: I paid 13k in taxes last year. $4k more than I should have so I get the $4k back. Am I suddenly on easy street if I got all of it? Ummm no.
Good point, and I’m sure the tax-cut-based Redoublechin plan rings even more hollow to (the more and more common) people whose earnings are zero.
kay
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist:
The Senator’s press conference was weird. He looked like a hostage.
They’re really that worried about Obama at the Caterpillar plant that they shove Senator Distraught out there to preempt?
Rome Again
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist:
Anything divided by or multiplied by nothing is nothing?
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@Rome Again:
(she is seriously better)
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist:
Can I call you Xecky?
GSD
Can we call Cantor and his cabal, Knee-Jerkoff Republicans?
-GSD
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@ThymeZoneThePlumber: Can I call you Xecky?
Absolutely! I go by that on a couple other blogs.
Pronounced either "Shecky" or with the "Checky" (CH as in Chanukkah), if you need to say it aloud.
Calouste
@Rome Again:
Not with Republican meth, uh math.
Rome Again
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist:
Yes, that CH is necessary as I know he talks to himself, I heard him. ;)
ThymeZoneThePlumber
By request, Obama’s joke about the thing earlier tonight.
I hope you get to see the video. It’s classic Barack.
Rome Again
@Calouste:
Meth: IOKIYAR
;)
ThymeZoneThePlumber
Yeah, that handle you got there is a little on the unpronounceable side.
Rome Again
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
Nuh-uh! Zeck-loth-zay-qwo ;)
ThymeZoneThePlumber
True, I talk to myself and to computers. And I sing to cats.
Rome Again
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
"Oh, Stormy…"
Yes, he sings to my cat.
;)
Zuzu's Petals
@JGabriel:
Steele is full of crap, according to TPM.
And Cantor evidently has his own number problems.
Comrade Jake
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
Thanks! I will definitely track the video down.
It’s pretty amazing that Obama’s first instinct when something like this happens is to crack jokes. I keep thinking about him poking fun of Hillary morphing into Annie Oakley during the primaries.
"That’s some politicking going on!"
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@Rome Again:
Cats love to be sung to. Any old song with a tune and a lyric will usually do. Just repeat it over and over, cats like the soothing repetition.
Also they don’t complain when you are off key. Which I often am.
Rome Again
@Zuzu’s Petals:
Re: Steele: Unfortunately, the only way to prove he is wrong is to sacrifice this entire nation to the toilet – not recommended. He’ll get away with it, I predict.
Comrade Jake
And here’s the video!
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@Comrade Jake:
Good work. The clincher is that second chuckle.
Bloggers, you don’t have to worry about this guy. He’s got this, and what’s more, our Republican friends know it. They know they are truly and royally fucked.
Rome Again
OMG, I’ve never seen him laugh at himself quite like that before, that was awesome.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@Rome Again:
I’ve only seen one other president ever laugh at his own problems this way … it was Kennedy. He’d do that same grin and chuckle that way ….. and you’d just think, damn, this guy is good.
Well, this guy is good. I don’t think we have begun to see how good he really is just yet.
rawshark
OMG I got a serious Denzel vibe watching that.
R. Schmidt-Orren
I always thought of you as Checkle-lickle-lay-que Christ. CH as in chuckle. I have no reason why I think this. Maybe because to my ear it sounds even better than Jesus H. Tap Dancing Christ.
And for some reason, I think of you as a she not a he. My apologies if I was wrong.
Just Some Fuckhead
@John S.: Are you serious? Jews represent about 2% of the total population of the United States and about 8% of the number of Congresspersons in the House and Senate: 32/435 in the house, 13/100 in the Senate. So clearly the law of large numbers kicks in here and you’re due a couple nutjobs.
TheFountainHead
@Comrade Jake: He truly is unflappable.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@R. Schmidt-Orren: And for some reason, I think of you as a she not a he. My apologies if I was wrong.
I’m a he, but I take no offense – women are smarter and all. I will also admit that Xecklothxayyquou is not immediately recognizable as male or female.
Rome Again
@TheFountainHead:
I thought he sounded a little nervous on a telephone interview he did earlier today where they asked him about Gregg’s decision – but he seems to show that he bounces back quickly.
I think he just hadn’t processed it yet earlier, I think he had just gotten off stage.
Note to Obama Admin Officials: Do NOT let him get on any phone interviews just after he receives surprising news, and definitely no cameras until he’s had some time to process the info.
AnneLaurie
IIRC, Cantor is ‘deputy minority whip’, which means he’s the party’s Official Spokesvictim. Whether he was chosen for his political skills or his excellent use of hair product depends on whether you believe him or his fellow Rethugs.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
Third week in. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this kind of candor from a president. I still can hardly believe he said this.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@ThymeZoneThePlumber: I don’t think I’ve ever seen this kind of candor from a president.
It’s certainly a welcome change from "Who cares what you think?"
TheFountainHead
Any of you guys catch Dave’s "Celebrity Drug Update"?? Fantastic.
Michael Phelps – Weed
A. Rod. – Roids
J. Phoenix – ???????
Rome Again
@TheFountainHead:
I don’t know about what drugs Joaquin Phoenix was on, but I do wonder if someone removed the chewed up gum from under Dave’s desk. Ewwww! How gross.
J. Michael Neal
For some reason, Obama’s brow line has always made me think of Sam Sheepdog.
Maybe it’s only because his opponents keep resembling Ralph Wolf.
TenguPhule
You have never heard of the "Divide by Zero" essay, have you?
R. Schmidt-Orren
@Checklelicklelayque Christ:
Thanks. None meant.
I often play a game in my head where I try to guess if the commenter here is male or female. I of course have no way of knowing (even when people say "I’m a this" or "I’m a that"). Still, it’s fun and occasionally I do think I am pretty certain someone’s male or female. But I suspect I have a pretty dismal ‘batting’ average.
F’rinstance…for a long time I just assumed Svenker was a guy. Because being a guy when I read her stuff it seemed like I could have possibly thought of it. I don’t mean she is unoriginal, I mean it was not alien to my thought processes. As in if someone says they can jump 18 feet, I can understand that even if I can’t jump 18 feet, so that’s reasonable. It’s not like someone says he can fly 18 feet. I can’t fly so that is alien to me.
So naturally my bigoted self assumes that such a person who appears to think similarly to how I think is just a guy like me. (And no hints from Svenker: unlike some other posters, I never saw her identifying herself as a woman.)
And then some time ago, in the course of some silly non-political thread she said something that I was absolutely certain only a woman could think of. It wasn’t the content, it was the thought process. It was something where in all my experience I would have arrived at ‘Z’ possibly by way of ‘A’ or maybe ‘G’ or even perhaps all the consonants plus vowels minus ‘Y’. But she got there by going from A to Dimsensor 5 and then to the smell of a fresh cut lawn in July and then to Pi and then to a conclusion which I thought made absolute sense.
And I said to myself, OMG Svenker is a she! Because no man would have gotten from here to there by such a path.
Understand, I am convinced men and women mentally get to pretty much the same places at pretty much the same time. But they often take different paths to do it.
This really bugs some men. But I think it is beautiful and just gob-stopping amazing. It’s like someone speaking a foreign language. Some people say ‘shut the fuck up and speak our language". I think, ‘damn why am I so dumb that I can’t do that?’ It sounds exotic and kinda beautiful.
So Svenker wrote something that was quirky enough to my male psyche that I thought only someone so alien to my wiring could even conceive of thinking this way. Men could not pretend it any more than a dog could pretend to see color.
So I knew he was a she.
And as for my gender guessing game I was 1 for 215. Or some such outlandish number of fail.
So I am almost always wrong about gender on the net.
And I see I am way off topic, and it’s very late, so I will go to bed immediately.
Laura W
@R. Schmidt-Orren:
Even in the 5th rereading this is delightful!
Wanna guess my gender?
Tattoosydney
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
Hawt, funny and relaxed. He must be the worst President evah.
Carlo
On a slightly related note, check out the Wikipedia article on bipartisanship.
Dan
I’ve been working on the public housing aspect, and I can see why numbers potentially won’t add up.
Public housing capital funds is getting $4 billion, $2.4 by formula and $1.6 by bids. The $2.4 can be allocated easily, by looking at past allocations and doing a simple pro-ration.
How would you allocate the bids-jobs before collecting bids? You couldn’t right?
Thus, the jobs numbers may only reflect the formula numbers… That’s how I would do it.