Saturday, April 26, 2014

Achievement is to Blank as Liberal is to Blank

I woke up this morning, and I was curious to see if I could put together a map of how states performed on the SATs and the ACTs.  It is fairly complicated, because some universities use the SATs, while others use the ACTs, and it depends on which state they are locate. A large number of students leave their home-states further complicating the system. The way I came up with to solve the problem was to take the SAT average and convert it into an ACT equivalent system and then weighted the average by the percent of students to take each test.

Top Percentile for 2013: 

State
Percent of Graduates Tested
Average Composite Score
SAT
Participation Rate
ACT Equivalent
Weighted Average
New Hampshire
19
23.8
70
23.67
23.69775
Massachusetts
22
24.1
83
23.49
23.61781
Minnesota
74
23
6
27.0675
23.30506
Washington
21
22.8
60
23.355
23.21111
Connecticut
27
24
85
22.95
23.20313
Vermont
26
23
61
23.2875
23.20158


Followed by:

State
Percent of Graduates Tested
Average Composite Score
SAT
Participation Rate
ACT Equivalent
Weighted Average
Virginia
26
22.6
71
23.175
23.02088
New Jersey
23
23
78
22.9725
22.97876
Oregon
34
21.5
49
23.4
22.62169
California
26
22.2
57
22.725
22.56054
Pennsylvania
18
22.7
71
22.455
22.50455
New York
26
23.4
76
22.185
22.49471
Maryland
21
22.3
73
22.4325
22.4029
Ohio
72
21.8
17
24.84
22.38067
Wisconsin
71
22.1
4
26.8875
22.35533
Iowa
66
22.1
3
26.8425
22.3062
Rhode Island
14
22.7
72
22.0725
22.17465
Kansas
75
21.8
6
26.64
22.15852
Indiana
38
21.7
70
22.3425
22.11644
Alaska
37
21.1
52
22.7925
22.08888
South Dakota
78
21.9
3
26.8425
22.08306
Montana
72
21.3
25
24.2775
22.0674
Missouri
74
21.6
4
26.7975
21.86654
Nevada
32
21.3
48
22.185
21.831
Nebraska
84
21.5
4
26.2575
21.71625


The Lowest Half:

State
Percent of Graduates Tested
Average Composite Score
SAT Participation Rate
ACT Equivalent
Weighted Average
Texas
37
20.9
59
21.96
21.55146
Georgia
51
20.7
75
21.9825
21.46339
Hawaii
40
20.1
64
22.1625
21.36923
Arizona
50
19.6
35
23.6025
21.24809
South Carolina
51
20.4
64
21.8475
21.20557
Maine
8
23.5
95
20.9025
21.10425
Oklahoma
75
20.8
5
25.65
21.10313
Colorado
100
20.4
14
26.0775
21.09724
Idaho
49
22.1
99
20.5425
21.05816
West Virginia
63
20.6
15
22.8375
21.03029
Utah
100
20.7
6
25.5375
20.97382
Illinois
100
20.6
5
27.3825
20.92298
District of Columbia
38
20.4
91
21.1275
20.9132
Florida
74
19.6
67
22.095
20.78557
Delaware
15
22.9
100
20.43
20.75217
Alabama
78
20.4
7
24.255
20.71747
North Dakota
98
20.5
2
27.405
20.6381
New Mexico
70
19.9
12
24.6375
20.59329
Arkansas
90
20.2
4
25.695
20.43383
Michigan
100
19.9
4
27
20.17308
North Carolina
100
18.7
62
22.5225
20.16293
Wyoming
100
19.8
4
26.3025
20.0501
Tennessee
100
19.5
8
25.7175
19.96056
Kentucky
100
19.6
5
26.3025
19.91917
Louisiana
100
19.5
5
24.9525
19.75964
Mississippi
95
18.9
3
25.0875
19.08941

Here is how it looks when mapped out:

2013 SAT/ACT Score by State
2013 SAT/ACT Score by State


I then broke it down by Quartile: 

2013 SAT/ACT Score by State
2013 SAT/ACT Score by State

I then broke it down by Half:

2013 SAT/ACT Score by State
2013 SAT/ACT Score by State

I then pulled a map over laying the Half map and a map of state legislature by controlling party:

2013 SAT/ACT Score by State
SAT/ACT Political Overlay Map 

There are obvious flaws in my methodology. There are also larger questions of socio-economic factors playing a more responsible factor in the systematic educational success of a population, and so forth. At the same time, I do believe this simple map is at the heart of the fundamental american dynamic.


Liam '14

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Sorry Pat. F & U Don't Solve the Puzzle.

As emperor of the gays, I want to congratulate game show host, Pat Sajak, for coming out as a heterosexual.Who would of guessed, he seemed so gay.

Proof Pat Sajak has the emotional maturity of a jar of mayo!

Klassy.

But no, I'll be serious for moment. Congratulations for being straight. Congratulations for feeling secure enough to come out. Congratulations for feeling so secure that you can tell your boss that you love a human being without the fear of being being terminated. Congratulations for feeling so secure that you can tell your family that you love a human being without the fear of being ostracized or financially or emotionally reprimanded. Congratulations that you feel so secure that you can tell your siblings that you love a human being without your siblings shielding their children from you, because they might emulate a "deviant lifestyle." Congratulations that you feel secure enough that you can tell your property manager that you live with the person that you love without the fear of being evicted.

Congratulations that your little stunt of trying to become the next right-wing martyr did not succeed, and you still have a job, a wife, a family, and a future.

May your second marriage continue going strong.

And perhaps now that you had the benefit of coming out without repercussions you could champion ENDA, so that no person should have to suffer consequences for saying the words "I love you."

But you won't.


Liam '14

As emporer I command you to kiss my ring

Saturday, April 19, 2014

A Total Eclipse of the Brain

The next lunar eclipse for North American eyes will be on April 4, 2015.

The lunar eclipse that recently happened on April 14, 2014 had been predicted by scientists for, like, ever, and Wikipedia has a schedule of the next, what, millennial of lunar eclipses that are predicted to happen.

When I was younger I used to pay attention to astronomical events far more closely than what I do toady, mostly because I was a nerd who never got laid. I would spend summer nights out on a blanket looking at the stars and tracking the motion of the planets. I knew all the dates of predicted phenomena days in advance and would hope for good weather. Always in August I would go out and watch the Perseid Meteor Shower and drink Coca Cola all night long on a green blanket that smelled slightly funny, because we kept it in the basement and only ever took it out to lie in the grass.

So, I was kind of shocked when I turned on the TV the other day and saw people talking about the lunar eclipse, because I assumed only virgins and Neil deGrasse Tyson talked about astronomy.

Here’s what some idiot-asshole at World Net Daily had to write about it (I was going to be nice and properly cite the author, but there's no byline):

Barack Obama quite recently, expressing his frustration that Republican members of Congress won’t give him what he wants, threatened arbitrary executive action, promising that he has a “pen and phone.”

But there are “flashing red warning lights” in the heavens that should command peoples’ attention right now, because the one behind those warnings, God, had “more than a pen and a phone in his hand,” according to the author of “Blood Moons: Decoding the Imminent Heavenly Signs.”

Pastor Mark Biltz, whose book is creating a tidal wave of interest right now with the first of four lunar eclipses expected to become visible early Tuesday, was speaking to Breaking Israel News.

“I believe that the blood moons have great historic and prophetic significance just as they did following 1948 and 1967. In the book of Joel it mentions three times about the sun and the moon going dark and in context it also mentions Divine wrath against all countries that want to divide or part the land of Israel,” he said.

“I believe the moons are like flashing red warning lights at a heavenly intersection saying to Israel as well as the nations they will be crossing heavenly red lines and if they do, they will understand as Pharaoh did on Passover night 3,500 years ago that the Creator backs up what He says.

“Like Pharaoh the leaders and pundits of today will realize when it comes to crossing the red lines of the Creator of the universe he has more than a pen and a phone in his hand.” 

Oh god I need a shower...

Ugggh. The stupid will not come off. Damn you Dove with Cucumber Extract, why won't you wash away the stupid.

See, if you can predict an astronomical event in advance, then it cannot be a warning, because that would suggest determinism. Punishing people for a pre-determined outcome is not only baffling but would be utterly sadistic. Under this theology, humanity is literally built to spill. That's fucking sick.

Secondly, there are about two lunar eclipses each year. Only one is typically visible depending where in the world you are located. But still that is a lot of eclipses. Which means there are either a lot of warnings or else it's a lot of bullshit.

Guess where my money's at.

Here's what lunar eclipses actually tell us instead of this crazy Jesus hates President Obama bullshit.

If you hold up a coin that is one inch in diameter (about the size of a quarter) it needs to be 108 inches away from your eye to exactly block out the sun. Don't try this as it will be super painful, or worse you might go blind trying it (well actually I don't give a fuck about your well being; I'm just avoiding any liability). Instead do this with the moon. It turns out that the moon and the sun are often the same size (have the same angular size, obviously.) That's why solar eclipses can be spectacular.

Due to this phenomenon, you can measure the distance of the Earth to the Moon and the diameter of the Moon during a lunar eclipse. Without doing any measuring, we know that the distance from the Earth to the Moon is 108 times the Moon's diameter.

To find the diameter of the Moon all you need is a handy-dandy stop watch. On April 4, 2015, camp out on the beach, and after your boyfriend gets done blowing you, measure the time it takes the Moon to enter the Earth's shadow. Then measure the time it takes for the Moon to emerge from the Earth's shadow.

The entrance time is 2.5 times shorter than the total time of the eclipse; therefore the diameter of the Moon is 2.5 times smaller than the Earth.

Distance of the Earth to the Moon


AB = CE; therefore DB = 108*DE

Aristarchus of Samos who died around 230 BCE knew the diameter of the Earth and calculate the size and distance of the Moon using this method.

It is pathetic for me to type this, but it's 2014: Lunar eclipses are not divine signs to warn a sinful people. Grow the fuck up.


UPDATE:


I decided to make a scale model of the Lunar Eclipse:

Distance Earth to Moon
Obviously Click to Embiggen  


Here is a cropped version:

Distance Earth Moon



Liam '14

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Apparently there are no Men in Gay Marriages

Thursday the 10th Circuit Court heard the oral argument to Kitchen v. Herbert 2: If You Can't Stand the Heat. Coming this Fall.

Kitchen is the groundbreaking decision out of the District Court of Utah that was the first ruling to overturn a marriage ban after the Windsor and Perry rulings. Yes, Utah.. right? But then again the court does what the constitution wants.

After the Kitchen decision, a tsunami of lower court decision, heretofore known as the Gaydal Wave of 2013, gave deference to the 14th amendment, which of course had previously been turned down by the Burger Court in Nelson v. Baker for "want of a substantial federal question."

The post Perry/Windsor victories cropped up in Utah, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Michigan Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia, while pending cases in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, West Virginia, Wyoming, and Wisconsin all look increasingly promising.

When going through all the material to see on a national scale what marriage looks like, I became interested in how the United States got to this point, legally speaking. Before I read Kitchen, I knew the basics of the history. The basic frame work looks like this Loving v. Virginia, Nelson v. Baker, Bowers, Romer, Lawrence v. Texas, Windsor, and Perry. 

In Kitchen there is a great section that summarizes the movement towards equality:

In 1971, two men from Minnesota brought a lawsuit in state court arguing that Minnesota was constitutionally required to allow them to marry. Baker v. Nelson, 191 N.W.2d 185, 187 (Minn. 1971). The Minnesota Supreme Court found that Minnesota's restriction of marriage to opposite-sex couples did not violate either the Equal Protection Clause or the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Id. at 186-87. On appeal, the United States Supreme Court summarily dismissed the case "for want of a substantial federal question." Baker v. Nelson, 409 U.S. 810, 810 (1972).

Utah argues that the Court's summary dismissal in Baker is binding on this court and that the present lawsuit should therefore be dismissed for lack of a substantial federal question. But the Supreme Court has stated that a summary dismissal is not binding "when doctrinal developments indicate otherwise." Hicks v. Miranda, 422 U.S. 332, 344 (1975).

Here, several doctrinal developments in the Court's analysis of both the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause as they apply to gay men and lesbians demonstrate that the Court's summary dismissal in Baker has little if any precedential effect today. Not only was Baker decided before the Supreme Court held that sex is a quasi-suspect classification, see Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190, 197 (1976); Frontiero v. Richardson, 411 U.S. 677, 688 (1973) (plurality op.), but also before the Court recognized that the Constitution protects individuals from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. See Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 635-36 (1996). Moreover, Baker was decided before the Supreme Court held in Lawrence v. Texas that it was unconstitutional for a state to "demean [the] existence [of gay men and lesbians] or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime." 539 U.S. 558, 578 (2003). As discussed below, the Supreme Court's decision in Lawrence removes a justification that states could formerly cite as a reason to prohibit same-sex marriage.

The State points out that, despite the doctrinal developments in these cases and others, a number of courts have found that Baker survives as controlling precedent and therefore precludes consideration of the issues in this lawsuit. See, e.g., Massachusetts v. U.S. Dep't of Health & Human Servs., 682 F.3d 1, 8 (1st Cir. 2012) (holding that Baker "limit[s] the arguments to ones that do not presume to rest on a constitutional right to same-sex marriage."); Sevcik v. Sandoval, 911 F. Supp. 2d 996, 1002-03 (D. Nev. 2012) (ruling that Baker barred the plaintiffs' equal protection claim). Other courts disagree and have decided substantially similar issues without consideration of Baker. See, e.g., Perry v. Schwarzenegger, 704 F. Supp. 2d 921 (N.D. Cal. 2010) (ruling that California's prohibition of same-sex marriage violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment). In any event, all of these cases were decided before the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Windsor.

As discussed above, the Court's decision in Windsor does not answer the question presented here, but its reasoning is nevertheless highly relevant and is therefore a significant doctrinal development. Importantly, the Windsor Court foresaw that its ruling would precede a number of lawsuits in state and lower federal courts raising the question of a state's ability to prohibit same-sex marriage, a fact that was noted by two dissenting justices. The Honorable John Roberts wrote that the Court "may in the future have to resolve challenges to state marriage definitions affecting same-sex couples." Windsor, 133 S. Ct. at 2697 (Roberts, C.J., dissenting). And Justice Scalia even recommended how this court should interpret the Windsor decision when presented with the question that is now before it: "I do not mean to suggest disagreement . . . that lower federal courts and state courts can distinguish today's case when the issue before them is state denial of marital status to same-sex couples." Id. at 2709 (Scalia, J., dissenting). It is also notable that while the Court declined to reach the merits in Perry v. Hollingsworth because the petitioners lacked standing to pursue the appeal, the Court did not dismiss the case outright for lack of a substantial federal question. See 133 S. Ct. 2652 (2013). Given the Supreme Court's disposition of both Windsor and Perry, the court finds that there is no longer any doubt that the issue currently before the court in this lawsuit presents a substantial question of federal law.

As a result, Baker v. Nelson is no longer controlling precedent and the court proceeds to address the merits of the question presented here.

The Burger Court's denial of Certiorari in Baker v. Nelson had persistent consequences for the marriage equality movement. No court could accept a 14th Amendment argument except the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court would then have no lower court decisions to argue over. Essentially until laws fundamentally changed, any decision would have had to been de novo. 

The legal shift happened, incidentally after 3 events occurred:

1. The passage of the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 which were codified under 28 U.S.C. § 1738C and 1 U.S.C. § 7. Among other things, it allowed states to not recognize Gay some marriages. It also forbade the Federal Government from recognizing Gay some marriages.

2. State Constitutional Bans. Under the logic of Baker, the issue at hand applied to statutory bans. So a boost to the advancement of marriage equality came from those who exploited discrimination for political gain. The movement to enact state constitutional bans against same-sex marriage began in 1998 with Alaska and Hawaii amending their constitutions to prohibit gays from  getting all gay with each other, am I right fellas?  

3. Marriage equality in the various states. People were married in one state and later moved to another. The notions of full faith and credit were challenged. Furthermore marriages were not equal at the federal level, due to DOMA.

By the time the courts had reached the Perry/Windsor Era, the legal landscape of America look like the following:

Maximum States Constitutional Bans: 30
States with Marriage Equality at the Time of Perry/Windsor: 9
Maximum States to Ever Have Marriage-Lite: 16 + DC

The legal setting was in place to overturn the Baker v. Nelson precedent.

Which brings me to the oral argument for Kitchen.

Here is copy of the oral argument from the April 10th, 2014 Kitchen v. Herbert hearing. It is three straight white dudes discussing my rights as an individual, so what could be more entertaining and in no way frustratingly patronizing.




The audio file has an issue with the left audio feed, so if it sounds gargled, open your equalizer and push the feed to your right output.

A few quick comments:

What is marriage? Apparently only something that a state has one hundred percent control over (because that's what I concluded from reading Loving v. Virginia.)

According to the defendant, it's better to have all of your rights taken away than to be a second class citizen... great argument.

Why the fuck did the defendants just bring up Maggie Gallagher? Seriously. She is a pointless nobody, with zero credibility. She has no higher degree, no JD, no Phd in psychology, and no expertise. I mean for fuck-sake, why didn't they just cite me or even my mom, or fuck it why not my Westie, who can put together an argument that is more coherent and more germane to the topic than Gallagher.  What a bunch of assholes. fucking fuck fuck. I mean seriously, I am glad this douchebag quoted her, because it is on tape, and he will go down in history as the small-minded bigot who quoted Gallagher and then got his ass handed to him in court and everyone in the world pointed and laughed at his tiny dick.

"[Gay marriage] is too new" to have data on societal effects. And so it will be if we never allow gay marriage.

"The disappearance of the dad." We cannot allow gay marriage because the children won't have a dad.... right. Also did he just try to equate gay couples to single parents?

"'Traditional Marriage'" Yes nice 200 year old tradition in a 400,000 year old species. If I hear traditional marriage one more time, I am going to yak.

DOMA was about states right to define marriage, that does not exclude the ability of the Federal constitution to enforce equal protection. It is not that hard to understand. We do not have any laws prohibiting poor people from getting married. Or ex-convicts. Or people named Trent. All of whom probably should be suspect parents/spouses before gay people.

Why don't conservatives get that gay people can have kids. I don't, but others do.

Why does it always come down to polygamy? A court couldn't simply allow polygamy. The polygamous marriage system wouldn't function without additional legislation to regulate how it would function. Most states have a system where each spouse owns half of the property of the marriage. How would that work in a polygamous system? Answer it wouldn't. Polygamy literally changes the definition of marriage, not who can marry.

So did Kitchen et al sue the right people?


Liam '14