Used car or DVDs?

Having trouble finding the right DVD for a loved one for Christmas? Play it safe and give them the Criterion Collection Holiday 2004 Set, availible exclusively from Amazon. Unfortunately it does not include the 19 out of print Criterion Collection DVDs, but it does have the other 241 titles released prior to October, 2004. At only $4,999.00, it is a savings of $2,501.00! And remember it ships for free with the super saver shipping.

Never lose another hotdog to a woodworking accident

The folks at SawStop have invented a table saw that stops when it hits human flesh. Or at least when it hits hotdog. Apparently Jenni-O Turkey Franks have the same electrical conductivity properties as a human finger, and there is interesting video of a guy sending a plank with a hotdog on top of it into a buzzing saw, which whips through the board, but stops when it hits the hotdog, leaving only a small scratch.

Which side of the road to they drive on?

I've found a great resource for all things loosely related to which side of the road they drive on in which countries.

As if living in Somalia wasn't hard enough, the breakaway Republic of Somaliland insists that you drive on the left, unlike the Republic of Somalia. Somalia was formed on July 1, 1960, with the uniting of the Somaliland Protectorate, which ceased to be a British colony five days earlier, with Italian Somalia, which was an Italian colony for about 10 years before it became administered as a UN trust territory in 1949. With this union, Somaliland, the northern part of the country, switched to driving on the right. In May of 1991, Somaliland declared its independence from the Republic of Somalia and switched back to driving on the left. No countries recognize the Republic of Somaliland, and so I guess that means we're supposed to drive on the right. Two regions of Somaliland, Sool and Sanaag, are also claimed by Puntland, which broke away from the Republic of Somalia in 1998, but which just wants to be an independent state in a Federation of Somalia. It's sounds to me like just not driving on either side of the road in Sanaag and Sool is the safest solution.

1992 Revisited

In last month's election, the nation may have been divided, but there were only three states in which neither George Bush nor John Kerry secured a majority of the popular vote. Bush eeked out New Mexico 49.84% to 49.05% and Iowa 49.9% to 49.23% while Kerry won Wisconsin 49.7% to 49.32%. In 22 of the 31 states won by Bush, he won by more 10 percentage points. Kerry won 8 of his 19 states (and the District of Columbia) by more than 10 percentage points. (This does of course not include winning California by a mere 9.98 percentage points.) In the states won by Bush, he took 56.6% of the vote, while Kerry won 54.1% of the vote in the states he took.

Now let's compare this to the last time a President Bush ran for reelection. In the 1992 election, there was only one state in which a presidential candidate actually won a majority, and that was Bill Clinton's 53.2% in Arkansas, where he had won 6 of the last 7 gubernatorial elections. DC of course went Democratic with 84%, but every where else, there was no majority. In 8 states, the winner of the plurality did not even get 40% of the popular vote. This is of course due to H. Ross Perot.

It is really quite amazing to look back on Perot's performance. He got at least 10% of the popular vote in every state except for a measely 8.7% in Mississippi. He got over 20% in 28 states and over 30% in Maine where he edged Bush to finish second. Perot also finish second in Utah beating Clinton. Nationwide, Perot got over 19 million votes, or 18.91% of the national popular vote, but he made the mistake of have such a uniform distribution of his supporters, for he did not win a single electoral vote.*

I decided to apply the proposed Colorado electoral vote splitting scheme to every state in 1992. The results:

Candidate         Actually won   Alternate history

Bill Clinton          370                235

George H.W. Bush      168                204

H. Ross Perot           0                 99

As so there would have been no electoral college majority. The 103rd Congress was elected in November 1992. In the House, 30 state delegations were controlled by Democrats to only 9 by the Republicans with the remaining 11 split evenly.

*--The last "third party" candidate to actually win a state's electoral votes (ignoring the odd "unfaithful elector") was in 1968, when George Wallace received 9.9 million votes, or 13.5% nationwide. He won majorities in Alabama and Mississippi and pluralities in Arkansas, Georgia, and Louisiana, giving him 46 electoral votes. There was indeed some nationwide support for this southern candidate as he won at least 5% of the popular vote in 43 states. (MA, ME, RI, NH, VT, MN, and HI were less than 5%.)