An Interesting Statistic

Originally posted by Rokenn: Another interesting statistic. The government spent three times as much money investigating Bill Clinton's sex life then they have spent investigating the lapses that lead to 9/11.

Sources please? And also I would like to know how you got access to the CIA's field activity budget which is a Black budget.

Edit: Would those lapses also include the Clinton Administration turning down 3 seperate offers by the Sudan Government to turn Bin Laden over to our Justice Department?

[ 05-07-2003, 01:42 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

[Grojlach]

Originally posted by Iron_Ranger: To clear somethings up, I didnt intent for this to be a full fledge debate, just two statements that I have heard time and time again that contridict each other that I found rather Ironic.

But you still assume that the military's composition and its political opinions are a direct reflection of that of the entire US populace, which I doubt is the case (partly for reasons I mentioned above). Even using the simplest of logic would already point out that the two statements *don't* have to be in contradiction with one another.

Example, let's assume the following (not necessarily true, but for the sake of assumption):
if (a) the majority of the people in a certain US state are farmers and (b) only a minority of the people in the entire US are farmers, do (a) and (b) automatically contradict one another? Of course not. As long as the situation in one state doesn't hold for the entire nation, you can't say anything about possible contradictions between the two statements.
And your initial statement is actually even more obscure than that, more along these lines:
if (a) smurfs make up the majority of the people in a certain US state and (b) the majority of all the people (including smurfs ) in that same US state are farmers, and (c) only a minority of the smurfs in the entire US are farmers, how in the world does (b) contradict (c), even if (a) holds? As long as you don't know anything about whether the situation in one state is he same in all of the other states or not, you simply can't prove there's a contradiction. For all we know the majority of the smurfs in all of the other states are rocket scientists, which is possible within the boundaries of the statements made.

Ergo: the two statements don't automatically contradict one another. It's possible, but only if you assume that the military is a representative sample of the entire nation, including people of all races, ages, cultural backgrounds and income classes in the correct proportions.

[ 05-07-2003, 01:43 PM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

[Grojlach]

Originally posted by MagiK: quote: Originally posted by Rokenn: Another interesting statistic. The government spent three times as much money investigating Bill Clinton's sex life then they have spent investigating the lapses that lead to 9/11.

Sources please? And also I would like to know how you got access to the CIA's field activity budget which is a Black budget. [/QUOTE]Before you start guessing, he is not suggesting anything by this, it's merely something he thought of.

[Rokenn]

Originally posted by Grojlach: quote: Originally posted by MagiK: quote: Originally posted by Rokenn: Another interesting statistic. The government spent three times as much money investigating Bill Clinton's sex life then they have spent investigating the lapses that lead to 9/11.

Sources please? And also I would like to know how you got access to the CIA's field activity budget which is a Black budget. [/QUOTE]Before you start guessing, he is not suggesting anything by this, it's merely something he thought of. [/QUOTE]Exactly! [img]graemlins/laugh2.gif[/img]

Actaully I was refering to what the moneies Congress has authorized. A recent op-ed peice I read stated that about 30 million was sepnt on Clinton investagations and 12 million on 9/11. It also stated that Congress recently voted down allocating another 11 million for 9/11 investagation while approving 50 million for the shuttle failure. *shrug*

Originally posted by Rokenn: Before you start guessing, he is not suggesting anything by this, it's merely something he thought of.

Exactly! [img]graemlins/laugh2.gif[/img]

Actaully I was refering to what the moneies Congress has authorized. A recent op-ed peice I read stated that about 30 million was sepnt on Clinton investagations and 12 million on 9/11. It also stated that Congress recently voted down allocating another 11 million for 9/11 investagation while approving 50 million for the shuttle failure. *shrug* [/QB][/QUOTE]

ROTFL!!! Good shot Grojlach!!! I spewed water on my keyboard [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

Rokenn, unfortunately your Oped piece seem to have completely discounted CIA field work as costing anything, which is patently an unfair assumption. I would venture to guess if you count the entire monies spent on combating terrorism before and since the amount would dwarf the clinton investigation cost.

I would also point out that had Mr. Clinton just been forthcoming and honest at the start instead of pointing his finger at the camera, the issue would have cost a fraction of what it did...instead he lied, he mistated and obstructed justice and basicly cost us all a LOT of money to cover his affair.


Anyway..my ire is with the person who wrote the oped piece and not you so please don't feel like I was directing that at you so much as just ....venting in general [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 05-07-2003, 01:54 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

[Attalus]

The only references to party affiliation in the military that I found were some opinion pieces about hos the Gore campaign didn't want to allow a lot of the military mail-in ballots, because they felt they would skew towards the Republican ticket. No figures, etc., nor reasons why they felt that way. Ah, Florida, your shadow is long.

[Iron_Ranger]

Originally posted by Grojlach: But you still assume that the military's composition and its political opinions are a direct reflection of that of the entire US populace, [/QB]

WHAT ON EARTH?

I never said that and honestly I dont know how you draw the conclusion because that was not my intent.

Here is what I said=

In the past, Most black and hispanic civlians have voted Democrat (not all, but the majority).

I have heard that the majority of the military votes republican.

I have also heard a large part of the military is made up of Hispanics and Black.

Its really as simple as that.

[Grojlach]

Originally posted by Iron_Ranger: quote: Originally posted by Grojlach: But you still assume that the military's composition and its political opinions are a direct reflection of that of the entire US populace,

WHAT ON EARTH?

I never said that and honestly I dont know how you draw the conclusion because that was not my intent.

Here is what I said=

In the past, Most black and hispanic civlians have voted Democrat (not all, but the majority).

I have heard that the majority of the military votes republican.

I have also heard a large part of the military is made up of Hispanics and Black.

Its really as simple as that. [/QUOTE]You were the one talking about there being a contradiction between the two statements. The fact that "normally" the majority of the black and hispanic civilians vote Democrat and in the army, which according to you mostly consists of black and hispanic civilians, the majority votes Republican, somehow struck you as an "ironic" contradiction:

To clear somethings up, I didnt intent for this to be a full fledge debate, just two statements that I have heard time and time again that contridict each other that I found rather Ironic.

See? I'm not making things up.
The assumption you quoted from my post was mostly based on you being convinced there's an actual contradiction between the two statements, and I merely tried to point out with a few examples why making a statement that they actually contradict one another can't be proven in any way and is actually rather unlikely, looking at the facts and the composition of the military.
I'm not putting words in your mouth, but the point here is, the contradiction you mentioned could only have existed if you'd actually assumed upfront "that the military's composition and its political opinions are a direct reflection of that of the entire US populace"; which is literally the only way this contradiction in a comparison between the two statements would prove to be true 100% and which is why I ascribed it to your reasoning... Else there wouldn't really be anything to classify as "ironic".

But in theory, I'm only nitpicking on what you literally said and just having some fun at your expense. I know what you were trying to say and you should realize by now that the word "contradiction" (or at least the conjugation of the verb "to contradict" you used) was just a bit ill-chosen on your account, as someone [img]graemlins/angelwings.gif[/img] could take advantage of it by taking it literally and actually applying the rules of logic to test its truthfulness...
Sorry. I'll start behaving again from now on, though.

[Davros]

LOL IR - nowhere in my post did I mention FOX. It would seem though that you were capably perspicacious of making the appropriate association from the analogy drawn and the types of venacular provided as examples .

[Attalus]

Excuse me, I have to leave. Bill O'Reilly will be on in a few minutes. [img]tongue.gif[/img]