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Sunday, May 17, 2009

Barry / Legislature Sen. Doug Jackson on The New Math

Posted by Bruce Barry on Sun, May 17, 2009 at 1:47 PM

click to enlarge "Quiz me on my times tables, I dare you."
  • "Quiz me on my times tables, I dare you."
Defending the wisdom of laws that let people bring guns everywhere, state senator Doug Jackson (D-Dickson) dazzled viewers of Bob Mueller's Sunday morning program with some fancy pants arithmetic:
"We have 220,000 permit holders in Tennessee right now. Last year 278 of those permit holders had their permits revoked because they were charged with a felony....That is twelve ten-thousandths of one percent of the permit holders."
Not even close, senator. The proportion of revoked permits is actually more than one tenth of one percent. Jackson's figure -- "twelve ten-thousandths of one percent" -- would numerically be this many percentage points: 0.0012. The correct figure is 0.13 (thirteen hundredths of a percent, not twelve ten-thousandths). Still a pretty small number, perhaps, but Jackson's was wrong by a factor of 100.

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So was everything else he quoted accurate?

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Posted by sueyyyy on 05/17/2009 at 2:34 PM

Atrocious math.
Not as bad as Obama's 57 states gaffe, but pretty awful.

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Posted by Herbert on 05/17/2009 at 4:30 PM

The 57 states thing was obviously a joke.

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Posted by Matt S. on 05/17/2009 at 7:07 PM

So he forgot to move the decimal point two places to the right . . . what's a silly detail like that compared to his courageous effort to defend my First Amendment (that's right- guns trump speech, and so I gave it a promotion)? Yay guns!

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Posted by W on 05/17/2009 at 8:28 PM

Decimal points are a problem for everybody: just look at Wall Street. He's just one of the guys.

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Posted by sueyyyy on 05/17/2009 at 8:48 PM

All in all, Jackson did an excellent job while Serpas made an ass of himself.
Jackson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2pZclaNqi4
Serpas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pfCRQmxHmE
("Don't believe me? Watch a hollywood movie!!")
Commercial Appeal poll: Over 80% Support Carry Bill :)
http://www.commercialappeal.com/polls/2009/may/14gunpoll/results/

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Posted by Kevin on 05/18/2009 at 9:12 AM

The math he is really wrong on is the math that says TN will be a safer place with more people running around with more guns in more places.

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Posted by TN4th on 05/18/2009 at 12:42 PM
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