Tell Your Statistics To Shut Up

The title comes from the Appendix to Jim Bouton's BALL FOUR. Bouton says he took it from a Peanuts strip with Lucy explaining to Charlie Brown their baseball teams performance. But I digress. The Principal Bank had a P.S.A. running on WHO TV/13 in support of Children & Families of Iowa. In this PSA The Principal Bank stated it was stunned by figures regarding domestic violence. It implies that since 1995 nearly 200 people have been killed, in Iowa, by domestic violence. It also states that figure is more than traffic fatalities, rapes and muggings. Something about those figures didn't seem right to me. MORE THAN TRAFFIC FATALITIES? So, I e-mailed C&FI to see where they obtained those figures. Tara at C&FI replied, "The statistics in the domestic violence commercial currently airing on who tv/13 were provided by, The Iowa Attorney General's Office-Crime Victim Assistance Division and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence." So I contacted the AG's office and asked the same question. This is the response I received.

The domestic violence death numbers in the Principal public service announcement come from my office.  I compile them from public information.  I have kept the list since 1990.  The numbers in the advertisement are a couple of years old.  Please let me know if you need further information.  

Marti Anderson, MSW, LISW
Iowa Attorney General's Office
Crime Victim Assistance Division

To which I replied

I'm trying to understand why the Principal ad states that more people are killed by domestic violence than by traffic accidents, rapes & muggings. According to IDOT, 450 people were killed in car crashes in 2005. There were 388 traffic fatalities in 2004 and the state has averaged 445 deaths annually over the last 10 years. Which
is correct?


Anderson, Marti [AG] wrote:

 I would have to hear the ad again, but I don't think it says "more people are killed by domestic violence than by traffic accidents, rapes & muggings."  I think it says that "more women are injured and require  emergency medical care for domestic violence than from traffic accidents, rapes & muggings combined."

My reply was

You might want to see the spot again. My wife and I have both seen it,
and couldn't believe those figures were correct. Thanks

Needless to say I haven't seen that particular PSA since. The point is...While any figures, concerning these serious topics, are TOO many. You just can't be pulling this stuff out of thin air!

Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player

State Representative Marti Anderson (Dummycrat) shot her mouth off at a Organization for Action rally to support President Obama’s gun proposals.

“Iowa is the tenth lowest in relationship to the number of people killed by gun violence and it’s interesting to me and should be interesting to other people that some of those that are lower than us include New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Minnesota, those states have better gun laws then we have.”

She doesn't say where she gets her facts(?) other than the thin air between her ears and the scientific community is united in that fact.

Total 2011 firearm murders, per the latest FBI's uniform crime reports, has Iowa with 19, New Jersey with 269, New York with 445, Connecticut had 94 and Minnesota 43.

Marti missed her target by a wide margin.

Friends Of Mine

State Senator Jack ASS...err, Hatch has made his run for Governor official.

Standing in a field of animal (excrement) he was surrounded(?) by supporters Michael Kiernan,  Ako Abdul-Samad, Bruce Hunter and Marti Anderson.

They're all Jackasses and in more ways than one and the scientific community is united in that fact.

Hatch promises to raise the minimum wage and protect the environment if elected.

Don't expect any other ideas from the candidate, as he has had one or two original thoughts. All the ideas that I’ve come up with, really have come from other people.

Hatch is off now to spend four days traveling to 20 Iowa towns.

It takes that long because, as Hatch has discovered, Iowa “is a pretty big state.”

Hatch reached this conclusion after he spent 7-1/2 hours one Saturday in the car to deliver two speeches of seven minutes each.

That can't be good for the environment.

As for the minimum wage, Hatch believes it's $7.52, but it is actually $7.25.