John,

Instead of doing Snopes on this one...I'm going to play with it.

Interesting:
> >From Bondage to spiritual faith;
> >From spiritual faith to great courage;
> >From courage to liberty;
> >From liberty to abundance;
> >From abundance to complacency;
> >From complacency to apathy;
> >From apathy to dependence;
> >From dependence back into bondage."

If you're a slave, you can find religion.  Once you've found religion, you
become brave because you know the next world is better and killing in this
world is fine because it brings you glory in the next world, so you become a
human bomb to kill your oppressors.  Once you've killed your oppressors, you
gain your freedom.  Once you're free from the oppressors, you will have
their stuff so you'll have 'plenty'.  Once you've got plenty and don't have
to work anymore, you'll get bored and lazy.  Once you're bored and lazy,
you'll stop caring.  Once you stop caring, you'll start doing drugs and
become dependant.  Once you're dependant, you'll be a slave again, then you
can find religion again and start to kill people which will relieve your
boredom and get you more stuff and so on and so on and...

Um, yeah.

The information presented in that email is what I would generously term
"inaccurate".  Bluntly, this is a combination of misleading statistics
paired with falsehoods specifically packaged to be inflammatory.

> >Population of counties won by:
> >Gore = 127 million.
> >Bush = 143 million.
> >Square miles of land won by:
> >Gore = 580,000
> >Bush = 2,2427,000
> >States won by:
> >Gore = 19
> >Bush = 29
> >Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
> >Gore = 13.2
> >Bush = 2.1

Probably, fairly accurate numbers, other than the missing two states (29
plus 19 equals 48) which were won by neither Gore nor Bush, and the murder
rates.  I don't remember two states going independent.  Actually, it looks
like the statistics were for the contiguous states, though the square
mileage and murder rate statistics would have been strengthened by including
Alaska (B) and Hawaii (G).  In general though, the implication of the
statistics is about as accurate as pointing out the direct relationship that
exists between sales of ice cream and poisonout snake bites.  The more ice
cream is sold, the more people get bit by poisonous snakes.  Okay, okay,
fine, they both happen in the summer.  But that's not the point: we
obviously need to stop all these horrible dairy companies from forcing their
poisonous snakes on us.

In general, those states with dense populations were won by Gore.
Population density, by definition, explains the fewer square miles of land,
and unfortunately an increased murder rate, since if the nearest human being
is one quarter mile away, it is less likely he will be killed by another
person and much less likely that the death will be termed a murder.

I would suggest a complimentary set of statistics which I do not have time
to locate, but would think might shed a different light.  The average
population density of the states won by each can somewhat be extrapolated
looking at the above numbers, but...

a) the average education level of the counties and states won by each
b) the average income level of the counties and states won by each
c) the number of schools in each county or state won by each

Or maybe:
d) the number of residents in each state who are millionaires
e) the number of states won by each housing a Fortune 100 or 500 company's
headquarters
f) the number of states won by each where Farming makes up more than one
third of the job market
g) the number of states who saw a job gain or loss in the one year prior to
the election
h) the average tax rate paid by citizens of the states won by each
i) the number of states won by each which are home to the top 50 markets in
the nation

> >"In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land
> owned
> >by the tax-paying citizens of this great country.

In aggregate, the map of territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by
farmers and cooperative members who are paid by the federal government not
to use their land actually to GROW anything in order to keep food prices
artificially high, and simultaneously drive a huge portion of the "pork
barrel" items in the federal budget.

http://nationalatlas.gov/electionsprint.html

The net "payers" for the country (those states whose net payments to the
federal government exceed their net receipts) cast their electoral college
marks for Gore, not the other way around as implied by the posting.

> >Gore's territory
> encompassed
> >those citizens living in government-owned tene ments and living off
> government
> >welfare..."

127M / (127M + 143M) = 47%.

47% of the population is living in buildings owned by the government and
living off welfare?  Oh, the 47% of the people who voted for Gore, live in
states that also have the highest number of welfare recipients.  I think
we're back to population density.

I refer you to....

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393310728/qid=1079545617/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-7582963-6359012?v=glance&s=books

"A pleasantly subversive little book, guarenteed to undermine your faith in
the almighty statistic."

Thanks John, that was fun.

Rs~

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