As many as 11 percent of United States citizens – more than 21 million individuals – do not have government-issued photo identification. Eleven percent of the American citizens surveyed responded that they do not have current, unexpired government-issued identification with a photograph, such as a driver’s license or military ID. Using 2000 census calculations of the citizen voting-age population, this translates to more than 21 million American adult citizens nationwide who do not possess valid government photo ID.

But before we get too worried about disenfranchising all those poor ID-less voters, let’s look at the questions they asked:

1) Do you have a current, unexpired government-issued ID with your picture on it, like a driver’s license or a military ID?
2) If yes, does this photo ID have both your current address AND your current name (as opposed to a maiden name) on it?
3) Do you have any of the following citizenship documents (U.S. birth certificate/U.S. passport/U.S. naturalization papers) in a place where you can quickly find it if you had to show it tomorrow?
4) If yes, does [that document] have your current name on it (as opposed to a maiden name)?

Now a lot of people have a drivers license with an old address on it. In fact, I do, and so does my wife. But in my state that’s no problem – the state doesn’t require a current address for your drivers license to be accepted as valid ID (sometimes you have to show them a recent bill with your current address on it).

So we would have been part of the 11%, even though we have had valid IDs for 35 years.

You can also consider the number of voters vs. the number of drivers licenses. Since drivers licenses are issued to people who aren’t eligible (felons, legal aliens, people under 18), we’ll compare the entire voting age public (not just eligible voters) against the all drivers licenses issued (minus the 16 & 17 year olds). That will give us a reasonable guesstimate as to how many people are eligible to vote with just drivers licenses.

In 2010, there were 235,940,406 people of voting age in the US.

In 2010, there were 206,332,870 people of voting age with drivers licenses in the US.

That means that 87.5% of the voting age public had drivers licenses.

Now let’s take a look at results from the 2008 elections. A group of academics surveyed voters on their voting experience. Among their questions were:

What type of picture identification did you show?

Hmmmm. 87.5% of the voting age public has a drivers license, and 87.9% used their license to prove identification. Those numbers are unbelievably close, indicating that the numbers associated with other forms of ID are likely to be representative of the public as a whole. And as we can see, the overwhelming majority were able to present a picture ID.

That same survey said that among the 2000 registered voters interviewed by phone, 97.3% voted (p. 115). Of the 2.7% who did not vote, lack of proper ID was found to be a 5.5% effect. So perhaps 0.15% of voters were inhibited by improper ID.

Now, there may be a disproportionate number of people out there who didn’t register to vote because they lacked ID, but since the percentage of people using drivers licenses matches the percentage of people with drivers licenses, I don’t think it’s very likely.

In short, the Photo ID controversy shouldn’t be much of a controversy at all. And that 11% number is wildly inflated.

This occasion is especially significant, as it also marks the date of the 5000th post at Innocent Bystanders!! Congrats, Michael and Retired Geezer!

So, over the past 5 years, what have been the most popular posts here? I’m glad you asked:

1. Daily Debunking (sort of): The miraculous powers of Preparation H
2. Recovery? Hah! Just Oscillating Unemployment Claims
3. Cold War II: Sino-russian economic ties
4. Obama denies
5. The right to self-defense
6. Car crash hysteria from the Washington Post
7. China’s Secret Nuclear Submarine Base
8. Daily (sort of) Debunking: pronunciation of “primer” and “flaccid”
9. About the Famous Obama Tax Cuts
10. Daily Debunking: Pronunciation of “forte”

There are also a few posts deserving an honorable mention:

1. Paul Anka Transcript: Find out what the guys get and who’s the most important one on the stage!!
2. The Creation Myth: Obama’s 4 Million Jobs & Are we stimulated yet?: These were the first appearances of The Chart, which went viral when I posted it at Innocent Bystanders in May 2009.
3. Q. When is 45 million not 45 million?: This post addressed the inflated and misinterpreted statistics for health insurance. When I reposted it at JunkYardBlog, it got 24,000 hits in one day. I think that’s a personal record – not even The Chart managed to pull in that many hits.

When I started this blog I had unrealistically high hopes that it would be a fact-centered place where reason and right would prevail. As a new blogger with that lofty goal, I was very fascist in the early years, booting people off when they didn’t meet my standards for commenting. I’ve mellowed and gotten a little wiser, I hope, so that now I don’t mind so much if people make illogical or unsupported arguments.

Well, at least I don’t boot them off so quickly.

“You say to somebody, you shouldn’t go to work before you’re what, 14, 16 years of age, fine,” Mr. Gingrich said. “You’re totally poor. You’re in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing. I’ve tried for years to have a very simple model. Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”

He’s repeated this idea several times on the campaign trail, causing quite a bit of hyperventilation at The Atlantic, where they connipted:

This suggestion is, on its face, insane. It sounds like a bad Stephen Colbert joke. But if you stop and consider its merits for a minute or two…well no, it’s still quite insane. And if you spend an evening researching the nitty gritty of what public school custodians actually do for a living, it turns out to be downright cruel.
…
So what do janitors actually do? It’s a lot more than mopping. To get a sense, look over this job description for a New York City public school custodial engineer–a “master janitor,” as Gingrich would put it. He and his team of cleaners and handymen are responsible for cleaning, yes. That part involves hazardous chemicals like hydrochloric acid. They also operate the school’s heating system, do electrical repairs, maintain the school grounds, take care of the HVAC equipment, and handle basic plumbing fixes, among other assorted jobs. I ask: What parent wants a nine-year-old, or even a thirteen-year-old, toying with the HVAC in her school?

He goes on to claim that Newt’s flippant disregard for the real nature of custodial work reflected “a deep disrespect for and ignorance of American work.”

Enter FactCheck. But a few weeks later FactCheck, in their haste to make Newt look foolish, ended up making The Atlantic’s Jordan Weissman look like a complete idiot. FactCheck, took issue with Newt’s concurrent claim that, “… New York City janitors, the most expensive janitors in New York are paid more than the highest paid teachers. The entry-level janitor is paid twice as much as an entry-level teacher. It’s all because of the union.”

FactCheck debunks this claim by pointing out that Gingrich is mixing up entry-level cleaners, who make a little less than entry-level teachers ($37.7K vs $45.5K), with custodial engineers, who make almost twice as much ($81K):

There are several classifications of custodial workers, but the one that probably most closely resembles a janitor is a “cleaner,” said Robert Troeller, president and business manager of Local 891 of the International Union of Operating Engineers in Brooklyn, N.Y. These are the folks who dust, mop and sweep, among other things. Cleaners get paid $18.13 an hour.

So Newt was confused, conflating “custodial engineer” with “janitor.” He might be forgiven, since “custodial engineer” is often used as an inflated or humorous description of a janitorial position (thanks, PC language!).

But how about The Atlantic? Well, as I said above, Weissman ends up looking look a moron. He went off on his rant about how demanding and skilled the requirements for a New York Custodial Engineer were, but Newt was obviously talking about a cleaning position. Everything Weissman said was completely irrelevant, up to and including his claim that Newt was disrespectful of American work. Instead, it looks like it is Weissman who is completely out of touch with labor.

Look, I was a janitor in high school and my first summer in college, and my brother eventually inherited my high school job from me. My dad was also a janitor in high school, and both he and I washed dishes in college (and my brother washed dishes in high school). These jobs were great ways to make some money, take on some responsibility, and get introduced to the working world. It also taught us that no one is “too good” for any sort of job.

The Big Picture. Let’s look at Newt’s major points:

1. Cleaners are overpaid w/respect to teachers: Yup, even though they have no degree or skills, they are making more than 80% of what teachers make. Pity the poor teacher who spends 4 years in college and acquires $100K in debt, only to find that cleaners have been earning money for 4 years and have no debt nor any obligation to earn a masters.
2. The unions are responsible for these pay scales: Duh.
3. Kids could do cleaning jobs: Again, duh. I used to do these jobs in high school (see below).
4. Kids could benefit from earning money: Is there any doubt?
5. Giving kids jobs puts them on the track for success: I believe that’s true, though it’s a hard thing to prove. I’m pretty sure that it can’t hurt.

I would also posit that Newt’s points are part of a bigger trend in the job market, which has replaced high school and college labor with cheap immigrant labor and unionized careerists. College kids don’t work in the cafeteria or on the janitorial staff anymore, and they don’t come home in the summer to work construction or landscaping jobs like they used to. High school kids have been pushed out of fast food jobs, and middle school and high school kids no longer deliver newspapers.

The labor market has changed in the past 30 years, so that fewer and fewer kids get a chance to get a job and start preparing for adult life. The self-centered, avaricious “Occupy” movement shows us exactly what the penalties can be for denying them that chance.

Square Enix forces you to play the game the way they want it to be played, rather than the way you want to play it.

In the old days you could play the FF series in a variety of ways: you could be smart and use great strategies in battle. Or you could be lazy and just level up until you could hammer on anything. You could use status attacks or just stick to offensive magic. Or use no magic at all, save for the occasional cure spell.

In fact, there were so many ways to play the game, that people used to offer challenges to go through the game with absurd rules. For Final Fantasy XII, for instance, they offered up the following challenges:

• Enforced Class System Challenge
• Low Level Challenge (also known as the 122333 Challenge)
• No License Board
• Solo Character

I’m sure there are more, but you get the point. Every game prior to FFXIII had enough flexibility for a variety of challenges. For FFXIII, there’s essentially only one: No Crystarium Usage.

Then Square Enix grades you on how well you play the game per their criteria. In the old days there were reasons to prolong some battles, and no penalty for doing so. Now it’s all about status attacks and speed.

I used to like mindlessly leveling up – it was relaxing, and I loved fussing over the stats of each character. FFXIII doesn’t let me do that, because they’ve limited the number of baddies in any given area. Sometimes I didn’t want to watch cut scenes for a while, so I’d wander off into the field and just kill stuff. FFXIII has an unrelenting stream of cut scenes. There’s no escape.

So not only do you have to play it the way they want it played, you have to follow the storyline on their timetable.

Anyway, FFXIII-2 and FFXV are supposed to come out sometime. I hope that Square Enix remembers that they’re developing for players, not an audience that’s allowed limited interaction with their story.

Pickups and SUVs helped accelerate U.S. auto sales in September, although carmakers remain concerned that worries about the economy could dampen demand later this fall.

General Motor Co.’s sales rose 20 percent compared with last September, led by a 34-percent rise in full-size pickups and SUV sales. Chrysler Group LLC’s overall sales rose 27 percent.

Let’s see, what could we do to dampen these sales? Hmmmmm…. Hey!! I know, let’s announce the tightening of emissions standards next month! They won’t kick in until 2017, but I’m sure the announcement alone will have an effect!

I hated to go on hiatus back in April, particularly since I had written 995 posts here. This is the 996th. Four more…

The movie Skyline was much the same, except that I didn’t love it. At all. The movie seemed to be an exercise in pointlessness. Start the movie – rewind to 15 hour earlier in story time – 20 minutes later in audience time we’re back where we started.

Go forward with grand plan to break for the boat (why? did it ever make any sense?), 20 minutes later in audience time we’re back where we started. We never left the freaking condo building during the entire movie, until our heroes(?) are finally captured by the aliens. And after that it’s just stupid.

Movie theme? I’d have to go with “Love conquers all.” Which creative genius thought that up?

Decent special effects, but in the end nothing the characters did had any meaning to the movie or to the audience. It was a husk of a movie. Don’t buy it, don’t rent it, don’t download it, don’t watch it.

I don’t usually do movie reviews, but this was such a POS I figured I’d do this one as a public service.

Last Thursday evening at Montclair State University, with a video camera rolling, Bill Ayers volunteered that yes indeed he had written the acclaimed Barack Obama memoir, Dreams from My Father.

He then links to the video of Ayers supposed making this confession. More on that in a second. Continuing, Cashill says:

Not surprisingly, Ayers retreated into irony as he ended the session. “Yeah, yeah,” he said after confirming again that he wrote Dreams, “And if you help me prove it, I’ll split the royalties with you. Thank you very much.”

But when I watch the video, it’s clear that Ayers didn’t “retreat into irony.” His statement that he wrote the book was a calculated jab at Cashill: he was ironic from the start, and continued that vein until the session ended. Everybody in the audience took it the same way, laughing at the claims because they think Cashill’s out to lunch.

I didn’t have an opinion on Cashill before this, but his leap to try to squeeze a confession out of an obvious joke is pathetic, and doesn’t reflect well on his objectivity. It sounds like he’s wed to his hypothesis, and he’ll force-fit any facts or statements into supporting it.

Unfortunately this seems to be spreading in the blogosphere – picked up by Gateway Pundit and linked in the sidebar at Ace’s. I’d hoped people were a little more skeptical than that.