Point by Fascinating Point

Very interesting bullet list of recent data and source articles relating to the decrease in gas consumption.

ландшафтGas purchases plummet

The most interesting stat, I think, is in the comments, where one reader reported that out-of-gas calls to AAA have doubled. There is a CNN story about it.

In case you’re starved for data, AAA also has a Daily Fuel Gauge Report, which tracks the retail price averages for gasoline.

Of the H5N1 avian flu cases reported to and verified by WHO, the number of cases for people younger than 30 years of age is disproportionately higher than those of older age groups. However, mortality rates are especially high among the 10–19 age group. WHO gathered these statistics beginning in November 2003 — when the first cases came to light — until just this past November 2006.

To celebrate Barry Bonds’ breaking of Babe Ruth’s home run record, I’ve slapped together a little graph to compare Barry’s homers with the times he’s been at bat, to the times he’s been intentionally walked. How these factors are related and how they trend together is interesting to see.

The fewer times he’s appeared at the plate the fewer times he’s hit homers. This is incredibly obvious, but I just wanted to see.

I also put in the number of times he’s been intentionally walked because I wanted to see whether it was affecting the number of homers he hits. This seemed to vary from year to year and didn’t show a clear causal relationship, though I would guess that it had its effects regardless.

Now, how did the steroid investigation affect his home run production? Compare with the Balco timeline on USAToday. However, keep in mind the other factors that contribute to fewer homers.

I was planning on posting an article with statistics on illegal immigration and its impact on the U.S. economy, but searching around I found that the only substantive data was derived from polls of peoples’ feelings and attitudes about illegal immigration, such as this one poll conducted in 2004 by NPR and the Kennedy School at Harvard.

This is probably obvious, but there cannot be substative data because of the nature of the issue. Because illegal immigrants are forced to hide or obscure themselves, it makes sense that we aren’t able gather much reliable data. So, how much an average illegal immigrant makes, where they spend that money, what exact jobs they are working in, etc. is impossible to tease out.

However, there is some interesting corollary data, such as this graph from the New York Times from April 15, 2006 showing that illegal immigration probably does not affect a states’ median wage for less educated workers:

Also, it is interesting to note that for this particular issue, there seems to be an abundance of completely fabricated statistics. This opinion piece in the LA Times addresses point for point some of the false or misleading statistics that are bandied about.