THESE COLORS DON'T RUN. OR READ AT A 10th-GRADE LEVEL.

After the 2000 election, a hoax set of "facts" spread around the internet showing that states with a higher "average IQ" voted for Gore while states in which the comics are the most-read part of the newspaper voted for Bush. Of course, average IQ scores are not tested or recorded in this country.

However, I decided to have a look-see at the 2000 US Census and its measures of educational attainment. Specifically, they record the percentage of the adult population that has earned a high school diploma, bachelor's degree, and so on. And, while the "IQ data" was made up, it was also uncannily accurate. Let's look at the real data from Table 13 of US Census document P20-536, published December 19, 2000 along with for whom the state voted in the 2000 election.

Our president managed only four states among the 15 most educated, but in case you were doubting his resolve, fear not. As we can see, he makes up for it with a strong finish in the 15 least educated states.

Feel free to reproduce the above image on your page, blog, or just as an email attachment to all your friends and family.

And there you have it. Call me un-American, but it is a clear commentary on our leader's rhetorical methods, platform, and intelligence when the states in which fancy book learnin' is frowned upon and one's eulogy is likely to contain the phrase "Git'er done!" are voting for him in unflinching unison. And it also shows you what a bang-up job years of fantastic conservative policy have done for the bottom states' educational systems.

random wednesday updates

1) Anchorman review on the movie page.

2) For those of you who read the excellent New York Times magazine article on current comic books, I have written up my thoughts on it. They'll eventually also work their way over to the comics page once a get a free moment.

3) I know we need to comment on the possibility of Dikta running for the Senate, but writing about it has that same feeling of a middle-aged virgin hiring a prostitute or a hungry man eating raw garbage - we don't want to admit that "it's come to this." If this keeps going on we'll comment though. Don't worry.

LIKE JESUS JOINING FORCES WITH BUDDAH, ONLY BETTER.

Music-industry secrecy is pretty much completely co-opted when one sets up a live webcam to broadcast one's studio recording, as Trent Reznor found out yesterday. Sharp-eyed fans logged on recently to see a very incognito Dave Grohl in Reznor's studio, at which point Reznor admitted that Grohl will be playing live drums on 15 of the 20 tracks being recorded for NIN's forthcoming Bleed Through.

I know that's a lot to take in. It's OK. Just rest for a second and catch your breath. Dave Grohl is playing drums on the new NIN album. If they're not careful, this might even make up for the "Tapeworm" and "Probot" side projects.

I have always had a soft spot for shameless action movies.

I enjoy the occasional action movie. I am not ashamed of that. I think that it is perfectly natural. About a year ago I saw the movie "The Bourne Identity". All said, it was fairly decent. It contained all of the elements of an action movie that are required. That being of course...action and Franka Potente. I have to admit to then being a bit intellectually confused by the movie. I knew at the time that it was based on a book by Robert Ludlum, but was really unaware of anything else about Robert Ludlum or the book. What confused me was the fact that this fun 2 hour long action movie was ever actually a book.

This confusion turned to interest one evening when I was at my parents’ house and saw an old copy of the book. What the hell, I thought. Its summer, I can read some meaningless action book. Let me take a moment from this long (and no doubt uninteresting to most) tirade to point out that I am morally opposed to criticizing a movie for not remaining true to the book. However, the degree to which the movie The Bourne Identity strayed from the book was nearly laughable. I was surprised to find that Robert Ludlum was actually a very good mystery/suspense writer. The book was exceptionally dynamic with a quite intricate plot.

Okay, now I will very briefly describe what happens in the movie. Jason Bourne is pulled from the ocean unconscious and shot several times. He suffers from amnesia, has no clue who he is aside from a Swiss bank account number. A bit of a shady premise, I know. Anyway he then embarks on an action filled trip to Paris on the way coming across a bohemian (read unemployed and worthless) woman, Franka Potente, and numerous US government agents trying to kill him. It turns out that he was a government assassin that had a change of heart.

Yes, really I know. It sounds lame. It was lame, but it was amusing.

Now, on July 23rd, one of the most confusing action movie sequels is going to be released.

The Bourne Supremacy

I really know that I should not be at all shocked. All action movies that do moderately well get a sequel or two. This whole thing seems a bit off to me because the original book was actually a trilogy. There were two built in sequels. Yet for some odd reason the screenwriters removed every single bit of the plot that let there be a sequel. The series is supposed to be about Bourne's ongoing struggle with an international hitman named "Carlos." To the best of my knowledge "Carlos" does not actually appear in the movies at all. This is not the only major plot element that was changed for not perceivable reason.

• Franka Potente's character is supposed to be an intelligent internationally recognized Canadian economist- whose influence in the Canadian government is important to the story. For some reason this powerful female character was turned into a worthless idiot.
• Jason Bourne was never an assassin; he was just an undercover government agent trying to arrest an assassin.
• They killed off Bourne's best friend for the rest of the trilogy in the first movie.
• The government never actually tries to kill him but once. Most of the harms way he is in comes from Carlos.

This is of course not even mentioning that the movie did not come address any of the psychological issues that were in the books, and removed almost all of the mystery and suspense in favor of more action. I only mentioned things that really made no sense to be changed.

Oh well. I will probably see the movie when it comes out just out of curiosity. The sequel is supposed to be about how Jason Bourne goes to Asia after his wife is kidnapped. He has to find and kill an assassin posing as him in order for her to be released. We will see how this goes. Bare in mind, I actually thought that the first movie was all right until I realized how good of a story it could have been.

What the hell is wrong with Hollywood? Why do they seem categorically opposed to having both action and a good plot on the same screen? Why do they take a story that is good and remove all the interesting bits? These are questions for which there are no answers.

1 + 1 = ELECTORAL COLLEGE FUN

Here's a little mandatory reading for every resident of the state of Ohio before the next election. No pressure, but......the fate of the country and the free world for the next four years is in your hands.

No pressure. Take your time.

Here is a map representing current exit polling and the 2000 election results combined to yield a very accurate predictor for 2004, provided by the fantastic David Liep at The US Election Atlas. The only deviation from year 2000 results in this model is that New Hampshire goes to Kerry, which is a reasonable guess.

Now, this model gives 264 for John Kerry and 274 for Bush. All is lost, you say. Well, not quite. According to the polling (over 1000 different polls were used for each state), Ohio is a complete toss-up. No one really has any firm idea of which way it will go. The Kerry campaign needs to divert 90% of the resources they have on hand to making sure Kerry wins that state. How important is it?

If Kerry wins Ohio, its 20 electoral votes will mean that of the three states in which his winning margin is smallest in this model (Iowa, Oregon, and New Mexico), he can lose two and still win the election. And Florida will be completely irrelevant. Kerry is currently leading in Oregon (7) and Iowa (7), but even if he were to lose both, a win in Ohio would give him 270 electoral votes to Bush's 268.

So, in summary, if you live in Ohio or know anyone who does, take it upon yourself to beg, cajole, bribe, threaten, and beat them into voting for Kerry.

And just for electoral kicks, the states in which Bush's margin is smallest at the moment are West Virginia (5) and Nevada (5). If Bush wins one but loses the other while keeping all other states in this model constant, both candidates will have exactly 269 electoral votes, Congress will vote for Bush, and we will have a fucking national crisis on our hands.

The Electoral College: as fraught with dangers as it is archaic and stupid. I mean FOR CHRIST'S SAKE you'd think someone would have been smart enough to draw it up with an odd numbered total so there couldn't be a tie. The election of the leader of the free world should not be able to end like a soccer game.