mgroves

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.” -Benjamin Disraeli

This is a quote I brought up when discussing Bush’s statements about optimism in Iraq with a coworker. Bush said that 70% of Iraqis are optimistic about the future, and he is telling the truth. If someone attacks Bush for lying about this fact, then they are misinformed.

However, Bush did leave out some other statistics from that same poll:

“How long do you think the US and other coalition forces should remain in Iraq?”:

• 26 per cent said “leave now.”
• 19 per cent said “remain until the Iraqi government elected in December is in place.”
• 16 per cent said “remain until the Iraqi security forces can operate independently.”
• 31 per cent said “remain until security is restored.”
• 3 per cent said “remain longer but leave eventually.”
• 1 per cent said “never leave.”
• 4 per cent expressed no opinion.

It looks like it’s about split between those who want the US forces out right now and those who agree with Bush for a gradual, conditional withdrawl. Yes, Bush left that out. He also left out the Sunni/Shiite splits as well.

Are these statistics harmful to Bush? They are saying that Iraq is split about the presence of forces–just like the US is split. They also say that Sunnis are pessimistic and want the forces out now, while Shiites are much more supportive of Bush. Is this shocking that the people who were in power under Saddam are less happy than those who weren’t?

The fact is that Iraq is not a perfect place, and the Iraq war itself isn’t perfect either. However, it’s also a fact that Iraqis are largely thankful for our actions, but want us out of their country relatively soon.

That’s fine with me, too! I usually have to put in an 8 hour work day, but I would love to be out of there in less than 8 hours while still receiving the same pay. If I work really hard, maybe I can sneak out a half-hour early sometimes. Sometimes I have to stay an extra hour or two to finish an important project. But I know that eventually I will leave work.

Finally, I ask if critics of Bush’s selective statistics are upset because of this one particular incident, or are they upset at Bush no matter what polls come from Iraq? The former view, I can understand and empathize with–the latter’s opinion was formed before the poll was even taken.

I was hoping that a blue ghost would jump out somewhere along the line being chased by Pac-Man.

This article is a followup to my previous article about traffic tracking, where I showed how I logged each page view, and what data I kept for each page. After a few days of traffic, you should now have a table like so:

IP_Address, PageURL, Refer, TimeOfVisit, Browser

Your data may vary, of course. Now, what can we do with this? I created a page of common reports that I want to see. The first report I made was real simple: the last 20 pages loaded:

    SELECT IP_Address, PageURL, Refer,
           DATE_FORMAT(TimeOfVisit,"%W %l:%i%p") as PrettyDateTime, Browser
    FROM blog_track
    ORDER BY TimeOfVisit DESC
    LIMIT 0,20
 

You can adjust the “LIMIT” to whatever you like. DATE_FORMAT will show the date and time in a much nicer format than it’s stored as. Once I have this data, I can display it in a simple HTML table. One other thing I did was make the IP address a link to dnsstuff.com like so: http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=INSERT_IP_ADDRESS_HERE. So for each row in my report, I can click the IP to see a simple WHOIS report.

Another report I found interesting is the most popular pages. More specifically, the top 10 most viewed pages:

    SELECT PageURL, count(PageURL) AS cnt
    FROM your_tracking_table
    GROUP BY PageURL
    ORDER BY cnt DESC
    LIMIT 0,10
 

A final report that may not be useful right out of the box is a report on browser usage. This will show you which browsers are most used at your site:

    SELECT Browser, count(Browser) AS cnt
    FROM your_tracking_table
    GROUP BY Browser
    ORDER BY cnt DESC, Browser ASC
 

This may not be useful because the browser identification varies a lot. For instance, this report won’t just track Opera, but Opera 7.54, Opera 8.5, Opera 8.51, etc. You may want to simplify the browser name as you insert data into your tracking table to get a broader view of browsers.

Using these reports (particularly the latest 20 page views), I was able to see when a friend of mine visited a link that I sent him. I saw his IP address, and used dnsstuff.com to see that it was from his city. I saw the referring link: a web-based email service that I know he uses. I was able to see the page he viewed, when he viewed it, and that he used the browser I installed for him a while back. Pretty cool.

Family Guy has set a good precedent. Matt Groening seems to be optimistic that new episodes of Futurama will be made. Oh joy! Oh rapture!

Woohoo! Now what?

I’m a huge fan of Willy Wonka, and especially the 1971 film starring Gene Wilder. No other version could ever hope to top it, at least in my book. That being said, I’m always up to see different interpretations and mediums. I saw a local CAPA production of Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka last night with my wife.

My expectations weren’t very high, but they still weren’t met. First, the cast was small. In fact, the guy in the below picture playing Wonka didn’t even appear. It was a 7 member cast playing all the parts using a lot of costume changes and puppets. While the Lion King was able to pull this off, a small cast with a small budget just couldn’t pull it off. While Willy Wonka may not be well-suited to a low budget and small cast, the cast members themselves were certainly not a weakness of the show. They all gave strong, enthusiastic performances and excellent vocals.

Would I see it again? Only if I could pick up some cheaper tickets.

My brother is stationed in Balad, Iraq with the U.S. Army. I am extremely proud of him and the work he does. His unwavering belief and confidence in the Iraqi cause is one of the main reasons that I still support the U.S. being in Iraq.

He has sent us his battalion’s newsletter to show us more about what he does. He’s not mentioned specifically in the newsletter, but I’ve attached a very encouraging page from it. We see bad news all the time coming from Iraq, and I don’t want to trivialize it, but there is hard work being done and real progress being made.

“The wire”, is, I assume, the fence that surrounds the base where he is stationed.

Good luck, Nathan. We all miss you.

We just had our first official Christmas party at our home. Lots of friends and family attended. Here are some pictures (they are awful because I’m a terrible photographer).

In honor of Newsweek’s stupid list, I’ve compiled two of my own top ten lists:

10 Worst Movies of 2005:

10. Constantine – Basically it was the Matrix crossed with The Devil’s Advocate. Keanu asks a lot of questions and looks confused. Boring.
9. The Pacifier – Vin Diesel gave up xXx for this?
8. The Ring Two – MD’s first rule of movies: any movie with a number after it is probably crap.
7. Elektra – A spinoff of the lamest superhero movie ever made.
6. Red Eye – Wes Craven’s horror formula with no supernatural elements, a weak villian that my Grandma could fight off, and a plot that’s one paragraph long.
5. The Brothers Grimm – Seemed like a good idea at the time
4. The Devil’s Rejects – I’m supposed to identify and empathize with these protagonists, who don’t have a single positive redeeming quality? A movie full of bad guys means I’m apathetic when anything happens to anyone
3. Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo – MD’s first correlary: Any movie that changes one word from the previous movie is probably crap.
2. Monster-in-Law – The only way the cast of this movie would get me to applaud is if they all died in easily preventable car crashes.
1. Flightplan – The most implausable thriller ever, initially posing as a predictable psychological bore turns into a predictable “run and hide” bore. If you need 10 million (or whatever amount) dollars this badly, may I suggest the lottery? It’s much more likely to actually happen.

10 Best Movies of 2005:

10. Robots – I liked it. Quirky and fun, I think Robin Williams brought a lot of his “Genie” character to the movie.
9. Sin City – To be fair to The Devil’s Rejects, this is also a movie full of bad guys. But at least they have one or two positive traits I can latch on to.
8. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – A very faithful adaptation of the radio series/books/every other media ever. The soundtrack was kinda inappropriate, but I’m pining for a sequel.
7. Saw II – Not as genuinely suprising as the first, but still a very very good horror movie that avoids supernatural elements, making it even creepier.
6. Family Guy Presents: Stewie Griffin – The Untold Story – Should a direct-to-DVD count on this list? Yes. This movie is basically 3 episodes stiched together, but that’s not a weakness. It’s the funny of Family Guy times 3.
5. Jarhead – A wannabe Full Metal Jacket. Not as good, but still very compelling and interesting. Also manages to stay relatively apolitical, which is one of its strengths.
4. Walk the Line – Joaquin Phoenix does an incredible Johnny Cash impression. The movie didn’t present Cash as a very sympathetic guy, but the music alone makes this a movie worth seeing.
3. The Skeleton Key – Supernatural thriller with an ending that I should have seen coming, but didn’t. Very entertaining, even though I can’t stand Kate Hudson. CAROLIIIIINE!!!
2. Waiting – Think of this as Office Space, except in a Applebees/TGIF/Shenanigan’s/Damon’s type of restaurant. Very, very vulgar, but very, very funny.
1. Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith – What, you expected Brokeback Mountain?

Also, I haven’t yet seen King Kong, Narnia, or Good Night and Good Luck yet. So that is why they (possibly) aren’t included.

According to WBNS, our Governor Taft is having a bad year. He has a 15% approval rating and is caught up in one of the biggest scandals in Ohio’s State Government history.

I don’t really feel bad for him. He’s done just about nothing I agree with in politics. He’s raised taxes and raised spending. He’s given Republicans a bad name (though not singlehandedly). In Ohio, he has the nickname of “Bob Taxed.” He isn’t really liked by conservatives, liberals, or, shockingly enough, moderates. Yes, even the Bob Taft fence is too uncomfortable to sit on.

Not suprisingly, after this term, Taft has no plans to pursue politics further. He does mention that he likes teaching about government and politics, so he may try teaching at a University or something. This makes total sense. After all, those who can’t do, teach.