Out of touch by the numbers

This week my 10 year old told me the U.S bought Alaska for $700. When I asked if that figure was more like $7 Million she said nope "$700 - a penny an acre". I ascertain the concept of an acre doesn't hold much meaning for 10 year olds.

Likewise, other numbers shed light on how some understand the world:

Cynthia McKinney uses the number 5000 to show she now exists only to provide comic relief:

I had a woman--in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, I had a woman--I have never really said this in public, out loud, in front of a lot of cameras, and there's a lot in this room now. But I had a mother to call me because her son had a very gruesome task. Her son's charge by the Department of Defense was to process 5,000 bodies that had received a single bullet wound to the head, and these were mostly males. And her son was afraid to talk because he had signed a silence agreement, so he only complained to his mother. But the data about these individuals was entered into a Pentagon computer, and then reportedly the bodies were dumped in a swamp in Louisiana. This is as a result of the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina.

According to McKinney, New Orleans is so inconsequential 5,000 citizens can disappear off the face of the earth but no one bothered calling the missing persons department.

Last year Obama let the number 10,000 clue us that he has no feel for natural disasters in the U.S.

We smirk because such statements reveal the speaker has no clue what they are talking about. That's why James Taranto teases McKinney about another of her assertions:

There is a huge hole in the story, though: McKinney merely "suspects" that the 5,000 victims of the single bullet were prisoners. It seems to us they could well have been consenting adults, and the story would have made every bit as much sense.

In the case of Obama's 10,000 dead he made a mistake - but by 3 orders of magnitude. I might be off on how much gas my car's fuel tank holds but I wouldn't spout off 20,000 gallons.

Hence I was intrigued by this related Obama observation:

I noticed this in Obama's books as well, especially the second. He'll often discuss an issue, apparently showing a great range of empathy for both sides and state a real objection, and then he'll ignore that and go on to state his position.

That may work for issues such as his position on abortion, but economics is a matter of hard parameters. Obama doesn't seem able or willing to comprehend that, or do the hard work to assemble any reasonable policy position. I don't think he's able to do this.

The next president - any conceivable president - will have a very hard time of it. Pretty much all the wiggle room is gone. After last night, I literally believe that Obama isn't capable of understanding it. Maybe he's not very bright. Maybe he just dislikes quantitative thinking. But for whatever reason, his current stated policies are an exercise in fantasy.

Next year's priorities need to run along the lines of making sure that poor people in the US have enough to eat. To be babbling about expanding early childhood education?

McCain did not impress me, but he appeared to understand that we have our butts in a tight crack and are going to be facing some very rough circumstances.

Anyone who watched last night's debate and can still consider voting for Obama loses my respect. There's a limit to how far one can defy reality and live. That man is currently outside the parameters of the land of the living. It's probably due to inexperience.

h/t