The candy meth craze is a story I hear from time to time, always containing some comment along the lines of “it’s made to taste like candy, so little kids will get hooked”. It’s sad to see this kind of hysterical nonsense show up on boingboing, which usually eschews hysteria. Given the amount of traffic the site receives and how wrong she had gotten the story, I felt it was worth writing an email to clue her in. In it, I explained that this is simply a matter of branding, and the choice of this particular style is probably due to the history of preparing meth from sudafed tablets, which left a little red tint in the final product from the tablet coating.
Well, she posted the comment and I forgot to include a link to my site!
(In case anyone is wondering how I know these things, and how I might know how amphetamines taste, you should know that chemistry people occasionally talk about this kind of thing. Since food and biology are my two loves, I’m really interested in the intersection of the two. I had some old posts up about this, but they’ve succumbed to link rot. I’ll put up my chart of amino acid tastes when I get a chance. For the record, I have not ever attempted to make meth, ok?)
I’ve looked around the web, and although there are many articles entitled “GOP Debate Scorecard”, none are actually what I would consider a scorecard, that is, a card with the names going across one way, various categories going across the other way, and marks where the rows and columns intersect.
Like so:
|
Romney |
Brownback |
Gilmore |
Huckabee |
Hunter |
Thompson |
McCain |
Paul |
Giuliani |
Tancredo |
| Repeal Roe v. Wade |
• |
• |
• |
• |
• |
• |
• |
• |
•/- |
• |
| Disbelieve evolution |
- |
• |
- |
• |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
• |
| Ban stem cell research |
- |
• |
• |
• |
• |
• |
- |
• |
- |
• |
| intervene in schiavo case |
• |
• |
ND |
ND |
• |
• |
- |
ND |
• |
ND |
| slag Mrs. Clinton |
• |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
- |
• |
- |
| pardon Libby |
• |
• |
• |
ND |
ND |
ND |
ND |
- |
- |
• |
| cut taxes without mentioning reducing spending |
- |
• |
• |
• |
• |
• |
- |
• |
• |
- |
| support flat tax/"Fair" tax or repeal AMT |
- |
• |
• |
• |
- |
• |
• |
• |
• |
• |
| talk about iraq in terms of winning instead of leaving |
- |
• |
ND |
• |
- |
• |
• |
- |
• |
ND |
| slag Bush |
- |
- |
- |
• |
• |
- |
- |
• |
- |
- |
| namecheck Reagan |
• |
• |
• |
• |
• |
• |
• |
- |
• |
• |
| set up a national ID system |
• |
- |
ND |
ND |
ND |
- |
• |
- |
• |
• |
| start WWIII |
ND |
ND |
- |
ND |
• |
• |
• |
|
- |
• |
| admit to beliefs dictating lawmaking |
• |
• |
ND |
• |
ND |
ND |
ND |
ND |
- |
ND |
| believe there is no consensus on global warming |
ND |
ND |
ND |
• |
- |
ND |
ND |
ND |
ND |
ND |
| wall off Mexico |
ND |
ND |
ND |
ND |
• |
ND |
- |
ND |
ND |
• |
said
"they do it too" in response to ethics questions |
ND |
• |
ND |
ND |
ND |
ND |
ND |
ND |
ND |
• |
| Have Charisma |
- |
• |
ND |
- |
ND |
ND |
- |
• |
• |
- |
Key:
• Candidate made statements to that effect
-Candidate disagreed with statement
ND Candidate didn’t take a position
You can visit their website to get their supposed platform and stand on common issues; what is represented here is only what they actually said during the debate itself.
Caveats: I’ve used my own glib shorthand to refer to some issues. I’ve selected all the issues they all took a position on, but selected others according to my interests. The last row is my opinion only. Giuliani expressly said he was pro-choice, and only that it would be “OK” if it were overturned.
“It’s an issue for the states” was a common phrase, and it seems to have been used most commonly to try to hide lack of support for a mainstream position. For example, saying “It’s an issue for the states” in regards to abortion, means “Overturn Roe v. Wade” whereas “”issue for the states” in regards to the Schiavo case meant “I personally would have intervened”.
As you can see now that it’s all laid out, the only candidate remotely mainstream is Giuliani. The Right is pushing Romney, but it’s clear from his statements regarding the Schiavo case and the role of his faith in lawmaking that he’s just a puppet to steal get “compassion conservative” votes from Giuliani. McCain is close to mainstream, but way too hawkish to be trusted. Likewise, Ron Paul is close to mainstream, but extremely libertarian with regard to governmental services such as healthcare, welfare, and so on. The rest of the lot are absolutely off-the scale radicals. Brownback, Tancredo, and Huckabee make Pat Buchanan look like a centrist.
I had a chance to look at the GOP primary debate this weekend between going to the amazing shows that come to town during the weeks surrounding Jazzfest.
I thought it would be fun to do a little analysis of word frequencies:
The number in parenthesis is the word count.
would(88)>should(67)>can(57)>want(55)>need(52)
think(102)>know(52)>>believe(4)
Governor(89), States(49)
Romney(50)>McCain, Giuliani(49)>Tancredo(42)>Gilmore(33)>Brownback(32)
>Huckabee(31)>Paul,Reagan(29)>Thompson(27)>Hunter(21)
Faith(19)>God(7)
Iraq(33), Iran(19), Policy(18), Foreign(17), Nuclear(14)
Reagan(29)>Clinton(13)>Rove(9)>Bush(8)
Win(22)>Troops(7), Home(8), Leave(6)
No(51)>Yes(21)
Below I’ve generated a simplistic “most significant” measure, by computing the ratio of the word frequency in the debate transcript to the word frequency in a corpus of spoken English. The number in the first table is the ratio, whereas the number in the second table is the word count. I’m going to get this in Exhibit and have a play with some neato visualizations as soon as I get a chance.
Here are the caveats: The word frequencies I’m using in the first table are actually from the British National Corpus, so many of the words in the speech transcript are highly represented simply because they’re speaking American English, and in the second table, using the ANC Corpus, many words are highly represented because they represent current events that hadn’t occurred when the corpus was compiled and because debates are part speeches, which are more like written English. I’ll update it when I find a better reference.
Top 100 Words in GOP Primary Debate 2007
sorted by appearance ratio
| GOVERNOR |
589.4664 |
| IRAN |
335.5764 |
| IRAQ |
174.853 |
| CLINTON |
137.7629 |
| FEDERAL |
90.07577 |
| TAXES |
84.77719 |
| COALITION |
79.47862 |
| STATES |
74.18005 |
| READER |
74.18005 |
| BUSH |
70.64766 |
| CALIFORNIA |
61.8167 |
| AMERICANS |
61.1374 |
| BORDER |
57.06157 |
| NATION |
56.51813 |
| BELIEFS |
52.98575 |
| DIPLOMATIC |
52.98575 |
| EXPORTS |
52.98575 |
| MILITARY |
49.86894 |
| UNITED |
47.09844 |
| SPENDING |
46.07456 |
| WASHINGTON |
45.41635 |
| DEMOCRATS |
44.15479 |
| PROGRAM |
39.73931 |
| SECURE |
39.73931 |
| ACQUIRE |
39.73931 |
| DEFEAT |
39.73931 |
| KOREA |
39.73931 |
| NUCLEAR |
39.04213 |
| WEAPONS |
38.53509 |
| PRESIDENT |
38.34495 |
| MAYOR |
37.84696 |
| ISRAEL |
37.09002 |
| ACQUISITION |
35.32383 |
| AUTHORS |
35.32383 |
| JOURNAL |
35.32383 |
| LIMITATIONS |
35.32383 |
| PRESIDENTIAL |
35.32383 |
| TROOPS |
33.7182 |
| FOREIGN |
33.3614 |
| GLOBAL |
33.11609 |
| AMERICA |
32.99113 |
| AMERICAN |
32.75483 |
| VALUES |
31.79145 |
| GAINS |
31.79145 |
| SUPREME |
31.79145 |
| GREATEST |
29.80448 |
| SERVING |
29.43653 |
| FAITH |
26.49287 |
| ENTIRE |
26.49287 |
| CONSTITUTION |
26.49287 |
| ILLEGAL |
26.49287 |
| CATHOLIC |
26.49287 |
| COMMANDER |
26.49287 |
| ACCOMPANIED |
26.49287 |
| JUDICIAL |
26.49287 |
| VIEWED |
26.49287 |
| WALKER |
26.49287 |
| PROTECT |
25.43316 |
| THREAT |
24.93447 |
| CELLS |
24.45496 |
| GRADE |
24.08443 |
| CANDIDATES |
23.54922 |
| WEAPON |
23.54922 |
| CONCERNING |
22.70818 |
| JUDGES |
22.70818 |
| BILLS |
22.30979 |
| ELECTED |
22.30979 |
| WELFARE |
22.07739 |
| STABILITY |
21.1943 |
| ADMINISTRATION |
20.60557 |
| FORMER |
20.18505 |
| DEFICIT |
19.86966 |
| CELL |
19.52106 |
| SOLVE |
18.92348 |
| VOTED |
18.92348 |
| PROUD |
18.54501 |
| LEAD |
18.1267 |
| MIDDLE |
18.1267 |
| TAX |
17.82698 |
| CRITICAL |
17.66192 |
| FREEDOM |
17.66192 |
| CONSISTENT |
17.66192 |
| PRINCIPLES |
17.66192 |
| TRANSFER |
17.66192 |
| EXPERIMENT |
17.66192 |
| INTELLIGENCE |
17.66192 |
| ROMAN |
17.66192 |
| SUCCEED |
17.66192 |
| DISCRETION |
17.66192 |
| ENEMY |
17.66192 |
| STUDIED |
17.66192 |
| WEALTH |
17.66192 |
| COLLAPSE |
17.66192 |
| CONCLUDED |
17.66192 |
| CONVICTION |
17.66192 |
| HUMANS |
17.66192 |
| PAKISTAN |
17.66192 |
| REVEAL |
17.66192 |
| SEPARATION |
17.66192 |
| WIN |
16.89401 |
Top 50 Words using ANC Corpus
sorted by appearance ratio
| 9 |
KARL |
|
| 7 |
OPTIMISM |
| 21 |
RONALD |
|
| 4 |
CONFRONT |
| 4 |
SCOOTER |
| 9 |
ISLAMIC |
|
| 3 |
ALTERED |
|
| 3 |
CONSERVATIVES |
| 3 |
VETOED |
|
| 3 |
DIPLOMATIC |
| 7 |
REGIMES |
| 7 |
REPEAL |
|
| 12 |
STEM |
|
| 4 |
AISLE |
|
| 4 |
HYDE |
|
| 4 |
STRENGTHS |
| 2 |
BATTALIONS |
| 2 |
CURES |
|
| 2 |
FLATTER |
|
| 2 |
GOVERNS |
| 2 |
HOSTILITY |
| 2 |
JUSTICES |
| 2 |
NOMINEE |
| 2 |
PARDONS |
| 2 |
SECRECY |
| 2 |
UNIFY |
|
| 2 |
EXPORTS |
| 6 |
CELLS |
|
| 6 |
ENGAGE |
|
| 3 |
CONSERVATISM |
| 3 |
CRITICIZED |
| 15 |
ID |
|
| 4 |
IRANIANS |
| 5 |
BIN |
|
| 5 |
STRENGTHEN |
| 5 |
CELEBRATE |
| 4 |
MISMANAGED |
| 3 |
RACISM |
|
| 2 |
ABORTIONS |
| 2 |
COMMUNION |
| 2 |
CONVEY |
|
| 2 |
CROSSES |
| 2 |
CURING |
|
| 2 |
ENDORSE |
| 2 |
GOVERNED |
| 2 |
IMPERATIVE |
| 2 |
TAMPER |
|
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