The previous item, about electoral results sorted by average IQ, finally prompted me to get out some thoughts about the Electoral College. A lot of progressives want to get rid of it, but the truth of the matter is that electoral voting increases everyone's voting power almost all the time. The exceptions? A populace so evenly divided that it's impossible to tell the difference, and maybe the interference of adding two electors to every state regardless of population.

It links to a story that may cost you $1 to read, but I think it's must-reading for informed citizenry today.

No one's proven there's an actual cause-effect relationship here, but this chart has to raise some eyebrows: the 2000 Presidential election results by state, sorted by the average IQ of that state's residents.

	State	Avg. IQ	2000
1	Connecticut	113	Gore
2	Massachusetts	111	Gore
3	New Jersey	111	Gore
4	New York	109	Gore
5	Rhode Island	107	Gore
6	Hawaii	106	Gore
7	Maryland	105	Gore
8	New Hampshire	105	Bush
9	Illinois	104	Gore
10	Delaware	103	Gore
11	Minnesota	102	Gore
12	Vermont	102	Gore
13	Washington	102	Gore
14	California	101	Gore
15	Pennsylvania	101	Gore
16	Maine	100	Gore
17	Virginia	100	Bush
18	Wisconsin	100	Gore
19	Colorado	99	Bush
20	Iowa	99	Gore
21	Michigan	99	Gore
22	Nevada	99	Bush
23	Ohio	99	Bush
24	Oregon	99	Gore
25	Alaska	98	Bush
26	Florida	98	Bush
27	Missouri	98	Bush
28	Kansas	96	Bush
29	Nebraska	95	Bush
30	Arizona	94	Bush
31	Indiana	94	Bush
32	Tennessee	94	Bush
33	North Carolina	93	Bush
34	West Virginia	93	Bush
35	Arkansas	92	Bush
36	Georgia	92	Bush
37	Kentucky	92	Bush
38	New Mexico	92	Gore
39	North Dakota	92	Bush
40	Texas	92	Bush
41	Alabama	90	Bush
42	Louisiana	90	Bush
43	Montana	90	Bush
44	Oklahoma	90	Bush
45	South Dakota	90	Bush
46	South Carolina	89	Bush
47	Wyoming	89	Bush
48	Idaho	87	Bush
49	Utah	87	Bush
50	Mississippi	85	Bush

(I just had to lift the table, since the entry makes no sense without it, but please go visit The American Assembler and their fine posts; they may make my regular list now. They have stuff for your blog, too, like this fine graphic:

Cool stuff. Gotta have an opposition party.

It's no wonder the Oklahoman left the quote out of the online version of the article where people might find it. Inhofe's insane view of the sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners is, of course, perfectly in his character:

Inhofe reaction

Though administration and military officials have condemned the abuse, Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Tulsa, said the treatment wasn't as bad as prisoners used to receive under Saddam.

Inhofe, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the treatment "unfortunate," but said it should be viewed "on a relative basis."

"In America, let's don't look at it through our eyes. What we might consider abusive treatment, they might think they've died and gone to heaven," Inhofe said, referring to the prisoners.

Inhofe said he was upset that the Armed Services Committee wasn't informed about the investigations into the abuse.

Despite dozens of quotes from Iraqis that this sexual abuse by prison guards is far worse than anything Saddam ever did to them (for cultural reasons), Inhofe compares it to "dying and going to heaven." And he's not upset that it happened - he's only upset that he wasn't informed that other people were upset about it.

Gee, hard to believe we were just talking about what an idiot Inhofe is two weeks ago.