Mental Math Exercise
Agreed. I also think no-knock warrants are pure ********.
That "article" was terrible, by the way. My favorite part was:
Dat bolded part, doe, it changes everything. Anyhow, thanks for the cited "estimates", it really helps paint a picture of cops gone wild. Breaking it down, there are twenty to thirty thousand cities in the United States, (depending on your definition of a city) so you're averaging one to one and a half swat deployments per year across the country. Staggering numbers, really.
Since the number of cities is difficult to quantify, let's just go by the population: There are 314,000,000 people in the United States. That means that the chances of you having a run in with those crazy, racist, shoot first - ask questions later, pig porkers is about 0.0004%. I can totally see why people are outraged and why the media keeps spoon feeding this garbage to stupid people.
So, this is a free tutorial on mental math.
When you have a complex or overwhelming problem, break it into manageable pieces. . . . just like you would when facing a big two pound steak, which I am sure you can readily relate to, with apetite.
If you want "per cent" in the answer, first move the decimal point in the top part, the numerator, two places to the right, and forget it until you write your answer, then write the answer and add "per cent". Or better yet, do it later when you decide to call your answer "per cent".
Your problem is how to reduce 50,000 divided by 314,000,000. And since of course, the thirty million human beings who are totally occluded from American society on account of their status as slaves to billionaire outfits like packing houses and casinos, are never subjected to these raids, we will of course stay with the legal math. . . .
Divide top and bottom of the ratio by 10,000, and you have 5 divided by 31,400. Divide by 5 on top and bottom and you get 1 over. . . .damn there's a hard one, 31400 divide by 5. I don't like fives. tens are easier, so I multiply by two and divide by 10, same thing as dividing by 5, gives me 6280.
one over 6280. hmmmmm. . . . that's bigger than one over 10000, so already I know the answer will be bigger than .0001 smaller than one over 500, so less than .0002. Here's where twelve years in college and five years doing bookkeeping work give me the perfect set of skills for solving a problem. . . . . probably the only place where the Venn Diagram of college quantum mechanics and bookkeeping overlaps. . . .
625 is 25 times 25, btw. And 5/8 is .625 by the way, 6250 is a mere 3 parts of 6250 more than 625. So I'll use the easy number, and add the proportional parts later.
So 6280 on the bottom is the same thing as 5/8 times 10000, plus 3. all on the bottom. I take the 5/8 on the bottom to the top by writing it 8/5, and that gives me 1.6 divide by 10000. That's nearly in decimal form. . . .
.00016, plus that 3 additional parts of the 6250. which is on the order of 1 part of 208.3333, of .00016, added to .00016: slightly more than another .000005. . . .
I don't know if approximation is good enough. . . . doesn't answer in rocket science, but hell, in government work whole orders of magnitude won't make a politician blink.
The answer is .000160513
well, in per cent that would be 0.0160513 per cent. As anyone with marginal common sense and experience in life knows, we're talking about something that will happen in a given year, and over a lifetime, if people live six thousand years, this is something that's gonna happen to you. Over a ten year span, it will happen to one person out of 628. If the exponential increase in the rate continues another ten years, and then the next ten years again, we'll have half our workforce out doing swat no-knocks.
I don't even have a calculator. I'm a slide rule man. Yep, still have in my holster. So you'd better take my word for it.
and trout, if you're still with me, no your humor didn't just go zing over my head.
It's not the imminent fear of a no-knock swat attack on my home that I'd consider in forming my opinions of the police. It's the gung ho newby cops out in the rain running radar and causing traffic accidents as morons hit the brakes on slick roads. Justice Court revenue agents pretending to be "judges" are an indictment against our whole system of government. Government agents out on the highways creating traffic hazards and causing the deaths of motorists, of little babies mind you. . . . . Where are the Ad Council ads showing the mangled babe being pried from the wreckage, invoking in high moralistic tones. "Not one more babe. . . . no not one."
and for any potential future math genius out there, try multiplying my answer by 314,000,000.
The .0001 gives 31,140
The .00006 gives 18,684 adds up to 49,824. Probably already in the range of the statistical confidence level of the 50,000 figure, given errors, unreported stuff, and all that. . . .
The .0000005 gives 156, bringing us up to 49,980.
And the .000000013 gives us the last 20, for 50,000.
I've got a choice. . . . what to do with my life. . . . do math in my head, or jack up some political crusade. . . . .
hey, hey why not just do both.
