hgc
23rd March 2010, 02:37 PM
Tonight on Hardball, Representative Barbara Lee (D-Ca), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, had an arithmetic incident.
There's no video up yet, so I'll paraphrase as closely as I can.
Matthews: Did every member of the Congressional Black Caucus vote for this bill?
Lee: We had one member vote no. But 99.9% of our membership voted for this bill.
The CBC has 42 voting members (+ 1 non-voting DC Delegate).
Has "99.9%" come to mean something other than than a perfectly quantifiable concept? Something of a non-numeric cliche for "almost all?" I wish public figures would protect the integrity of numbers. One day, "99.9%" could end up like "decimate" -- divorced from its numeric intent.
There's no video up yet, so I'll paraphrase as closely as I can.
Matthews: Did every member of the Congressional Black Caucus vote for this bill?
Lee: We had one member vote no. But 99.9% of our membership voted for this bill.
The CBC has 42 voting members (+ 1 non-voting DC Delegate).
Has "99.9%" come to mean something other than than a perfectly quantifiable concept? Something of a non-numeric cliche for "almost all?" I wish public figures would protect the integrity of numbers. One day, "99.9%" could end up like "decimate" -- divorced from its numeric intent.