to your HTML Add class="sortable" to any table you'd like to make sortable Click on the headers to sort Thanks to many, many people for contributions and suggestions. Licenced as X11: http://www.kryogenix.org/code/browser/licence.html This basically means: do what you want with it. */ var stIsIE = /*@cc_on!@*/false; sorttable = { init: function() { // quit if this function has already been called if (arguments.callee.done) return; // flag this function so we don't do the same thing twice arguments.callee.done = true; // kill the timer if (_timer) clearInterval(_timer); if (!document.createElement || !document.getElementsByTagName) return; sorttable.DATE_RE = /^(\d\d?)[\/\.-](\d\d?)[\/\.-]((\d\d)?\d\d)$/; forEach(document.getElementsByTagName('table'), function(table) { if (table.className.search(/\bsortable\b/) != -1) { sorttable.makeSortable(table); } }); }, makeSortable: function(table) { if (table.getElementsByTagName('thead').length == 0) { // table doesn't have a tHead. Since it should have, create one and // put the first table row in it. the = document.createElement('thead'); the.appendChild(table.rows[0]); table.insertBefore(the,table.firstChild); } // Safari doesn't support table.tHead, sigh if (table.tHead == null) table.tHead = table.getElementsByTagName('thead')[0]; if (table.tHead.rows.length != 1) return; // can't cope with two header rows // Sorttable v1 put rows with a class of "sortbottom" at the bottom (as // "total" rows, for example). This is B&R, since what you're supposed // to do is put them in a tfoot. So, if there are sortbottom rows, // for backwards compatibility, move them to tfoot (creating it if needed). sortbottomrows = []; for (var i=0; i
Did you ever wonder what the most ineffective government programs are in the U.S.? We're not just talking about the programs that can't demonstrate if they're performing or not, but rather those programs that are proving to be actively wasting the tax dollars they receive through their chronic inability to achieve worthwhile results. In other words, truly ineffective government programs. Here's a short list of some of the least effective U.S. government programs, as identified by the White House's ExpectMore.gov web site:
| Sample of Ineffective Government Programs | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Department/Agency | Program | Budget (millions $USD) | ||
| 2005 | 2006 | 2007* | ||
| Education | Even Start | 225 | 99 | 0 |
| Energy | Oil Technology | 34 | 32 | 0 |
| Health & Human Services | Health Professions | 450 | 295 | 159 |
| Justice | Juvenile Accountability Block Grants | 54 | 49 | 0 |
| Labor | Trade Adjustment Assistance | 1057 | 966 | 939 |
| Transportation | Amtrak | 1207 | 1294 | 900 |
| Treasury | IRS Earned Income Tax Credit Compliance | 165 | 167 | 168 |
| Environmental Protection Agency | EPA Ecological Research | 87 | 85 | 80 |
| Corp. for National & Community Service | AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps | 25 | 27 | 5 |
In all, 28 programs appear on ExpectMore.gov's list of ineffective programs, which account for 3.5% of the 805 federal government programs that were reviewed by the White House's Office of Management and Budget. Together, these programs consumed $19,793,000,000 ($19.8 billion USD) in 2005. In 2006, the amount Congress has enacted to support these programs adds up to $17,494,000,000 ($17.5 billion USD), and the President's recently released budget request for 2007 proposes spending $14,773,000,000 ($14.8 billion USD), a 15.6% decrease ($2.7 billion USD) from the amount budgeted for these programs for 2006. (All figures taken or derived from the spreadsheet for the Fiscal Year 2007 Budget Request assembled by the White House.)
Welcome to the blogosphere's toolchest! Here, unlike other blogs dedicated to analyzing current events, we create easy-to-use, simple tools to do the math related to them so you can get in on the action too! If you would like to learn more about these tools, or if you would like to contribute ideas to develop for this blog, please e-mail us at:
The S&P 500 at Your Fingertips
Mapping S&P 500 Performance, Since 1871
Should You Trade In Your Gas Guzzler?
What Are the Chances Your Marriage Will Last?
Reckoning the Odds of Recession
Your 2009 Paycheck
Tipping Around the World
Revisiting the Lottery
Estimating Your Life Expectancy
Connecting the Dots for Personal Income Taxes
First Time Visitor to Political Calculations?
On the Moneyed Midways
A Lot, But Not All, of Our Tools
Political Calculations' Recession Probability Track shows the probability that the U.S. economy will be in recession 12 months from the indicated date (shown in red) while revealing the probability trend over the past four years.
Previously, the probability of recession peaked at 50% on 4 April 2007, which means that March-April 2008 was the most likely period in which the NBER would have found the U.S. to be in recession.
As it happens, they almost did. The NBER instead chose December 2007 as the beginning month of the most recent recession (we had found a 46% probability for a recession beginning in that month!)
Political Calculations is also the online home of On the Moneyed Midways (aka OMM), a review of the best posts contributed to the week's best business and money-related blog carnivals. More than that, we also name one post in each edition as being The Best Post of the Week, Anywhere! and at the end of each year, we name The Best Post of the Year, Anywhere! as well as identifying the best blogs we found during the course of the year!
The link below will take you to the running index containing our most recent back issues (you can easily navigate the index to find older editions.)
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ZunZun - Exceptional regression analysis tool.
Wolfram Integrator - Solve integrals. Do calculus!
Create a Graph - Easy-to-use basic graph-making tool.
Many Eyes - Data visualization extraordinaire!