Monday Trivia, No. 159 [Mo wins]
In order, with brackets denoting ties:
Florida, California, New York, [Illinois, Massachusetts], [Ohio, Utah, Washington], [New Jersey, Oregon], [Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin], [Connecticut, Kansas, Texas], [Colorado, Arizona, Iowa, Missouri, New Mexico, Vermont, Virginia], [Alaska, Delaware, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Tennessee], [Hawai’i, Idaho, Kentucky, Maryland, South Carolina, West Virginia], [Alabama, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Rhode Island], [Arkansas, South Dakota, Wyoming], Nevada, North Dakota, D.C.
Number of times proposals have been made to partition states.Report
Hmm… it starts with 3 of the 4 largest states, and ends with a lot of relatively small states. This must be important.Report
With the exception of Massachusetts and maybe Utah, those top states are all big producers of talent at the high school football level. At least, based on my understanding. Maybe Mass and Utah are better than I understand.Report
Texas is way, way too low for that to be the case.Report
Duh. Great point. I was less focused on what was missing than what was there. Okay, so it is definitely not high school football talent.Report
I was less focused on what was missing than what was there.
You’d be a great cop.Report
Total rum consumption by state.Report
LNG filling stations?Report
Per cent of population over 65 years old?Report
I don’t think it’s the percentage or number of seniors notwithstanding Florida’s top ranking. Pennsylvania would be much higher in either case, as it has one of the oldest populations of any state.Report
NUMBER of people over 65 years old?Report
Number of residents arrested for driving while intoxicated.Report
Number of residents over 65 arrested for driving intoxicated on rum in proximity to LNG filling stations.Report
Who are good at football.Report
While petitioning to partition their state.Report
Greatest number of immigrants?Report
Texas would be much higher if that were the case.Report
Where is Washington? No ties? British Columbia maybe?Report
Wisconsin is listed twice, so maybe one of those is supposed to be Washington.Report
Yes, the first mention is actually Washington. It’s now corrected. My apologies, and thank you for bringing it to my attention.Report
Tuesday hint:
These are counts, not percentages, and while population matters, so does state law.Report
Number of state correctional facilities?Report
Number of active driver licenses.Report
CDLs maybe?Report
If they’re counts, the numbers are very small. There wouldn’t be so many ties otherwise. Maybe the first three states are high, but things tighten up quickly.Report
Just for kicks, you might expect something like this:
30 Florida
20 California
16 New York
13 [Illinois, Massachusetts]
12 [Ohio, Utah, Washington]
11 [New Jersey, Oregon]
10 [Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin]
9 [Connecticut, Kansas, Texas]
8 [Colorado, Arizona, Iowa, Missouri, New Mexico, Vermont, Virginia]
7 [Alaska, Delaware, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Tennessee]
6 [Hawai’i, Idaho, Kentucky, Maryland, South Carolina, West Virginia]
5 [Alabama, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Rhode Island]
4 [Arkansas, South Dakota, Wyoming]
3 Nevada
2 North Dakota
0 D.C.Report
Not bad. Your top-end is only slightly high, and your bottom end is only slightly low (DC > 0).Report
Number of specialty car license plates available?Report
That would seem odd that there would be such a high correlation to state size.Report
More people translate into more groups that want a specialty plate “in honor of” them. When I worked for the Colorado legislature, I was surprised by the number of bills introduced each year to create an additional specialty plate. Also, since most states have their plates stamped and painted by inmates, more people => more prisoners => greater ability to handle the variety.
It was just something that popped into my head.Report
Montana has a ridiculously high number of specialty license plates. There is a single high school (maybe it’s a district) that has two of them. Idaho has far fewer.Report
More people translate into more groups
Getting warmer.Report
BSA troops by state?Report
Something related to churches? Nevada is awfully low relative to its population.Report
State “things”, like bird, flower, reptile… that sort of nonsense?Report
Is it something like “Number of members of Congress with more than X (let’s say 10) years of service)”?Report
You’re more optimistic than I am. I was thinking something like # of elected officials currently serving time.Report
If NJ was in the top 5 instead of barely the top 10, I would concur.Report
Wednesday hint: Each state has more than two, but most are insignificant.Report
Most are insignificant? Ummmm… legislators?
State highways?Report
@jm3z-aitch Insignificant eh!? Wait til you get home!Report
Is it the number of state holidays?Report
“Each state has more than two, but most are insignificant.”
Libertarians!Report
Congresspeople.Report
Neither are right, but I’m pretty sure either Kolohe and Schilling deserves a special prize.Report
So it must relate to third parties somehow. I know it isn’t number of official registered third parties, with California ranked so high (we have only 5 qualified third parties here).
So.. Number of third-party candidates for office? Say, House and Senate? It can’t include state-level offices because I’d expect New Hampshire with its massively huge state legislature to have more.Report
You’re simultaneously applying two different standards.Report
Presidential candidates on the ballot in 2012?Report
Burt almost had it, but tripped himself up.Report
Third party candidates for president?Report
Or number of gubernatorial candidates, period.Report
Total number of third party candidates.Report
Sooooooo close.Report
Third party candidates for State and Federal offices.Report
Not to pick on Burt, but in this very rare case,what he thinks he knows he doesn’t actually know.Report
A number of third parties.Report
Mo wins, with an assist from Burt. At the top end are Florida with 21 political parties, California with 21, and New York with 20. At the bottom end are Nevada with 6, North Dakota with 5, and DC with 4. The data comes from Project Vote Smart.Report
cite please. Every source I looked at said that California had six or so qualified political parties. How do you count all the non-qualified parties?Report
Project Vote Smart. Not all of these parties are qualified for the ballot, but they exist, or did the last time PVS updated their list, or are struggling to establish a real existence.
There are some who are not recognized, some who are recognized but not regularly ballot qualified due to restrictiveness of state laws, and some who are ballot qualified.Report
James,
http://www.ballot-access.org/2012/09/prohibition-party-places-presidential-nominee-on-louisiana-ballot/
Some parties missing?Report
50 states and a lot of people obsessed over their own particular issues means there will be some degree of turnover among third parties. I’m sure Project Vote Smart has limited resources and so can only update occasionally. Possibly they last updated before 2009. Possibly the Louisiana Prohibition Party (rightfully) ceased to exist since then.
This is a good general case of what federalism brings us–a near impossibility of staying up to date on the current status of just about any issue that is under the control of the states.Report
James,
Apparently about $8,000 a year is riding on the Prohibition Party still existing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_PartyReport
Possibly the Louisiana Prohibition Party (rightfully) ceased to exist since then.
Their priorities are messed up. The first state to go should be Texas.Report
Thanks.Report
Ooh! Theme Parks.Report
It is neither social nor economic.Report
Number of languages state forms are printed in?Report
Something similar had occurred to me as well.Report
Internet nodes?Report
The order in which states have banned you from dancing of singing?Report
Since its a count of whole numbers, that would be the number of times I’ve been arrested in each state for singing or dancing. But come on, that would, umm, err, be ridiculous. [nervously tugs collar]Report
Number of independent politicians serving the state ?Report