The columns of the data are:

• Representative Name
• State
• Number of Earmarks
• Total Cost
• Solo Earmarks
• Solo Cost

The solo columns are for earmarks where that representative was the only representative who requested the earmark.

Republicans vs. Democrats

The first obvious division is to split the data on party lines and see if their behavior is any different.

Column	Mean Democrats	Mean Republicans	P-value	Histogram
Total Earmarks	26.8	22.3	3.26E-4
Total Cost	$37,402,953	$30,683,681	0.02873
Solo Earmarks	10.3	9.2	0.0925
Solo Cost	$7,606,210	$7,746,574	0.7782

Red: Republicans, Blue: Democrats.  Significant p-values are in bold.

Table 1. The above table shows that the average number of earmarks that are approved is significantly higher for democrats than for republicans and also that democrats get significantly more money for their earmarks than republicans do.  Please note that when I say “significantly” I mean it in a statistical sense.  The p-values (or the probability that the difference between democrats and republicans is purely by chance) for the first two rows of the table are signifiant ( less than 0.05).  You can interpret this as having a less than 5% chance of this occurring completely by chance.  However, when looking at solo earmarks there is not a significant difference in the number of earmarks granted or their cost.

For the Statisticians: To calculate the p-value I used the wilcoxon rank sum test as the distributions are not normally distributed.

However, I feel obligated to point out that because the house has a majority of democrats (237 to 163) it may be easier for democrats to get their earmarks passed, thus there are more for democrats.  For comparison, data from when the GOP has control of the house is required.

The “old-school” informaticists have relied on Perl (yes, Perl) to develop these scripts.  But in the modern ages where languages like Python and Ruby are available to us, we don’t need to be knee deep in archaic idioms and clunky syntax.  I have been relying on Python for years now.  My implementation speed has increased substationally, I have less headaches, and life is generally better.

It turns out, however, that many of my colleagues and peers have a great appreciation for Ruby, which seems to be gaining a lot of traction lately.  As a self-named agile software developer I feel it would hypocratic if I didn’t pick up Ruby.  Afterall I need to have as many tools in my box as possible and learning Ruby will only make me a better informaticist.

My first impressions for Ruby have been very positive.  It is a truly object oriented language in ways that Python falls short.  Also I just love the dual implementation of most of the methods for when you want to modify the instance or you would rather return it.  For example, say we have a list:

The method call with the exclamation point at the end mutates the instance ‘list’ while without it, it will return a new list.  This is one of my biggest griefs with Python.  It causes code that should only take one like, take three. (Not to mention just trying to remember which way the method works)

Python

Ruby

You just can’t argue with that.  Also I found this great resource for Ruby.  If you are an experienced programmer (especially if you are familiar with high level languages) this page basically teaches you everything you need to know about Ruby to get started.

You see, what better way to take over the world than to make all peoples feel self-important and over-confident. My latest iPhone toy, LaughTrack, allows you to carry around a studio audience in your pocket. All your jokes will be laughted at. All your snide comments, joyfully giggled at. All your great accomplishments will be cheered and applauded. This makes you and everyone else feel like a star and as such you want others (namely me) to do your bidding. This will make all of you hand over enormous amounts of control over your lives to me. With this new control I will spread LaughTrack even deeper into all societies and …. I think you see where this is going.

You may think that it is foolish for me to divulge this fiendish plot to the very people from which I will extract their freedom, but I know it’s okay, because I’m getting loads of applause and cheering from the audience.

Check out more on LaughTrack or buy it from iTunes ($0.99).