Reader Steve has pointed us to an interesting thing in the Washington Post. Unsurprisingly, they report on congressional votes. Their online report has some nice sort options:
By party | By state/territory | By region | By boomer status | By gender | By astrological sign
Yes, that last item is noteworthy.
Yes | No | Not Voting | |
---|---|---|---|
Aquarius | 26 | 7 | |
Aries | 22 | 7 | 1 |
Cancer | 40 | 12 | 3 |
Capricorn | 20 | 9 | |
Gemini | 33 | 15 | 2 |
Leo | 25 | 6 | |
Libra | 32 | 9 | 4 |
Pisces | 23 | 3 | 1 |
Sagittarius | 23 | 6 | |
Scorpio | 22 | 7 | 3 |
Taurus | 24 | 5 | |
Virgo | 33 | 9 |
If you supported this bill, you should have voted Pisces in the last election. If you were against it, Capricorn was the way to go. Scorpio seems to be the sign of choice for those of you who like to abstain.
You see, now that we have this tool, we no longer need to worry about campaigning or party lines. All we need is someone's birthdate, and we can make informed decisions on how our representatives will vote. In fact, maybe we can do without the vote all together and just let a computer calculate the results based on astrological trends.
The scary thing is that some readers will take the above paragraph seriously. Come on Washington Post, publishing horoscopes is one thing (not that I approve), but suggesting that there is some link between astrological sign and congressional voting is dishonest. Why not list tie color or shoe size? How about height or weight? Or maybe what their favorite sandwich is?
Strangely, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a slight correlation between sign and voting, simply because there is a correlation between birthdate and year of graduation from high school. But to suggest that astrological sign is just as important as region, party, or age is ridiculous. You can chart anything and find correlation, but to find causality is a completely different matter. Listing votes by sign is useless noise, and the Washington Post should know better.