This from just in from Wonkette.

WP Votes Database (Vote 163). Scroll to the bottom and click on astrological sign.

*heavy sigh*

Although on the other hand, great gist for the skeptics mill.

Oh, dear ....

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Ha---first time I've seen astrological signs arranged in alphabetical rather than chronological order, outside a dictionary.
Hmmh---how about a 12-party system?

What.

The.

(*$(*^#$)*$)*&%)&*%.

Is this a WaPo thing? Or something our government does?

Holy cow. I am so getting to the bottom of this.

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Phil Plait
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is that there's absolutely no consistency in how Senators voted based on their sign. Shouldn't everyone born under the same sign think similarly about similar issues?

I don't know how to say this, but I think ... I think ... there just *might* be something specious about astrology.

Davidhw
That's what i meant when I said
What is interesting though is that the number of Senators/Sign is really weird. (Click on the sign to get the list of who is what). Leo's are really "underrepresented" (pun intended) and Aqurius, Scorpio and Taurus "overrepresented".

I suspect a deeper astrological meaning! See the Republicans really are waging a War on Science and messing with averages. Somebody tell Chris Mooney or Michael Shermer!

Uhmmm, not weird. I'm not sure of the statistics, but the planned pregnencies that I know about have always been timed so that the third trimester is not in the summer. Usually the January to April timeframe.
And I do have vague recollections statistics stated when (I think it was BMV registration) went from last initial to birth date.
This could be interesting. For the BA to nudge close to rule number 3, there might be some real bottom getting.

edit: typo

NEOWatcher

Um... No. August traditionally has the highest rate of birth. (Pre Christmas spooning perhaps?)

A quick spot check
Vital Statistics of the United States 1945
Vital Statistics of the United States 1962 (also with data going back to 1953)
Monthly Vital Statistics Report; Vol. 26, No. 12 Supplement (3/29/78) *
National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 50, No. 5 (2/12/2002)

Each shows August having the highest birthrate.

That's what really made me wonder. I still think it's a plot!

*Edit: Added Statistics for 1976 (which interestingly show September as #1 and August as number 2) and typo.

Well, there you have it... statistics trumps anecdotal evidence any day.
So now that I am presented with data, you have me convinced that this should be moved to CT.
Or; could it be that Aqurius, Scorpio and Taurus are signs that tend to go into politics and Leos tend to be followers.

Or that the sample is so small that randomness is king.

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Or maybe they did the survey at Chuckie Cheese in July

With only 100 Senators divided into 12 bins, you expect 8.5 Senators per bin (and if they would only let me choose which ones to cut in half...). If births are random, then the standard deviation you expect in each bin is the square root of the number in the bin. Sqrt(8.5) is roughly 3.

Now, it's not too unlikely to get fluctuations of 3 standard deviations, though 2 is more likely (of course). So you might see as few as 2 Senators in a bin, or as many as 14. In reality, getting no Senators in one astrological sign wouldn't surprise me too much. Unusual, yes; impossible, of course not.

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Ah, but it was specified that we were talking about planned pregnancies! If I were to attempt planning when I were going to have a child, I sure wouldn't pick August. (For one thing, it's the only month of the year when I reliably have plans.) However, I don't think the majority of parents put much thought into it. In fact, my pregnancy was pretty unplanned in every sense of the word.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

The times the GF and I have talked about kids, it was pretty much a given that we would try to time the birth for April/May if at all possible. She doesn't want to spend the summer pregnant. I'd hate to have to dash to the hospital during a huge snowstorm. (And freakishly heavy snowfalls are common in Salt Lake/Ogden Utah) Not to mention the fact we were both born in December and having a birthday around Christmas wasn't fun. Get the toys on the 25th and the batteried a few days later. No good outside toys since they all break or get lost waiting for spring...

Yeah, April or May if we have a say in it.

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A Geek will think he can use that to pick up a girl in a bar.
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She might. You never know.

Oh, and don't forget the "Christmas and birthday presents," which were pretty much invariably worse than what my sisters got for either. (I'm December 6; they're September 9 and 10. Really. And no, they're not twins--I'm the middle child!)

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Heh, Dec 28 here. I was serious about the toys for Christmas and the batteries for my birthday. On time, three days later. One year we put off my birthday til April to do outdoor toys. And people I know wonder why holidays mean so little to me.

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A Nerd can figure out how long it will take the original Enterprise traveling at warp 6.5 to travel from Regulus to Antares.
A Geek will think he can use that to pick up a girl in a bar.
A Dork knows he can't pick up the girl with it, but will hang around for hours anyway, just in case she asks.
She might. You never know.

Actually my comments in that direction were more than tongue in cheek.

But the refutation is much easier. Just click back 'up' the heirarchy and check the stats for the House as opposed to the Senate. Leo is then better represented in the larger sample space.

If the statistics wouldn't have worked out, one would have to take action. Something like (I don't know) writing your congressperson!

Well, there is a precident for astrology in US politics Time Magazine

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I wonder when the constellation Mustela, the Weasel was added to the zodiac?

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