Election 2008 Analysis

Ok, so I finally got around to analyzing my election predictions. Here's a table.

I correctly predicted the outcome of 50 of the 51 states, missing Indiana.

State	EV	Poll	Proj	Win	Δp	Δa	Error
DC	3	0.45			66.82	85.92	19.1
VT	3	1.17			28.13	37.01	8.9
DE	3	3.02			27.92	25.00	-2.9
NY	31	4.38			27.74	26.69	-1.1
MD	10	0.73			25.80	25.44	-0.4
HI	4	0.66			22.64	45.26	22.6
CA	55	6.64			22.60	24.06	1.5
IL	21	4.14			22.15	25.13	3.0
CT	7	1.92			20.16	22.37	2.2
RI	4	0.76			19.83	27.92	8.1
MA	12	4.16			17.77	25.81	8.0
OR	7	9.62			15.74	16.35	0.6
ME	4	5.87			15.52	17.32	1.8
WA	11	7.03			15.36	17.18	1.8
IA	7	9.67			15.28	9.53	-5.8
NJ	15	9.48			14.12	15.57	1.5
MI	17	9.43			13.89	16.47	2.6
WI	10	10.78			13.24	13.90	0.7
MN	10	13.62			9.91	10.24	0.3
NH	4	13.00			9.77	9.61	-0.2
NM	5	7.14			9.49	15.13	5.6
PA	21	27.15			8.06	10.35	2.3
CO	9	14.57			6.42	8.95	2.5
VA	13	21.06			6.06	6.30	0.2
NV	5	13.12			5.79	12.49	6.7
OH	20	28.72			2.89	4.54	1.6
FL	27	29.05			2.03	2.82	0.8
NC	15	27.25			1.04	0.33	-0.7
MO	11	24.40			0.23	-0.13	-0.4
IN	11	16.09			-0.51	1.03	1.5
ND	3	2.67			-2.67	-8.63	-6.0
GA	15	15.07			-3.23	-5.21	-2.0
AZ	10	7.31			-3.61	-8.52	-4.9
MT	3	5.28			-4.29	-2.26	2.0
SC	8	4.60			-8.64	-8.98	-0.3
SD	3	2.88			-9.13	-8.41	0.7
AR	6	3.06			-9.29	-19.85	-10.6
MS	6	3.53			-9.43	-13.17	-3.7
LA	9	2.26			-10.04	-18.63	-8.6
WV	5	6.24			-10.60	-13.12	-2.5
TX	34	2.53			-11.01	-11.77	-0.8
TN	11	2.31			-12.60	-15.07	-2.5
AK	3	5.71			-13.62	-21.54	-7.9
KY	8	8.52			-14.04	-16.23	-2.2
KS	6	4.03			-16.97	-14.96	2.0
NE	5	0.78			-19.05	-14.93	4.1
AL	9	3.42			-23.08	-21.58	1.5
ID	4	0.71			-23.49	-25.43	-1.9
UT	5	1.76			-24.63	-28.18	-3.6
WY	3	3.38			-26.34	-32.24	-5.9
OK	7	4.25			-26.62	-31.29	-4.7

Unless otherwise noted, I am omitting DC and HI from my analysis. These states were not only significant leverage points as indicated by severe values of the Cook's D statistic, but also represented significant outliers based on their studentized residuals. Because of this and the dismal amount of polling in both states, I have omitted them. (This, by the way, is how statisticians say "these data really screwed up my model so I took 'em out.")

I missed statewise margin of victory by {3.1 average, 2.2 median}. I was closest to correctly guessing the outcome in New Hampshire (which is just dumb luck; that state was crazy!). I predicted 54.5-44.7; the outcome was 54.1-44.5, a net error of 0.16 points. I was farthest from correctly guessing the outcome in Arkansas (damn PUMAs!) - I predicted a 9.3 pt McCain victory; he won the state by 19.9 pts, an error of 10.56 points.

The regression model treated me nicely.

The first plot shows my prediction line (red) and where each state actually fell (blue).
The second plot shows my prediction (x-axis) with my prediction error (y-axis).
Highlighting +/- 4.00 was arbitrary.



My regression intercept has a p-value of 0.484, indicating there is absolutely no evidence that my average prediction varied significantly from the average actual outcome.

The model in total has a p-value of 0.000000000000000000000000000000000224, which besides being an awesomely small number, also indicates the probability of beating my model by chance alone.

On the down side, the regression model coefficient of 1.124 had a 95% CI of {1.057, 1.192}. Because 1.000 is not in this interval, this indictates that my model significantly underpredicted the average differential in each state (for either candidate; in other words, I gave Obama too much credit in red states and McCain too much credit in blue states, etc.).

Finally, my model scored an r-square value of 0.960. In other words, if each state's outcome was determined by the results of 100 coin flips, having my model in hand would be analogous to already knowing the outcome of 96 of the flips. Or to use another analogy, it would be like predicting the rankings of teams in baseball standings for a 162-game season while already knowing how the first 156 games turn out.

And just for curiosity's sake, I was joking about being unjustified in removing HI and DC. While it's true I missed them both by large margins (especially HI), it's clear in the picture below why DC (off to the right) is overly influential in determining the line of best fit. (HI is the point at 23, 45).



Had I included the two states, r-squared drops from 0.960 to 0.956 and significance actually decreases (that's good) from 2E-34 to 8E-35.

So that's all I've got. I won't do anything for the Senate, but it looks as though I will be wrong about Coleman winning Minnesota (I can't believe that is still not settled. I don't feel bad about missing it, and to my credit I did predict that it would be the last race decided.)

Finally, I got the absolute percentages for Obama and McCain wrong - I said it would be 53.1-45.9; instead it was 52.9-45.7. But notice that I overshot both numbers (I just took the fact that Kerry and Bush added up to 99.0% and applied the same assumption to Obama and McCain). In terms of share of the 2-party vote, it broke down like this:

Prediction - 53.64 to 46.36
Actual - 53.68 to 46.32

Adding up the two errors, I missed the national vote share by less than one-tenth of one percentage point (0.08%). I'll take it.

Champion of Swimming Games Ignored by SEC

Sorry for the terrible joke, but some dude named Markopolos has been trying to warn the SEC about some $50B fraud for like a decade.

Missouri Reddening?

Robin Carnahan has announced she will run for the Senate seat Kit Bond will be vacating in 2010. A victory would make her Missouri's second-most-attractive senator, behind Cruella Deville.

Missouri is reddening faster than almost any other state. WTF is going on here? In 2004 the Democratic governor was so weak he couldn't even win the primary, ousted by Claire McCaskill. McCaskill, though, still couldn't win the general election.

Two years later Missouri elected McCaskill to the Senate, and two years after that they put a Democrat back in the governor's mansion. With Nate Silver ranking Missouri as the senate seat most likely to flip in 2010, the state could go from 2 Republican senators and a Republican governor just before the 2006 election to having all those seats filled by Democrats after the 2010 election.

That said, President Obama should not focus too much energy on Missouri in his 2012 reelection campaign.

Woman deems absurdly large breasts "not racist enough"

OK, so that's not true, but you've got to read this article.

Conservapedia Nuance

It's clear "the trustworthy encyclopedia" is raising the level of debate when it comes to Commerce Secretary-nominee Judd Gregg.

There's no link to this directly but for a few days it should be on the main page: of the Republican whose departure from the Senate could give the Democrats the overblown total of 60 senators, the encyclopedia asks: "Benedict Arnold or Judas?"

(Actually, they had an extra comma in the question. Also, this is one of the few instances when I do agree with the standard rule on quotation mark/punctuation mark ordering)

Fish and Fishes

I recently found myself in yet another debate over the usage of "fish" vs. "fishes" and other similar issues.

Unless I'm mistaken, I'm rather sure that "fish" just refers to more than one fish whereas "fishes" refers to more than one type of fish.

Anyway, I figure that sort of thing has to have a name but I couldn't find one. Anybody got any ideas? In the process I came across interesting words Ichthyology and Isogloss.

Final thought: does the same rule apply to "persons" and "people"?

Punxsutawney Phil: Groundhog Data

How reliable are Phil's predictions?

After a too-long internet search, the best historical weather data I was able to find (I'm happy to do something else if you can find better data) was monthly average temperatures for Portland, OR from 1941 on. Since Phil predicts "early spring" or "six more weeks of winter," I gave February a weight of 4 and March a weight of 2 (number of weeks of those six weeks) and took the average. Not the best method of course, but the best I have available. There were no predictions for 1941 and 1942 and no weather data for 2007 and 2008, so I had 63 data points.

Phil predicts more winter:
Number of times - 53
Mean temperature - 44.38
Variance - 4.94

Phil predicts early spring:
Number of times - 10
Mean temperature - 44.96
Variance - 4.90

Two-sample t-test:
T-statistic: -0.760 with 61 degrees of freedom
One-sided p-value: 0.225

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Translation: We say these results are so extreme they would "only" happen one in four times by chance. Which isn't sufficient evidence to claim that there's any relationship between Groundhog's Day predictions and actual outcomes.

Sorry to eat away at your childhood :)

Obama Thus Far: 1.5 Thumbs Up

I would call this a sufficiently good summary of Obama's first 10 or so days.

Super Bowl Ads

Remarkably well done site given that some of the content is less than 12 hours old.

PS - The whole time I watched the ad for the new "Fast and the Furious" movie, I kept waiting for a tagline along the lines of "It's faster. It's furiouser." They let me down.

Poor Michael Phelps

He lives in a damn fishbowl. No pun intended.

Cheech & Chong: The "Felimoy" Tour

Ok, so I don't know if you guys will care about this at all, but I'm posting this article because I totally, un-ironically, love Cheech and Chong. Especially Chong.

“I think I listen better than I ever did,” Mr. Marin said during an interview in the fall, in a Midtown Manhattan hotel suite perfumed by pot smoke.

“And I’m deaf,” Mr. Chong added.

Waxing eloquent, Mr. Chong began comparing himself and Mr. Marin to wolves.

(“This is going to be a long one,” Mr. Marin said with a shrug. “Sorry.”)

A daily dose of crazy

Straight from the Roman Catholic Church and their un-excommunicated Bishop Williamson.

The computer future

Chris' technology problems (as described in the "I like watching news as it happens" post) actually led me to an interesting question: will the average person of our generation ever choose to buy a desktop again?

As far as I can determine desktops offer no significant advantage to the vast majority of what I'll call our generation (loosely defining "our generation" to mean anyone who remembers the Internet explosion but who is too young to remember the introduction of Atari). Competitive hard drives, video cards, optical disc drives, memory sticks, and ethernet connections already exist for laptops. And as solid-state drives (a.k.a. big flash drives) become more competitive the price of hard-disk drives should fall even further than it has already.

Granted there exists a small, and possibly growing (?), population of users interested in high-end functionality (e.g. memory-intensive gaming, video editing, audio recording, etc.). These people will always desire the newest technology (as a technological difference in something like video editing capabilities can create wildly different end products), which is usually pretty bulky and cannot be fit immediately into a laptop, so they will usually require a desktop. Basically those in industries that pioneer the usage of new technologies will be chained to desktops, but I cannot imagine a situation in which a laptop with a docking station (including a full-size keyboard, mouse, and monitor) would be insufficient for a typical young computer user.

To take this argument one step further: I imagine that over time cheap, streamlined laptops (e.g. netbooks) with only a handful of features (e.g. web-browsing and text editing) will gain a huge foothold in the US market for computers (I don't have enough experience or knowledge to speculate outside my home country).

In my efforts to prove that I will someday be correct I ended up checking out Amazon's "most popular items in Laptop Computers." When I checked the list (updated hourly) thirteen of the top twenty-five most popular items were netbooks. The top four items are netbooks, and only one laptop was able to crack the top ten. Apparently netbooks, "[...] now account for 7 percent of all portable PCs [...]," a proportion much higher than I thought it would be.

Two Thoughts on the Economy

1. For reasons unknown, I have begun to read Rush Limbaugh's stimulus proposal. I haven't gotten far, but in the beginning he sets up a sharp contrast between the "Keynesian" (i.e., Democratic) solution of funding "shovel-ready" projects and the "supply-side" (Republican) solution of tax cuts.

My knowledge of economics puts me in a better place to discuss the Republicans' proposal than the Democrats'. Tax cuts will stimulate the economy to some degree - the more progressive the tax cut, the more short-term relief is brought about. This is because poor people spend the highest percentage of their income, while wealthier people tend to save/invest it. So tax cuts to middle- and upper- class folks will largely be saved, or used to pay down individuals' debts.

So my question is - assuming (and I think I can do so safely) that the average American currently has ballooning debt, is it possible that the tax cut route might actually be better, in that private debts (mortgages, credit cards) could represent a coming crisis that needs to be averted now? Just a thought.

(And I should add, it's entirely possibly that such a proposal wouldn't actually result in Americans making a net payment on their debt, or at least the right Americans paying down the right debts.)

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2. This second thought it much more political than economic, but it's something to watch for: the Republicans need to carve out a voice ASAP if they want a shot at the 2010 elections. So they're going to have to find ways to oppose the Democrats. Thus far, they haven't had a lot of luck.

But with the economy being the number one issue, here's an argument you're going to hear more and more as election day comes ...

Let's say you're God. Let's say unemployment is currently 8%. Let's say without action, it will be 14%, with the Republicans' stimulus it will be 12%, and with Obama's stimulus it will be 10%.

So the Democrats say, "Wow, look at that, we saved a whole lot of jobs!"
So the Republicans say, "Wow, look at that, they didn't create any jobs. In fact, they lost jobs!"

I guess it would have been a whole lot easier for me to say "There's going to be an upcoming argument about jobs saved vs. jobs created." Oh well, you get the point.

I like watching news as it's happening

I had the pleasure of watching this last night. My first thought was "hey, that's gonna be news tomorrow." (Skip ahead to about 9:00)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

There was also an interesting segment on Morning Joe this morning, but the clip is not up yet.

Update

I have no witty comments or editorials on this article, but I thought it would be worth posting for those of you who have not seen this news/discussion about the USPS and service cuts.


[As I was attempting to choose the labels for this post, I didn't know whether to put recession or depression. Yesterday, a colleague of mine facetiously pointed out that people with jobs tend to call it a recession, those without, a depression. So, it's a recession for me.]

It's Snowing in St. Louis

Hell, however, has not frozen over.

Big Numbers

Inspired by one of Bart's links, I put the site's list of big numbers into an Excel form and then made an image out of it (Google Docs wouldn't display the really big ones the way I wanted).

To make the most sense of a number's name, take the exponent, divide it by three, and subtract one.

So Nonillion, or 10^30, comes from [(30/3)-1]=9, and is equal to one thousand plus 9 triplets of zeroes. Sexvigintillion, besides being the dirtiest sounding number in existence, 10^81, or one thousand plus 26 triplets of zeroes ("sex" meaning six and "vigint" meaning twenty?)

Finally, just in case you didn't know this, note that 10^100 (the only exponent on the list besides 1 and 2 that isn't divisible by 3) is called a "googol." And no, it doesn't seem that dictionaries are yet taking the spelling "google," an issue which arose in a game of Boggle I played with Desiree.

Bacon Explosion

I'm not sure what to say about this. Good use of internet marketing? Congratulations, enjoy your heart attack?

WTF?

From a political perspective, why would a guy whose middle name is Hussein and has (in some ways) an image problem at home give his first presidential interview to a network whose name sounds no different than that of a terrorist organization to most Americans?

Here's an article I haven't yet read.

Update: Okay, I read the article. Seems this interview with a network that is a voice of moderation in the Middle East will serve our nation's actual interest at the cost of its petty obsessions.

I'm sorry I doubted you, O Great One.

Rewriting history as it happens

I really disagree with this practice by the Wall Street Journal. Basically the WSJ is changing stories without noting when and how it has done so. Imagine that on January 20 I sent you a link to an article in which I really liked the opening line of "Rod Blagojevich re-declares his innocence on the Today Show." Well, if that is a WSJ article then when you check it out a few days later the story very well may not contain that line, may be significantly different in other ways (paragraphs completely removed, quotes missing, etc.), and may even have a different publishing date.

While I understand the importance of accuracy in a digital newspaper, I also think the the Portfolio author above is correct when he argues:

The WSJ is one of the key newspapers of record when it comes to this financial crisis, and increasingly it's being read online rather than on paper. In fact, much of the WSJ's online content never appears on paper at all, which means that the web is the only place to find it. It's therefore incumbent on the WSJ to preserve those web pages. If it doesn't, it's essentially erasing not only its own history, but also that of the financial crisis.

Promise for the Future...

We all have our issues. I mean, the issues floating around society that we are more interested in than the average person.

This is one of mine.

500th Post!

Somebody Think A Little has made it to the 500th post. I don't know about everyone else, but I am really happy with the progress of the blog so far.

On another positive note, as of yesterday Obama has his full cabinet.

Link Dump - Bart's Bookmarks

I figure that while no one else is posting anything I may as well bombard the blog. To that end I just sorted through all of my bookmarks (except my StumbleUpon bookmarks) and pulled out a list of ones that I think others may use and/or enjoy. They are loosely sorted. Good luck getting through them all. (To clarify in advance: some sections are labeled "Sites" while others are labeled "Specific." "Sites" implies that the links will be to complete websites that fit the category; "specific" implies the links lead to specific pages of websites. For example, Badass of the Week goes into the "Sites" section while a badass I particularly liked would go under "specific.")

Blogs - Funny:

• Photoshop Disasters
• Steve Don’t Eat It!
  - A man eats terrible things and describes them!
• Meme Pool
• Brokers With Their Hands on Their Faces
• I Am Neurotic.
• Fistpumps.com
• Strange Maps

Funny and Interesting Sites:

Funny Art Sites:

• Brandon Bird’s Brandon Bird-O-Rama!
• Garfield Minus Garfield
• Kate Beaton
• The Nietzsche Family Circus
• Eric Joyner - A man who paints lots of robots and donuts.
  

General sites:

• 270 to Win
• Badass of the Week
• Cracked
• Fan Fiction Net
• Gapminder
• Kermit Bale
• McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: One More Handful of Letters From Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country: Kids’ Letters to President Obama.
• Perot Charts
• PolitiFact Truth-O-Meter
• Porn for the Blind
• Science Debate 2008
• Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED)
• Pundit Kitchen

Interesting - Specific:

• NumberSpiral.com
• Amnesty International poster
• Octomatics
• Tempo over time
• The Hundred Greatest Theorems
• Inaugural Words - 1789 to the Present - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com
• The Ebb and Flow of Movies - Box Office Receipts 1986 — 2008 - Interactive Graphic - NYTimes.com
• Poodwaddle World Clock
• Science Debate 2008: Obama and McCain answers
• Age, Turnout and Votes
• The MegaPenny Project

Funny - Specific:

• Movie-A-Minute summaries
• The Anti-Gym
• Conan O’Brien’s Harvard Commencement Speech
• Pterodactyl porn
• A Concise History Of Black-White Relations In The United States
• If they IM’d: Obama’s VP Prospects
• GovTrack: H. Res. 847: Text of Legislation
• McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Midlife-Crisis Bible Stories.
• My Year of Flops
• Peter’s Evil Overlord List
• Creepy Japanese Mario Fan Art
• Disappearing Car Doors
• Why Can’t I Own a Canadian?
• Fiscal conservative comic
• Reverse September 11
• Jesus vs. Bush 43
• Fuck the Earth Day
• Gauss facts thus far
• Obama’s Short List for VP Leaked to Press
• McCain’s Short List for VP Leaked to Press
• Victoria From “The Maury Show” Had Her Baby
• Big Dick’s Halfway Inn: Home of the Original Minnow Shot
• SNL: Census Taker with Christopher Walken
• SNL: Word Association with Richard Pryor
• Flush Bush: A funny look at Bush’s approval ratings over time
• Hannidate
• Sleeping animal live feed
• Italians vs. Europeans
• Bush Approval Ratings
• Did McCain Lift His Russia-Georgia Speech from Wikipedia?

Games:

• Geography game
• Study Bulb
• String Spin Toy
• Statetris (Tetris with states)
• Fake or Not (NSFW)
• Geosense
• Dice Wars - WiiPlayable
• World of Solitaire
• The eyeballing game
• Every Video Game
• Bush Shoe Game
• Wii Playable
• Puzzles.COM

References, Tools, and Searches:

• Random.org
• USAspending.gov
• Equation Sheet
• NationMaster
• StateMaster
• Kaiser State Health Facts
• NYC Subway Flash Overlay for Google Maps
• Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States
• Powerful Mp3 Music Search
• SendSpace
• YouSendIt
• MediaFire
• Google Maps
• HopStop
• NYC bridges on bikes
• Current Codes
• Get Human
• Torrent Pond
• NYC movie listings
• EasyBib
• Movavi Online Video Converter
• All UC
• IMDB
• Lostpedia
• VOTE411.org
• Gmaps Pedometer
• MediaCoder
• Bit.ly link shortener

Wikipedia pages I really liked:

• Coconut crab
• Polymath
• Democide
• List of common misconceptions in popular culture
• Invalid proof
• Confirmation bias
• Uncanny valley
• Statewide opinion polling for the United States presidential election, 2008 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A few quick links.

Let's get the blogging week started with a few interesting pages to check out:

• Nate Silver's writeup of "So Just Who Did Vote For The Bailout?" - A lot of interesting stuff in this one, including a statistical analysis of factors contributing to voting patterns on the first bailout bill last year and a brief discussion of the implications of writing one's own definitions of terms like Progressive.
• The Daily Beast - "The Best of Blago" - He is not only crazy; he has the ability to take legitimate literary quotations and warp them to suit his purposes. Wonderful spin, Rod.
• Bit.ly - An alternative to the Tiny URL service, Bit.ly has all of the same features, but is also copying (in their entirety), cataloging, and organizing all sites that users create shortened URLs for. It will take a while or the benefits to pan out (beyond the link-shortening, that is), but it should be interesting to see what researchers can pull off with that amount of information.
• Red Bull Snowscrapers - On February 5 a bunch of professional snowboarders will be jumping off a 90' ramp built in East River Park. Carly and I drove past this last week and saw the main ramp being built. The ramp is pretty cool, with the main support being provided by stacked shipping containers (see photo below). I kind of want to figure out a way to see this from afar so I don't have to hang out with a bunch of snowboarders to see one person jump this. Check out this site for more pictures of the actual ramps.
  

• Update: I also meant to include the fact that Texas dealt a blow to creationism in a recent schoolboard ruling.
  

Anyone looking for a new hobby?

A few nights ago Carly, Katie, and I had a group Wiki-diving session that ended up using up about forty-five minutes of our time and required three different types of searches (Wikipedia, YouTube, and Google Products). I’ll introduce the topic here the same way in which we learned about it: a video of some guy in a park playing with a clear ball.

The Wiki-diving actually began as an argument about whether the guy in the video was holding a real ball or a digitally created image of a ball that was added at a later time. This led us, naturally, to Wikipedia, where we found out that, “Contact juggling is a form of object manipulation that focuses on the movement of objects such as balls in permanent contact with the body. Having little in common with ‘toss’ juggling, it most typically involves the rolling of one or more completely transparent balls on the hands and arms to create visual illusions, such as that of a ball fixed in space” (Contact juggling). Who knew?

A few related links that we enjoyed:

• Contact juggling balls for sale (it turns out that this is a fairly cheap hobby);
• Michael Moschen, the founder of the activity;
• Michael Moschen’s TED talk;
• ”Contact Juggling: Day 114”.

Since we watched nearly all of Moschen’s very strange TED talk Katie determined that the three of us are TED addicts and may need professional help.

Gillibrand

Thoughts?

I don't really know anything about her (I have a new goal to become a little more informed about NY politics), but she seems qualified - which is more than I could say about Caroline K - and this article endears me to her a bit - the partisan flexibility, the "Sunshine Report," etc. Do you guys know more about her?

Caption contest!

What's he saying? Go!

This video makes me happy

I watched a lot of Nick at Nite as a child.

Arrested Development Movie

Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions, but this interview gets me close to nail-in-the-coffin status on giving up on Michael Cera.  (The word "d-bag" comes to mind ...)

A few things (Updated Twice)

(Update: I was going to say that I never thought Caroline had much of a chance. And using your uncle's collapse to find a way out is not just total BS, it's horrible.)

Random thoughts and rants.

Should Tim Geithner's tax issues be a bigger deal? I hear more about that than if he's really the best guy to be in the position. For what it's worth, I heard O'Reilly belligerently defending Geithner against a conservative caller yesterday.
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Obama's speech was not that bad. Everybody's ripping on it. Not everybody, but many people. I thought the speech was very good. Expecting it to be epic is like expecting Babe Ruth to hit three homeruns just because you're at the game. People, he can't give one of the greatest 20 speeches in American history every time he opens his mouth.

Besides, I actually took a copy of the speech and read it line for line, trying to choose the ones that might be "remembered" in history. In so doing, it became quite clear that there's no way to know, because it all depends on what happens in the future. It needs to sound prophetic. If the energy crisis somehow got much worse, and he got us out of it, the line about "harnessing the wind, sun, and soil" could very well be the hallmark of a 21st century presidency. Or not. It all depends, and the whole speech is like that. But I thought that the tone was appropriate, and that the style achieved the sort of timelessness you're looking for in an inaugural address (i.e., except for a few specifics, it basically could have been given by any president).

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As was the case with the Golden Globes, Heath Ledger is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Maybe I'm delusional here, but whether you want him to win or not, I would have thought he'd be in the best lead actor category. He's got to have pretty similar screentime to Batman I'd think, and his performance certainly leads the movie. A pretty minor controversy, to be sure, but just a thought I'd had.

Also, I think it was underreported that Kate Winslet won Best Lead and Best Supporting at the Golden Globes. Then again, it is the Golden Globes.

(Update2: An interesting coincidence is that the nominations for the Oscars were announced today, on what I just read is the one-year anniversary of Ledger's death.)
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This whole re-oath thing is pretty stupid, but dammit Barack, why didn't you use a Bible the second time? Just save us the grief! On a related note, Konservapedia is still sure he's Muslim. ("He took the oath on a Bible and not a Koran? Well that's what a secret Muslim would do.")

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I knew I had something else but I can't remember it so I'll do this instead.

Starting with 2008 GDP of $13.84 trillion and debt of $10.6 trillion, and assuming long-term growth of 2% and inflation of 1%, and also assuming the CBO estimate for debt as a percentage of GDP, then in 80 years the nominal GDP will be $150 trillion and the nominal debt will be $1 quadrillion.

Toyota makes a run

It appears that Toyota will end GM's 77-year run at the top of the auto-sales heap. I wonder how much of this has to do with the crisis and how much has to do with policies within the companies (e.g. Toyota's development of the Prius).

It's not that easy being green...

Environmental Working Group just released a report on the efficiency and green-ness of CFL light bulbs. As it turns out many CFLs are not as great as the companies producing them may argue. Skipping the boring stuff, here is EWG's list of the seven best CFLs. There are also some tips for cleaning up broken CFLs, which contain mercury and are therefore poisonous.

God help us

We're in deeper shit than I thought.

Getting dressed this morning, I saw a financial expert on FOX News(!) who was saying that:
1. Obama's stimulus needed to be at least $900 billion.
2. The $700 billion TARP needed to be expanded to at least $1 trillion.
3. The government needs to nationalize the banks much more quickly than they are.

Oh dear god, help us now.

Why I Love President Obama, Part 1

http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing_room/executive_orders/

PS - Don't make a big deal of it, but if you find somewhere where Bush's whitehouse.gov still exists, let me know.

Hurricane Katrina

Check out what some bitter left-wing fringe website is writing today:

President Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He and Vice President Biden will take steps to ensure that the federal government will never again allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur.

President Obama swiftly responded to Hurricane Katrina. Citing the Bush Administration's "unconscionable ineptitude" in responding to Hurricane Katrina, then-Senator Obama introduced legislation requiring disaster planners to take into account the specific needs of low-income hurricane victims. Obama visited thousands of Hurricane survivors in the Houston Convention Center and later took three more trips to the region. He worked with members of the Congressional Black Caucus to introduce legislation to address the immediate income, employment, business, and housing needs of Gulf Coast communities.

President Barack Obama will partner with the people of the Gulf Coast to rebuild now, stronger than ever.

Wow. In this new era of postpartisanship (whatever that means) who would be so eager to remain so bitter at the Bush adminstration? These guys.

Botched Oath

The guy at Electoral-Vote was way more upset about yesterday's botched oath than what I've read in any other account. Reading this is sorta funny.

Hadn't watched Biden's inauguration before (botched video in the conference room). Man, he took that oath strong. Every phrase seemed to implicitly say "I can't wait to kick your ass after this oath, Justice Stevens."

Also, what the hell is this controversy over Barack Obama's middle name? Really? You're more worried about someone whose name means he's a terrorist than someone whose name means he's a pansy? Because I've got to say, "Robinette" is not an impressive middle name.

My sister's parade pictures

Amanda, my older sister, ended up with some amazing seats for the parade yesterday and was able to take some fun pictures. Here are some of them (the shot with Amanda and her husband Gabriel is there so you have an idea of where they were actually sitting):

Opinions on Barack's Speech

I would like to see the speech again before giving my review, but I really enjoyed reading some of the Daily Beast correspondents' reactions to Barack's inaugural address.

Obama's first act as president

In his first official act as president Barack Obama issued the following statement declaring a national day of reconciliation (My source was the White House blog):

NATIONAL DAY OF RENEWAL AND RECONCILIATION, 2009

- - - - - - -

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

As I take the sacred oath of the highest office in the land, I am humbled by the responsibility placed upon my shoulders, renewed by the courage and decency of the American people, and fortified by my faith in an awesome God.

We are in the midst of a season of trial. Our Nation is being tested, and our people know great uncertainty. Yet the story of America is one of renewal in the face of adversity, reconciliation in a time of discord, and we know that there is a purpose for everything under heaven.

On this Inauguration Day, we are reminded that we are heirs to over two centuries of American democracy, and that this legacy is not simply a birthright -- it is a glorious burden. Now it falls to us to come together as a people to carry it forward once more.

So in the words of President Abraham Lincoln, let us remember that: "The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 20, 2009, a National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation, and call upon all of our citizens to serve one another and the common purpose of remaking this Nation for our new century.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twentieth day of January, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.

Inaugural Address, NYT Style

NYT broke down each inaugural address by instances of each word. (As I checked the link, they already beat me to this!). Well, anyway, since I did it, here's what I got:

Nation	12
New	11
America	7
Less	7
People	7
Today	7
Cannot	6
Common	6
Let	6
Now	6
Time	6
Work	6
World	6
Day	5
Generation	5
Know	5
More	5
Spirit	5
Crisis	4
End	4
Greater	4
Long	4
Meet	4
Men	4
Peace	4
Power	4
Seek	4
Things	4
Women	4
Words	4

Americans	3
Carried	3
Courage	3
Earth	3
Economy	3
Father	3
Force	3
Freedom	3
Future	3
Generations	3
Government	3
Hard	3
History	3
Hope	3
Ideals	3
Jobs	3
Journey	3
Just	3
Last	3
Life	3
Man	3
Many	3
May	3
Moment	3
Most	3
Nations	3
Oath	3
Old	3
Once	3
Ourselves	3
Prosperity	3
Question	3
Rather	3

Katie's lame inauguration liveblog

I'm alone in my apartment, so I just really wanted to share my thoughts as I watch, like...

*when Bush entered, the crowd started booing and singing "nah nah nah, hey hey hey, good bye" (i don't know what that song is actually called) and the band furiously and unsuccessfully tried to drown them out. pretty funny.

*aretha franklin's hat is amazing (photo tk)

*watching msnbc is not worth it, because as much as i like to hear rachel maddow's take, she's totally overpowered by chris matthews saying things like, "msnbc is the network of the future."

*how many people do you think are on the mall? pretty amazing

that's all for now...

UPDATE:

*Barack Obama is President!

*Great speech, I thought. Hopefully makes up for the fact that he kind of flubbed the oath of office.

*Bush 41's outfit is pretty outrageous (giant fur hat, bright purple scarf). I guess he's showing his true colors as a fashion maven in his old age?

Jan. 20, 2009: The End of an Error

CNN to compile massive 3D photo of inauguration

"The most recorded moment in human history"

Gem from SNL

If you have any conservative friends left, you can see how this would help in confronting their arguments about Bush keeping us safe. Inspired by fake Ann Coulter.

[Hurricane Katrina] was a great American tragedy. [Hurricane Katrina]'s devastation is unprecedented; nothing like it has ever taken so great a toll on American soil. [Hurricane Katrina] claimed thousands of lives on that fateful day. But it was largely government failures that allowed so many deaths to come from the terrible tragedy, of [Hurricane Katrina].

Thankfully, though, for [three] years, Bush has kept us safe.

Presidential Playlists

So, I heard this referenced on NPR yesterday so I decided to look it up: Top 10 iPod Playlists for Obama and McCain.

Quick comment on McCain: even I'm smart enough to know you don't include the smart artist twice - especially ABBA - and you don't make the most recent song on your list a song from when your opponent was a teenager.

What prompted me to post this was that "Yes We Can" by will.i.am made Obama's playlist. I love that Obama has an ego, though some of my friends have disagreed with me that he does. If there was any doubt, I'll just say this: he admitted (while running for president) that one of his favorite "songs" is one that just consists of famous people singing stuff he said over clips of him saying it. If that's not egotistical ...

Great Moments in Presidental Speeches

Believe it or not, there was something worth watching on Letterman.

The real-life Departed

Crazy story that inspired The Departed.

That's a lot of money

Christopher Buckley, or C-Buckz, as I'm tempted to call him (just kidding, although that really makes me wish he'd marry Star Jones so she could be Star-Buckz - sorry, it's been a long week) has an article at the Beast trying to put a handle on how much the $1.2 trillion dollar deficit really is. And while I like what he does, he's taking a macro approach, and before I had read it I was already planning on taking more of a micro approach.

Let's start with Bernie Madoff. One fraud case, 50 billion dollars. That's a lot of money. A whole lot. It averages out to about $170 for every man, woman, and child in America.

Now, you didn't lose $170 in the Madoff fraud case, which you're probably pretty happy about. And that makes you like most Americans - almost all of them in fact. But for every American who didn't get ripped off by Madoff, that means that one of them who did lost an extra 170 bucks. Put another way, if you put all Americans on one side of a giant room with a big line down the middle, then for every single person that got to cross the line to the "didn't invest" side, some investor would have to pay $170. Just think about how long that would take ...

Now think about the stimulus. The tax rebate stimulus in early 2008 was $150 billion. Then TARP was $700 billion. Now Obama proposes another $825 billion. That adds up to $1.675 trillion (Just for fun: $1,675,000,000,000) There are 138 million taxpayers in the United States, so this amounts to $12,140 per taxpayer. That's incredible! Essentially, the federal government is forcing taxpayers to band together and go into (an additional!) $12,140 worth of collective debt each (albeit at a low interest rate, and of course the burden is not evenly distributed).

The entirety of the debt when Clinton left office was under $6 trillion. It's now over $10 trillion with $1 trillion deficits projected indefinitely. And we haven't even gotten to Social Security et al yet.

Many Random Thoughts and Articles

Iowa representative Steve King, who predicted an Obama victory would lead to al-Qaeda "dancing in the streets," now says that he doesn't know why Obama will be using his middle name Hussein in the inauguration, but that his given reason - historical consistency with previous inaugurations - "could not be the reason."

UPS delivered 30 pounds of marijuana to a Texas resident last Tuesday. Two side thoughts: One, I don't know anything about the prices of drugs, but even with my suspicion that marijuana is cheaper than other street drugs out there, I'm surprised at the article's valuation of the delivery at $350/pound. Two, thank goodness that guy didn't have an accidental arrest warrant out.

Last night was Bush's final presidential address. Mostly it's not worth watching, but if you're willing to be overly-nitpicky you can find humor in a couple of spots. At 4:37 he describes, without naming, the two sides of the war on terror. If you pretend the descriptions apply in the opposite way he intended them it's sort of funny. At 6:38 - and again, this is nitpicky - his phrasing leaves me wondering if there were more Supreme Court appointments that I didn't know about. Finally, though his phrasing is technically accurate given his intention, at 9:00 it sounds as if he's using a rather glaring tautology.

The inauguration security force in Washington DC will consist of 42,500 personnel. By comparison, this is roughly nearly 30% of the total number of US troops currently serving in all of Iraq.

Do the results justify the actions? Don't look too much into me mentioning this - I'm in awe of this guy, but it's worth pointing out that yesterday's emergency landing in the Hudson brought a damaged plane within 900 feet of the GW Bridge - for reference, that means it was essentially at the same altitude as the top of the Empire State Building when it passed over the bridge. And that's without considering what would have happened had he missed the river and landed on the island ... On the other hand, I can't really think of any better options, and it's not like the pilot is going to be like "well, there's a chance this may not work out, so I'm just going to crash us in a field for the greater good." Just an observation.

Found this slideshow of "right-leaning celebrities." It's just funny because of how deep they had to dig. And one of their best example, Dennis Hopper, campaigned for Obama anyway.

Finally, a take on Pinky and the Brain that would be funny if it weren't true.

This story just keeps getting better.

Madoff may never have made a single trade with the money he lost.

Go Away Charlie Rangel

We already knew that he sucks (tax evasion as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is tough to explain) and now he's reintroducing legislation to reintroduce the draft. It'll never pass, but he still sucks.

Supreme Court Ruling Causes Violent Double Take

I nearly hit a car yesterday while driving home. OK, that's not quite true, but I certainly lost my full mental capacities for a moment while listening to NPR report on a recent Supreme Court ruling.

Let's say you are John Smith of Washington County. The cops pull you over for speeding, run your license, and see that you have an arrest warrant out in Washington County. Let's further speculate that the arrest warrant isn't for you, it's for a different John Smith, but was attributed to you by clerical error.

Now we'll have some real fun. Let's say there's something illegal in your car, which of course the cops found during the arrest/search process. Of course, eventually it will be discovered that the warrant was in error and your arrest will be cleared ...

However, due to yesterday's Supreme Court ruling, the evidence that the state had no right to search for or seize from you in the first place is now totally admissable for use in a subsequent prosecution.

I mean, that's just such a blatant abuse of governmental power. It's unfortunate that throwing that evidence out would let guilty people walk, but it's certainly not worth the encroachment on the rights of citizens. I could go on but I'll just stop.

BONUS: While searching for this article I found an article about frequent-atheist-lawsuit-bringer Michael Newdow trying to get religious references pulled from next week's inaugural address. He'll surely fail so why does he keep trying? According to these two articles the answer is simple: atheists have so much narcissim and hubris, there's no other way to release it.

Victimless Crimes

On the radio during lunch today part of the O'Reilly Factor consisted of a discussion of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Long story short (more Wiki surfing) that got me thinking about victimless crimes.

Clearly this is a group that overall would take the position that, in general, if there's no victim there's no crime. So I'll go the other way - is there a case for something with no victim that should still be outlawed?

It's totally possible, by the way, that there may be some really obvious ones; I'm just not thinking of any off the top of my head.

(PS - O'Reilly, for the record, routinely cuts off callers spewing anti-gay talking points and remarks that he doesn't think that the govt has any business regulating the bedroom, which is a little more liberal/libertarian than I would have put my money on; nonetheless, he does oppose "redefining the religious and historical term 'marriage'" and also seemed to oppose repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" on the grounds that the number of heterosexuals alienated by its repeal would be greater than the increase in homosexual enlistment)

Off to a good start!

Well, the Czechs do not disappoint: in an effort to promote European unity the Czechs commissioned a stereotype-based piece of art that included an element representing each country in the bloc. Who could have guessed that Romania would be upset to be represented as a toilet?

It's cold

So, we're all freakin' out here in the StL because it's really cold today.  In terms of wind chill, the high today is supposed to be -16.  But check out this map - barely above -35 in anywhere in Iowa and below -45 in most of Minnesota.

And yet Saskatchewan (spelled it right the first try!) is chillin' at -10, and Alberta won't even go below zero and parts of British Columbia won't go below freezing!  This is crap.

ADHD and Sports

I've kind of always wondered if there was a problem with ADHD drugs being abused in sports. Personally, I'm always afraid to play hockey if I've taken my medicine because it can really increase your heart rate, but apparently it can be quite helpful to athletes.

Although this guy drags out his argument longer than he needs to and presents it as if he's a genius who amazingly pierced through the information to find the truth, the article is nonetheless interesting.

Basically, in baseball a ban on stimulants led to a three-year increase in players with medical exemptions for Ritalin, Adderall, and similar drugs from 28 to 106, or 8% of players (nat'l averages are 3-5% for children and 1-3.5% for adults).

Although it's not my favorite it's the best I could find: here's an online ADHD test. Unfortunately it doesn't take the common step of splitting the questions into sort of a "mental and physical" dichotemy, but overall it's not bad.

Scare quotes

The New Republic has a pretty funny article posted right now about the WSJ editorial board's use of scare quotes. According to the article, "Like most of us, the Journal [editorial board] uses scare quotes to signify that a term is misleading." The problem, argues The New Republic, is that The WSJ uses quotation marks in ways that seem to either indicate a certain level of incompetency in the use of the English language or a disdain for certain policies. Assuming that one of the respected papers in our country can speak our language, that leads us to the conclusion that The WSJ is simply implying a lot more than it is saying, an interesting practice for a news source.

I am posting this more because of my own frustration with the overuse of quotation marks than because of my opinions about the WSJ editorial staff (opinions that are more or less nonexistent).

Restructuring the Calendar

(Warning: there's no point to this post, and it's long.  It's just, to me, interesting to ponder)

I've been working on my budget a lot recently, and the way our calendar is set up is really screwing me up, because I (like most people, I imagine) budget monthly but get paid biweekly. A simple example: if I spend exactly $30 per paycheck on something like health insurance, then there will be 10 months where I'll spend $60 and 2 months where I'll spend $90. So my monthly budget averages out to $65, but I can't possibly ever be on budget, even if I'm able to perfectly anticipate my expenses. The example isn't perfectly general but you see the point.

Restructuring the calendar (ever) would be like switching America to metric by March, or like switching society to a base 8 number system. It just won't happen. It's kind of weird to think that by the year 8000, we won't have been able to improve upon our calendar. But let's pretend (I should go into the base 8 thing sometime) that our little group was in charge of a new one and whatever we wanted would be approved. What would it look like?

I assume that an ideal calendar system would have the same number of days in each week and weeks in each month (and thus days in each month). I know there aren't a lot of programmers here, but just think about how much easier calendars and scheduling would be if, say, there were 360 days in a year (the prime factorization is 2*2*2*3*3*5).
You could have 6 days in a week, 5 weeks (thus 30 days) in a month, and 12 months in the year.
You could have 9 days in a week, 4 weeks in a month, and 10 months in a year.
You could have 8 days in a week, 5 weeks in a month, and 9 months in a year.
As long as the product in this format is 360 (or 72*5), you're golden!

(Better yet - imagine something like 256 days. 8 days in a week, 4 weeks in a month, 8 months in a year. Done. Added bonus: still a round number of months per season/quarter)

Unfortunately, we have 365 days. Prime factorization? 73*5. Or, for our purposes, 73*5*1. Which means the same format above still applies, but your only three options for inputs are 73, 5, and 1. I suppose the best solution that fits our "model" is 5 days in a week, 73 weeks in a month, and 1 month in a year (i.e., no more things called "months").  (In retrospect, have 12 months in which the last month has an extra week probably wouldn't be the end of the world, but again defeats the purpose)

So that's pretty ugly. But you know Tuesday would always been on 27th of every year, or however you aligned it. One might keep track of dates with labels like "Monday 49".  All-in-all, my opinion is that this would be an improvement over the current calendar and the best possible choice.

There are two things that really screw this up, however.  The first is weekends/work weeks.  What are we going to do now - work four days and then take one off every week?  Aside from the fact that this means an increase in work days (from 71% to 80%, though we could add more holidays ... side thought: as technology increases our productivity/net worth, we should be taking more time off anyway), it kind of defeats the purpose of the weekend.  No traveling to see family, and who's going to do yard work on a "Saturday" if they have to work the next day, every week?  (You could solve this by moving to a ten-day week, but then you'd have 36.5 weeks, which at least would even everything out every other year)

The real pain, however, is leap days.  The whole point of my calendar is regularity.  The last day of the week is always a number divisible by 5 in every year.  So how do you handle leap days?  My only thought is this: say the 5th and final day of the week is "Friday" - I guess you'd just end leap years with a "second Friday".  But that defeats the whole purpose as well.  Of course, there's no way to get around the leap year problem - you could go to a 400-year calendar, but even then it's not quite perfect.

I don't feel like writing any more on this.

How Porsche cashed in on Volkswagen

Here's the article, but I've summarized it below. Reading about it on Wiki, it seems like most of this happened at the end of last week. (Come to find there are some disparities between the two articles, but the non-Wiki story is way more interesting, so I'll use that when necessary)

In March 2007, Porsche began increasing its stake in Volkwagen, "its most important partner", amid fears that VW would be bought up by hedge funds and subsequently dismantled and liquidated (I'm trying to resist the "chopped up for parts" pun), Porsche increased its stake in the company to about 30%.

Over the next year and a half Porsche continued to buy stock in VW (which they did not "finally reveal" until October 2008). Over that time, as Porsche continued to buy up the stock, the price of it increased. Of course, hedge fund managers could see that the price was going up without any new news about the company, and so reasoned (correctly) that the new price had been artificially inflated. So they bet on the stock to fall.

How does one actually bet on a stock to fall? This is something few people understand. It's not quite the same as betting in Vegas. Short-selling, as it's called, involves entering into an agreement wherein you receive money (in the amount of the current stock price) now and are obligated to return a share of the stock later. So if the current price is $50 and the future price is $40, you can receive $50 today and are then obliged to return a share of stock later. Typically, then, to return the stock you would just buy a share at that day's price and transfer it to the other person.

I'm just going to make up numbers in this part ... So shares of VW had a true value of, say, $60. Thanks to Porsche buying up all the shares, the price had been inflated to $80. Betting this "bubble" would burst, the hedge funds shorted the stock.

Except it turns out that Porsche now owned 75% of VW - nearly all the stock that is available for purchase. And Porsche didn't want to sell it, so they priced it at $100, which they could do because they basically held a monopoly on the stock.

Why is this a problem for the hedge funds? By shorting the stock, they had an obligation to return a share of the stock to its original owner (Porsche). So on the day it came due, each one had to go buy a share at the market price and give it up - except now the market price was $100, even though the stock was still only worth $60.

And according to the article, that's how a company with $8 billion in annual revenue made $10 billion playing the market.

FYI - Clinton Hearing

In case you're interested, the Senate hearing on Hillary Clinton's Secretary of State nomination is available here. (Hey, she just spent time talking about microfinance! Awesome!)

Bernie Madoff sucks

I know this story is sort of ubiquitous, but it can't hurt to emphasize how awful this guy is. I mean, the guy cost his investors 50 billion dollars. That's with a B. Billions of dollars is not foreign to us, but it's not something you hear with individuals. Bill Gates' entire net worth is $58 billion, roughly the same ballpark as the amount stolen. Or, put another way, $50 billion is also roughly the same amount the government has spent on AIG, Chrysler, and GM combined - and it'll get some of that money back.

What really did it for me, though, was that he defrauded his own sister out of millions, leaving her with "nothing" (though to be fair, I'm not sure what "nothing" means to a millionaire).