Guess who the chubby black kid in the back row is

Also unrelated to most things...

But I know of at least 2 people who read this blog and appreciate Tracy Morgan's antics, so I recommend this NYT spotlight article.

And because it's the season, I must add Werewolf Bar Mitzvah for those who love it already, or those who have never seen it.

A little advice?

This is unrelated to, well, everything, but...

How do you guys cope when you feel there's a very real danger of you falling asleep at your desk?

A very strange book

I enjoyed reading these excerpts of Euonia, a new book in which each chapter contains only one of the vowels (though in each chapter the chosen vowel is used many times).

EV Report, 10/29/08

Not much to report, but I'll be out of the office Thursday and Monday, leaving only today, Friday, and Election Day for me to chip in the ol' two cents.


I added a column which is Obama's proportion in the weighted signs test. Again, my signs test is just how many polls each candidate has led in, straight up. The weighted signs test weights each poll by pollster and date, so newer better polls count more. It actually passes a common sense test for the probability of an Obama victory in nearly all states.

As reported earlier, NV finally meandered over to the safe column. Missouri and North Carolina definitely lean Obama but aren't locked up. And I still hate you Indiana.

Actually, the third column may not have been there earlier. That's the sum of the poll weights in a state. The higher the number, the higher the level of good, recent polling in the state.

Really, Mississippi?

Just stumbled upon (not StumbleUpon-ed) this tidbit of electoral history:

1948 Presidential Election

National:
Harry S Truman (Dem) - 24,179,347 - 49.6%
Thomas E. Dewey (Rep) - 21,991,292 - 45.1%
Strom Thurmond (Dixie) - 1,175,930 - 2.4%

Mississippi:
Harry S Truman - 19,384 - 10.1%
Thomas E. Dewey - 5,043 - 2.6%
Strom Thurmond - 167,538 - 87.2%

Notes, Votes, and Quotes

I really enjoyed scanning through this Congressional Quarterly summary of the positions of McCain and Obama.

When he thought it could get no worse

I moved Nevada into the Safe column today, on the basis of Obama being up by an average of 7 pts in the five polls from the last week.

Now, normally a state with only 5 EVs and claims to fame like "Burning Man" and "Britney Spears' other wedding" doesn't top the list of newsmakers, but here's the thing.

I'm not ready to include Nevada in the core of 286, but adding Nevada to it gives you 291 safe EVs. Which means that even if John McCain's hail mary for Pennsylvania's 21 EVs works, he would still only reduce Obama to 270 EVs.

Five days ago I stated that if I were a McCain supporter, the news that day would be what made me give up. Today, if I were on McCain's staff, this is the news that would make me give up.

PS - It's still 364-163 with ever-so-stubborn Indiana still as a coin-flip tossup, where's it's been all year. Please Indiana, just pick a side.

Trouble in the land of peaches?

Georgia is still definitely on the McCain side of the ledger, but he can't be too excited when he sees stuff like this.

That's Not Debate, That's More of the Same!

If you liked watching Sarah Palin's RNC speech mashup, you'll probably enjoy watching this debate synchronization.

Let Me Be Clearer (Updated)

Earlier (over on the right) I updated my Senate projections, claiming that Democrats' easiest road to 60 seats would run through tough races in either GA, KY, or MS. Well, I was wrong.

The easiest way to 60 seats is actually to have Barack Obama appoint Republican senators from states with Democratic governors to his cabinet. He gets to claim bipartisanship, they actually get to do something other than filibuster, and Democrats gain a Senate seat.

UPDATE: Two polls today, one from a reputable pollster, show Wicker (R) up by 11 and 13 in Mississippi. Oh, well.

I'm Sure You've Seen Some Variant Of This

... but it's still funny.

Dear Red States,

We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast. It may even include Florida and Ohio, they are seriously considering it. We've given them until Nov. 4th to decide. We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country. Since we're dropping the middle states we're calling it United America, or simply the U.A.

To sum up briefly: You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches. We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood. You can take Ted Nugent. We're keeping Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel. You get WorldCom. We get Intel and Microsoft. You get Ole' Miss. We get Harvard and 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms, and the highest concentration of pregnant unwed teenagers. Please be aware that the U.A. will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, really we do, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire. We'd rather spend it on taking care of sick people, and educating our children.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines, 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living Redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT. With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia. We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy Redies believe you are people with higher morals then we Bluies..

I can't really discuss the rest of the email, but it had to with certain types of vegetation, and how the red states will now have to revert to Mexico for their supply.

Intrade: Make Money on Reason over Emotion

That Barack Obama is trading so low on Intrade befuddles me. Yes, befuddles.

Now, much has been written about the fallability of prediction markets so I won't even go there. But here's my guess: if you really, truly, deeply want John McCain to win this election, it's got to be pretty tough to put your money down against him. You trick yourself. The Bradley Effect is going to make a comeback, you say. Undecideds have broken strongly against Obama before, like in the New Hampshire primary, you convince yourself. The last two times Virginia went blue were for LBJ and Harry Truman; there's no way it'll flip this year you tell yourself. (By the way, I'm not immune to this. In 2004 there were three states I couldn't decide how to call - Iowa, New Mexico, and Ohio. I was 48 for 48 by midnight on election night. The next morning I was 48 for 51, because I just couldn't get myself to believe that they'd actually pull the lever for Bush, and I incorrectly called all three for Kerry.)

But look at the facts. Let's take Virginia. Barack Obama has led every poll in October - a streak of 18 consecutive. I project his lead to be nearly 7 pts. Nate Silver says 96% chance Obama wins it. Even the networks have moved the Old Dominion out of the tossup section. Yet you can still buy an Obama contract - today - for $82 (provided you're not American).

Hell, you can still buy a Pennsylvania contract for 86. 86! McCain hasn't led a poll in Pennsylvania since April! April for God's sake. Stick $86 in now, get $100 in a week (we'll call it $99 after fees to be conservative) and you've earned an effective annual return of 151,000%. On Virginia - 1,800,000%. This is ridiculous. I can't play on Intrade because I'm an American, but if I only could ...

As an aside I just noticed that Intrade now has options contracts? Holy cow that's cool. I gotta find a way to get around these regulations.

I love Tuesdays' Science Times.

I love academic/scholarly discussions about sex.

I enjoyed this quote: "“Is it that men are bragging about it and women are lying to everybody including themselves?” Dr. Fisher asked. “Men want to think women don’t cheat, and women want men to think they don’t cheat, and therefore the sexes have been playing a little psychological game with each other.”"

Not exactly a high brow scholarly discussion of sex, but an interesting read. The article notes we may be cheating more- whether physically or emotionally- because of the facility with which we can "communicate" today. It's funny- cell phones and email and chat supposedly inhibit sincere connections and relationships yet facilitate something like cheating, which can often be categorized as simply reaching out to forge a superficial relationship, often devoid of real emotion but nonetheless providing an intimate connection. The relationship between technology, communications/relations, and infidelity is indeed dynamic.

The Economist.com's cool section

The economist host an online formal structured debate on some interesting topics. Link

Christopher Buckley goes 2-for-2

I always liked reading William Buckley even though I disagreed with him. I won't make the mistake of confusing the two, but so far I like Christopher Buckley as well. And here's his first two articles for the Daily Beast.

Sorry, Dad, I'm voting for Obama
Rush, you’re no William F. Buckley, Jr.

Darcy Burner for Congress, indeed

Darcy Burner (D) is trying to unseat two-term Congressman Dave Reichert in what is possibly the closest House race of the year. So there I am on TerraPass's website looking into getting my office to buy carbon offsets, and right there on their list of partners is "Darcy Burner for Congress," which has apparently offset 19 metric tons of carbon. Good job, Darcy!

Taking the Gloves Off

From Investor's Business Daily, 10/14
(Don't worry; all their other cartoons are sharply anti-Obama)

General Update

I could have cleaned this up a little better, but oh well.

Click on the image for better viewing.

Public Service Announcement

If you have devices that automatically adjust for daylight savings time, make sure they haven't already adjusted this weekend and are set to adjust next weekend instead.  I know we have one employee who was late this morning because of an auto-adjusting clock.