Archive for February 20th, 2008


Dubious exit poll practices

Exit polls too often only ask Republicans about their religion affiliation and only ask Democrats about union membership.

Do TV ratings depend on telling a meta-story of an America divided into two completely separate cultures or something? Why do they run their polls this way?

Good questions. Because such assumptions aren’t valid.

From Faith in Public Life


Large numbers
of white evangelicals participated in both parties’ primaries; majorities want a broader agenda that goes beyond abortion and same-sex marriage, and white evangelicals ranked jobs and economy as the most important issue determining their votes.

They have a initiative, Faithful America, that requests the practice of pollsters only asking religious questions to Republican be stopped.

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It’s eclipsing!

Outside the window as I blog this, and it’s a cloudless night too.

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Jake Shimabukuro

Ukelele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro performs While My Guitar Gently Weeps on Conan O’Brien. In what could be called a musical example of disruptive innovation, Shimabukuro is taking the ukelele where it has never gone before.

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Obama campaign as “disruptive innovation”

The Left Coaster comments on a recent MSNBC survey showing 53% said Clinton’s attacks were unfair while only 33% thought that of Obama.

Hillary’s campaign strategists have proved consistently inept, so it’s impossible to guess what they will try in what could be the final two weeks of her candidacy, but it’s clear that she’s not going to win by tearing Obama down.

You hear this quite a lot, that Clinton’s campaign suffers from bad advice. But she hired them, didn’t she? And has determinedly stuck with them regardless of criticism. So, the only possible conclusion that she approves of what they are doing. Even if it is leading her campaign off a cliff.

This isn’t because they are dumb. It’s because the landscape changed and they haven’t or can’t change with it. Maybe they don’t even realize what happened.

A disruptive technology or disruptive innovation is a technological innovation, product, or service that uses a “disruptive” strategy, rather than a “sustaining” strategy, to overturn the existing dominant technologies or status quo products in a market.

Clinton is the status quo product, Obama the disruptive innovation. He understands that people genuinely want politicians that represent change and new ways of dealing with the world, and has tailored his campaign to that. Clinton meanwhile, remains mired in using tired old tactics like dumb attack ads and transparently gearing her speeches to whatever pollsters tell her is important that day, even if if contradicts what she said yesterday. Her attack ads might well have worked 4 or 8 years ago. But they are backfiring now.

Obama is riding the disruptive innovation wave while Clinton is getting swamped by it. Whether Obama is just another Slick Willie is something I’m undecided on, but like mp3s replacing music CDs, something has shfted at the grassroots level and people want something new. Politicians who fail to realize this will swept aside, and quickly too.

The key point about disruptive innovations is that they do not co-exist with what came before it, but rather that they replace it.

PS. From Intoxination

According to a new Reuters/Zogby poll released this morning, Obama now has a 14% lead over Clinton nationally. In a general match up, Obama beats McCain 47% to 40%, however a match up of Clinton/McCain has McCain winning 50% to 38%.

I don’t care how much the Clinton campaign tries to spin it today, they are about done.

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Welcome to the doomer feedlot

cavemen roasting laptop
From Peak Oil Debunked comes a quite wonderful rant about Peakists, those peak oil adherents who delight in predicting gloom.

For those of you just coming to peak oil, you’re going to want to understand the most basic concept of peak oil: The doomer feedlot.

First you’re going to want to go to a doomer feedlot, like peakoil.com or DrumBeat at the Oil Drum, and get a user ID. It’s like one of those tags that they crimp onto your ear. All the doomers look the same, and they’re all packed nose-to-bunghole into the feedlot, so the feedlot needs a way to tell them apart in case one “goes down” or flips out etc.

So you get your head in there and start slurping those juicy news items.

Here comes a shovelful: “Babies freeze to death in Kyrgyzstan.”, cheering the end of civilization

That’s got the stink of doom all over it, and the cows’ eyes bug out with excitement…

You see, lesson 1 is that peak oil is not about peak oil. Peak oil is about the inevitable die-off of industrial society and mankind due to hubris and stupidity. Any news item which advances that thesis… goes in the feed.

This process (and it’s hardly just peakists who do it) leads to the extremists trying to out-do each other by making ever more alarmist predictions while mocking the moderates as being wimpy and unfit carry the banner. “Oh, so you think we’ll still have candles to provide light, do you? Not a chance, Perky Boy. Get ready to live in caves and burn wood.”

Peak oil and global warming are real. But the task at hand is to find solutions, not predicting gloom and doom.

Tip: Peak Energy

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Bad mojo in bond insurer land

If the bond insurers split into pieces in an attempt to save municipal bonds (like those issued by where you live) then Wall Street investment banks and the like will be forced to take more multi-billion dollar writedowns. Expect them to squeal like stuck pigs at the prospect of this happening. Ditto for shareholders in the companies. Expect lawsuits. Because no one is quite sure if the bond insurers can legally split into separate parts.

In the meantime, parts of the municipal bond market have frozen solid because no buyers exist. Would you buy a bond if you thought if might be downgraded shortly or be shown to have no insurance because the insurer is collapsing financially? Didn’t think so.

The Temptations have something to say to this, even if they said it 38 years ago.

Oh, great googalooga, can’t you hear me talking to you.
Just a ball of confusion.
Oh yeah, that’s what the world is today.
Woo, hey, hey.

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EfficienCity. How tidal power works

From Greenpeace UK EfficienCity, a short, silent, informative video on how tidal power works.

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Followed by a plague of locusts?

China warns of forest fires following snow storms

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Imagine my excitement

Banner ads come to TV

The banner ad appears at the bottom of the TV screen. Click on it using the remote and it sends you to an advertisement.

This opens up whole new vistas for annoying and intrusive advertisements. Can spam ads and then anti-spam software for TV be far behind?

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Nuclear reactor applications filed

nuclear reactor
Progress Energy has filed applications with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build two nuclear reactors in North Carolina that would be online by 2018 at the earliest. The NRC expects applications for 30 reactors soon.

The resurgence of interest in nuclear power is happening worldwide, as nukes emit no carbon, produce gigantic amounts of electricity and, oh yeah, they’re still working on that tricky long-term, safe storage problem for the spent nuclear rods.

It’s a given that more nukes will be built across the planet, and soon. So let’s build them right.

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