Everytime The Drudge Report hysterically trumpets a poll showing that McGrumpy might win this thing, just head over to FiveThirtyEight where Nate Silver will calmly explain why the poll in question is an outlier or has a biased sample. He will do so using fact, logic, and science. Like this.

Trick or Treat

Do you spook easily?

Judging by the response in my inbox, some of you do.

Matt Drudge is touting the results of a one-day sample in a Zogby poll, which apparently showed John McCain ahead by 1 point.

There are a couple of significant problems with this.

The problems are numerous. It’s a one-day poll, and as these can be  unreliable. Also, it’s Zogby poll and uses “nonsensical party ID weightings which mean that his weighting process involves making numbers doing naughty things that they usually don’t like to do.”

Plus, six out of seven other polls taken at the same time had Obama up, thus making the Zogby poll an outlier. Which would not be surprising if you are doing naughty things with the numbers.

In short, Zogby polls are not reliable. I’m guessing Drudge knows that too.

No Comments »

From No on Prop. 8

In a telephone call to California voters, President Clinton delivers the following message regarding the unfairness of Proposition 8:

“This is Bill Clinton calling to ask you to vote NO on Proposition 8 on Tuesday, November 4th. Proposition 8 would use state law to single out one group of Californians to be treated differently — discriminating against members of our family, our friends and our co-workers.

“If I know one thing about California, I know that is not what you’re about. That is not what America is about. Please vote NO on 8. It’s unfair and it’s wrong. Thank you.”

The calls from President Clinton went to millions of registered California voters overnight.

The latest Field Poll has the No on Prop 8 forces winning by a few points. Let’s make it so.

No Comments »

The Attack Ad Generator is WAY too much fun and could burn up hours of time. Go there and create your own!

Update: The ad appears to only work in Firefox and not Internet Explorer when using the embed code. Click here to view it on their website.

No Comments »

Races usually tighten at the end. Today’s Gallup Daily shows no sign of that. In fact, the opposite seems to be happening.

No Comments »

Blairwatch on the endorsement, and on “Obama and how it will affect the EU”, quoting from a speech by David Rennie, The Economist’s Europe correspondent.

However, it’s time for a reality check, “Senator Obama is not Martin Luther King, Obama is not Bobby Kennedy. He is not an idealistic romantic dreamer. Barack Obama is an extremely effective, extremely charismatic machine politician. He came through the Chicago political machine, one of the dirtiest, most corrupt, most nepotistic political machines. He never fell out with the machine, he never challenged the corruption; he does what it takes to get by.”

Since I’ve never believed Obama to be anything but a centrist who possesses almost supernatural political skills, then presumably there will be less to disappoint me. As for being corrupt, there’s nothing to indicate that Obama himself is - because, if for no other reason, the Republicans would have surely found it by now. That he negotiated the brass knuckle world of Chicago politics and remained inspirational is a decided positive.

One key issue with Europe will be the contract for Air Force tankers. Will it go to EADS, an European firm, or back to the U.S? (Boeing’s previous bid ended up with some of their executives going to prison for corruption.)

Rennie wonders what Europe’s world role will be.

A very uncomfortable moment as Europe wants to have a loud voice in the world, to be taken seriously, but cannot decide what it wants to say. How long does Europe have before the new president decides that Europe is not serious? “About twelve months and then we’re going to be back with a president who doesn’t think Europe is serious.”

“On balance, If we’re not going to be as crap as we usually are, then Obama is definitely the president we should elect.”

No Comments »

“We’re able for the first time to directly attribute warming in both the Arctic and the Antarctic to human influences on the climate,” said Nathan Gillett of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia.

It’ll be so nice to have the Flat Earth Society out of the White House, and replaced by an administration that will be working to stop global warming rather than pretending it doesn’t exist.

2 Comments »

Perhaps collectors will snap up the few Durango and Aspen hybrids that were actually made, because it’s clear why no one else was wanted them. First off, the SUV market has collapsed. Second, they only get 19-20 mpg. Third, the price differential is extremely steep compared to Durango and Aspen non-hybrids and way more expensive than comparable hybrids from other manufacturers.

What was Chrysler thinking? Both in deciding to make these hybrids and in killing them so fast? Sounds like they are are the verge of collapse.

No Comments »

George Monbiot

How was it allowed to happen? How did politics in the US come to be dominated by people who make a virtue out of ignorance? Was it charity that has permitted mankind?s closest living relative to spend two terms as president? How did Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle and other such gibbering numbskulls get to where they are? How could Republican rallies in 2008 be drowned out by screaming ignoramuses insisting that Barack Obama is a Muslim and a terrorist?

Simple, it’s because the intellectual stance taken by much of the Right is that intellectual stances are intellectually suspect and should not ever be trusted intellectually. I do hope this clears things up for our puzzled friends in other countries.

Richard Hofstader said it all in 1963 in Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.

I’m guessing governments and people across the planet are now optimistic that those crazed Yanks will be ending their eight year Highway to Hell on November 4 by electing a highly intelligent, non-ideologue moderate as president.

No Comments »

From the quite reliable FiveThirtyEight

Per a commenter, the measure is trailing 49-44. My guess was pretty good! But ballot initiatives are notoriously hard to poll, so this is probably best considered to be a toss-up.

Obama’s coattails may be what gets a win for No on Prop 8.

No Comments »

Chart from Calculated Risk. There’s no sign the current stock market crash is anywhere near done either. That 10% up a few days ago was a bear market rally. Such rallies are known to spike up ferociously then die quickly, and are an excellent time for smart money to sell their holdings to the overly optimistic.

1 Comment »

We are the brothers of bullion, the sisters of stock options; the compadres and comadres of cash. For the last 8 years, we tuxedo and evening gown-clad denizons of the richest 0.01% of America’s economic bell curve have been celebrating the president who has been concentrating more and more money into our hungry hands. But now Change is in the air! Will the next President dance to our tune?

Wil b and the Billionaires are back with yet another video!

No Comments »

Via Andrew Sullivan

While we’re on the subject, there seems to be some confusion in Liberal Land that rednecks must always be right-wing bigots or some such nonsense like that.

Um, Willie Nelson is a redneck. And he’s seriously progressive. As is another country singer, Steve Earle, who mentioned at a concert I was at that Karl Marx has some good stuff to say. Lots of rednecks tilt leftwards.

No Comments »

He’s the author of Deer Hunting With Jesus, reviewed here and blogs at JoeBageant.com.

No Comments »

From polling site FiveThirtyEight

We have a pretty good idea of where this race stands — a far better idea than you’ll get by trying to discern the meaning of John Zogby’s divining rod or paying any attention to what you see on the front page of Drudge Report.

Number one, John McCain is NOT closing Obama’s margin as quickly as he needs to (if indeed he is closing it at all).

Number two, John McCain is NOT gaining ground in the states that matter the most.

Also:

Leading conservative Francis Fukuyama endorses Obama.

McCain’s appeal was always that he could think for himself, but as the campaign has progressed, he has seemed simply erratic and hotheaded. His choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate was highly irresponsible; we have suffered under the current president who entered office without much knowledge of the world and was easily captured by the wrong advisers. McCain’s lurching from Reaganite free- marketer to populist tribune makes one wonder whether he has any underlying principles at all.

Ouch.

Circular firing squad of flying Republican attack monkeys.

No Comments »

The first step in getting off drugs is admitting you have a problem. Thus, China has taken crucial big step, even if they aren’t sure how to kick the addiction completely. That they admit to the problem and want to solve it at the governmental level puts them way ahead of the current US government. Presumably, President Obama will be taking real action. “Imagine, a president who actually believes in science.”

How does a rapidly industrializing country provide power for literally billions of people? Any way it can, that’s how. So it behooves us as a planet to create cleantech ways to generate power that cost less than coal. With the huge promise of geothermal, solar, wind, wave, and tidal power generation, we will get there. But it does need to happen fast.

No Comments »

Yes, you read that right. The Australian prime minister said capitalism is a primary cause of climate change.

No Comments »

SpinRite is a $89 utility that brings hard disks back from the dead when no other program can. It is file system independent and works on PCs, Macs and Linux.

An example. My aging P4 went south a few days back. CHKDSK reported errors on D:, things like circular redundancy in a folder and other such symptoms of a hard disk circling the drain. I ran CHKDSK with the /repair option, which succeeded in only mangling things even further. In fact, after CHKDSK, it couldn’t find D: at all.

I then ran SpinRite. It said the SMART hard disk utility was reporting the drive was in imminent peril of death, did I really want to tax it further? I said yes, because there were still a few files on the hard disk I hadn’t backed up.

It ran for about 6 hours. Upon rebooting, while SMART still reported problems, Drive D: was back. I immediately backed up all the remaining files.

There are thousands of stories like this. Buy SpinRite now. You’ll never regret the purchase.

SpinRite author Steve Gibson also does an excellent podcast called Security Now, available on iTunes. Highly recommended.

No Comments »

Ms. Hilton proposes a number of quite liberal ideas should she become president. Stop global warming. Drive hybrids. Get rid of the old gray-haired guys. My favorite. Paint the White House pink and move it Maui.

2 Comments »

From Some guy with a website.

1 Comment »

Twitter Vote Report will provide real time reporting from polling stations across the country. By using identifiers on the messages (called hashtags), tweets (Twitter messages) can be easily filtered and tracked by anyone.

For example a tweet of “#94080 #machine” means “zip code 91406, machine problems.”

During the RNC, Twitter was used extensively as a way for people to keep in touch. I’m sure it will be on Nov. 4 too.

No Comments »

Yes, the predictions look great (chart from Real Clear Politics, who tilt to the right) but the following Obama campaign video shows why there will be time enough for counting when the voting’s done - and not before!

No Comments »

This spinning wheel from India creates electricity as well as yarn. The power is stored in a battery, and two hours of spinning will run the LED light for 6-7 hours.

2 Comments »

This from a highly respected Arizona pollster too. Yup, Mr. Maverick appears to have gotten totally lost and can’t even find the herd now.

Meanwhile, McCain and Palin continue to attack each other. Hey there, that’s some kind of leadership, Senator. You didn’t vet her and now you can’t control her. And we’re supposed to believe you could run a country?

No Comments »

The average US home uses 15,000 gallons of water a year to water the lawn. With the Biokube septic tank and lawn-watering system much of that water would be recycled water from the house itself.

Biokube systems come in various sizes, with the largest one so far designed for 7,500 people.

No Comments »

Infectious Greed

We have temporarily dodged a bullet. The upcoming IEA World Energy Report will say that global oil supplies are falling faster than expected, and massive investments are required just to (almost) stand still. The only thing making things marginally less calamitous? The current downturn-induced demand collapse has given us a little more time to prepare for the inevitable.

The Financial Times got a leaked copy of the report, which is due Nov. 12.

We are not running out of oil (yet). However it will be increasingly more difficult to get it out of the ground at an economical price.

Hmm, the dollar is falling again, OPEC is cutting back, now this. We may be at or near a bottom in oil prices.

No Comments »