What if we forget WMDs and just evaluate Iraq as a humanitarian intervention, the kind some people from both parties would like to see in places like Sudan? The results look pretty good.
What if we forget WMDs and just evaluate Iraq as a humanitarian intervention, the kind some people from both parties would like to see in places like Sudan? The results look pretty good.
If Bush were hiring his biggest contributors and big time players in lobbying firms and huge corporations, he’d be called corrupt. When Obama does it, he’s just trying to hire the most qualified people and, aww shucks, this is who’s most qualified.
I have no problem with lobbyists or big corporations, but enough of the double [...]
The pre-recount changes in the Minnesota Senate election tally seem a little fishy. If we assume that typos and other recording errors are random, what are the chances they’d produce a 500-vote swing for Stuart Smalley, most of it from only three precincts, and all of of it way out of step with similar adjustments [...]
Paul Krugman thinks that Obama should emulate F.D.R., except for the part where F.D.R. wasn’t socialist enough:
Suddenly, everything old is New Deal again. Reagan is out; F.D.R. is in. Still, how much guidance does the Roosevelt era really offer for today’s world?
The answer is, a lot. But Barack Obama should learn from F.D.R.’s failures as [...]
McCain has it.
Counties where McCain did better in 2008 than Bush did in 2004, from the New York Times via Matthew Yglesias:
A commenter points out that this corresponds almost exactly to the Upland South:
That is, the south where there aren’t very many black people.
Missouri has voted for the winner in every presidential election since 1904 except once, when Eisenhower won in 1956. But it looks like it happened again this year, as the count now has McCain winning Missouri by a mere 5868 votes. NBC is the only network that has actually called Missouri for McCain, even though [...]
From pollster.com:
I wonder how this election may have turned out if it had been held in August 2007 instead of November 2008.
From Newsweek, by Nate Silver. He agrees with me that wins in Pennsylvania and Virginia for Obama would make this an early night:
Virginia, for my money, is the most important state in this election. If John McCain loses it, his path to victory is exceptionally narrow—he would need to pull out an upset in Pennsylvania, [...]
A plot of all the daily trackers throughout the year from pollster.com:
A narrative of the race since Hillary’s concession in mid-June from The Economist:
An animation of the electoral map since June 4 from electoral-vote.com:
It is practically unanimous that Obama has a safe lead in all the Kerry states plus Iowa and New Mexico, which would give him 264 electoral votes. This means that he only needs to carry one of the eight states that are either tossups or lean Obama (FL, VA, NC, OH, IN, MO, CO, NV*) [...]
Using the latest polls, the folks at Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State have calculated the probability that a single vote would decide the outcome of the presidential election, i.e.:
… the probability that your vote is decisive is equal to the probability that your state is necessary for an electoral college win, times [...]
Vietnam is considering a ban on small-chested people riding motorbikes:
The ministry of health recently recommended that people whose chests measure less than 28 inches (72cm) would be prohibited, as would those who are too short or too thin.
The proposal is part of an exhaustive list of new criteria the ministry has come up with to [...]
Greg Mankiw breaks down what the various marginal tax rates under the McCain and Obama plans really mean to people making money today.
If there were no taxes, so t1=t2=t3=t4=0, then $1 earned today would yield my kids $28. That is simply the miracle of compounding.
Under the McCain plan, t1=.35, t2=.25, t3=.15, and t4=.15. In this [...]
Rams can’t offer someone who is already their coach an extension because they haven’t interviewed a token black candidate yet.
Courtesy of the MiniMovie people (original link):
Yeah, that’s pretty much the whole story.
Operator: 911 state your emergency
Caller: It’s not an emergency, but do you know why on one side at the damn drawbridge of 95 traffic is stopped for 15 minutes and yet traffic’s coming the other way?
Operator: Sir, are you calling 911 to complain about traffic? (pause)
Caller: “(Expletive) you.” (caller [...]
…if reporters don’t feel like ever investigating or criticizing you for anything.
Obama campaign site credit card’s policy roughly as diligent as that of low-quality porn websites. And I should know.
Prop 8 is a big deal here in California right now. It’s an initiative to amend the state constitution to ban gay marriage. It seems like more people are registering to vote specifically for this than for the presidential election (which probably speaks more to the competitiveness of the presidential race in the state than [...]
More good stuff in the WSJ today about how Obama will cut income taxes for 95% of Americans…including the ~40% who already don’t pay any.