“We are now projecting Obama to win the election 90.5 percent of the time, with an average of 346.8 electoral votes, and a 5.4-point margin in the national popular vote.”
Author: NewMexiKen
Between a rock and a hard place
An Obama supporter, who canvassed for the candidate in the working-class, white Philadelphia neighborhood of Fishtown recently, sends over an account that, in various forms, I’ve heard a lot in recent weeks.
“What’s crazy is this,” he writes. “I was blown away by the outright racism, but these folks are f***ing undecided. They would call him a n—-r and mention how they don’t know what to do because of the economy.”
One millionth of the federal budget
“It turns out that that ‘overhead projector’ John McCain claimed Barack Obama tried to get a $3 million earmark for was actually money to rebuild Chicago’s Adler Planetarium, the oldest planetarium in the United States.”
The McCain that always was
A good correction to the McCain myth from the Daily Howler:
For the record, McCain wasn’t exactly “driven out of the 2000 Republican primaries by this sort of smear.” The editors seem to refer to the South Carolina primary, which featured a great deal of nasty, underground sliming. But McCain continued campaigning after that, winning subsequent primaries in six states (including Michigan and Massachusetts), losing primaries in eleven others (including a 61-35 drubbing in California). … McCain got waxed in a string of states—but there was never any particular claim that “smears” decided those races. McCain was substantially outspent by Bush, and Republican voters tended to prefer Bush’s more conservative posture. (In most of those states, independents couldn’t vote, unlike in New Hampshire, where they’d given McCain his big win.) But in the press corps’ treasured novel, a deeply noble, wonderful man was driven from the race by a goon squad.
Somerby goes on to list some of the negative crap McCain and his campaign pulled in 2000. He’s not some changed McCain eight years later as the media myth would have us believe. McCain has always been an ass, only now he’s a doddering old ass.
27 days
FiveThirtyEight.com projects 345.4 Obama to 192..6 McCain. Probability of Obama win, 89.2%.
Are West Virginia, Montana, North Dakota and that district in Omaha within reach?
A state’s electoral vote consists of one per congressional district plus two others. Nebraska and Maine apportion electoral votes by congressional district with the overall state winner getting the two “at large” state electoral votes.
Wyoming has one electoral vote for every 174,000 people. California has one electoral vote for every 665,000 people. New Mexico one for every 394,000.
Palin’s Kind of Patriotism
I only wish she had been asked: “Governor Palin, if paying taxes is not considered patriotic in your neighborhood, who is going to pay for the body armor that will protect your son in Iraq? Who is going to pay for the bailout you endorsed? …”
. . .I can understand someone saying that the government has no business bailing out the financial system, but I can’t understand someone arguing that we should do that but not pay for it with taxes. I can understand someone saying we have no business in Iraq, but I can’t understand someone who advocates staying in Iraq until “victory” declaring that paying taxes to fund that is not patriotic.
How in the world can conservative commentators write with a straight face that this woman should be vice president of the United States? Do these people understand what serious trouble our country is in right now?
Tom Friedman in a column you should read.
Best line of late night
“I like John McCain. He looks like the guy who thinks he’s the neighborhood sheriff, you know? One of those guys. ‘You better tie up those trash bags or we’re going to get raccoons.'”
David Letterman
Some have no problem with a bear market
Stolen unscrupulously from The mental_floss Blogs.
October 8th
My god but we’re all getting old.
Today Crocodile Dundee, Paul Hogan, is 69; Jesse Jackson 67; Chevy Chase 65; Sigourney Weaver 59; and Stephanie Zimbalist 52. Even Matt Damon is 38.
Eddie Rickenbacker was born on this date in 1890.
Edward Vernon Rickenbacker was a man whose delight in turning the tables on seemingly hopeless odds took him to the top in three distinct fields.
In the daredevil pre-World War I days of automobile racing he became one of this country’s leading drivers, although he had a profound dislike for taking unnecessary risks. He had entered the auto industry as a trainee mechanic and made his first mark servicing the cranky machines of that day.
In World War I he became the nation’s “Ace of Aces” as a military aviator despite the fact that he had joined the Army as a sergeant-driver on Gen. John J. Pershing’s staff.
He was named by Gen. William Mitchell to be chief engineering officer of the fledgling Army Air Corps. His transfer to actual combat flying–in which he shot down 22 German planes and four observation balloons–was complicated not only by his being two years over the pilot age limit of 25, but also because he was neither a college man nor a “gentleman” such as then made up the aristocratic fighter squadrons of the air service.
In the highly competitive airline business, Mr. Rickenbacker was the first man to prove that airlines could be made profitable, and then the first to prove that they could be run without a Government subsidy and kept profitable.
Seems like he might have been the last man to prove that airlines could be made profitable too.
Fire!
On Sunday, October 8, 1871, fire leveled a broad swath of Michigan and Wisconsin, including the cities of Peshtigo, Holland, Manistee, and Port Huron. At least 1,200 people died (possibly twice as many) as a result of the fire. Approximately 800 fatalities occurred in Peshtigo, Wisconsin. That same night, the Great Chicago Fire erupted in nearby Illinois.
Conditions were ripe for major conflagrations that year. Rainfall during the preceding months totaled just one-fourth of normal precipitation; early October was unseasonably warm; and winds were strong. Vast tracts of forest burned for a week in parts of Michigan and Wisconsin and Chicago firefighters battled blazes daily. Contributing to Chicago’s Great Conflagration were the facts that the bustling midwestern city was built primarily of wood and several woodworking industries operated within the city limits.
Factoid
“After a housing slump that has pushed values down 30% in some areas, roughly 12 million households, or 16%, owe more than their homes are worth, according to Moody’s Economy.com.”
If Social Security Was a Private Corporation Then it Would Sue Tom Brokaw for Every Penny He Has
If a news reporter deliberately makes a false statement claiming that a private company like Boeing or Microsoft is going broke, the company has the right to sue the reporter and the news agency. That is why reporters rarely make statements like Microsoft or Boeing (or Lehman Brothers, AIG, or Goldman Sachs) are going broke.
However, reporters can freely impugn the financial health of a government program like Social Security because a government program cannot sue for libel. That is why Brokaw knew that he could imply that Social Security is going broke, even though it is not true. Social Security cannot sue Brokaw even if he deliberately tells explicit lies about its financial health.
Those who are interesting in learning about the true state of Social Security’s financial health can find out by looking at the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office’s website.
Under $3
Regular gasoline spotted around town Tuesday for $2.999.
Most unbelievable line of the debate
“That one.”
John McCain referring to Senator Obama
Government by Dow
Last week, the Dow was on the skids, and the media was SCREAMING that Congress “do something!”, even if that something was mortgaging future generations to the tune of $700 billion. The markets were ANGRY that the House had rejected the bailout! Why was Congress dilly dallying?
And no, there was NO TIME to spend devising a better solution to our economic ills. It was the bailout OR NOTHING! Didn’t we know that this was the only way to PROTECT PEOPLE’S 401Ks?????????
This week, the Dow is still crashing, and …. oh well. Oh, are people’s retirements going up in smoke? Shrug.
Forgive me, but I still don’t get how government by Dow works.
“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
I guess we got fooled again.
Oh, and this, from the BBC at 6:26PM MDT:
“Asian markets plummet in early trading after Wall St stocks closed at their lowest levels for five years.”
Plummet — to fall or drop straight down at high speed.
Best catch line of the day
“I saw this on CNN early this morning. John Roberts was talking about the smear campaign, trying to do the equivalency dance, and actually said (I’m paraphrasing) ‘Obama is trying to tie McCain to the Keating Five’. Now, maybe I’m wrong, but isn’t that like saying John Lennon was ‘tied’ to the Beatles? He was a Beatle! John McCain WAS one of the Keating Five.”
What a bunch of fools we’re being made into
Less than a week after the federal government committed $85 billion to bail out AIG, executives of the giant AIG insurance company headed for a week-long retreat at a luxury resort and spa, the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, California, Congressional investigators revealed today.
“Rooms at this resort can cost over $1,000 a night,” Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) said this morning as his committee continued its investigation of Wall Street and its CEOs.
AIG documents obtained by Waxman’s investigators show the company paid more than $440,000 for the retreat, including nearly $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and $23,000 in spa charges.
Line of the day
“[O]nly 9% of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in the United States — the lowest such reading in Gallup Poll history.”
Who are these nine percent and what the fuck is wrong with them?
October 7th
Mary Badham is 56 today. You know her as Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. She was nine going-on 10 when they made the film and she received a best supporting actress Oscar nomination. Badham has just five other film and TV credits.
Yo-Yo Ma is 53.
Sherman Alexie was born 42 years ago today on the Spokane Indian Reservation.
The book that made him famous was his first collection of short stories called The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993). He adapted it into a screenplay for the movie Smoke Signals (1998). Smoke Signals was the first commercial feature film entirely written, directed, and acted by Native Americans. His newest book is a young adult novel called The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007).
He said, “Indians have a way of surviving. But it’s almost like Indians can easily survive the big stuff. Mass murder, loss of language, and land rights. It’s the small things that hurt the most. The white waitress who wouldn’t take an order, Tonto, the Washington Redskins.”
Alexie’s books and stories are good stuff, and the movie delightful.
Cornell University welcomed its first students 140 years ago today.
Another Frightening Show About the Economy
This American Life was about the economy last weekend. It’s excellent and you will definitely understand more about what is going on and how it extends well-beyond the sub-prime problem we’ve been told to blame. Sub-prime loans may have been the virus, but the disease is much more.
I highly recommend that you download the mp3 or the iTunes podcast this week while it’s available.
The last 12 minutes is the Was The Bailout Bill A Good Idea? segment I’ve already highlighted.
Sweetie Sequence
There are two Sweetie birthdays in October, one today and one coming up Monday.
For six days until Monday, The Sweeties® are 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 and 2.
Happy Birthday Kiley!
Best lines of Monday night
And now we got like 28 more days and the campaign is getting ugly. Barack Obama called John McCain “erratic.” And in response to those charges, McCain responded by yelling, “Turn down that damn music!”
Are you excited about Sarah Palin? Well, yesterday she referred to Afghanistan as our neighboring country. Yeah. Apparently, she can see bin Laden’s cave from her house.
And now she’s going crazy, Sarah Palin. She is ready to go, she is saying now, “the heels are on, and the gloves are off.” And that’s the kind of thing that used to cost Eliot Spitzer a thousand bucks.
— David Letterman
Four weeks to go
This morning FiveThirtyEight.com projects Obama to garner 343.8 electoral votes to McCain’s 194.2. Obama wins 51.7% of the popular vote, McCain 46.7%. Obama’s chances of winning are 88.5%. Missouri and Indiana now lean to Obama.
Polls tell you how the public feels at the time the poll was taken. FiveThirtyEight projects the results of the election based on a systematic analysis of the polls.
The Bradley effect — lying to pollsters to disguise racial bias — appears, by all measures, to no longer be a factor. (It primarily applied to exit polls anyway.) People who won’t vote for Obama or any candidate because they are African-American feel no need to hide their bias. The current estimate is that Obama would be up an additional six points if race were not a factor. That is, the election would be a landslide.
After this election there will be a phenomenon known as the McCain effect — voting for McCain but telling the exit pollsters you voted for Obama because you are embarrassed to have voted for a erratic, angry, seemingly demented old man.
Best line of the day, so far
“The times ahead will be tough, but at least we won’t have George Bush as President.”
Bob Woodward on Real Time with Bill Maher via Crooks and Liars.
Confused?
Be sure to check this out if you’d like at least a clue about what’s going on.