Happy Saturday! (First Saturday in May, 2008)

Workout notes Temperatures were perfect, though there were sprinkles here and there. But boy was it windy!!! That’s reality in Illinois during the fall and spring months; the wind just blows, and blows and blows! Nevertheless, I walked my 20 mile course (Borden via Columbia Terrace and Broadway, taking the Rivertrail back and doing a 3 mile out and back leg) in 4:18:42, finishing the trail to house leg in 33:26 (steep uphill 2.5 miles). This is about 18 minutes faster than last time.

Topics
Non Election Stuff
3-Quarks Daily has some interesting articles again; that blog is an online version of a Utne-Reader. First, they point to an interesting review of a book on the 1948 war between Israel and the surrounding Arab countries. The book appears to be even handed in its description of what happened to those who were living in the region before the Jews poured into it; some were asked not to leave but left anyway, and others were terrorized and some were expelled.

It was not one of the celebrated moments of what the Israelis call the War of Independence and the Palestinians call Al Nakba, the Catastrophe. But it is one of the more arresting ones. In late August 1948, during a United Nations-sanctioned truce, Israeli soldiers conducting what they called Mivtza Nikayon — Operation Cleaning — encountered some Palestinian refugees just north of the Egyptian lines. The Palestinians had returned to their village, now in Israeli hands, because their animals were there, and because there were crops to harvest and because they were hungry. But to the Israelis, they were potential fighters, or fifth columnists in the brand new Jewish state. The Israelis killed them, then burned their homes.

That region will never have peace, I am afraid.

In another article, they link to a study about kids: evidently kids learn and use only one sense at a time (e. g., smell, or hear or see); they have trouble combining the senses.

Adults readily integrate sight, sound, smell, taste and touch in their everyday lives without a second thought. But research is revealing that this is not the case with children. Two new studies hint that children under the age of eight only use one sense at a time to judge the world around them. Previous research has demonstrated that adults can easily combine and rank the value of the information that they gather from their senses. For example, a man looking for a flute player in a crowded room can use sight and sound to do so, relying more on sight in a room full of background noise. [...]

Science Avenger: talks about the often misunderstood difference between predicting a long term trend versus predicting what will happen at a given point in time in the future.

The whole post is worth a read; the basic idea is this: I can’t tell you what the weather will be like in Peoria, Illinois on February 14, 2009 at 3:30 pm. But I can predict, with a fair amount of accuracy, what the average February noon temperature will be. Anyway, Science Avenger takes on the climate change deniers and does a good job of it.

Fun stuff: Check out the spread of Wall Mart from its inception.

Hat tip to Edge of the American West.

Political Stuff Ok, back to the election; I can’t stop!

Listen to the chanting near the end.

ABC News’ Eloise Harper and Sunlen Miller reports: Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., had to endure cheers for Sen. Barack Obama and boos for the North Carolina governor, who has backed her, at the North Carolina Democratic Party’s Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Raleigh, N.C., Friday evening — where both she and Obama spoke.

Toward the end of her speech, Clinton pointed out to the crowd that she thinks she is tough, saying to the crowd, “I am no shrinking violet.”

Clinton, attempting to show that there will be party unity, said, “If Sen. Obama is the nominee, you better believe I’ll work my heart out for him.”

The crowd erupted into a chant for Obama, leaving Clinton speechless for a few seconds while she waited for them to finish. During her speech, Clinton also mentioned Gov. Mike Easley, who has endorsed her candidacy, and she was momentarily rendered speechless while the crowd booed him.

In his speech, Obama also preached unity, saying that after the nomination process is over, “This party will come together. If Hillary Clinton were the nominee, I would support her in a heartbeat. And I know that if I am the nominee then she will support me.”

Hat tip to AHiddenSaint at the Daily Kos.

A fellow blogger points out that college professors give more to Democrats than to Republicans, (87% give to Democrats) and then points out that the college professor Democrats give more to Obama than to Clinton 74% to Obama). He also breaks it down by number of donors as well as dollar amounts. Here is Jay P Greene’s post.

Now, I disagree with his conclusions about this, but I am grateful he made such a nice report.

Speaking of such topics, David Brooks (a conservative) points out that Democrats are divided by education level.

In state after state (Wisconsin being the outlier), Barack Obama has won densely populated, well-educated areas. Hillary Clinton has won less-populated, less-educated areas. For example, Obama has won roughly 70 percent of the most-educated counties in the primary states. Clinton has won 90 percent of the least-educated counties. In state after state, Obama has won a few urban and inner-ring suburban counties. Clinton has won nearly everywhere else.

This social divide has overshadowed regional differences. Sixty-year-old, working-class Catholics vote the same, whether they live in Fresno, Scranton, Nashua or Orlando.

The divide has even overshadowed campaigning. Surely the most interesting feature of the Democratic race is how unimportant political events are. The candidates can spend tens of millions of dollars on advertising, but they are not able to sway their opponent’s voters to their side. They can win a stunning victory, but the momentum doesn’t carry over from state to state. They can make horrific gaffes, deliver brilliant speeches, turn in good or bad debate performances, but these things do not alter the race.

In Pennsylvania, Obama did everything conceivable to win over Clinton’s working-class voters. The effort was a failure. The great uniter failed to unite. In this election, persuasion isn’t important. Social identity is everything. Demography is king. [...]

It’s more accurate to say that the country has simply drifted apart into different subcultures. There’s no great hostility between the cultures. Americans have a fuzzy sense of where the boundaries lie. But people in different niches have developed different unconscious maps of reality. They have developed different communal understandings of what constitutes a good leader, of what sort of world they live in. They have developed different communal definitions, which they can’t even articulate, of what they mean by liberty, security and virtue. Demographic groups have begun to function like tribes or cultures. [...]

The core message is that even if you take away the ideological differences between the parties, you are still left with profound social gulfs within the parties. There’s poignancy to that. The upscale liberals who revere Obama have spent their lives championing equality and opposing privilege. But they’ve smashed the old WASP social hierarchy only to create a new educational one.

Hey, I support Obama, but there is nothing upscale about me!!!

Political Futures Political Futures are similar to betting lines that one could take with candidates. For example, if you thought that Hillary Clinton was going to win the nomination, you could pay 22 dollars for a contract that would pay out nothing if she doesn’t win, and 100 dollars if she does win. You’d need to spend 75-80 dollars (depending on who you bet with) for a similar one on Obama. Here is a tracking chart of these.

Note that political futures are, in general, more accurate than polls.

By the way, you can keep track of the political futures here.

Today’s numbers: (Intrade, Iowa Electronic, News Futures)

Democratic Primary: Obama is listed at 73.7, 73.8, 83 and Clinton at 24.5, 22.3, and 17.0.
General Election:
Obama 42.1, McCain 39.3, Clinton 18.0 (Intrade)

Winning Party
Intrade: D: 59.8, R: 39.8. Iowa Electronic: D 53, R 47.3

How well did these work in 2004? See this source.

(Larger)
Note that in August, they had Bush winning; the margin was 52 for a Bush contract, 47 for a Kerry contract. This rose to 61 for Bush at the start of November; I should have seen that coming.

Effect of news (news blips) on voters: Not much.

Even among those groups who should perhaps be most bitter over being called “bitter” — weekly church-attenders, union members, white Catholics — Obama loses only a few percentage points in PA relative to OH. Among every other group, he does better.

Follow the link to see some rather convincing graphs. This really bolsters David Brook’s point, though this goes against their analysis last night.
Hat tip to the Statistical Modeling blog.

That should make the producers of this video feel better:

(hat tip to Seattle for Barack Obama)

Also Bob Herbert might feel better as well.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is no doubt (and regrettably) a big issue in the presidential campaign. But what we’ve seen over the past week is major media overkill — Jeremiah Wright all day and all night. It’s like watching the clips of a car wreck again and again. [...]

The challenge for the working press right now is to see if we can force ourselves past the overwhelming temptations of Wright and race and focus in a sustained way on some other important matters, like the cratering economy, metastasizing energy costs, the dismal state of public education, the nation’s crumbling infrastructure or the damage being done to the American soul by the endless war in Iraq.

A highly decorated Army ranger named David McDowell, a 30-year-old father of two from Ramona, Calif., was killed in Afghanistan this week. As I read his obituary, I noticed that he had been deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq seven times. What does that tell us about our shared wartime sacrifices?

I’d like to hear a lot less about Reverend Wright and a lot more about why the U.S. can’t close the deal in Afghanistan and hardly even seems interested in extricating our G.I.’s from Iraq. [...]

Parting shot: Max Blumenthal is a huge Clinton supporter. Ok, so is my sister and mother, and yes I wonder what they are smoking but I digress. Still, Blumenthal does good work for The Nation Magazine and I often enjoy his articles and videos.

He produced this one:

Note that, among the presidential candidates, they focused on Barack Obama, even though Hillary Clinton is the New York Senator! Sorry, but I see that as a bit of race baiting; it is almost as if he is trying to trap BHO between a rock and a hard place.

Of course, the incident described in the video is truly tragic, but I wasn’t there to hear the police side of things.

Nevertheless, this is one reason that African Americans often see things very differently than the way that others do. Hat tip to One People’s Project for keeping a light shining on this incident.

Finally, this has to be the worst type of campaigning in the world! One People’s Project forwards this news report:

News-Dispatch

CROWN POINT, Ind. – If fans of Hitler held a party, and a candidate for federal office attended, would anybody notice?

Apparently, yes.

U.S. Congressional candidate Tony Zirkle is facing criticism from one of his primary opponents, and a host of people on the Internet, for speaking at an event over the weekend that celebrated Adolf Hitler’s birthday.

Zirkle confirmed to The News-Dispatch on Monday he spoke Sunday in Chicago at a meeting of the Nationalist Socialist Workers Party, whose symbol is a swastika.

When asked if he was a Nazi or sympathized with Nazis or white supremacists, Zirkle replied he didn’t know enough about the group to either favor it or oppose it.

“This is just a great opportunity for me to witness,” he said, referring to his message and his Christian belief.

He also told WIMS radio in Michigan City that he didn’t believe the event he attended included people necessarily of the Nazi mindset, pointing out the name isn’t Nazi, but Nationalist Socialist Workers Party.

The Crown Point Republican spoke in front of about 56 “white activists” at an event honoring the birth of Hitler. The German leader was responsible for the genocide of millions of Jews and others during World War II. [...]
Zirkle is running against Republican Luke Puckett of Goshen and Joseph Roush of Plymouth in the May primary. He lost twice before in primaries to former U.S. Rep. Chris Chocola and has made doing away with pornography and prostitution his top campaign plank.

“I told (Channel 16, WNDU in South Bend) in the beginning that I’d speak to any group that wanted me to speak,” Zirkle said Monday. He said he’s also recently spoken on the subject to a pair of black journalists.

“I’m keeping my promise. I’ll speak to any group. (The National Socialist Workers Party) was interested in the targeting of white people for prostitution.”

Puckett spokesman Kyle Bailey said Monday that Puckett was in “disbelief” when he saw a story on the Internet from a Web site called Overthrow.com.

It detailed Zirkle’s speech in a story about the gathering, called not only to honor Hitler but to “fight America’s economic collapse and reinvigorate the white working class.”

At the event, Hitler’s birthday was observed with a cake with a photo of Hitler and the words “Seig Heil.”

“I can’t believe, in 2008, someone could have such backward opinions,” Puckett said.

Zirkle said he told the group about his days as a prosecutor in Indiana, during which time he prosecuted gangs involved in trafficking prostitutes and pornography from Eastern Europe.

Yes, here is the photo

I don’t think that we have to worry about this guy winning.