Muttroxia

According to the national polls this has been a close race, only slightly in Obama’s favor. You should be wondering how much the national poll matters. What does the situation look like if you go to each state and see where it’s electoral votes are polling and add it all up?

Ladies and Gentlemen, one of the best election sites out there, www.fivethirtyeight.com. You can look that up and play with all kinds of different possibilities to your hearts content. A dream tool for the amateur politnik.

Oh, by the way? Current projections are Obama 310, McCain 227. The race isn’t nearly as close as you think.

What do y’all think?

I guess my overall take is that it reflects very poorly on McCain. McCain made a horrible pick, and made it without thinking about it or caring about the consequences. This is not a good sign for someone who’s campaign is based on judgment.

Another blogger used this analogy. Both Obama and McCain gambled. Obama played poker. He figured out his odds, weighed the circumstances, and made a move. It might not work, but it’s the best play he can make. McCain played craps, he just rolled the dice and hoped things would work out. Which seems like a better character trait?

Before I dive back into poker n’ politics, I wanted to thank all the well-wishers. It’s appreciated.

I played an error-free game.

That feels so good to say. I’ll say it again, because I’ve never been able to say it before. I played an error-free game. I can’t think of one play that was a mistake.

In the first two hours, I only showed my cards twice. Every other time I folded, or bet big enough to push other people off the hand. That was the big difference. Instead of value-betting non-premium hands I was putting in large bets and getting other people out of the way so I never had to see if my non-premium hands (low and middle pairs, K-J suited, etc.) would hold up. The only two times I showed my hand were both chops with the same person. So two hours in, no one had seen me lose.

When we down to five people, I had a bad luck run. There three coin flip hands in a row (2 overcards vs. a pair) and I lost all three. That’s unfortunate. I was right to be in the hand each time though. I fought back. With three players, I checked the option with 9-3. The flop was K-9-5. With middle pair I made a good-sized bet. He put me all in. It wasn’t much of a decision, a fold would have crippled me and I was getting 3-1 on my money. He had 9-6, his hand held up and I finished in 3rd.

Never been so pleased with my own performance to finish in third. This was my best poker playing since I started blogging it.

Running Total: $116 (three winning weeks in a row…)

Is that 90% number true? Is it more than you would expect – after all, many laws are uncontroversial. I hate numbers without context. Here’s some context.

The claim is true. According to Congressional Quarterly’s Voting Studies, in 2007 McCain voted in line with the president’s position 95 percent of the time – the highest percentage rate for McCain since Bush took office – and voted in line with his party 90 percent of the time. However [Why did they feel the need to put “However” in here? It doesn’t rebut anything. Can’t anyone just present facts?], McCain’s support of President Bush’s position has been as low as 77 percent (in 2005), and his support for his party’s position has been as low as 67 percent (2001).

In contrast,

When doing so, they may wish to consider that Obama’s votes were in line with the president’s position 40 percent of the time in 2007. That shouldn’t be terribly surprising. Even the Senate’s Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, voted with Bush 39 percent of the time last year, according to the way Congressional Quarterly rates the votes.

That’s an enormous difference. I thought it would be an empty soundbite that dissappeared under scrutiny. It didn’t.

The Final Days

[Bush] can flash anger over what he considers unfounded criticism or at something on his schedule he does not like, but he does not wrestle with his inner demons, at least not out loud. “He doesn’t second-guess himself,” Jim Francis, a longtime friend from Texas, told me. “I second-guess myself all the time — ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have done this or that.’ He just doesn’t have that in him. I have never seen him do that….”

That is not a good thing.

The New York Times today has two opposing articles with views on what we can expect economically from Obama.

Is History Siding With Obama’s Economic Plan?

This article is based around two astounding facts comparing years under Democratic and Republican presidents. One is that the economy grows faster under Democrats. Surprisingly faster.

Data for the whole period from 1948 to 2007, during which Republicans occupied the White House for 34 years and Democrats for 26, show average annual growth of real gross national product of 1.64 percent per capita under Republican presidents versus 2.78 percent under Democrats.

That 1.14-point difference, if maintained for eight years, would yield 9.33 percent more income per person, which is a lot more than almost anyone can expect from a tax cut.

This is a fascinating fact. The biggest problem is that it doesn’t seem to make any sense. The president doesn’t have many ways to impact the economy. Why would this large difference exist? And yet it does.

Two is that income inequality grows under Republican regimes and lessens under Democratic ones. This seems fairly straightforward. Democrats tax the rich and raise the minimum rage, the Republicans do the opposite. Are the two connected? I believe so, but this is not established at all, and there is no reason to think that if the effect exists it would be immediate.

…if history is a guide, an Obama victory in November would lead to faster economic growth with less inequality, while a McCain victory would lead to slower economic growth with more inequality. Which part of the Obama menu don’t you like?

Because the first point (higher growth under Democrats) doesn’t have any mechanism behind it, you can’t assume it would hold true with an Obama presidency. In fact, it completely ignores Obama. It simply says that because Obama is a Democrat we will see the results we historically have seen with Democrats. This is tempting and suggestive, but in the end and unfounded conclusion. However, the second point (about income inequality) is a fair assumption to make, so on balance it does suggest that Obama will be better for the economy.

Obama’s Questionable Stimulus Plan

I lose respect for Ben Stein with every article of his I read.

But I am a bit worried that his knowledge of economics may not be as extensive as his legal background.

Ben Stein is an ex-law professor with no formal economic background. Glass houses and rocks, ya know? The article is a good explanation of why stimulus checks are a bad idea, economically speaking. After all they are simply borrowing from the future to try and goose todays economy. The net impact is to drive us deeper in debt. I fully agree.

But. Ben Stein is against Obama because Obama is borrowing against the future. That is the same thing as increasing the deficit. If you look at the announced spending plans of the candidates, McCain is borrowing much more. Something like $500 Billion to $350 Billion. (I am unable to find great cites, but this is universally regarded as true. Here’s a weak one. Here’s one that projects $5 Trillion to $3.5 Trillion over the next decade.)

In other words, Ben Stein is an idiot. If you don’t like deficit spending, you should vote for Obama, his bad stimulus plan ($50 Billion) is overwhelmed by his better deficit spending plan.

Our dog passed away during the night.

We rescued her from the pound in early 2005. She was scheduled to be euthanized the next day there. We’re glad we were able to give her a few extra years of happy family life. We don’t really know what happened, but it appears to have painless and easy.

Damn.

Selections from HP Lovecraft’s brief tenure as Whitman’s sampler copywriter

Slowmotion bitchslap

I’ve been thinking… I’m the man of this house, so

Remember Danny Alamonte, the “12-year old” pitcher in Little League World Series? Here’s a sweet story of baseball karma.

Cheating (funny)

Can this be true? Grazing cattle align north-south.

Dial-A-Human: The codes to get a human in those automated phone systems.

10 Top Referee Attacks

What body parts are mentioned in music? (Interactive, by genre)

It’s the end of the world. Warning label on Peanut Butter that “Allergens: Contains peanuts.” (Detailed labeling.)

Who was the best athlete Phil Jackson ever coached?

If adults were subjected to the same indignities as children

Mythbusters draws a Mona Lisa in 80 milliseconds with paintballs.

Things to say during sex

Harrison Ford adlibs (ESB = Empire Strikes Back)

Worst help desk ticket

LBJ and civil rights (remeberances of Richard Caro)

A funny McCain ad.

It’s a political partay!

What’s new in Social Security in 2008?

In May, the trustees had their latest report come out. If you read my writeups (1 and 2) on understanding Social Security, you’ll recognize this as the key figure:

This is a model, under three different sets of assumptions, of when the SS surplus runs out. Not when the program doesn’t have any money, but when the surplus we’ve been squirreling away for 30-odd years is gone. You’ll notice that option II intersects at 2041. In other words, everything is perfect for the next 33 years. And after that it’s only mostly perfect. Find me another government program that can say that! You’ll also notice that if the assumptions underlying option I are true, we’re in perfect shape forever. There is good reason to think that the truth is closer to I than to II. The actuaries who do this work have certain biases, and of course it is more important to make sure that the program doesn’t go bankrupt than to hope it delivers a new income stream.

Another way to look at this is that it would take relatively little effort for us to shift the funding from path II to path I. To whatever degree you think 33 years isn’t enough, it takes very little sacrifice to make it permanent.

August 22, 2008: The CBO (Congressional Budget Office) releases it’s latest examination of Social Security: Government report shows that program is healthy for decades to come.

Here, the story is even better. The surplus is projected to last until 2049. That’s 41 years instead of 33. In fact, every time another years passes and we have more data, the date for the surplus running out is pushed further back. This is another reason to think that option I is closer to the truth.

And after 2049, there is still 81% of promised benefits. How much of a change would it take to cover that 19%? Not much.

Whoops, the CBO report is here. The key figure is below, showing what year the surplus will be depleted. The link has some more discussion about it.

Hilzoy said it well:

In 2006, the CBO projected (pdf) that the Social Security trust funds would be exhausted in 2046. Apparently, during the last two years, the date when the Social Security trust funds will be exhausted has been pushed three years further into the future. At this rate, if we keep on doing nothing, that date will never arrive at all.

This is my favorite moment of the Olympics.

It’s women’s water polo. USA is ahead 12-11. China gets the ball with 8 seconds left. They do not score a point. They don’t even take a shot. They don’t even try take a shot. They do nothing.

Their coach mocks them. Openly mocks them. On international TV. This footage is priceless. We have watched it at least twice a day for laughs. Has there ever been another time where a coach has openly mocked his own team?

At any rate, here it is from YouTube — it doesn’t get the point across as well, but still. Never seen anything like it.

(Why the delay on this? I have been trying for a week to get the footage of my TiVo to my computer and make a video of it. I’ve been hamstrung because the raw footage is 17G, and I only have 8G free – so that took a little juggling. When I finally got it on my computer I found out that TiVo uses a propietary format that can’t be converted to a standardized format unless you upgrade to TiVo Desktop Plus for $25. Not likely.)

Eh. Three weeks ago I might have been impressed. It was a pale shadow of the opening ceremonies. You can make a good case that the opening ceremonies were the biggest and best spectacle in all of human history. I suppose it’s hard to top that.

London looked pathetic next to Beijing. Wow, a bus! That sure is exciting! Jeepers, I sure hope there’s a 20-minute tribute to double-entry bookkeeping! And umbrellas!

After the Beijing spectacle, bringing out your celebrities, no matter how famous, seems a bit common. I love Jimmy Page. And there’s something fitting about having the biggest rock band guitarist ever play at the Olympics. And yet, it’s also random. Yes, why not throw David Beckham in there? I wonder if David Brent is free? Can we get a big statue of King George III? A tribute to the protestant reformation?

I mean, seriously. Whole Lotta Love at the Olympics? That’s just wrong.

I like the part where the athletes run wild. Not sure why. Honest human emotion always works. I understand why so many of them have cameras, but it takes away from the experience for us to see them snapping away like mad.

I give it an A on it’s on merits, a B- compared to the opening.