Electoral Vote Pool

If you're coming from BGR, welcome!

Here's the rules: pick your electoral vote count guess, and leave a comment. For non-blogger users, go ahead and leave your name. Winner will receive mass exultation on this website and maybe on BGR as well.

My guess: 271 Kerry, 267 Bush

Politics: Zogby and Cellphones

It looks like Zogby has finally tried to solve the cell phone problem. As I keep meaning to point out my as-yet-unwritten Poll Rant #3, one of the major problems with polls this year is the sample. People with mobile phones and no landlines aren't included. These voters tend to be young and Democractic-leaning. The two big questions, however, are how Democratic-leaning and will they vote?

Zogby finds, in a first ever mobile phone only poll, that Kerry leads Bush by 15%. Furthermore, only 3% of those polled say they "don't plan on voting" or "aren't sure if they're going to vote."

I take this with a grain of salt for many reasons. These phone numbers were taken from MTV's Rock the Vote subscriber database, which does tend to skew Democratic. Also, saying you're going to vote does not necessarily equal voting. However, this is encouraging news.

*sigh* Only two more days until the recount....

Politics/Big Blue: the only poll that matters

Kentucky Wildcat basketball players favor Kerry to Bush 54% - 39%!

Kentucky might be a Red state, but I'm glad the Big Blue is keeping the Blue in Bluegrass. Also of note: the Bush supporters are a list of the most prominent underacheivers on the team, w/ the exception of Bobby Perry.

Seven of the 13 UK players polled said they favored Kerry. Four UK players supported Bush. Patrick Sparks and Ravi Moss declined to reveal their presidential preference. And we didn't get to Kelenna Azubuike, Shagari Alleyne and Sheray Thomas to ask the Bush/Kerry question.

Newcomers accounted for the bulk of Kerry's popularity. Freshmen Randolph Morris, Rajon Rondo, Ramel Bradley, Joe Crawford and Eric Allen favored Kerry.

"I just see a lot of negative things about Bush," Bradley said. "I'd rather go with the positive than the negative."

Senior leader Chuck Hayes and Brandon Stockton also favored Kerry. "I've got mixed emotions about that," Hayes said. "You want revenge (for the 9-11 attacks), but it's caused problems."

UK players for Bush were Josh Carrier, Preston LeMaster, Bobby Perry and Lukasz Obrzut. They cited the not-changing-horses argument.

"I go back and forth," Perry said. "When you boil it down, I'd probably vote for Bush because if you start a job, you should finish it."

Politics: election day is almost here

From Entertainment Weekly, Nov 5 issue, page 12:

ELECTION DAY IS ALMOST HERE: Remember, if you don't vote the right way, killer wolves will attack you and rip the flesh from your bones. (Not that those ads are trying to scare you.)

Politics: effect of the OBL tape?

Not that the CNN quick poll is absolute, but here's some surprising results:

How will the bin Laden videotape affect the U.S. election?
No influence		35%	64283 votes
Boost for Bush		27%	49485 votes
Boost for Kerry		39%	71656 votes

I disagree, and voted for "Boost for Bush."

Update: Ok, well that didn't work, and it didn't work SO BADLY that I'm going to leave it up there as an example of something that REALLY didn't work. Anway, here was the stuff:

How will the bin Laden videotape affect the U.S. election?
35% No influence
27% Boost for Bush
39% Boost for Kerry

Politics: Is the bastard clever or dumb?

So we all need to ask this question: Is Osama Bin Laden an idiot or know America very well?

The obvious reading of the text follows here:

Diaa Rashwan, a Cairo-based expert on extremist Muslim militants, said bin Laden was trying to influence Americans "to give Kerry their votes, not Bush."

Of course, the flip-side:

Many felt the tape would have the opposite result. "Bush supporters are confident the video will be widely seen as an attempt to blackmail the nation into changing course, something that can only play to the advantage of the incumbent," noted Britain's Daily Telegraph.

<>Does OBL think we're a bunch of Spaniards? If he really thinks this helps Kerry's chances, he obviously has no concept of the American "fuck you" attitude to anybody telling them what to do. Every liberal commentator on the planet knows that an OBL "endorsement" of Kerry dooms Kerry. October surprise! Actually catching OBL probably couldn't be a bigger Bush boost than <>this. So I still want to know: is OBL stupid, and thinks we're Spaniards; or does can he see beyond the nose of his camel and know that his endorsement of Bush destroys Kerry, who might fight something that resembled an effective war on terror? I don't know. And neither do you.

Either way, I'd REALLY like to kick the dude in the balls about five thousand times. Not that he has any.

Interestingly enough, nobody batted an eyelash when terrorists in Iran supported president Bush. And given Iran's links to 9/11 according to the 9/11 commission, somebody in the mainstream missed the boat to push a pretty salient point.

Big Blue: Cats debut at #9 -- Coaches Poll

Probably underrated, and I rarely think we're underrated in pre-season polls. They should be ahead of Oklahoma State, Illinois, UConn, and Georgia Tech. Kansas, Wake, UNC, and Syracuse are all more talented and more experienced. Mississippi St (14), Alabama (18), and Florida (22) all three seem 3-4 slots too low.

Michigan was 28th. Maybe if Amaker could finally show some recruiting prowess...

Politics: attitudes towards families in Kentucky

According to a study at the University of Kentucky Research Center for Families and Children and Survey Research Center surveying 800 Kentuckians:

• A majority of respondents agreed that society would be better off if divorces were harder to get.
• Seventy-three percent of respondents agreed that couples who have children together should be married.
• Fifty-five percent disagreed that it’s okay for romantically involved people who are not married to live together.
• More than three quarters of respondents disagreed that marriage between same sex couples should by recognized by law in Kentucky.
• Seventy-two percent disagreed when asked if civil unions between same sex couples should be recognized by law. People over age 60 showed the highest percentage disagreement with civil unions, while respondents under 29 expressed the lowest percentage of disagreement.
  

I don't know if I can ever go back to that state.

Big Blue: Cats picked to win SEC title

Mississippi State is picked to win the West, the Cats the East and the overall.

Update: Here's the rest of the SEC Media Day polls.

Politics: Go Pack!

I think it's about time we did a quick analysis of the most reliable predictor of Presidential elections: The Washington Redskins.

Yes, the NFL football team has correctly predicted the winner of each election since 1936. If the Redskins win their last home game prior to the election, the party in power remains in power. If they lose, the White House changes hands. This year the last home game is against the Green Bay Packers on Sunday, October 31st. So, in an effort to give you something besides erratic polls to wade through, here's the latest analysis of upcoming match:

Green Bay: (3-4) 151 points for and 172 points against
Washington: (2-4) 84 points for and 95 points against

Recent history: Green Bay is 2-0 straight up against Washington since 1992. They also beat the spread both times.

The current line has Washington by less than 2 points.

According to John Clayton over at ESPN.com, Redskins quarterback Mark Brunell may win this one by sending his receivers against Green Bay's back up cornerbacks, Ahmad Carroll and Joey Thomas. First-string cornerback Al Harris will likely sit this one out due to a knee injury.

Vinnie Iyer at FoxSports, however, thinks that Brunell's history of critical mistakes will catch up with him against an improved Packer running defense. He's calling this one for Green Bay, 23-20. Imagine that, Fox picks Kerry.

In any case, this one should be a real nail-biter (kind of like the election). I guess I'll just have to take a study break from my psych exam to don a cheesehead on Sunday. Go Pack!

Blogging: special thanks to Matt Yglesias

I sent him my analysis of suicide rates in Kerry vs. Bush states, and he linked me. My traffic is going nuts.

Media: O'Reilly and accuser settle suit

All cases and claims have been withdrawn, and all parties have agreed there was no wrongdoing whatsoever by Mr. O'Reilly, Ms. Mackris or Ms. Mackris' counsel, Benedict P. Morelli and associates.

What a cop out. By somebody.

Politics: fun with statistics

I ran across some statistics on state-by-state suicide rates compiled by this guy, so I was wondering if there was any difference in states that strongly supported Bush versus strongly supported Kerry. I used Oct 27 data from electoral-vote.com. The suicide data is from 2001, and from a handout given in our Suicide lecture.

Interestingly enough, the rate of suicide among states that

Strongly Support Bush = 13.1/100,000 (s.d. = 2.4);
Strongly Support Kerry = 8.7/100,000 (s.d. = 2.1).
(National Average = 10.8/100,000)

So people in Bush states are 51% more likely to commit suicide!

The states that strongly support Bush (>10% margin) are:
Utah 37%, Wyoming 36%, Oklahoma 33%, Nebraska 29%, Idaho 29%, Alaska 27%, Texas 23%, South Dakota 22%, Montana 21%, North Dakota 20%, Kansas 19%, South Carolina 18%, Kentucky 17%, Georgia 17%, Indiana 16%, Louisiana 15%, Tennessee 12%, Alabama 12%, North Carolina 10%

The states that strongly support Kerry (>10% margin) are:
D.C. 67%, New York 21%, Rhode Island 20%, Massachusetts 14%, Vermont 13%, Maine 11%, Maryland 10%

History: Was Abe Lincoln gay?

The first Republican president? Couldn't be!

If the loving heart of the Great Emancipator found its natural amorous passions overwhelmingly directed toward those of his own sex, it would certainly be a stunning rebuke to the Republican Party’s scapegoating of same-sex love for electoral purposes. And a forthcoming book by the late Dr. C.A. Tripp — The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, to be published in the new year by Free Press — makes a powerful case that Lincoln was a lover of men.

Great article.

Politics: pulling out the stops

In case you wondered if there was ANY electoral group that the candidates hadn't reached for, here's proof they've exhausted every possibility: US election rivals in war of words over deaf vote.

The deaf vote seems to be leaning to the right, by the way. I have no idea why the hell it would lean any direction whatsoever.

Politics: Protectionism = Racism?

Yesterday I blogged (actually I didn't... but I sure thought I did... maybe the post didn't get published somehow) Slate's endorsements for the presidency. One such endorsement by economist Stephen Landsburg for Bush/against John Edwards has raised some eyebrows:

If George Bush had chosen the racist David Duke as a running mate, I'd have voted against him, almost without regard to any other issue. Instead, John Kerry chose the xenophobe John Edwards as a running mate. I will therefore vote against John Kerry.

Duke thinks it's imperative to protect white jobs from black competition. Edwards thinks it's imperative to protect American jobs from foreign competition. There's not a dime's worth of moral difference there. While Duke would discriminate on the arbitrary basis of skin color, Edwards would discriminate on the arbitrary basis of birthplace. Either way, bigotry is bigotry, and appeals to base instincts should always be repudiated.

Landsburg has a point. Except that it's an absurdly weak one. By this same logic, wouldn't it be simply racist to have a war on terror, since we're bombing people based on where they were born? Wouldn't it be racist and evilly protectionist to assume that we can defend ourselves as a 'country' of people who were born here or emigrated here? Is it racist that I live in Michigan and not Iraq, and I'm not getting bombed? By his logic, seemingly yes. I should be getting bombed too.

There are plenty of great arguments for outsourcing of jobs as a positive thing for human rights. I don't buy all the arguments, but they're logical and if I someday agreed with them, I wouldn't be amazingly surprised. But comparing Edwards' populism w/ Duke's activities w/ the KKK? That's absurd, hyperbolic, and really pretty f---ing stupid.

Medicine: Overworked Interns Make More Mistakes

They have to study this stuff? They can't just figure that out on their own?

The researchers, led by Charles Czeisler at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, found that interns working more than 80 hours a week committed 36 percent more serious medical errors than interns who kept a less arduous schedule.

Politics: President Asshat

If you haven't seen the video of Bush flipping off the camera back in his governor days, here ya go.

Politics: Is George Bush the Christian's Christian?

Steven Waldman points out that Bush's anti-intellectualism appeals to only the least common denominator of the faithful:

The president repeatedly says he makes decisions based on "instinct" and "gut" and by looking into the hearts of world leaders. He lets it be known that he doesn't read the newspapers. He seems to discourage dissenting viewpoints. He jokes about his poor command of the English language and his lousy grades in school. He is America's most famous evangelical Christian–and he's proudly anti-intellectual.

This creates a real dilemma for religious believers—especially evangelical Christians. In the past few decades, evangelical Christianity has seen the blossoming of a movement geared toward disproving the idea that faith must necessarily cause closed-mindedness.

In an influential book called The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, evangelical scholar Mark Noll wrote that anti-intellectualism is sapping the vibrancy of modern Christianity. Publications like Christianity Today, authors like Lee Strobel and Phillip Yancey, and educational institutions like the Fuller Theological Seminary combine religion with scholarly excellence. For every preacher who says all you need to know is the literal word of the Bible, there is another saying that modern Bible scholarship can help enrich our understanding of scriptures. For them, faith and reason are not at odds.