This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
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Well, I did get home in time for the first results (Obama won Vermont), but that is not the actual reason I am home early. It is that Brandy and Amy will be back in a few hours, and I need to get the house back in some semblance of order before I head to the airport. Not that many hours left. Their flight is currently over northwest Indiana. Looks like they may be just coming out of some nasty weather. I’m sure that was fun for them.
But… and this is where the less fun for me comes in… Plan was originally to come home one or two hours from now (and just catch the election returns on my phone until then) and then clean up and such while watching the returns come in. But in the last few hours I’ve started to feel unwell. I think I have a slight fever, although I can’t get the thermometer I found to work, and my head is getting all swimmy, and I’ve got a few other random symptoms that just suddenly started making me unhappy a few hours ago and are getting worse by the hour. Bleh. Bleh. Bleh. So once I finished my last meeting, I just headed home.
I just took some Tylenol. Hopefully it will be enough to make me feel somewhat functional. Right now I just feel like lying down.
Bleh.
Including both pledged delegates and superdelegates, there are 1376 delegates left to be determined. (As per CNN’s count.)
Clinton needs 756 of those in order to get the nomination. That is 54.9% of them.
Obama needs 647 of those in order to get the nomination. That is 47.0% of them.
Now, 55% still doesn’t seem quite impossible. That could be a doable margin, right? Well, it still represents a pretty big margin… one that would seem unlikely given how things have been going so far… but it isn’t like that number was 70% or anything.
So when you watch the results tonight… which actually will begin at 21 UTC… 4 PM Eastern… 1 PM Pacific… (Urgh, I’ll still be at work and have meetings. :-( )… if you want to know what is really going on, ignore the spin, ignore the popular vote… watch the delegates… is Clinton picking up more than 55% of the delegates? If so, she’s on a pace to win. If not, look at Obama. Is he picking up more than 47% of the delegates? If so HE is on a pace to win.
Those add up to more than 100% though… what is all that about… well, of course, that is the John Edwards effect. If the split is somewhere between Obama 45% Clinton 55% and Obama 47% Clinton 53%… then that means we are on pace to have the 26 delegates that belong to John Edwards being the deciding factor in this campaign.
And wouldn’t that be fun.
(Of course, the math above does not include either seating the existing Florida and Michigan delegates, or doing “do overs” in those states. For the former, Hillary would need to already be ahead coming into the convention, or Obama would have to be so far ahead that those delegations would not matter… so in either case it would not matter. For the latter… well, that would give a bit more flexibility to the scenarios… if Clinton really wants to drag this out, she should be pushing hard for the do-over options.)
(And before Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island too of course.)
Hillary picks up 2 superdelegates. Obama picks up 9 superdelegates. That gap between them is now 109 delegates.
In percentage terms… Obama 51.6%, Clinton 47.5%, Edwards 1.0%.
Obama needs 647 more delegates to win. Clinton needs 756.
We’ll see how all those numbers change after we get results from today’s voting.
McCain picks up 14 delegates from a variety of places. A few unpledged delegates. Then delegates trickling in from delegate allocation processes in Alabama, Illinois, Maryland, Oklahoma and Tennessee.
In Percentages… McCain 66.7%, Romney 16.2%, Huckabee 15.7%, Paul 1.3%.
McCain needs 144 more delegates to wrap it up.
So, a week ago things looked impossible for Hillary in both Texas and Ohio. Her lead in Texas had completely disappeared, and her lead in Ohio was shrinking rapidly. But in the last week Clinton has battled back. She has made some attacks which appear to have been effective. She has gotten some decent press. In Texas, where Obama had pulled ahead, by several points in the polls, she now has the margin back to 0.2%… a statistically completely insignificant number. It is a dead heat. In Ohio, she blunted Obama’s momentum and has managed to retain her lead. Down to 5.8% for sure, but still a real lead. Some polls even have her lead growing once again. And of course she is way ahead in Rhode Island.
So she might… just might… pull out three wins out of four contests during the voting in the next 24 hours.
But… but… now is the part where spin vs reality thing comes in. Here is one good take on it:
Existential Realities Of The Democratic Race
(Marc Ambinder, The Atlantic)
Q. What does “win” mean?
A. The winner of the Democratic nomination is not the person who wins the most states, not the person who wins the most votes, is not the person who gives the best speeches… it’s the person who wins 2024 (25? — we’re not sure yet) delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Q. Can Hillary Clinton win the nomination?
A. Maybe.
Q. Can you be more specific? Is it mathematically possible for her to win the nomination?
A. Yes.
Q. Is it likely that she will win the nomination?
A. Based on the math alone and a reasonable projection of external events, no.
Q. But you said it’s possible.
A. Yes. But lots of things have to break her way. If, say, voting ends and the press discovers that Obama has a secret second family in Idaho and all his superdelegates abandon him; if, for some reason, she wins 75% of the popular vote in the states after Ohio and Texas and half the remaining superdelegates; if, by slow attrition, she closes the delegate gap to about 70 and picks off two thirds of the remaining superdelegates; if the pledged (Obama) delegates concur with the credentials committee and seat the (Clintonian) Florida and Michigan delegations) — then, yes, it’s possible.
Clinton’s campaign has been signaling that if they “Win” tomorrow (in popular vote) then damn the delegate count, full speed ahead. They won’t care that the actual gap between the two candidates in terms of delegates will at best only be slightly tightened. That Obama will still be significantly ahead. That in order to have a shot at winning she will have to do a lot of damage to her party. “Club the baby seal to death” as has been said. That even if she won, she would emerge as a damaged candidate. And more likely, even after all that she’d still not get it in the end. And the other candidate would emerge damaged. Is she really willing to go to murder/suicide route, giving McCain the best shot at the presidency he could possibly hope for?
More importantly, will anyone take her seriously and buy the spin? If she actually manages to win the popular vote in three states tomorrow, I think they might. Even if the delegate balance barely changes, or even if it goes against her. And then it is on to fight through at least until Pennsylvania… another state where she is ahead in the polls but Obama is closing fast… but that might change if she manages to paint herself as a comeback winner out of Ohio and Texas.
If she loses one of the two, I no longer have a feeling of confidence on what she will do. Will she try to keep going? Maybe. Will she decide enough is enough? Maybe. It will all be about how the spin plays out in the 48 hours or so after the election results come in.
If she loses both Texas and Ohio? At that point not dropping out would just be… well… then she really would be playing the Huckabee role. Could she force the decision all the way to the convention? Yes. She probably could. But in the end she would lose anyway.
On the February 24th Curmudgeon’s Corner I first predicted that Hillary would drop out on March 5th. I think that is less likely than it was then. Not that it SHOULDN’T be what she should do at that point, but she might just be too damn stubborn to do it.
Which will of course mean more fun and excitement for political junkies like me, but you know, ad much fun as taking this to the convention would be, I’m guessing it is kind of obvious I’m quite ready to start obsessing over the general election.
So, as I was sitting down at my desk to eat my lunch, I looked up and I noticed that with absolutely no sound on entrance, there was now a very well behaved young dog sitting next to me, looking up at my hamburger. As I ate he lay down and settled in to wait patiently. He clearly wanted my last bite.
And he got it.
I am such a pushover.
New Rasmussen McCain vs Obama poll for New Jersey. This is the first such poll for New Jersey and starts New Jersey out in the “Weak McCain” category (leading by 2%).
So now we have Obama 157, Clinton 151, and 230 electoral votes that still have no polls at all.
Sam talks about:
- That Sleep Thing
- Universal Time
- Fun with School
- Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont
- What matters is Delegates
- How Hillary could Win
- Will Hillary Push On?
- New Laptop
- Roscoe Speaks
 1-Click Subscribe in iTunes
 View in iTunes
 Podcast XML Feed
Last week I said I’d start including the direct play thing when I did these announcements, but it wrecked havoc with the way I keep stats, so I decided not to do it again after all. If anybody really did find it helpful and used it, please let me know and I might reconsider. In the mean time, if you want to listen, I recommend using one of the links above.
In the autumn before I was nine, I was sent to some lady tailoresses about one and a half miles to have a coat cut from cloth finished at my fathers and uncle’s clothing works. These ladies names were Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake. After I had obtained an entrance with my package to their apartment, Miss Bryant asked me, “Whose boy are you?” I answered Hiram Hurlburt’s boy. Then I was going to say something, but Miss Bryant pointing her finger at me, said “You will wait.” Then she said, “Your mother was a Bullard, she came from Athol, Mass. Now what did you wish to say?” Then I held my tongue, Mother wished me to ask you, if I might dig some sweet flag root on your ground? Miss Bryant said yes. But bring me a piece, measuring on her hand five or six inches long. I dug the root, which was milder in taste than usually found, not so pungent. When I gave the long piece to Miss Bryant she remarked, “That I was the first boy that had ever asked permission to dig roots there, they come and dug as they had a mind to”.
Miss Bryant was a short woman, her counter to cut on was quite high for her, but she had a foot stove to put charcoal in for comfort to her feet, and the article was double length so she could step off from over the coal division. The handles to her shears were wound with some dark material, which made me suppose, she used them a great deal. I was ordered there two or three times, and noticed Miss Bryant was ???e man, this I thought was perfectly proper, as Miss Bryant had all the advisory art of all business. Afterwards I heard it mentioned as if Miss Bryant and Miss Drake were married to each other. I always heard they got along pleasantly together. But after Miss Bryants death, Miss Drake went to live in her fathers house, near Beldens Falls, a brother-in-law carried on the place, and it was reported she made it very hard for that brother-in-law. “Fortes Shaw”.
I now understand this Miss Charity Bryant was a liberal contributer to the Congregationalist Church, at the Silas Wright monument in Weybridge, and was Aunt to Wm Cullen Bryant the poet, who came twice to visit her.
Above the falls on Otter Creek in Quaker Village was a pond raised by two dams as there is a rocky island that divides the stream, causes the east section to fill up with the waste that comes down the creek. This winter I was nine years old. But first let me say that the spring before I had given me a fishing rig, and fished over the bank by a butternut tree for pickerel; and after much anxiety lost my hook and bait, of course, the bait were small fish I caught at the “Beave Brook” a mile away from home. Then a man “Otis Bean” that worked for my father gave me a stronger one with a chain attached. I was now sure of getting the fish, for father had said, the way I lost my hook was, that it got caught on a root or some flood wood lying on the bottom; But I was sure of having a bite. While patiently waiting the outcome of this new rigging the bite came, and I like to lost my pole, first one way, then the other the large fish capered around, but finally when I thought he would pull the pole from my hands the line parted near the chain, upon looking I was wholly ruined for fishing, I did not wish to say much about it, for I remembered fathers reason for looing my hook.
To continue a fish story; The dams in the falls was at the height so the water in the section that filled up with dirt in the freshets, would be about two to three feet in depth. It was the first of cold weather and the ice was about two inches thick, I was on skates that I made by taking a bit of three fourths of an inch birch board that would not split easily, sawing on one side a channel 3/8 of an inch deep, then taking an old barrel hoop of iron, and fitting by filing and grinding, then inserting in this groove, then by putting holes so to use strings, like wooden skates used, I could make considerable headway. As I was crossing the ice I looked through the clear body of water and saw as I supposed him, a round stick of wood, like flood wood, as there was more or less of these chunks lying on the bed of the pond. To make the boys come out to where I was; I hollered to come and see this big fish, and while they were coming I looked again when I saw the fins move. The I skated with all my strength to get an axe we had that morning to break the ice for the cow to drink, then struck on the ice just over the fish’s head. Away he went, but was easily followed. The water was perhaps from 18 to 30 inches deep; and wherever the fish went in this three fourths of an acre, there was a streak of roil, to track him by. Finally, after several strokes over his head he turned head down and tail up to the ice. A few blows with the axe, and he was taken out gasping on the ice. As he lay there opening and closing his mouth, one youngster (Sam May mentioned din another chapter) stuck his boot into the fish’s mouth. The fish seemed to think there was something to live for, and so closed his jaws upon the boot, the teeth going through the upper leather and stocking to the bare foot. We at once got his foot out leaving stocking and boot in the pickerel’s mouth. The bare foot looked as if the cat has scratched the top of it. We discovered my fish hook and chain of the season before in the outer cartilage. This hooks and chain had kept along with him in his travels in the pond without any apperant detriment to good living, as he appeared in perfect health weighing on the home steely yards ten pounds and eleven ounces.
(The full diary will be located here when complete.)
So, as many of you may remember, I had tons of problems with Time Machine when OS X 10.5 first came out. Eventually I gave up on it, deciding to wait for 10.5.2. At the same time, I discovered a corrupt directory, which I got rid of and may have fixed the problem on its own. But I still waited for 10.5.2. And then after that I waited until I’d done a complete backup and moved it to a separate place so even when I started time machine if I had something go wrong I could still get back to it. So, about 11 days ago I finally started Time Machine under 10.5.2 for the first time.
For 10 days it worked PERFECTLY. And then the computer crashed. Now, in the past, my two modes of failure were that Time Machine was super slow (definitely not the case this time) and that after a crash it could not recover and resume backups. So this was the big test.
And it came out with flying colors. All is fine.
I can now officially state I am very happy with Time Machine. Woo.
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