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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‘First Dude’ Todd Palin Illustrates Alaska’s Blend of Private and Public
(Alec MacGillis and Karl Vick, Washington Post, 22 Sep 2008)
Todd Palin grew up as the archetypal Alaskan — salmon fisherman, champion snowmobiler, North Slope oil worker. But since his wife became governor 20 months ago, his portfolio has broadened: househusband, babysitter, senior adviser, legislative liaison, and — when the occasion warrants — enforcer and protector.
He has supervised renovations to the governor’s mansion and hopscotched by plane back and forth to Juneau to juggle duties as father and “First Dude,” as he has come to be known. And to a degree that has surprised many state government observers, Todd Palin also has become involved in policy, sitting in on his wife’s meetings, traveling on state business and weighing in on some legislative issues.
(via Huffington Post)
A week or so old, but still a good read:
A Conservative for Obama
(Wick Allison, D Magazine, 17 Sep 2008)
Barack Obama is not my ideal candidate for president. (In fact, I made the maximum donation to John McCain during the primaries, when there was still hope he might come to his senses.) But I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on many issues. But those don’t matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama’s books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.
Most important, Obama will be a realist. I doubt he will taunt Russia, as McCain has, at the very moment when our national interest requires it as an ally. The crucial distinction in my mind is that, unlike John McCain, I am convinced he will not impulsively take us into another war unless American national interests are directly threatened.
“Every great cause,” Eric Hoffer wrote, “begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” As a cause, conservatism may be dead. But as a stance, as a way of making judgments in a complex and difficult world, I believe it is very much alive in the instincts and predispositions of a liberal named Barack Obama.
(via Daily Kos)
Those hoping for an end to the McCain bounce… not so fast!
In today’s set of polls, there is only one category change. In Minnesota, it seems Obama peaked in July with a 13.2% lead. His lead there has been declining ever since. Today that lead slipped below 5%. That moves the state from “Weak Obama” to “Lean Obama”. Minnesota is now therefore a swing state. This brings us to FIFTEEN swing states representing 181 electoral votes. I can’t emphasize enough how huge that number is, and how much it means that this race is in a completely unpredictable position at the moment.
New Summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 341, Obama 197
Obama Best Case – Obama 378, McCain 160
If everybody gets their leans – 269/269 ELECTORAL COLLEGE TIE
While it is true that McCain “peaked” in national polls and things have been moving more in Obama’s direction… and it is true that a number of “Weak McCain” states that he moved out of Lean status in the post convention period have moved back to “Lean McCain status” and are back int eh pool of swing states. But Obama has NOT stopped leaking “Weak Obama” states into “Lean Obama”. What has been happening in the last week or so can best be described not as an end to McCain’s bounce, but rather as more states from BOTH sides moving toward the uncertain middle.
Also, it is useful to compare to how things were immediately before both conventions. Using August 24th (the Sunday before the Democratic convention started) as a baseline to compare to today here is what we have:
McCain Strong States: Gained 60 electoral votes
McCain Strong+Weak States: Gained 6 electoral votes
McCain Strong+Weak+Lean States: Gained 22 electoral votes
Obama Strong States: Lost 5 electoral votes
Obama Strong+Weak States: Lost 60 electoral votes
Obama Strong+Weak+Lean States: Lost 19 electoral votes
(The Strong+Weak+Lean numbers don’t represent a zero sum and differ by three because we got the first poll for DC in that time period.)
I note that Obama’s position improved in the few days after the baseline I selected, although those polls reflected pre-convention changes. If I’d picked a baseline a few days later all of the above would look even worse for Obama and it might more accurately represent where he really was right before the conventions. But even as is the picture above is clear. In the wake of both VP picks and both Conventions, McCain is still the big winner.
So yes, you see some Obama momentum in regaining some swing states that McCain had pulled to his side right after the Republican convention. But the rest of the “lines” I track have continued to be neutral or in McCain’s direction. People keep saying the bounce has peaked, but so far, really, we just have a race being blown wide open. We have gone from a pre-convention situation that was very favorable to Obama, to a very very even race.
We have a few more days (perhaps a week) more of polls representing the post-convention pre-debate period. We have the first debate at the end of this week. Then starting next week we’ll start to see what kind of effect the debates have on this race.
Only one change today. North Carolina, which had flipped from being a swing state to being “Weak McCain” in the wake of the Republican Convention, now drops to below a 5% lead for McCain, and the state once again becomes a “Lean McCain” state and is in play as a swing state again.
New Summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 331, Obama 207
Obama Best Case – Obama 378, McCain 160
If everybody gets their leans – 269/269 ELECTORAL COLLEGE TIE
OK, NOW can we say the McCain bounce is over? I think we can certainly say that McCain seems to have peaked. The downside of the bounce is more complicated though. There is a clear pattern in what has happened so far. What we have been seeing is that “Weak McCain” states have been softening into “Lean McCain” states, perhaps putting them in play for Obama. This reverses SOME of what McCain achieved in his bounce.
Not all though. During the bounce, several states also moved out of “Weak Obama” status into “Lean Obama”. Those states have not yet returned to the Obama fold. They are still swing states.
And the “everybody gets their leans” number is still stuck stubbornly on a dead even tie.
So the overall result of the last few weeks has simply been to put more states in play. We now have 14 states and 171 electoral votes in the swing states that are too close to call. That is a huge amount. This race is still very very unsettled.
The momentum toward McCain has definitely been reversed. But to see a real benefit out of it, Obama needs to start pulling Lean McCain states to Lean Obama states and Lean Obama states to Weak Obama. We’ve seen lots of movement from Weak McCain to Lean McCain, but in the end, that isn’t enough. It just makes the “anything could happen” factor larger.
Having said that, McCain should be somewhat troubled. The big effect of the convention and Palin looked like it had been to strengthen the base and make red states redder. That seems to be fading.
 Brandy and Amy wanted to take me to a movie for my birthday last weekend. So I picked one based completely on what I wanted to see, as opposed to also taking into consideration what all of us might like. So I picked this one.
I hadn’t seen the commercials for the movie until after the movie, which is good, because they spoil a major item which is supposed to be a mystery and tell you right up front. But I was unspoiled. I still guessed the item in question of course, it wasn’t that hard, but still.
In any case, this is a slowly paced movie. Some of the descriptions have it as a suspense/action sort of thing, but not really. It is really one of those slow paced political thrillers that is more about making you think than raising your heart rate. And yes, it has a political point to make, and it makes it.
Overall I liked it. I was also surprised to find that both Brandy and Amy liked it as well. Given the pacing I thought Amy at least would just be horribly bored. But no. Which is good. It means I get to watch more of this kind of movie in the future.
In any case. Good movie. Worth a watch. Probably will not be in the theaters very long, so if you want to see it there, hurry. Otherwise, wait for DVD.
An interesting variant on the versions of this kind of test I’ve seen in the past, but with the same overall results when I take it:
(via Reality Hammer)
I just got one after finally giving up on waiting for a 32GB version and giving up on bitching about home activation, so of course they are going to. Any day now, I’m sure.
Apple prepping a 32GB iPhone update, bringing back at-home activation?
(Nilay Patel, Engadget, 20 Sep 2008)
We’re not particularly inclined to believe them, but the whispers that Apple is about to bump the top-end iPhone capacity to 32GB are getting harder to ignore — especially since 8GB inventory is drying up, leading to speculation that’s it’s going to be dropped as soon as next week.
…
AppleInsider also says customers will once again get the option to activate in-home, but we haven’t heard anything about that — we’ll see what happens in the next few days.
I knew it would happen before too long, and I’m quite happy with my iPhone, but still. Sigh!
As always these days, lots of polls. But only two changes.
Missouri (11 ev): McCain’s lead drops to less than 5%, once again putting Missouri in play as a swing state. It had slipped out of swing state territory into “Weak McCain” in the wake of the conventions. But that seems to have ended, and the state is reverting back to being a close state, although still on the McCain side of the fence.
North Dakota (3 ev): Since the beginning of this race North Dakota was one of the western states that Obama hoped to make a battle out of. And for the most part, earlier polls had shown McCain to be in the lead, but not by much. Recent polls though have started to change that, and today his lead moved above 5%, taking the state from “Lean McCain” to “Weak McCain” and pulling it out of the pool of swing states.
New Summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 331, Obama 207
Obama Best Case – Obama 363, McCain 175
If everybody gets their leans – 269/269 ELECTORAL COLLEGE TIE
Basically, the two states changing today are just swapping categories. We have the same number of swing states as we did before. Just a different mix of them. Although surely he would like both, for Obama having Missouri competitive is probably better than having North Dakota competitive since it has more electoral votes. So overall today is a net plus for Obama.
Given trends in national polls, one would expect things to start moving faster in Obama’s direction. But at least using my technique of looking at the last five polls in each state and categorizing the results as I do, there has been some movement in Obama’s direction over the past few days, but for the most part so far it has been in increasing the number of electoral votes in swing states by pulling states out of McCain’s “Weak” column, opening up the range of possibilities some, but not yet actually pulling states over to the Obama side.
There are some states right on the edge though, so, as usual, we’ll look for the next set of polls.
 It was time for another Doctor Who DVD. We started a few weeks ago, but split the four episodes on this DVD up over a couple of weeks. This was the Third Doctor story Doctor Who and the Silurians which is interesting because it is the only Doctor Who story that had “Doctor Who and the…” in the title shown on screen. It was an accident. Somebody screwed up when producing the titles. Oops.
Anyway, it was in color! Woo! That is a welcome change after the older ones we’d watched lately. This one was first broadcast in 1970. Still before I was born, but getting closer. :-)
This one is about dinosaurs and humanoid reptiles in a cave below a nuclear power research station. What else can you say about that?
Well, actually there is a bit more to it. But this DVD is actually only the first half of the story. There is a second half, which we will eventually get to. And knowing a few spoilers, I gather we’ll find out more about the origins of these humanoid reptiles in the second half.
So far it is OK. Like all of these older episodes, the pacing is much slower than modern shows. It still has a bit of charm though. I do like the Fourth Doctor and beyond the best though. I’ve never really been able to get all that into one through three.
For now though, this was OK. And we’ll get the the second half sooner or later.
Virginia Sounds the Starting Gun for Early Voting
(Amy Sullivan, Time, 19 Sep 2008)
Even though bags of candy corn and other Halloween treats have barely hit drugstore shelves, Virginia voters will start casting their ballots on Friday at early-voting sites around the commonwealth. Another half-dozen states will open up early voting next week, before the candidates even meet for their first debate of the campaign. In all, 36 of the 50 states will allow early voting this year, including many key battleground states like Ohio and Colorado. As many as one-third of all voters are expected to make their selection before Election Day.
(via Slog)
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