Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Now I *KNOW* the sky is falling
Qantas Air, long famous for its utterly unblemished safety record - even remarked upon by Dustin Hoffman's savant in Rainman - has had four incidents in the last 90 days including one this morning. El Al has an equally amazing record but the assumption is that Israeli security explains much of their success. Qantas was simply far and away the cream of the crop with unassailably top-notch with materials and maintenance. What can one do but conclude that up is now down and red is now green and day is now night?

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Permalink | 1 comment(s) | posted by jau at 9:28 AM

Wednesday, January 9, 2008
NH2
Someone pointed out that there would have copious tears and anger to pay if Billary had lost in NH. She won, but only by 2 percentage points, whereas Obama won Iowa by 8.

Charts on CNN and other websites persist in showing their estimates of delegates (estimated by whom? with what credentials? with what degree of reliability, especially seeing the pollsters' success (uh, not) in New Hampshire?). In point of fact, the two leading democratic candidates got hold of the exact same number of delegates from the New Hampshire primaries (9) and Obama won 16 to Hillary's 15 in Iowa (one more than Edwards, btw, although he got 744 votes to her 737 - what's that about?? ). Incidentally, Edwards' large vote tally (ah, the beauty of math) gives him enormous influence as the convention approaches.
Obama -- 25 actual delegates
Clinton -- 24 actual delegates
Edwards -- 18 actual delegates

So it's hardly a done deal. But if Bill rants and raves when the polls show them behind (yes, "them" because in reality it's "they" who are running for president), and Hillary wells up when she's feeling unsteady because it's oh-so-hard to keep it together every day, I have two questions: one, what on earth would/will happen if she fails to get the nomination? (can you imagine the vitriol, the nastiness, the horribly racist and mean things they will say about Obama and the voters!); and two, what would happen if she won (can you imagine weeping and yelling at foreign leaders and voters - it would set women's equality back about two centuries).

BTW, the actual current Republican tally is also very different from what's being reported. Romney won 8 of Wyoming's delegates and Thompson won 3 - McCain won none - which hasn't been mentioned anywhere that I've seen (except USA Today, who knows why). For another, again demonstrating the importance of math and probability theory and all, Thompson and McCain are essentially neck-in-neck if they clobber the southern and midwest states, as predicted.
Romney -- 24 actual delegates
Huckabee -- 18 actual delegates
McCain -- 10 actual delegates
Thompson -- 6 actual delegates

Hey, no denying this is interesting. Scary, given the consequences, but definitely interesting. On to Michigan . . . .

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Permalink | 1 comment(s) | posted by jau at 1:10 PM