Stuff you hate

[placidchap]

GM is shutting down some operations here in Oshawa, Ontario too (next year I believe)...just saw that in yesterday's paper.  I will be submitting an absentee ballot for Obama, assuming he is up for election.  If McSame gets into office I will go forward with getting Canadian Citizenship and shunning the US.

[Thought]

I already worry enough that the Bush Administration will launch an airstrike just before Obama takes office, thus forcing Obama to fight another war whether he likes it or not.

That actually reminds me of something that Lincoln wrote on August 23rd, 1864. With it appearing that he'd loose to McClellan, he called together his cabinet and he had them sign a sealed memorandum (to be opened after the election). That memo read:

This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probably [sic] that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so cooperate with the Government President elect, as to save the Union between the Election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards.

Or, in other words, Lincoln was stating to his advisors that if he wasn't re-elected he would have to win the American Civil War before McClellan took office.

Now, I don't doubt that a good many people would scoff at the comparison between Lincoln and Bush, but some people (presumably President Bush included) do view this "war on terror" as similar to the American Civil War. Thus, my point is that it isn't without precedent that a president would, when defeated, be willing to do anything and everything necessary to finish a war that the same president started and believed was necessary. It isn't far fetched, then, for Bush, if Obama is elected, to believe that he had to take steps to assure victory (or at least continuance) in the war. Nor is it far fetched to think Bush is capable of such a thing.

In short, I think that Faust just might be our resident soothsayer.

Faust, I quite agree that the future is in serious jeopardy. However I must quite disagree that we must be willing to donate time to Obama's campaign. It would be far better for everyone to spend that time becoming politically informed and passionate. That might then lead to people devoting time to Obama's campaign, but that is a side effect of the salvation of the nation, not a necessity to obtain that salvation. I'd claim that a right choice made in ignorance is really a bad choice. There is, of course, the distinct possibility that once informed, an individual might not support Obama, or even support McCain (people do, after all, weight the same information differently). I'd also claim that a bad choice made in knowledge is a better choice than a good choice made in ignorance.

But there is an old saying that might be comforting to some; "God protects the stupid, the foolish, and America." No matter the results of the election, either we'll have the best leader out of the options or we'll have triple the divine protection It's a win/win situation.

Placid, I am curious, what are your feelings on democracy as a form of government? It would appear that you do not like it, as you stated that if your desired outcome is not actualized you plan on leaving the United States.

There have been times that the political decisions of this nation have made me sick, but that is a sign of a healthy democracy! No one can, or should, get their way all the time (if such a "democracy" exists where any single group always gets their way, then that is no longer a democracy). Being in a democracy means that occasionally the government will make choices you don't agree with, indeed, it will occasionally make choices that you think are utterly moronic and stupid. But such is democracy. I would claim that even if the coming presidential election does not come out the way I hope, that is still a desirable thing and I would do well to remain in such a democracy. If you are willing to leave the nation if Obama isn't elected, why should you subject yourself at all to a government that isn't perfectly inline with your political stances? Even if Obama is elected, it would seem like democracy still isn't the government for you. You'll have won this time, but there will be defeats in the future, other times that you'll either have to leave or bow to the will of the people; if you are unwilling to do the latter, why delay on the former?

[FaustWolf]

It is my sincerest hope and wish that I'm dead wrong about the president's intentions toward Iran. I cannot think of a more ludicrous mistake than to launch an airstrike against a country that's larger than Iraq and Afghanistan combined, when the current size of the US military can't even support those operations. And an airstrike would very likely lead to a ground operation due to Iran's almost-certain retaliation against the airstrike -- hell, I'll stop there because it's too horrible to even think about, and is hopefully the kind of scenario you'd see play out only in a videogame.

True that democracy doesn't necessitate the correct public policy all the time, but there is much to be said for our country's political culture. We seem to have a strange penchant for invading other countries recently, whereas Canada does not.

[Kebrel]

It is my sincerest hope and wish that I'm dead wrong about the president's intentions toward Iran. I cannot think of a more ludicrous mistake than to launch an airstrike against a country that's larger than Iraq and Afghanistan combined, when the current size of the US military can't even support those operations. And an airstrike would very likely lead to a ground operation due to Iran's almost-certain retaliation against the airstrike -- hell, I'll stop there because it's too horrible to even think about, and is hopefully the kind of scenario you'd see play out only in a videogame.

Many people think that another country added to our list would be to much too handle and it maybe, but for another reason the most people think. We have and do use our military in the most efficient way possible. We can move in and clear out a nation, like Iran, in around a month now. The TRUE cost is post war attrition. Number one lesson I learned from Fire Emblem: "ya wanna win a war? Get the consul-men involved."

[FaustWolf]

Definitely, good clarification Kebrel.

[ZeaLitY]

That she won the popular vote is also a dubious claim, since it doesn't include caucuses and, in her logic, includes Michigan without giving any of Uncommitted to Obama. The mainstream media seems fearful to point this out, but it's been all over the blogosphere. I wanted to explode when she made this claim in her non-concession speech last night. But, repeat a lie enough times, and it's true, as the Hillaryis44 crowd attest. The electability argument is affected by this, since elections are decided on electoral votes / delegates, and Obama demonstrated superior planning to get delegates. Now, I'm not saying the electoral college is a good thing...

[FaustWolf]

Okay, ZeaLitY's observation of what the blogosphere is saying about the popular vote is so crucial that I'm going through the CNN election numbers right now and putting together my own spreadsheet. I'll need to look at each State's board of elections tallies as well, knowing of course that official numbers were not even released by some. Since I'm going to be one of the little peons representing the Obama campaign to voters at the grass roots level, it's now my responsibility to put together an argument that helps legitimize his election win in the eyes of local Clinton supporters. It may be weird, perhaps, that a Clinton supporter such as myself would be saddled with such responsibility, but this type of inefficiency is what happens when Obama supporters spend their time getting passionate and informed instead of contacting their local Democratic Party field director to see how they can pitch in  . At the very least, for the planet's sake, convince your friends and relatives that they need to vote for Obama. Educate them passionately if necessary. BUT GET VOTES OUT FOR OBAMA! My apologies if this sounds intellectually and morally dishonest in some way, but I am motivated by an apocaplyptic vision of what might happen if McSame gets in office.

For those interested, these are the best popular vote numbers I can currently find:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html

However, I can't tell for sure what the hell RealPolitics is and is not counting, and how they're estimating what needs estimated. If a simple one-person-one-vote (meaning Caucusgoers and primary-goers are included, with full results in Florida and the lowest-conceivable number of uncommitteds in Michigan counting for Obama) results in an Obama victory, I'll have a slightly easier job this summer.

EDIT: I HAAAAAAAATE the fact that every election info source has its own different tally, and all claim to be 100% counted. How can a democracy function unless citizens have accurate information about how election results turned out? I'm using only information certified by each State's Secretary of State office from now on. Since Obama came out quite short by CNN's count, I'll just go ahead and give him all uncommitteds in Michigan, and an additional 30,000 votes to cover the write-ins, because that's the number I heard during the DNC Rules Committee hearing last Saturday. I'm not quite sure how the Obama bloggers are counting the caucuses. I think the biggest factor required in the Obama popular vote victory is an assumption of 750,000 caucus-goers in the Texas caucus (not to be confused with the Texas primary), and CNN has only 41% of caucus precincts reporting in its records.

[Thought]

Faust, am I correct in understanding that you're goal is to convince Clinton supporters that Obama truly did win, both in the popular and delegate counts (so as to allay and prevent claims that Obama somehow "stole" the nomination from Clinton, which would in turn alienate her supporters from Obama)?

If so, good luck with that, but I am quite dubious as to how successful such an effort would be. The success rate of changing a democrat's mind when it comes to if someone stole an election isn't very high. There is a very good chance people will still be talking about it in eight years.

If only all democrats (and republicans, and libertarians, and so on, and so forth) would go out and become passionate and informed about politics, you wouldn't even need to try; the facts would speak for themselves. Lies told often enough only become truths when the people they are told to don't bother to find out for themselves ("Trust, but verify"). It is so ill-directed when one person (or even a few people) tries to do something for everyone that everyone should be doing for themselves I'm probably the fool for it, but I'd much rather work on getting people to do it themselves. The entire "teach a man to fish" bit.

... wait a minutes, this is a "stuff I hate" thread. Crap, I am so off topic.

So, um... stuff I hate? Well, people who'll believe anything without checking it out for themselves. Along those same lines, people who will question anything they are told... unless it conforms to their pre-established beliefs, in which case they accept it at face value.

I need to work on that myself, though

[FaustWolf]

Whether I'm successful or not, I need to have solid, specific arguments to counter the inevitable anger I will come across as someone promoting Obama in Clinton territory (and thus dangerously close to becoming McSame territory). You might be surprised at how much one tiny fact can persuade a voter -- the fact that Ted Strickland, Ohio's current governor, was endorsed by the NRA came very much in handy on the phones in 2006, for example. And thus I find myself wading through the sheer, utter mess that is election reporting to get to the bottom of whether Obama truly won the popular vote or not. The blogs all report that it is so, but as you say Thought, "Trust, but verify." It is sound advice. Problem is, verification can be so extremely difficult at times -- the opportunity cost of verifying these election results, for example, is becoming ludicrous; no person in their right mind would give up an entire afternoon to sort through the dozens of websites I'm going through right now, which is why crazy campaign peons are needed in the first place.     

[ZeaLitY]

The most effective visual tool!

[x_XTacTX_x]

The guy hugging him looks like a little kid who stayed up way too late.

[Radical_Dreamer]

Faust, beyond the question of whether the gas tax holiday would seriously effect gas prices is the question of how it would effect infrastructure. That money goes to roads and bridges, which as any Minnesotan will tell you, are in desperate need of repair.

As for people with large families, I have little symapthy. SUVs get more dangerous the more people you put in them, and vans are on the whole more efficient than trucks anyway. Not to mention, the last thing we need to be doing, in terms of environmental policy, is breeding faster than replacement rate anywhere in the first world.

[FaustWolf]

First, to save that priceless pic of McSame showing his true colors. *saved*

Second, the gas tax holiday. What separates Senator Clinton and Senator McSame on that issue is Hillary's proposal to siphon off the "windfall profits" of oil companies to replace the funds that would otherwise disappear during the Gas Tax Holiday. This begs the issue of what part of these "windfall profits" are used for investment for more oil exploration; if the government dips into that portion of oil company profits, it could very well be detrimental. However, as long as the amount siphoned off from oil companies does not exceed what they earn beyond worker compensation and re-investment needs, the oil companies will be earning a normal profit -- zero, revenues cover costs. I see no problem whatsoever with this situation from a neoclassical economic standpoint; one of the fundamental purposes of profit in a free market is to entice more suppliers to enter, compete, and capture those profits, and in an industry like American oil, this cannot happen due to enormous startup costs. If the profit has no economic purpose related to increasing production, that profit does not justify its own existence in the first place. It would be much better employed in the enrichment of Minnesota's transportation infrastructure.

Third, the main event. THIS IS IT, FOLKS, A COMPENDIUM EXCLUSIVE! Attached is FW's official report of the popular vote in the Democratic primary contests. It will be no surprise to ZeaLitY that the winner is Obama, but as with the Gas Tax Holiday proposal, we must go far beyond what the blogs and the media are regurgitating and approach the subject with full analysis, so that we may proceed with the Obamafication of America in absolute confidence.

My investigation this afternoon leads me to the understanding that the various Democratic contests can be categorized into three types: Primaries, Literal Caucuses, and Inferred Caucuses. The distinct caucus types were throwing me off for the longest time, and this pro-Obama blog post I was looking at did little to help, being too focused on "ZOMG, Hillary's a LIAR!" to educate me, the neophyte Obama supporter, on the important facts and methodology under which we can claim popular victory for the Illinois Senator, and why we can say that the Hillary camp may, in fact, be in very serious error. Thus I've concocted the following distinctions among the various primary season contests to help myself understand just what the hell's going on:

Primary: An election that may have been closed to Democrats only, open to Democrats and Independents, or open to all voters. The most important aspect of this contest is that it's simple one-person-one-vote, with secret ballots, and results that are officially tabulated.

Literal Caucus: A selection of delegates that takes place in public settings, in which caucusgoers have to convince each other to support favored candidates. These caucuses are apparently small enough in volume that the final positions of all individual caucusgoers can be tabulated. The delegates selected to represent the precincts go on to a State convention at which the "real" pledged delegates for each candidate are selected. These are highlighted in green in the attached spreadsheet.

Inferred Caucus: Like the Literal Caucus in basic methodology, but the participation volume is so damned large, and the situation on the ground so hectic and fast-paced in these, that only the precinct-level delegates, and not the individual caucusgoers, are counted in media tallies. Since we are attempting to calculate the popular vote here, what the hell do we do? I think I've done just as the pro-Obama bloggers have done and inferred a popular vote from the distribution of the precinct-level delegates among the candidates.

Doing this, I arrive at totals that place Obama 158,903 votes ahead of Clinton. All Democratic contests are accounted for to my knowledge, with no silly "let's not count Michigan and/or Florida" scenarios.

Now -- in reporting this figure, I am making a claim that is subject to some measure of intellectual dishonesty. First, Texas' caucus (the second phase of the much-touted "Texas Two-Step") has only 41% of precinct-level delegates reporting, unless someone else here happens to have come across full tallies. In essence, the Texans are taking their sweet old time, and the delay means my report is significantly flawed. Second, fed up with CNN's totally-incomprehensible "Election Center," I turned to Wikipedia for the data, and the Wiki-ites in turn turned to "Unofficial Results" given by each State's Secretary of State office and/or State Democratic parties. In a few cases CNN actually has higher overall vote totals updated well after the Unofficial Results were certified, but in the few cases I examined the extra votes (possibly absentee ballots that had to be hand-counted or something) made near-infinitessimal difference in one or the other candidate's lead. Therefore I am sticking with the Unofficial Results for the sake of convenience. However, I believe there is even greater intellectual dishonesty in not factoring in the Inferred Caucuses at all, and therefore find it better to make a flawed tally that tries to consider everyone who took the time out of their day to participate in these contests than a perfect tally of those most easy to count.

BTW, I gave Obama all the "Uncommitted" votes in Michigan but none of the write-ins, which would add an extra 30,000 to his tally if reports given during the DNC Rules Committee hearing last Saturday are trustworthy.

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[ZeaLitY]

You could post it as a Kos diary, turning the spreadsheet into one giant screenshot.

[FaustWolf]

If I can't get approval to use it as a talking point in public, I'll definitely post it on the Daily Kos for what it's worth. Heck, I might as well post it there tomorrow anyway. The Compendium is now influencing the campaign for the American presidency, hm, hm, hm. What a strange, sordid crowd of gamers we are.