Archive for September, 2008

FiveThirtyEight.com

Saturday, September 27th, 2008

Am I the last one to discover FiveThirtyEight.com? Lots of great election data and analysis like this on strange betting patterns at Intrade.

The Great Schlep

Friday, September 26th, 2008

My favorite female Jewish comedian Sarah Silverman has a new campaign at The Great Schlep: “The Great Schlep aims to have Jewish grandchildren visit their grandparents in Florida, educate them about Obama, and therefore swing the crucial Florida vote in his favor.”

See more Sarah Silverman videos at Funny or Die

Like grumpy toddlers

Friday, September 26th, 2008

Debates now remind me of doing a parent hour at Niko’s coop day care. Only much less fun.

Free Levi

Sunday, September 21st, 2008

From freelevi.org:

If we can’t, after all is said and done, make this election go the right way, at least we can save one man. I’m talking about young Master Levi Johnston. He’s the 18-year-old Alaskan hockey enthusiast who knocked up Sarah Palin’s daughter, and the National Enquirer describes him as “a boozing pot-smoker who doesn’t want to get married” – and John McCain thinks he found his soul mate!

We’ve all recently seen how evil henchman of the Republican party captured this poor innocent out of his natural habitat and forced him into a shotgun wedding, all so that their campaign narrative of fake family values could be upheld. When the 17-year-old daughter of the vice presidential candidate running on the Jesus ticket is “out to here,” it’s just better that Levi was introduced as the “fiancé.” Looks a little less white trashy.

But that doesn’t change the fact that right now Levi is America’s number one political prisoner. But Levi, you don’t have to be – this is the 21st century, at least in the blue states. We don’t have sharia law like in Saudi Arabia, or Alabama, and as much as the Bible thumpers would want it, we still don’t have arranged marriages in America. You don’t have to do this – you have options. You can pull a Juno – fuck, you live in Juneau! Or you could do what most people do with an unwanted child: give it to Angelina Jolie.

Summary of the financial apocalypse

Thursday, September 18th, 2008

The NYT Freakonomics blog has a good summary of just what the hell is happening right now in financial markets.

What makes people vote Republican

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008

As it turns out, it’s a genetic disorder:

But now that we can map the brains, genes, and unconscious attitudes of conservatives, we have refined our diagnosis: conservatism is a partially heritable personality trait that predisposes some people to be cognitively inflexible, fond of hierarchy, and inordinately afraid of uncertainty, change, and death.

Here’s hoping that the best scientists in the world are hard at work on a cure.

Recent photos from North Korea

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008

North Korea, or a post-financial apocalypse United States? Some amazing recent photos from North Korea at Boston.com (from @pkedrosky).

NNT on current financial crisis

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008

Largely a repeat of his books but interesting in context of the last few days/weeks/months. The Fourth Quadrant: A Map of the limits of Statistics.

Ballard real estate

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008

I learned today from my new favorite blog myballard.com that our zip code is the eight fastest selling in the country, with an average time on the market of 86 days. Looking at the list Ballard has done pretty well in comparison to many higher up on the list, like Plano, Tex. (#4) where prices are down 2.8% year-over-year, and #7 Wakefield, Mass. (down 7.3%). We’re down just 0.9%.

Like most averages this one is totally meaningless. The slow end of the average has to be dominated by overpriced condos (like the two next door to us that have not sold in over a year – dunno who we should thank more for that, the a-hole developers who left nails in our driveway and gave us three flat tires over the year, or my neighbor who with his Native American friend put a curse on the a-hole developers) and run-down overpriced tear downs with a good view and elderly owners who need to cash out to retire.

What Obama can learn from Bill Ritter

Thursday, September 4th, 2008

Interesting political piece in the New Yorker: The Code Of The West: What Barack Obama can learn from Bill Ritter.