cable bill + passport = ballot.

Some were not so lucky.
Welcome to Indiana.

ask a scatterbrain: managing conflict

From someone who is ABD. This is a very liberal paraphrase (you will note that the language is strongly shakha’s), but still accurate, I believe.
I have two committee members who don’t get along. They pull me in different directions. They’re not really interested in what the other person suggests, and sometimes even seem to pull [...]

speaking of politicians and speeches.

A selection from someecards.com’s “somewhat topical” section.

protons and politics

At a dinner party tonight, I was asked by an Italian postdoc to explain the process by which either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton will become the Democratic Party’s nominee in the general election in November. As I got to the part about the super-delegates, it was clear from the expectant smiles on my [...]

electoral survivor

I have a theory. That theory is that reality television has benefited the democratic process. I’m sure that seems like a stretch to you, but I have been curiously watching the really unprecedented hoopla surrounding the primaries this (and last) year and it strikes me that the press is treating the races very [...]

i spend a few days mostly offline and…

…I come back to find an Obama backlash appearing now to be fully underway. The core of it seems to have affinities to the classic problem of falling for quiet pretty people: that one can project whatever positive qualities one wants upon them without direct disconfirmation.
(Something that this election has brought home to me, [...]

music for the masses, take 3!

For those following this series, here’s the next.
Update by Jeremy (the embed, not the video itself):

Do pay especial attention to the woman signing.
 
(Jeremy, thanks for the embed!)

i wonder if this will be a political trivial pursuit question years from now

What candidate for President won a primary election–not in his home state–by 85 percentage points, only to drop out of the presidential race two days later?

hedges

I’ve been sitting here entertaining adjectives like “wildly,” “vastly,” “incredibly,” “ridiculously,” and various combinations thereof. Paul Krugman’s NYT column today [adjective] overstates the role of John Edwards in putting universal health care policy on the agenda for Democrats. Given that I can’t imagine Krugman ever seriously thought Edwards was going to win the [...]

the state of affairs.

Did anyone else watch the State of the Union address last night?

unacceptable

Even as scientists in the United States are calling for the presidential candidates to participate in a debate about science, and to take back the role of Science Adviser from its current status as a travesty, Canada announces that it will eliminate its National Science Adviser position. That is moving in the wrong direction.

solve for x

Overheard:  “It’s a weird coincidence.  If you put all my positions on major political issues together, I’d say that I am farther to the left than x% of the American population, which means that I’m to the right of x% of the population of American sociologists.”

is it because they’re all voting for edwards?

Story on CNN.com, right now:

I notice that CNN.com is not presently running a companion story: “Gender or race: white male voters face tough choices in S.C.” (Update:

a reason to not not like hillary

I’ve been in a snit all day about Hillary and gender, and so I decided to let some of it out.  I’m really getting fed up with how the press is talking about Hillary using gender stereotypes and out-and-out sexism against her. 
I’ve asked a lot of people who oppose Hillary the reasons why, and [...]

steal my sunshine

Said Frank Rich in a column quoted just bothering yesterday on S’Plot:
After so many years of fear and loathing, we had almost forgotten what it’s like to feel good about our country. On Thursday night, that long-dormant emotion came rushing back, like an old dream that pops out of the deepest recesses of memory, suddenly [...]

obama reality check

There’s a lot of excitement in the air about Obama’s win in the Iowa Caucuses. When the fever pitch comes, so does hyperbole. One thing I’ve been hearing a lot is something to the effect that “the results show that a state that is 94% white can vote for Obama.” I beg [...]

in this case, the pride comes after the fall

(prediction market probabilities of Clinton being the Democratic nominee for the past year)
Busybusybusybusybusy getting my classes ready. And yet I keep checking the prediction markets to see how the market-based probability estimates for who is going to win the Democratic nomination have changed. I think, “Really, how much can the chance of somebody [...]

iowa retrospective

All eyes are on Iowa these days, as the day of the caucus approaches. The NY Times has a story in today’s paper about those who are excluded from the caucuses. The approach of bringing everyone together into one room for a couple hours necessarily leaves out people who work long hours, parents, people who [...]