HorsesAss.Org

Moore Information has released a new poll for the Washington state gubernatorial race. The poll of 400 people, taken from July 9 to July 10, shows Governor Christine Gregoire (D) tied with Dino Rossi (GOP-Party) at 45%.

The race has tightened up even further than the +6% spread found in a July 9th Rasmussen poll discussed last Friday. June polls gave Gregoire (chronologically) +3%, +6% and +8% leads over Rossi.

My usual Monte Carlo analysis is unnecessary…with a tied poll, Gregoire and Rossi each have a 50% chance of winning an election held now. But given that the Moore and Rasmussen polls were taken simultaneously, I’ll do my usual analysis of the combined results.

When the July 9th Rasmussen poll is pooled with the July 9-10 Moore poll we end up with 900 pooled polled individuals, of which 80 (8.9%) were undecided, 425 (47.2%) voted for Gregoire and 395 (43.9%) went for Rossi. I simulated 1,000,000 elections of 900 people, each randomly voting with probabilities equal to the three percentages.

Gregoire won 848,698 of the simulated elections and Rossi won 143,199 times. The combined results suggest that, if an election were held now, Gregoire would have something like an 85.6% chance of beating Rossi, and Rossi would have a 14.4% chance of beating Gregoire. (When the Rasmussen poll was analyzed alone, Gregoire had a 90.9% probability to Rossi’s 9.1% probability of winning.)

Here is a plot showing the distribution of votes in the million elections for the pooled polls:

Blue bars are wins for Gregoire and red bars are Rossi wins.

Moore Information also polled a head-to-head match-up between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain. Obama lead McCain 47% to 37%. The +10% advantage for Obama is very similar to the +9% edge found in the Rasmussen poll (48% to 39%).

Stop by Hominid Views later this evening to see a 50-state Monte Carlo analysis that will include this new poll.

Oh…one other thing. The Moore Information poll was paid for by the Rossi campaign.

Surprisingly, the Seattle Times comes out in favor of the “annoying” 20 cent bag fee the city has proposed:

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels’ environmentally friendly green fee on paper and plastic garbage bags will be a hassle for consumers who participate — and an annoying new tax for consumers who don’t. Yet, on balance, the plan is worth the effort.

[…] The mayor goes further by including the fee on paper bags, arguing it takes a lot of energy and resources to make paper bags as well. Might as well make the move on both kinds of bags.

Huh.  Again, not taking a position on the bag fee (worthwhile goal, intrusive and irritating way of accomplishing it), I must say that I don’t often see many paper grocery bags littering our streets, parks and sidewalks.  Newspapers, yes… paper bags, no.  Hmm.

Still, no need for a government mandate to force this messy clean up, as judging from their steadily declining circulation, our local dailies have clearly embraced an innovative voluntary program that more than adequately incentivizes readers to reduce consumption.

The Stranger’s Eli Sanders slogs today about Gov. Gregoire’s last minute endorsement of Barack Obama, just before the WA caucuses…

It was a coup for Obama and smart politics for Gregoire. […] It also established an IOU with the Obama campaign, one they’re paying back—or beginning to pay back—this week. It may be too cynical to cast this as a purely financial transaction, but if you’re wondering how much Gregoire’s endorsement was worth to the Obama campaign the answer, so far, seems to be about $320,000.

Political payback? Huh. Okay, maybe. I suppose that’s how this game is played.

But if a funder with a nominee’s wife is payback for a crucial endorsement from a sitting governor, it makes you wonder what the hell Dave Reichert did to earn payback funders from Tom Delay, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, George Bush, Laura Bush, John Boehner, Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani?

But then, Reichert is a conscience driven independent, so I guess it’s inappropriate to ask that question.

The nation’s terrorist watch list has hit one million names, according to an ACLU tally based on the government’s own reported numbers.

“Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes and other `suspicious characters,’ with names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become trapped in the Kafkaesque clutches of this list, with little hope of escape,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. “Congress needs to fix it, the Terrorist Screening Center needs to fix it, or the next president needs to fix it, but it has to be done soon.”

That’s one million names, but many times that the number of people this pointlessly excessive list routinely sweeps up in our nation’s Bushian paranoia. I happen to know one of the thousands of Robert Johnsons on the list, and he has indeed been taken aside by airport security for extra interrogation and inspection. (Though it could have just been his graying hippy ponytail that sparked their suspicion.)

So what exactly is the point of a terrorist watch list that nearly everybody is on? As I once joked after trolls gloated about the consequences I’d suffer for writing a satirical post in response to the clearly bogus plot to blow up JFK Airport… if one really wants to shut down air traffic out of New York City, just put “David Goldstein” on the terrorist watch list.

At one million strong, this list is either inaccurate and overly broad to the point of being useless… or we as a nation need to do some serious introspection about how we’ve managed to piss off so many people to the point where over one million domestic air travelers have dedicated their lives to murdering American civilians. (Though perhaps, domestic air travel itself these days is motive enough.)

UPDATE:
David Cohen emails to say:

You wrote today, “if one really wants to shut down air traffic out of New York City, just put “David Goldstein” on the terrorist watch list.”  Well, the name “David Cohen” is already on the list.  It doesn’t lead to extra searches any more–now they just check my ID to verify that my birthdate doesn’t match the one they’re looking for–but I can never check in electronically any more.  If I try to print a boarding pass at home or even use one of the kiosks at the airport, the screen tells me to slowly back away and put my hands on top of my… well, I have to wait in line at the ticketing area and have my identity checked out.  I wonder how many other David Cohens have to put up with the same thing; and I really pity the ones who share a birthday with the fellow they’re hoping to catch.  Isn’t it surreal?  “David Cohen.”  We’re all terrorists now.

Check out the cover that will adorn Monday’s The New Yorker:

The Politico reports:

[Obama] Spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement: “The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.”

Not to be outdone…

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds quickly e-mailed: “We completely agree with the Obama campaign, it’s tasteless and offensive.”

For crying out-fucking-loud! This is political correctness gone amuck on the part of both campaigns. The caricature is clearly satire, and done in the best tradition of editorial cartooning. It mocks those who are truly tasteless offensive and, frankly, un-American: those right-wing retards who actually spread the “Obama is a radical Muslim who hates our freedoms and his wife is an angry psychopath who hates America” bullshit.

You know, Wingnut retards like the Clark County Republican Party and the Island County Republican Party.

If you want to express outrage (or even take mild offense), go after the assholes who disseminate such lies…not a magazine using satire to belittle them.

Update: The artist who drew the cover (Barry Blitt) responds.

My old cell phone is slowly dying, I’m already an AT&T customer, and (usable) mobile Internet anywhere is almost a must have feature for somebody who does what I do.  So I really want an iPhone.

But I’m not crazy.

There was no way I was going to wait in a line on Friday for something I could walk right in and purchase the next day, but the lines at the various Seattle area Apple stores don’t seem to have shortened over the weekend, even as they’ve gradually run out of the most popular models.  New supplies are scheduled to arrive daily, but in calling around to the various stores they all seem to expect the current iPhone mania to continue unabated for days to come.  Supply is apparently not an issue; they simply cannot sell and activate the phones fast enough to keep up with demand.

Amazing.

I suppose I’ll just have to make due for now with a phone that’s just phone.  But if any of you have scored a new iPhone please feel free to taunt me in the comment threads.

Go to this:

Join Friends of Seattle for a Celebration of Summer!

Now that summer is here, Friends of Seattle wants you to come out and play. We’re having a Summer Meet ‘n’ Greet to say thanks and to let you know what we’re up to in ’08.

And, with Friends of Seattle working to get the Pro Parks Levy on the 2008 ballot, we’re excited to celebrate in one of our exceptional City parks.

Need more reasons to come? We’ll have hot dogs and veggie dogs, it’s supposed to be 79 degrees and sunny, and it’s free! This is our way of saying thank you for your support.

Where: Golden Gardens Park , Shelter #2
When: Sunday, July 13th, 3:00-5:00 PM
Who: Members and non-members alike
Questions? Contact events@friendsofseattle.org

Hope to see you there!

I peeled an old newspaper off a pipe in my garage today…

A month ago, I briefly mentioned a visit I’d made to some medical marijuana patients near Tacoma who went through an arrest ordeal that was so over-the-top I felt compelled to follow up. Brad and Kristie Choate are a married couple who live in the Spanaway area. Brad, who is in his late 20s, lost his leg in a diving accident and Kristie, who is in her mid 40s, is partially disabled with a number of serious ailments. After I met with them and recorded an interview, I was told by a patient advocate not to write anything until they put something up online themselves. On Wednesday this week, that happened, as Kristie recounts what happened:

[Read more…]

The Dow Jones Industrial Average continued its bearish slide, closing this week at 11,100, near a two-year low, and inching ever downward toward the 10,587 mark where the market stood the day President Bush was inaugurated. For those who are keeping score, that’s a seven and a half year return of 4.8%, or only 0.65% annually.

To put that in perspective, had you invested $10,000 on inauguration day in an index fund that tracked the DJIA, it would be worth $8,568 today in inflation-adjusted 2001 dollars, compared to only $8,175 had you simply stuffed that money in a mattress.

What with no bottom in sight to the housing, banking, automotive and other industries, and one of the largest bank failures in US history making headlines yesterday, that mattress is beginning to look like a pretty savvy investment. Our Republican administration on the other hand… not so much.

For the record, here’s the relevant portion of the form letter I got today in response to this. For what it’s worth, she voted the right way on the bill and on all the amendments.

As you may know, H.R. 6304, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, is the most comprehensive overhaul to the nation’s electronic surveillance laws in thirty years. The bill also provides retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that participated in the president’s warrantless wiretapping program. Though it was an improvement over previous legislation in many ways, H.R. 6304 offered blanket retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that may have illegally allowed the government to spy on innocent Americans, and I voted against it.

Rasmussen has just released their July poll for the Washington state gubernatorial race. The poll of 500 people shows Governor Christine Gregoire (D) leading Dino Rossi (GOP-Party) 49% to 43%.

(Oddly enough, I was one of the 500 randomly selected Washington state voters who was called and chose to participate in this poll.)

The +6% spread in this poll shows the race tightening slightly from the +9% found in the late June Elway poll, but better than the +3.5% found in an early June SurveyUSA poll, and on par with the +7% found in last month’s (early June) Rasmussen poll.

As usual, I use a Monte Carlo analysis to estimate the probability that Gregoire would win if the election were held now. I simulated a million gubernatorial elections of 500 voters each, where each person had a 49% chance of voting for Gregoire, a 43% chance of voting for Rossi and a 8% chance of voting for neither.

Gregoire won 900,804 of the simulated elections and Rossi won 90,599 times. This suggests that Gregoire has something like a 90.9% chance of beating Rossi (if the election were held now) and Rossi has a 9.1% probability of winning. A statistician would point out that Gregoire’s lead in this poll is within the margin of error (i.e. her probability of winning is less than 95%).

Here is a plot showing the distribution of votes in the million elections:

Blue bars are wins for Gregoire and red bars are Rossi wins.

This current poll makes this the ninth consecutive poll in which Gregoire has led Rossi. It is highly unlikely that Gregoire’s lead is due to chance (sampling error).

Rasmussen also polled a head-to-head match-up between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain. Obama lead McCain 48% to 39%. Tomorrow I’ll provide my usual Monte Carlo analysis of the presidential election that incorporates the new Rasmussen poll.

More signature fraud in Oregon:

Among their many examples: use of carbon paper to transfer signatures from one petition signature sheet to another, the apparent use of “writing circles” in which groups gather to manufacture signatures, and scores of signature sheets in which the address and printed name of the purported signer are written in a different hand from the signature.

So what’s the difference between Oregon and Washington that accounts for the annual signature fraud crime spree down there while there’s nary a whisper of fraud up here? Um, nobody’s looking for it here.

Word is that state Secretary of Transportation Paula Hammond is planning to vote against putting a revised Sound Transit rail proposal on the November ballot. Hammond reports directly to Gov. Chris Gregoire, and is thus her surrogate on the Sound Transit board.

Gee, I dunno, sure sounds to me like Gregoire is going against the interests of her base… not necessarily a smart political move if she wants to pump up her margins in the Seattle metro area.

UPDATE:
What can you do?  ST board members and staffers will be on both KUOW and KIRO this afternoon, and they need to hear from you that you want rail now. The anti-rail camp is afraid to put this on the ballot in 2008 because they are afraid it will pass.  And should we not get a proposal this year, there very well may not be an ST to run one by 2009.