I am still encouraged by the words of Pope John Paul II. Faith is to cleanse the soul and to keep moving forward in an upright manner. Science is to observe the world and map physical phenomena. Science and Religion need not clash.
Im not writing him off, Im saying Im not impressed.
From my understanding, he never released any information on the 04 election but said he ran his model for the election and was correct.
My point is that give 537 a few election before making a judgement call on it.
Definitely. Silver was doing baseball predictions in '04. The whole 538 blog and his model is an attempt to branch out. He doesn't have many presidential elections under his belt. Testing or holding off on predictions is done by all he academic models. Some of the models I posted even tested European elections.
I'll probably put a final prediction for the states Monday afternoon. I do think Romney will take Iowa, Florida and Virginia at the moment. Is Kjeldoran Assassin still around? Are we taking predictions on KA's predictions?
Because the public doesn't understand statistical modeling.
Tell me about it. Look at UnSkewed Polls and the arguments the Ohio polls called more Democrats than Republicans and it could be offset by adding 10 points to Romney. Random Sampling would poll more Democrats than Republicans (self identification set aside) because there are more registered Democrats in Ohio.
Ask a random person what the difference is between average and median and how they give different pictures of the sample.
One of my favorite authors is John Allen Paulos. He wrote a book called Innumeracy. It's like illiteracy but with statistics. It makes me happy now whenever I hear the term innumeracy thrown around.
BP is entitled to his opinion. If he's not impressed then he's not impressed.
In the 2010 elections, Silver predicted 34 of 37 contested Senate seats. Silver incorrectly predicted Ken Buck (R) would win Colorado, Sharon Angle (R) would win Nevada, and Joe Miller (R) would win Alaska.
House seats are ridiculously difficult to predict on a national scale. There are 435 Congressional representatives. A lot of people can't tell you who their member of Congress is or what they've done in the House legislature. There aren't the national polls we have for the presidential race. Silver took a confidence interval that ranged from 23-81 seats for Republicans. The day before the midterm elections he predicted 53 House seats to change hands for Republicans, which ended up being... Pop Quiz: How many House seats did Republicans pick up in the 2010 election?
Governorships were pretty well predicted. They get a lot more press but it's much more local, insulated from national forces. 538 correctly predicted 36/37 governor races. The one miss was in Illinois, where Silver again predicted the Republican (Bill Brady) but it was the Democrat candidate Pat Quinn that prevailed.
But no one cares about those elections except poli-sci majors and math geeks. This is the 2012 Presidential Election. 538 shows an 83.7% probably win for Obama, how'd he get all that probability? And why is it probably?
Ohio and Wisconsin are trending for Obama in a big way. Certain polls have updated in the RCP aggregate of polls.
Iowa has a slight nod to Obama, but the big story is Romney losing votes to probably Gary Johnson. Both candidates are losing votes in Colorado. Obama is steady in Nevada, Romney is losing votes. Obama is losing votes in Florida while Romney stays steady. And Obama is gaining in a narrow race for Virginia.
All polls are from my previous post of RCP averages.
It isn't like the polls are the be all end all of the election, Harry Reid was expected to lose Nevada by 6 points in 2010, and he was re-elected. The polls are sometimes wrong, even when political bias is absent.
what many people don't realize is that BEFORE you factor in the swing states, obama has a significant lead over romney.
romney has to win most of the swing state electoral votes, whereas even if obama got a little less than half of them, he'd still win.
obama is doing pretty well for a president who is running on a recession. every single incumbent who ran on a recession lost. the exception is franklin roosevelt, but the economy did improve significantly under his first term.
Ronald Reagan not only ran for a second term with unemployment in the mid 7% -- he won nearly all the states. There are a lot of similarities between Reagan and Obama, maybe even a landslide re-election.
We talk a lot about crazy Republican ads, and for good reason, because there's been a bunch. Herman Cain is a weird ad waiting to happen.
But the Democrats are taking the cake this season, with the creepy socialist children's choir singing about how a Republican victory will kill the entire planet, Obama being the best choice to take our virginity (which isn't far off, mind you), and apparently even Democratic elderly folks are vulgar as can be, and they'll hurt you if you don't vote for Obama. Then there's Joss Whedon's "cute" little joke about the Republican zombie apocalypse. Did I miss anything? Proving three things: 1) Democrats are very creative, 2) crass and 3) Obama has no record to run on.
Then again, this is what happens when candidates don't have to directly approve ads.
Anyone seen any wacko pro-Romney ads?
Edit: re: the kid's choir thing - that was the original Obama youth song. I didn't mean to refer to that one, but rather the new anti-Romney one. Can't seem to locate it on youtube, it must have been taken down for being ridiculous. But you can see it on Fox News. (You have to skip to 2:15). I apologize that it's a Sean Hannity clip.
They are only at a disadvantage because they agree to stupid union contracts that no sane person would agree to.
Toyota, Hundyai, Honda, kai all have plants here in the US. in fact Toyota camry has more parts made here in the US than ford or chevy according to motor trend.
They don't have unions. pay wise they are about even. 25-30 bucks an hour. where american companies lose is benefits. add that in and it ford, chevy, dodge pay about 75 bucks an hour. the other 50 at the most.
plus the fact that american motor companies have been spewing crap cars like no tomorrow.
Camry, altima, etc have no competition. maybe the fusion depending on the year.
Toyota and Volkswagon and the lot have been great for starting factories in the US, and making parts all over the world is part of the global economy. GM, Chrysler, and Ford also obviously employ more Americans than Japanese factories in the US. 181,000 between GM, Chrysler, and Ford to 67,000 between Toyota, Nissan, and Honda (source). A 2008 report says Toyota workers get $48/hr wages+benefits, $69/hr wages+benefits (source). I am of the opinion employers shouldn't be relied on for health benefits to begin with. Working for a factory without a union doesn't have many benefits, Sensata is shipped to China just the same. Non-union workers just get pushed around more.
Ford and GM outsold all the other companies in light-weight vehicles last month, with Chrysler close behind Toyota.
Ford F150 and friends are still the most popular vehicles in 2012 America, believe it or not. Followed by Chevy Silverados. Sometimes it's easy for me to forget how much we love trucks in this country because I don't tow anything, I gas up as little as possible, and I need to fit into tight parking spaces. Trucks do have the lowest YTD Sale growth though. Toyota Camry and Honda Accord come in after those two, and have a modest YTD sales growth. Then Ford Focus and Toyota Prius come in the middle of the pack, but with impressive sales growth (there's hope for the Volt yet! :(). http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3022-autosales.html
It also makes cars more expensive. that technology isn't cheap.
All things are difficult before they are easy. Energy efficient automobiles are just one of those things we need to work on.
according to who? the economy has been stagnant for 3 years.
how is that getting back on track?
unemployement still close to 8%.
GDP only increased .3% from last quarter. it should be between 2.5-3.0%.
GDP Growth Rate went from 1.3% to 2%, that's a 2% growth in the 3rd quarter over the 1.3% growth in the 2nd quarter which was on top of the 2% growth in the 1st quarter which is describing our Gross Domestic Product of $15 trillion dollars
2% GDP Growth isn't something to be satisfied with, but neither is 4% or 8% -- we always want to do more business. I don't believe I have to remind you of the freefall in 2008, it isn't guaranteed that our GDP grows at all. Similar with unemployment -- we're never happy with people unemployed, but 7.9% is similar to unemployment at the end of Reagan's first term.
If they didn't take responsibility before they are not going to start taking care of it now. in fact since they have coverage most of which won't be paying anything for it. it will be used more often sending costs skyrocketing.
that is why emergancy rooms should be life/death only. if you are not dieing then you can go to the emergancy clinic.
It doesn't take much for a preventable or easily treated condition to fester into a life threatening condition, or something they would admit into the ER. Preventable and easily treated conditions that are cheaper to handle with a primary care physician.
Obama is gutting the welfare work requirement by handing out waivers to moocher states like Utah to define what is "work". Why should we trust federal money with Republican governors to define what constitutes as work to manipulate their payouts? Does Utah really not know what work is? The Civil War is over, the Union won. Let's stop subsidizing individual laziness under the guise of state rights.
Romney has the right idea on cracking down on employers that enable illegal immigrants. At least Romney had the right idea in one of his speeches. We need to go after these employers with stiff fines and make an example out of them.
Wow you cant even be bipartisan if you tried could you?
I think the President showed a lot statesmanship in not completely disregarding the previous administrations foreign policy moves, I know there was a lot pressure for him to do so, and it takes a lot of gravitas to do so, Kennedy being an example of what happens when you dont.
The death of Osama bin-Landen is a major accomplishment for the country aswell, and he certainly has a much better rapport with Western Europe.
As far as Romney goes, he faces the same problem every challenger does, he doesn't have an actual record as being president so he can say anything but will he actually do it.
Also, I question whether he will be able to bring true bipartisanship back after how much anger there seems to be in the Republican party against the Current Administration and the democratic party in general.
My posts are Non-Partisan, it says so above my avatar
I honestly disagree with Obama on the welfare work requirement. I honestly agree with Romney on punishing employers that willfully hire illegal immigrants. I apologize for snide backhand remarks, it is easy to fall into under this thread. I am the one that failed to make sincere support of the other candidate through my entire posts.
This thread has a similar problem to the actual presidential debate thread: Romney supporters don't show up. Even if they did, I doubt they could make an honest case for the president in their minds.
In case you were wondering, attitudes like this are the reason why Romney supporters aren't posting. This forum has an extremely disproportionate ratio of left to right, and it's quite honestly incredibly hostile towards people who are not in the majority (the hostility is not a problem limited to politics).
A few of us are willing to "weather the storm" as it were, because there are certainly some people who its worth talking to and who I enjoy talking to, but the vast majority of the time it's not worth the effort.
I realize the disproportion of Obama supporters to Romney supporters, there's six replies for Obama for every post against Obama or in support of Romney (which is practically none).
My motivation isn't to belittle Romney supporters but to challenge them to speak up, and in this thread to actually find things they like about Obama.
For Obama supporters it should be pretty easy to find things they like out of Romney. Romney has been on virtually every side of every issue
If we are to raise the deficit I rather it go towards the economy for a chance of return.
I supported the bailouts for the auto makers because they're at such a disadvantage in the global market against countries that have no qualms about subsidizing their auto manufacturers. I also see it as a decent trade off for more regulations of gas mileage. Same with the banks, except we absolutely needed them around to keep businesses going and the regulations we put in place are needed to keep the disaster from happening again.
The Federal Reserve is really a pet peeve of libertarians. I'm not saying they're wrong to want oversight, but I'd hate to see it get bogged down like the rest of the stuff that happens in Congress. Also note the federal reserve was proposed by a Republican.
Libya was a great show of international strength to provide air support to the Libyan rebels. Not a single American or NATO soldier died in the conflict. We didn't have to occupy the country after the overthrow, we just had our embassies and our support from the Libyan people, which is why the embassy attack is so tragic. The Libyans still support us even if there is an international terrorist cell that is planning these attacks on US embassies.
Can't say Obama didn't try to close Gitmo. Whatever happens I think Obama will make one last push to transfer the prisoners at the end of this term or his second term.
He's a little iffy on the Patriot Act.
There is a lot of stuff in the NDAA. Most importantly at the time was continued monthly payments to soldiers and their families. Vetoing the bill which would have been overridden anyway would have just forced families of soldiers to go without pay for months. Obama did promise to veto the bill if it had indefinite detention. I do hope the most egregious parts of the bill are repealed.
Republicans keep 43 seats in the Senate
Republicans lose 6 seats in the House, keeping a 234 seat majority
Romney wins North Carolina, Florida, Colorado...
And you can quote me on this part. Obama wins Wisconsin, Nevada, Ohio for the re-election.
Iowa sticks with Obama. New Hampshire sticks Obama. Virginia -- I'll throw it out there, votes for Obama.
Obama is re-elected with 294 electoral votes. Romney runs a respected 244 votes. Total electoral votes:
Five Hundred and Thirty Eight.
http://www.businessinsider.com/jim-cramer-obama-is-going-to-destroy-romney-in-a-historic-landslide-2012-11
Definitely. Silver was doing baseball predictions in '04. The whole 538 blog and his model is an attempt to branch out. He doesn't have many presidential elections under his belt. Testing or holding off on predictions is done by all he academic models. Some of the models I posted even tested European elections.
I'll probably put a final prediction for the states Monday afternoon. I do think Romney will take Iowa, Florida and Virginia at the moment. Is Kjeldoran Assassin still around? Are we taking predictions on KA's predictions?
Tell me about it. Look at UnSkewed Polls and the arguments the Ohio polls called more Democrats than Republicans and it could be offset by adding 10 points to Romney. Random Sampling would poll more Democrats than Republicans (self identification set aside) because there are more registered Democrats in Ohio.
Ask a random person what the difference is between average and median and how they give different pictures of the sample.
One of my favorite authors is John Allen Paulos. He wrote a book called Innumeracy. It's like illiteracy but with statistics. It makes me happy now whenever I hear the term innumeracy thrown around.
In the 2010 elections, Silver predicted 34 of 37 contested Senate seats. Silver incorrectly predicted Ken Buck (R) would win Colorado, Sharon Angle (R) would win Nevada, and Joe Miller (R) would win Alaska.
House seats are ridiculously difficult to predict on a national scale. There are 435 Congressional representatives. A lot of people can't tell you who their member of Congress is or what they've done in the House legislature. There aren't the national polls we have for the presidential race. Silver took a confidence interval that ranged from 23-81 seats for Republicans. The day before the midterm elections he predicted 53 House seats to change hands for Republicans, which ended up being... Pop Quiz: How many House seats did Republicans pick up in the 2010 election?
Governorships were pretty well predicted. They get a lot more press but it's much more local, insulated from national forces. 538 correctly predicted 36/37 governor races. The one miss was in Illinois, where Silver again predicted the Republican (Bill Brady) but it was the Democrat candidate Pat Quinn that prevailed.
But no one cares about those elections except poli-sci majors and math geeks. This is the 2012 Presidential Election. 538 shows an 83.7% probably win for Obama, how'd he get all that probability? And why is it probably?
Iowa has a slight nod to Obama, but the big story is Romney losing votes to probably Gary Johnson. Both candidates are losing votes in Colorado. Obama is steady in Nevada, Romney is losing votes. Obama is losing votes in Florida while Romney stays steady. And Obama is gaining in a narrow race for Virginia.
All polls are from my previous post of RCP averages.
It isn't like the polls are the be all end all of the election, Harry Reid was expected to lose Nevada by 6 points in 2010, and he was re-elected. The polls are sometimes wrong, even when political bias is absent.
Ronald Reagan not only ran for a second term with unemployment in the mid 7% -- he won nearly all the states. There are a lot of similarities between Reagan and Obama, maybe even a landslide re-election.
I stand by my NSFW Sarah Silverman ad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypRW5qoraTw
Also discussed in my voter id thread
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=9154679#post9154679
Also note it isn't the only voter fraud being committed.
Toyota and Volkswagon and the lot have been great for starting factories in the US, and making parts all over the world is part of the global economy. GM, Chrysler, and Ford also obviously employ more Americans than Japanese factories in the US. 181,000 between GM, Chrysler, and Ford to 67,000 between Toyota, Nissan, and Honda (source). A 2008 report says Toyota workers get $48/hr wages+benefits, $69/hr wages+benefits (source). I am of the opinion employers shouldn't be relied on for health benefits to begin with. Working for a factory without a union doesn't have many benefits, Sensata is shipped to China just the same. Non-union workers just get pushed around more.
Ford and GM outsold all the other companies in light-weight vehicles last month, with Chrysler close behind Toyota.
Ford F150 and friends are still the most popular vehicles in 2012 America, believe it or not. Followed by Chevy Silverados. Sometimes it's easy for me to forget how much we love trucks in this country because I don't tow anything, I gas up as little as possible, and I need to fit into tight parking spaces. Trucks do have the lowest YTD Sale growth though. Toyota Camry and Honda Accord come in after those two, and have a modest YTD sales growth. Then Ford Focus and Toyota Prius come in the middle of the pack, but with impressive sales growth (there's hope for the Volt yet! :().
http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3022-autosales.html
All things are difficult before they are easy. Energy efficient automobiles are just one of those things we need to work on.
GDP Growth Rate went from 1.3% to 2%, that's a 2% growth in the 3rd quarter over the 1.3% growth in the 2nd quarter which was on top of the 2% growth in the 1st quarter which is describing our Gross Domestic Product of $15 trillion dollars
2% GDP Growth isn't something to be satisfied with, but neither is 4% or 8% -- we always want to do more business. I don't believe I have to remind you of the freefall in 2008, it isn't guaranteed that our GDP grows at all. Similar with unemployment -- we're never happy with people unemployed, but 7.9% is similar to unemployment at the end of Reagan's first term.
It doesn't take much for a preventable or easily treated condition to fester into a life threatening condition, or something they would admit into the ER. Preventable and easily treated conditions that are cheaper to handle with a primary care physician.
http://www.intrade.com/v4/misc/electoral-map/
There was also a CU Boulder study mentioned that predicts Romney will win with 330 electoral votes. The study looks at state by state economic conditions.
http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2012/10/04/updated-election-forecasting-model-still-points-romney-win-university
My posts are Non-Partisan, it says so above my avatar
I honestly disagree with Obama on the welfare work requirement. I honestly agree with Romney on punishing employers that willfully hire illegal immigrants. I apologize for snide backhand remarks, it is easy to fall into under this thread. I am the one that failed to make sincere support of the other candidate through my entire posts.
I realize the disproportion of Obama supporters to Romney supporters, there's six replies for Obama for every post against Obama or in support of Romney (which is practically none).
My motivation isn't to belittle Romney supporters but to challenge them to speak up, and in this thread to actually find things they like about Obama.
For Obama supporters it should be pretty easy to find things they like out of Romney. Romney has been on virtually every side of every issue
Should there be a ban on Negative Nancies in this thread? That might be too much. Criticism is too much a part of politics.
I supported the bailouts for the auto makers because they're at such a disadvantage in the global market against countries that have no qualms about subsidizing their auto manufacturers. I also see it as a decent trade off for more regulations of gas mileage. Same with the banks, except we absolutely needed them around to keep businesses going and the regulations we put in place are needed to keep the disaster from happening again.
The Federal Reserve is really a pet peeve of libertarians. I'm not saying they're wrong to want oversight, but I'd hate to see it get bogged down like the rest of the stuff that happens in Congress. Also note the federal reserve was proposed by a Republican.
Libya was a great show of international strength to provide air support to the Libyan rebels. Not a single American or NATO soldier died in the conflict. We didn't have to occupy the country after the overthrow, we just had our embassies and our support from the Libyan people, which is why the embassy attack is so tragic. The Libyans still support us even if there is an international terrorist cell that is planning these attacks on US embassies.
Can't say Obama didn't try to close Gitmo. Whatever happens I think Obama will make one last push to transfer the prisoners at the end of this term or his second term.
He's a little iffy on the Patriot Act.
There is a lot of stuff in the NDAA. Most importantly at the time was continued monthly payments to soldiers and their families. Vetoing the bill which would have been overridden anyway would have just forced families of soldiers to go without pay for months. Obama did promise to veto the bill if it had indefinite detention. I do hope the most egregious parts of the bill are repealed.