Sarasota: Thanksgiving 2008

(the JFK Spacecenter. Ergo, the excessive usage of rockets)

(life size recreation of the engines of the rocket that got Apollo 11 to the moon… or better Neil Armstrong to the TV station where they faked it all, either one)

(me with an unidentified blond woman)

(Florida has exceptionally lazy dolphins, but a-do-ra-bly cute manatees)

(as well as dead ones)

(turkey time)

(and thanksgiving dinner in its entirety… all 39.393.494 calories of it)

(Florida.. it sucks at voting, but it is fun to look at)

Philly

And some touristy pics from my one day visit to Philly. It seems like a fun place to live, but to visit its kind of boring (also, I didn’t hear Streets of Philadelphia or Philadelphia Freedom once! We play New York New York here every five minutes!).

Philadelphia has had the bright idea to leave some classic buildings around, but surround them with blood ugly modern stuff.

Like this snoozefest where they keep the Liberty Bell

To quote Michael Stipe: a pageantry of empty gestures all lined up for me.

Dorky self-pic nr 477

Philadelphia is, of course, the place where the US Constitution was signed, and where the Bill of Rights was added later on.

… and supposedly they signed it like this. Puhlease, I’ve seen modern dance performances that were less camp than this.

Random New York pics

Certain people have hurled abuse at me for boring y’all with politics, when I should be boring y’all with New York stuff. The point is well noted, so here’s some random New York pics.

Subway stop at 125th street

Line 1

My new fancy Ipod play thingie (it is the term Philips uses)

International House

dressed up for an Ihouse thing.

Chrysler Building

Election Prediction

Before I start, I should say I am notoriously wrong in predicting election results, so no gloating when it turns out on wednesday that Cynthia McKinney (of the Insane Woman Party) is the next president, ok?

If the polls of the past 6 weeks have any value whatsoever, Barack Obama should easily win the presidency tomorrow. Most pollsters make distinctions between “safe” states (where one candidate is ahead by more than 10 percentage points),  ”leaning” states (where one candidate is ahead consistently by between 5 and 10 points), and battleground states where the lead changes or where the two candidates are within 5 points of one another. Currently, there are about  7 to 9 battleground states, representing aproximately 85 electoral votes. These states include small fish like Montana (3 votes), slightly bigger ones (Nevada, 9 votes), and two extremely big ones (Ohio and Florida, respectively 20 and 27 votes). If we look at the latest polls Obama is ahead in Florida, Ohio, Nevada, and North-Carolina, while McCain only gets Montana and North-Dakota, however all these states can swing both ways, and Obama’s lead in some of them is well within the general margin of error of polls (somewhere between 3-5 points), and the margin of error of extremely stupid pollsters (anywhere between 3 and 20 points).

So that’s the moderately good news for Democrats.

The even more moderately good news for Democrats is that, if we look at the safe and leaning states, Obama can lose all his battleground battles and still become president. Depending on which polls you buy, and which you don’t, Obama can count with relative certainty on 188 electoral votes to McCain’s 101, include the ‘leaning’ states and Obama makes it to anywhere between 277 and 300 electoral votes, putting him above the 270 line of winning the presidency. So McCain does not only have to win all the swingstates, he also has to win several states that, according to the polls, are leaning towards Obama. Is that likely to happen?  No. Could it happen? Yes. Weirder election battles have been fought, and polls have been wrong. The McCain campaign seems to be banking on some sort of scenario where Pennsylvania (with 21 electoral votes a big prize, but according to all polls so far safely for Obama) is in fact very much in play, and that they are going to win there, as well as in New Hampshire (another ’safe’ state for Obama, but one that has voted Republican often in the past, and one where McCain is quite popular. All of which should just be enough to push McCain and his moose killing friend over the top.

It seems unlikely that that will happen. For one thing, Democrats have outregistered Republicans in Florida, and if Florida goes Obama, it doesn’t matter if McCain wins Pennsylvania. Secondly, all polls seem to show great discontent with the McCain/Palin ticket: as John Dickerson said on Slate, the last 159 national polls done in the last 6 weeks all show Obama ahead by 5 points or more, another poll showed enthusiasm among voters to be extremely high for the Obama ticket, but very low for McCain, voters seem to also believe that Obama is most qualified to deal with the economy and health care, and while McCain scores (moderately) better on foreign policy and terrorism, those issues are far behind the economy (57% think the economy is the major issue, 13% think Iraq is, 13% think healthcare is).

In conclusion: I’m calling it for Obama.

Swing-state derby:

McCain wins Montana, North-Dakota, North-Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, Arizona

Obama wins Florida,  Nevada, Colorado and wins by 318 electoral votes

Colin Powell makes sense (finally)

Well, the correct answer is, [Obama] is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is no. That’s not America. Is there something wrong with a seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion that he is a Muslim and might have an association with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I feel particularly strong about this because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay, was of a mother at Arlington Cemetery and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone, and it gave his awards – Purple Heart, Bronze Star – showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death, he was 20 years old. And then at the very top of the head stone, it didn’t have a Christian cross. It didn’t have a Star of David. It has a crescent and star of the Islamic faith.

And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan. And he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was fourteen years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he could serve his country and he gave his life.

Frmr Secretary of State Colin Powell on Meet the Press this morning.

Radio Nowhere [2] / Campai(g)n 2008

After my appearance on the Dutch Radio show BNN Today, I was invited back again today to talk about tonights McCain/Obama town hall debate in Tennessee. For those who want to listen it back and complain about my “ehms”  (…. mom):

Vannacht is het tweede debat tussen John McCain en Barack Obama. We blikken vooruit met Boris Heersink.  BNN Today op je Mp3-speler/ Ipod? Heb je iTunes: itpc://rss.bnn.nl/podcast.php?p=bnntoday

For those wondering about the Town Hall format, and how politicians have to deal with the people asking questions; see this article on Slate. For more on the rules for today’s debate, and why I believe it’ll be a boring mess see this article on the Chicago Sun Times blog.

Radio Nowhere

For those that missed my gloriously succesful, and doubtlessly medium-redefining, radio appearance (both of which means I did not turn into a stuttering mess and I did not refer to anybody as “sugartits”) yesterday on the BNN Today program on Dutch Radio 1, can relisten it here (either click the link, or save the source).

John McCain = a fucking weasel

Postpone the debate? Suspend your campaign? Jesus f-ing Christ!

ANY politician knows that if you don’t stop your campaign unless blood is actually flowing down the streets. Hell, even if blood is flowing down the streets, you still go on: Theodore Roosevelt got shot during a speech and finished it before going to the hospital.   This entire move just seems like either McCain himself or some of his staffers had some lightbulb idea that would’ve worked in The West Wing, but were forgetting that that was a tv show where pathological stuff like this works…. because people write it.

And now he’s going to Washington. As John Dickerson of Slate put it:

“It’s not clear what exactly McCain is going to do in Washington. He doesn’t sit on any of the relevant committees and everyone is already deep in negotiations. Still, he’s coming anyway.”

I hope he likes being a senator, ’cause he’s going to be one for a few more years.

That’s the spirit

I like my politicians to show some teeth once in a while, and sadly Barack Obama has failed to do so… until now

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0908/Obama_Who_Advises.html?showall

View from the IIE terrace

IIE (ie Fulbright) had two receptions for us New York Fulbright newbies and they have a frigging awesome terrace with view of UN Plaza. You want proof, you’ll get proof.

 

Mandatory dorky douche-looking self-pic