The Lone Elm

Deep, Deep Denial

Sister Toldjah reports on a post at Huffington Post (HuffPo) about what the liberals/Democrats are going to do when they lose in October (again).  The poster attributes the predicted loss to the nefarious and devious conduct of the Republicans, led by the evil Karl Rove (George Bush is too dumb to accomplish an electoral victory).  Well, first, the outcome of the election remains in doubt as we have a couple of weeks to go.  The poster should be out working on getting out the vote and generally working to ensure her party does as well as it can do -- that's the way the system works.  But, even more disturbing is the idea that when the Democrats fail to achieve their goal of winning over both houses is that "If for whatever reason we don’t win back Congress in November the only real answer will be to take to the streets."

Yup, that sure is a mature answer.  These people are in serious denial and, more importantly, are unwilling to take responsibility for their failure to develop a political stance attractive enough to the American people to result in a victory at the polls.  Rather than blame Karl Rove, how about going back and doing some hard thinking about what their party stands for and figuring out how they can win back the confidence of Americans?  That process might force them to try to understand what we all want, which isn't the liberal agenda.

Riehl World View reports: "I had a conversation similar to the one below with a moderate Dem recently, one who has hated the Iraq war since the start. Without selling any ideology, at the end I simply asked them, so come November what is it you are going to do? I detest the war, they said. But the Democrats are going to raise my taxes and they don't even want us spying on these people who want to come here and kill us. I'll be voting Republican in November."  Yes, when sane people get to the ballot box they will vote against the tax-and-spend left, and hope that we can get the Republicans back under control.

The New Editor reports that the author of the HuffPo post is the wife of Norman Lear, hardly someone who is scratching out a living each day on the minimum wage. She and Barbra Streisand can go out and lead a demonstration!

The reader may find it worthwhile to review Dr. Sanity's Psychology 101 posting discussing the various functional and not so functional ways of dealing with life's challenges.

For the myriad of serious questions to consider as you go to vote, see Dan Scott's post at The American Thinker.

Creative Statistics

There have been a couple of interesting analyses of widely reported conclusions that do not stand up to critical statistical analysis. 

The first is in Opinion Journal by Steven E. Moore regarding the widely reported Johns Hopkins study estimate of the death of 655,000 Iraqis since the U.S. invasion.  Mr. Moore explains how these sorts of estimates are done and why the recent John Hopkins analysis simply does not have the qualities to stand up to critical analysis. Definitely worth a careful read.

The second is by Jay Cost at Real Clear Politics.  Mr. Cost explains why the recent polling results do not represent the likely outcome of the election. To quote:  "One of the problems with making estimates like this is that, even when we have strong reasons to expect that the Democrats will pick up 25 seats, there is still a good chance that they will pick up less than 15 seats. The reason is that our estimate - regardless of the solid reasons that inform it - is only a central tendency. We must therefore expect some random variation around it. If we run the same type of election again and again and again - we would find, if we are right, that the average result will indeed be 25 seats. Sometimes, however, more seats will switch; sometimes less seats will switch, including less than 15."  The random variation leads to an expected result less than the popular view.  Fascinating and also worth your attention.

Putney School Pigs

We visited The Sapling at Putney School this weekend, and I wandered over to the small animal barn.  I enjoyed watching the turkeys poking around outside, and then happened onto what can only be described as a "pig-pile."

Korean Nuclear Test Finally Edges Foley Story Out of the Limelight

Unhappily, the North Koreans have proceed with a nuclear bomb test.  See AP report at Yahoo and BBC. The "good" news is that this will finally move the Foley story onto the back burner where it belongs; the "bad" news is that North Korea has a bomb and the capability to shoot it a considerable distance.  See Michelle Malkin for a thorough wrap-up.  Richard Gardner points out the North Korea has violated an international agreement and, in essence taken an illegal action.  Austin Bay discusses the ugly dynamics along the Chinese/North Korean border, and quotes at length from this Times Online story.

To stay up-to-date on this huge story, check out Memeorandum regularly.