Best of luck to Barack Obama as well. However, the truly momentous and inspirational aspect of yesterday’s result was my almost perfect prediction of it, as published in Crikey last Friday. Obama has carried the erstwhile red states of Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, Ohio, Nevada, Florida and Indiana, with two states coming down to the wire: Missouri, where McCain leads by 5868 votes (0.2 per cent), and North Carolina, where Obama leads by 14,053 (0.4 per cent). I tipped Obama to gain all of these states and no more. I gather late counting of declaration votes is unlikely to change any leads, so it appears those 0.2 per cent of voters in Missouri have stood between me and my moment of destiny. Better luck next time, I guess. To those who tipped McCain victories or record-breaking Obama blowouts and find themselves wondering what my secret is, one simple piece of advice: believe the polls (or Intrade if you prefer – it will usually tell much the same story). They may not be perfect, but they will outperform your own “informed conjecture” well over 50 per cent of the time, no matter how clever you think you are.
If the last two states play out as expected, the final result will be 364 electoral votes for Obama against 174 for McCain, pending one complication: Nebraska, which along with solidly Democratic Maine divides its college votes by congressional district. Two of the three districts have stayed Republican, but in a third Obama trails by just 569 votes, and thus stands a chance to make it 365-173. In any event, the joint winners of the informal Poll Bludger tipping contest (thanks to Juliem for conducting this) will be David Walsh and Ron, who I gather will win a tie-breaker ahead of fellow 364 Club members Grog and Peter Fuller.
Finally, our good friends at UMR Research have published qualitative polling on Australians’ attitudes to the President-elect. Those who harbour an unfashionable element of cynicism about the great man might want to keep a sick bag handy.
780 Comments
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I hope you’re taking notes, Gusface.
I think I speak for all here when I say please God may we never have another religious debate on this blog that is meant to be about pseph stuff…
I’m sure there’s lots of blogs out in the www to debate over souls.
I pray this doesn’t become one of them.
Oz
Relativity has been proven, in that there is abundant evidence for it, but it took ages to find it (it was light bending during an eclipse if you must know).
And you can provide compelling evidence that you are sitting on a couch but you cannot prove it. How do you know you aren’t dreaming all of this?
oz
The context was regarding sarah palins “communication skills”- which i compared to humphrey b bear
the tag line for humphrey b bear ( a kids show with a mute bear) was – a funny old fellow
(you had to grow up watching the show to get it.sigh)
whats with the pants thing-its not like he was fraser in memphis
According to his website, the “B” stands for Bear
And I have posted this pic before, but to make it on topic for Pollbludger, though not this friend, but one of those pictured was GWB’s Bestest Buddy
http://www.humphreybear.com/images/hbb_gall12.gif
ShowsOn, I’m not sitting up all night waiting for you to demonstrate scientifically the non-existence of the soul. Either defaecate or get off the pot.
#155
Poor old Humph never spoke again from that day on
The latest on the economy of Iceland does not look encouraging.
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2008/11/06/2079779-iceland-keeps-interest-steady-at-18-pct
Douglas Adams worked this stuff out ages ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcncPpQ8loA
SNIP: Overheated comment deleted – The Management.
There is no evidence for it. How humans behave is a complex interaction between our environment (including culture), our senses, and our brains. Our brains evolved to make sense of the world, and our senses evolved to feed accurate information about the world to our brains. There is no magical agent that controls our entire bodies, rather our perception and sense of consciousness is an extraordinarily complicated interplay of these functions that run across 100 billion or so neurons (the possible permutations of brain connections is more than all the atoms in the universe).
If there was a soul driving these processes there would be evidence of it in the brains of living people that isn’t in dead people. But again, there is no evidence of a SINGLE thing in there controlling the ENTIRE body. I understand that intuitively the idea that there is a central agent seems to make sense, but there is just no evidence for it. Some people suffer strokes in some parts of the brain and only have slightly impaired brain function, whereas others have strokes in other parts that leave them completely paralysed. If there is central agent, why would there be these varied outcomes from incapacitation? Or if the soul is driving things – and not our brains – why do we need a brain at all?
People cling to the idea that we have souls because they want to believe there is an agent in us that makes us behave in a positive moral way. They seem to feel that without a soul or spirit there can’t be a positive moral force driving us to do good. But I think this ignores the fact there are also evolutionary reasons for why we are generally kind to others (so they don’t threaten to kill us), and that we have devised cultural processes to encourage good behavior, and discourage bad behavior (nation states, politics, laws).
We could remain blissfully ignorant of these facts, but doing so implies an ignorance of our biological foundations, and the fact humans are the products of millions of years of evolution. I accept this doesn’t count as a complete proof, but I simply propose there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary. We should believe the explanation of human nature supported by evidence, rather than one based purely on speculation.
Abortion was a sleeper in th election given Obama’s overpowerful views on it , tougher even than th NRAL , perhaps I’ll post his views one day Of course neither Party politcaly wanted to make it too big an issue
Be that as may , Obama does needs to be careful his minority Abortion views that he’s been prepared to vote publicly for issue in past , don’t flare th whole Aborton debatee in US as there’s big chunks of Democrat demographics who do not support especialy within blackk church community base , th hispanics , jews and suspect strong increasing Asian groups
Th passion against abortion is driven mainly by passion in beliefs in religion and that may weaken politcal party affiliation suport for some if it blew right up
For mine left fields I hav no problem therefore at all in people opposing abortion believing a human is already created & tink its intollerant to dismiss such views I also undrerstand those who suport abortion for a woamns health , mentel situations and children especialy rape etc However what seems to occur is like politcal sprectrum diferense its so polorised one vs other , one 100% right and th other 100% wrong , and sometimes a Government reacts to politcal pressure groups wih a decision on this moral value jugement issue withot balance I tink
Here’s ShowsOn pretending he doesn’t understand the argument.
I believe all that but still allow other people to have their own beliefs.
Firstly, that is just a set of assertions, not a presentation of evidence. Do I need to give you a lecture on the scientific method?
Secondly, you obviously have no idea what Christians actually say about the soul. They don’t say it’s a “controlling agent” or something that can be materially measured. This shows a level of ignorance of Christian doctrine which is just laughable.
I said earlier you were a half-educated fool, and you have just proved it, as I fully expected you would. Now I can go to bed.
SNIP: Unconstructive comment deleted – The Management.
I’m waiting for their evidence their is one, when there is so much evidence to the contrary!
Oh dear! How is saying a soul EXISTS a negative proposition!? You are saying “prove that something that can’t be proven exists exists”! That is just plain stupid.
There is a very good alternative explanation for human behavior which is just a lot more likely.
What you have written is effectively the same as “because no one has ever been able to observe evolution in action, that means creationism must be equally likely”.
We see the EFFECTS of evolution, but not the processes itself actually occurring.
Why thank you for your kind words.
Science only produces theories! Relatively has been supported over numerous experiments, most recently by sending radio signals back and forth between Mars.
This is just idiocy that completely demonstrates your ignorance of science. Just because some dogmatic believers SAY something as certain properties doesn’t make that true. If something exists there should be evidence of it in some sort. If an alternate explanation is supported by more evidence, that is more likely to be true.
Classy stuff. Well done.
I believe other people can have their own beliefs too. It just doesn’t make them true, or even remotely likely to be true.
No thank you, you’ve demonstrated you have no idea what the scientific method is.
They suggest it is a ghost in the machine. The fact you don’t realise that demonstrates you don’t actually know the ramifications of what they are proposing.
The fact you simply reverted to this attack demonstrates you have absolutely no idea of the significance of what I wrote.
There’s no such thing as souls. There’s no evidence to support that they exist.
Meanwhile it looks like the currency markets have taken a turn for the worse again and the next move is a large cut in rates by the Bank of England. I thought all the central banks were going to take combined action against the strength of the Yen a couple of weeks ago, what are they waiting for?
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/euro-down-pound-gains-ahead/story.aspx?guid={7943B2A9-8A7A-41AB-9D35-069ED9C8277B}&dist=msr_1
Can we please avoid going into the religion/science/souls/abortion etc debate? That’s the point when I stop reading comments on here, and I’m sure others do too.
To get the abortion debate back onto psephological issue, I would argue that most Catholics (we’re not talking about churchgoing Catholics here, who may have a different political breakdown) are pro-choice or very weak pro-lifers who don’t vote on that basis. It’s not the issue that decides the election. After all, every election you have some Catholic bishop say awful things about the Democrat and they still get half the Catholic vote. John Kerry was threatened by some bishops with excommunication and still got 47% of the vote.
Ever since Paul VI banned the use of contraceptives, the Church lost control over the sex lives of a significant majority of Catholics, at least in the Western world. And the two countries where the Church has lost the most control of Catholics are Australia and the US.
Shows
just luv you’re work
+1000
#169
was there a pun in your words there
you’re=your
Ben
Did religion really factor in this election?
As Castle ,i think,said earlier they are the noisy minority-personally I call them the nosey minority
Yes it’s obvious the souls debate is a waste of time and space.
SNIP: Suspect comment deleted – The Management.
What did I say about absurdism?
Currency market is stuff. Time for a currency pegged to the inverse value of coal. How’s that for a market based incentive to stop climate change.
Breaking news – Bank of England cuts rates 1.5%.
The Bank of England has just cut its key rate to 3% from 4.5%.
Frank, http://www.humphreybear.com/images/hbb_gall12.gif is my new desktop.
Btw I must have misheard Lateline, no rate cut.
steve,
It seems like all the Central Banks have had an outbreak of “limbo fever”.
How low can you go?
Oh there was a rate cut.
170
My #162 suggested psephological angles on Abortion for Abama in this own Democrat vote blocks
Same applies to gay marriage , VP Biden who oposes it but would vote against a State ballot on it These issues ar fraught with politcal pot holes aside from actual issue debate itself
VP Biden who publicly oposes it but would vote against a State ballot to ban it
The US might have a bit of trouble brewing in Taiwan to where a hundred thousand demonstrators are upset over talks with a delegation from the Chinese mainland.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gzWno1YGe_7I85ZJJqSW7gIz_zmA
Oz
I jus got your 151
lipstick . pitbull
har de har
ps do you know the helena rubenstein one?
China says if Taiwan ever officially declares independence they’ll invade. The US says if China invades they’ll retaliate.
Neither China nor the US are going to war over Tawain.
??
max factor
1.5%, holy crap
I don’t get it.
Dario it was looking like the economy in England was going to contract 1% in the next year as against the US .5% contraction. It has turned the European sharemarkets around by at least two percent in the past half hour or so and they may well finish up in positive territory. The banks over there have threatened not to pass on the full cut but I think they might get lent on very heavily.
#184
there is nothing inconsisyent with th 3 sentences positions Its called a mexican standoff reverse checkmate
By Gordon Brown? Does he have that much authority left?
Sure, but the US is not going to invade China over Tibet.
Ron
That is quite an imperialistic statement “mexican standoff”
rates up there with french letter and dutch treat as an example of both superiority and propaganda in one neat package.
When in fact the mehicanos kicked the french’s arse
alamo anyone?
frenchs arse being of course maximillian
Check out the turnaround in the European sharemarkets since the interest rate cut announcement.
http://markets.on.nytimes.com/research/markets/usmarkets/usmarkets.asp
Sure , but Tibet is an insignificant economic etc power Some Obama suporters may find Bush was a mumbler and Obama a brilliant orator but some World reality situations may not change just how its described that nothing is going to change , & with Tibet vs Tailwan reletivities
This is correct.
Sorry I meant Taiwan.
Regardless of it’s economy, the two biggest powers on the planet aren’t going to war over it.
“Ron That is quite an imperialistic statement “mexican standoff”
but you left out my last 2 words “Its called a mexican standoff reverse checkmate”
So I spread th flavour of chess playing cultures in with our Mexican alamo friends
The European Central Bank cut its benchmark interest rate by half a percentage point, to 2.75 percent from 3.25 percent.
And what ar th “but if when maybe” brigade of econamists going to do if there objectives ar not met with rate decreases and interest rates get to 0% , whats there trick then (but from amigo FINNS “ploy”: th Banks pay you to borrow from then
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