Brave Selections

The Soundtrack to Brave is very catchy, especially if you like Scottish jigs and bagpipes.

This is "Touch the Sky", the openning credits song.


This is "The Games" when we have the set up for the archery contest. Wall o' bagpipes in this one.


This is "Song of Mor'du" a song the warriors sing as they dream of killing Mor'du.


This is "Show Us the Way" when Merida falls into Mor'du's lair.


This is "A Mhaighdean Bhan Uasal" the song Eleanor sings to Merida in a flashback.


This is "Learn Me Right", the closing credits song.

London Opening Ceremonies

Today marks the Opening Ceremonies of the 2012 London Olympics. Technically, the Olympics started two days ago with some opening group matches in women's soccer but no one is really paying attention to that. As far as everyone is concerned, everything kicks off today.

There's been a little bit of strife going on as several London unions (cabbies and police most notably) have gone on mini-strikes or threatened to because of how bad the conditions have turned with the influx of people to London for the games. A large segment of the British army has been brought in to London to aid the police in security. There have also been several arrests recently on terrorism charges (bomb making mostly) that may have included plans for the Olympics (authorities won't say).

Adding to this was Mr. Romney's comment that he wasn't sure if London was ready for the games. Mr. Romney has experience in these matters due to his running of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, but it likely would have been more tactful to not say anything. The British authorities are already stressed out that they don't need a bit of needling from someone who has already done the job.

I certainly hope that it will be a good games and an entertaining Opening Ceremony. I don't know if it's the bad vibes from the stuff mentioned above or what, but I can't help but shake the feeling that something bad might happen, if not tonight, then at some point in the games, much like the 1972 Munich games forty years ago. We shall see.

What Every Guy Thinks of Titanic

This is from How it Should Have Ended. It covers a few of the major problems that jump out at you when you see Titanic. It also shows how Rose is a complete moron.

Cooking Music

These are some of my favorites from Ratatouille. The first one is when Colette is showing Linguini the basics of the kitchen. I don't know if Colette or the music is supposed to be Catalian, but that's how I imagine it.



The second is "Special Order" and is a nice jazzy French tune. It reminds me a lot of Henry Mancini's Pink Panther music.



The End Credits also make a nice round up of the musical flavor of the movie.

Colorado Theater Shooting

Far more sophisticated blogs and news sites will do a far better job covering this, but I thought I would throw my own two cents in.

The alledged shooter, James Holmes, is currently in police custody. Just reading the surface stuff, this fellow appears to be both intellegent and highly disturbed. He obviously planned all this well in advance, striking a target he knew would be packed full of people. His use of armor suggest that he anticipated encountering counterfire (from either police or armed theater patrons) and he wanted to either survive or make sure that it took more than a lucky shot to stop him. He also set up an elaborate booby trap bomb system in his apartment to kill even more people once he had been taken down, one way or the other. The system is elaborate enough that the Denver bomb squad has requested additional assistance from the FBI in disarming the trap.

Naturally, there has been much speculation on his motives and ideology. ABC speculated that he might have been a member of the Tea Party due to a similar name (Jim Holmes) listed as an active member, but that James Holmes has been identified as a man in his 50's while the shooter is listed as 24. Other speculation has tied him to a James Holmes listed as a member of the Black Bloc, an anarchist splinter group of the Occupy movement.

Whatever his ideology, it can be agreed that he is a very dangerously disturbed man who should be locked away for a very long time.

Last report I heard was that the death toll was between 12 and 14, with the youngest confirmed death a six-year old child. May God guide the hands of the doctors to save the rest and comfort the loved ones of the slain.

*UPDATE*

The James Holmes in question seems to have enrolled at University of Colorado a year ago to pursue a PHD in neuroscience and dropped out last month. It has suggested that he may have brewed the gas that he let loose in the theater himself. The doctors treating the victims have been very careful and not simply assumed that they are dealing with either smoke or tear gas. No confirmation has been given about the nature of the gas, one way or another.

O Filii et Filiae

When going through the various Mystery! themes I like, I was reminded of my copy of Cadfael. The second piece on the CD is a chorus (The Clerks of St. Albans Abbey specifically) singing a traditional Catholic Easter piece called O Filii et Filiae (O Sons and Daughters), written in 1494 and based off a French melody. It is quite enjoyable to listen to.

The lyrics are as follows:

Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.

O filii et filiae,
Rex caelestis, Rex gloriae
morte surrexit hodie.
Alleluia

Ex mane prima Sabbati
ad ostium monumenti
accesserunt discipuli.
Alleluia

Et Maria Magdalene,
et Iacobi, et Salome
Venerunt corpus ungere
Alleluia

In albis sedens angelus
praedixit mulieribus:
In Galilaea est Dominus.
Alleluia

Et Ioannes apostolus
cucurrit Petro citius,
monumento venit prius.
Alleluia

Beati qui non viderunt
et firmiter crediderunt;
vitam aeternam habebunt.
Alleluia

In hoc festo sanctissimo
sit laus et iubilatio:
benedicamus Domino.
Alleluia

Ex quibus nos humillimas
devotas atque debitas
Deo dicamus gratias.
Alleluia

An English equivalent is as follows:

Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia.

Ye sons and daughters of the Lord,
the King of glory, King adored,
this day Himself from death restored.
Alleluia

All in the early morning gray
went holy women on their way,
to see the tomb where Jesus lay.
Alleluia

Of spices pure a precious store
in their pure hands these women bore,
to anoint the sacred Body o'er.
Alleluia

The straightaway one in white they see,
who saith, "seek the Lord: but He
is risen and gone to Galilee."
Alleluia

This told they Peter, told John;
who forthwith to the tomb are gone,
but Peter is by John outrun.
Alleluia

Oh, blest are they who have not seen
their Lord and yet believe in Him!
eternal life awaitheth them.
Alleluia

Now let us praise the Lord most high,
and strive His name to magnify
on this great day, through earth and sky:
Alleluia

Whose mercy ever runneth o'er;
Whom men and Angel hosts adore;
to Him be glory evermore.
Alleluia

Poll Frustrations

If you are a political junkie like me, one of the biggest things to play with is polls. Unfortunately, polls are also so easily manipulated based on the pollster's inherent bias, with the most common form being the weighting sample.

Weighting sample is a way that pollsters manipulate the data to make it conform to their expectations. For example, a pollster may get a set of data and his raw data says that the sample was 40% Democrat, 30% Republican, and 30% Independent. If he believes that he has oversampled Democrats and undersampled Republicans, he will apply some factor that will bring the sample more in line to his own expectations and thus be more believable.

In 2008, exit polls showed that the split among voters was 39% Democrat, 32% Republican, and 29% Independent. Mr. Obama won nationally by 7-points. However, in the 2010 mid-terms, voter split nationally was 35% Democrat, 35% Republican, and 30% Independent. Democrats, by in large, were defeated, with Republicans capturing many state offices and the House of Representatives.

From this we can see a significant swing in party affiliation in only two years. Independents remained stable (only shifting by one point) but Democrats dropped by four and Republicans increased by three. The conclusion that one is drawn to, is that predicting the final outcome is a shot in the dark, although one can expect the numbers to fall within a set of norms.

It is unlikely that Mr. Obama will be able to regenerate the same level of voter enthusiasm that he had in 2008 so the 39/32/29 sample represents an extreme Democratic end. Likewise, with a national race to motivate Democrats, it is unlikely that they will be as docile as they were in 2010 so the 35/35/30 sample represents an extreme Republican end. If I were a pollster, I would probably settle on something close to a 36/33/31 model until I saw something that prompted me to shift it to either the left or right.

Of course, most news outlets don't report the polling sample in the headline, they just give the overall number (Obama and Romney tied at 47-47, for example). Hence the frustration with trying to look at the public mood from polls. It does teach one to be skeptical of polls until you can dig down into the raw data and draw your own conclusions, which is a good life lesson in general.

Working Through Falken's Maze

From the best Hacker movie ever. Many childhood memories are dredged up by this music.

State Trends - July

Time for this month's update of state trends. There isn't much movement between this month and last month but this is all without the influence of the Obamacare decision. The shift between July and August could be dramatic, especially as things start to gear up towards the conventions.

The three changes I've made since June are that I've downgraded Michigan and upgraded Missouri and Arizona. There was a lot of polling around the middle of June that showed Michigan slipping into Toss Up territory. There was one poll that showed Mr. Obama with an 8-point lead, but the others showed him with only a 1 or 2 point lead and one poll even showed Mr. Romney up by one. All of these led me to downgrade Michigan to "Lean Obama" from "Likely Obama".

The Supreme Court's strike down of most of the Arizona Illegal Immigration law might motivate Hispanics in that state, but until then, the most recent polling has shown Mr. Romney's lead grow to over 10-points. As such, I bounced it up to "Likely Romney" from "Lean Romney".

Missouri is more of a feeling. Mr. Romney's lead in Missouri is only about 5-7 points according to recent polls. However, I've seen a couple of articles talking about how Missouri is no longer a bellweather but a red state. I've held that view for several years now. There has also been some discontented rumblings from Missouri Democrats, which suggests to me that they are starting to distance themselves from Mr. Obama. Given that, I thought it merited moving Missouri up to "Likely Romney" from "Lean Romney".

Everything else remains the same and I wouldn't expect too much movement until September, but a lot could happen of the next month if people start paying attention to the campaign earlier than usual.

Big News Day

It's a big news day today.

1. The Colorado wildfires continue to burn out of control. The Air Force Academy is now directly threatened as is most of the town of Colorado Springs if the fire comes much closer and manages to jump I-25. There have been some rather sick folk who have cheered the fire and hoped that it would continue until it burned down the Focus on the Family Campus and other Christian related structures. The Boulder fire is not much better as it climbs the ridge just to the West of that town.

2. The full House of Representatives will vote on whether to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress today. About a dozen Democrats have stated that they intend to vote yes. No whip count has been available for the Republicans, but it is somewhat expected that nearly all of them will fall in line with the leadership. What happens after the vote is anyone's guess. Most likely there will be a drawn out negotiation and then probably some sort of court fight over these documents.

3. The Supreme Court will release its ruling on Obamacare today. Speculation has been all over the map and about the only thing that people seem to agree upon is that Chief Justice Roberts is writing one of the opinions. The general assumption has been that it is the majority opinion that he is writing so most speculation has been that either the court split 5-4 for the conservatives or 6-3 for the liberals. I've seen it postulated that Justice Ginsburg is writing the other major opinion which has fueled speculation of a 5-4 Conservative ruling. Of course, whether this is to strike down the whole thing or just the mandate is also a matter of speculation. The opinion will probably be released around 10 am so this should be the first thing we hear about.

*UPDATE*

SC ruled 5-4 that Obamacare is constitutional, although the mandate is unconstitutional under the commerce clause. It survives under Congress' power to tax. Chief Justice Robers sided with the four liberals while Justice Kennedy sided with the conservatives.

*SECOND UPDATE*

The House voted 255-67 to hold AG Eric Holder in contempt of Congress. 110 Democrats did not vote, including the entire Congressional Black Caucus (who walked out before the vote). But 17 Democrats did vote with the Republicans. The House has now indicated that they will hire an independent counsel and challenge the citation of Executive Priviledge in court.

Hell in Colorado

Some bad fires have broken out over the past week in Colorado but yesterday things blew completely out of control.

The worst up until yesterday had been the High Park Fire in the mountains west of Ft. Collins. This fire has burned over 80,000 acres, destroyed over 250 homes and killed at least one person.

However, this changed yesterday when the Waldo Canyon Fire exploded. This fire started outside the city of Colorado Springs (second largest city in Colorado) on June 23 but was thought to be mostly contained on June 25. However, the winds whipped up that night and the fire has now crossed into the Mountain Shadows neighborhood of Colorado Springs proper. 32,000 people have been evacuated (including the Air Force Academy). More are expected to be evacuated as the fire progresses.

Also of concern is the Flagstaff fire. This fire is only 300 acres in size but it started just 2 miles outside of the city of Boulder and is progressing in that direction. It has only about one mile (thankfully unpopulated) to the summit of the ridge where the wind could jump it over the last mile into the city.

Bellweather State Mythology

One of the greatest myths that exists in Presidential elections is the idea of a historical bellweather state. Political analysists are always looking for an easy model for them to study that would allow them to make their predictions easier: "So goes Florida, so goes the nation", etc. In each individual election, yes there are probably several states that genuinely reflect the mood of the national electorate, but these states are not static. The national character changes just as state character changes. As such, calling any state a historic bellweather is foolish.

The historic bellweather state of the 20th century was Missouri. Starting in 1904, Missouri has gone for the winner of the national election in every year except 1956 and 2008. Missouri is nominally a southern state, even though it stayed with the Union in the Civil War. But they have enough northern influence that they trended Republican. However, whenever southern Democrats would rise up (or northern Democrats who embrassed the South such as FDR and JFK) and take the national leadership role (Johnson, Carter, Clinton), Missouri would fall back on it's Southern roots.

Yet ever since the 2000 election, Missouri has not felt like a state in play. The state has remained close, but it feels as though Missouri (like much of the south) is now just a red state and they just happened to be right in 2000 and 2004 because the Republican won. John McCain only won Missouri by about 4,000 votes, but with Barack Obama winning nationally by 7 points, if Missouri were a true bellweather, Missouri should have gone Democratic easily.

The only two other states that have a potential track record as a national bellweather are Ohio and Nevada. Going from the same 1904 benchmark that Missouri used, Nevada has had every election correct except 1908 and 1976. Ohio can actually stretch back longer to 1896 and only gets it wrong in 1944 and 1960.

Nevada has had a nice balance between a conservative ranching population, libertarian business folk, and a large blue collar working class population in Las Vegas. This has worked well in nearly every election and even 1976 was something of an aboration as Jimmy Carter failed to win any state west of Missouri save Texas and Hawaii. The only real threat to Nevada's status as a national bellweather is that her population balance has tipped in recent years with the explosion of growth in Las Vegas. This has increased the size of both the blue collar union population and Hispanics looking for work. These two increases have shifted the state to more of a Democratic footing. The only way that this will be tested this year is if Mr. Obama loses nationally but retains Nevada.

Ohio has been an important state to Presidential elections. Going back all the way to 1856, no Republican has ever won the White House without winning Ohio. Ohio failed to get it right in 1944 and 1960, although Dewey only won Ohio by 0.37%. Nixon won by a more comfortable margin of 6.56% in 1960, although he lost nationally by 0.16%. The steady loss of manufacturing jobs from the north end of the state has resulted in a steady reddening of the state over the past few years. However there is still a large blue collar population who stick with their Democratic roots. They've also been aided by a small but significant growth in the liberal middle and upper class population around Columbus. Ohio could probably be best described as swinging easily with the economy. If things are going well, it sticks with the party in power. If the economy stinks, lets try someone else. That doesn't necessarily mean that it will go with the winner, although it makes for as good a trend as anything else.

In this particular election, I don't believe any particular state will tell you how things are going to go. It is better to look at things as a whole. 2008 was best defined by the fact that Indiana and North Carolina went blue. 2012 might be well defined as to how the race does in states such as Wisconsin and Michigan (either in that they change or to what percent they stay blue).

The Full Nixon

An old adage in politics: It's not the crime, it's the cover-up.

Operation: Fast and Furious was a government operation that has gone very, very badly. The operation was, in theory, an attempt to use American weapons to track, and be able to prosecute, the crimes committed by Mexican druglords. In its essence, a branch of the Department of Justice (ATF) authorized the sale of American manufactured weapons (assault rifles and such) on American soil (mostly in Phoenix) to known agents of Mexican druglords. These weapons would then be smuggled across the border and then be traced and tied to the various cartels when used.

Things blew up when an American border patrol agent, Brian Terry, was killed during one of these smuggling operations by the weapons in question. This caused a blow up because it exposed the operation long before it was ready and what the ATF did was technically illegal. However, the pebble that really started the avalanche was when the House Oversight Committee sent a request to the DOJ asking what they knew about the operation. On Feb. 4, 2011, the DOJ responded with a letter denying any knowledge of the operation. The committee went through the normal procedure of questioning the various ATF folks and found that someone in the DOJ did know about the operation and had signed off on it.

This started the climb up the ladder. Certain low level operators handed over things and gave testimony that this operation was known about at the highest levels (i.e. AG Eric Holder). Mr. Holder was summoned several times to testify and each time he evaded key questions. He promised to submit whatever documentation the DOJ had on the operation but those documents have not been forthcoming. Frustrated, the Committee scheduled a vote (for today) to hold Mr. Holder in Contempt of Congress in an attempt to force the handover of these documents.

At the eleventh hour, Mr. Holder petitioned President Obama to cite Executive Privilege over the documents in question. This request was granted. It is this point that may have turned this into a full Nixonian production. Only the President is covered by Executive Privilige. Cabinet folk and all other appointed positions are equally beholden to both the President and Congress. By invoking EP, Mr. Obama is stating that he was aware and personally involved in whatever these documents involve. Yet Mr. Holder has testified before Congress that the President had no knowledge of anything involving this operation. Someone is lying and now interest in these documents is going up as much as Congress' interest in the Nixon tapes.

The best case for Mr. Obama at this stage is that he is misapplying EP and it was an honest mistake. The EP is retracted or overturned and Mr. Holder will be held liable for anything incriminating found in these documents. Worst case scenario is that the President was directly involved in something illegal and that this is a full blown attempt to save himself (a la Nixon). If this is the case and the EP is overturned due to improper use (which again there is 1970's precedent for) and the documents show this, Mr. Obama could be set up for some very hard questions and potential criminal charges.

The one thing I am sure of is that there won't be any move towards impeachment unless Mr. Obama wins a second term. Even then, the Republicans won't do anything overt unless they have absolute concrete evidence of wrongdoing. The bad taste that was left in everyone's mouth following the Clinton impeachment left both sides wary of moving in this direction for purely political motives.

However, Mr. Holder may not fare so well. Much remains to be seen and I would expect a lot of courtroom fury over the next several months as well as a lot of annoying -gate references.

Rats Off the Coal Scow

It was announced yesterday that three prominent Democrats from West Virginia would not be attending the Democratic Convention in North Carolina. Of course, they made their usual excuses about needing to do work for the people, getting the economy back in order, etc. But I think most people are intelligent enough to realize that they see the President as a liability in their state and don't want him to drag them down as they attempt to get reelected. The three politicians include Governor Earl Tomblin, Senator Joe Manchin, and Representative Nick Rahall.

One could just chart this up to the quirkiness of West Virginia (where Mr. Obama had no shot of winning anyway) if it wasn't the bit of news that Representative Mark Critz of Pennsylvania has also announced that he will be skipping the Convention. Critz's district is in western PA (PA-12), just outside of Pittsburgh. It was Jack Murtha's district before his death in 2010.

There is one common thread uniting these men though: coal. West Virginia's economy is heavily dependent on coal as is western Pennsylvania's. As part of the green energy initiative, funding and support for the coal industry has gone down while EPA regulations on coal use have gone up. Reducing the pollution produced by burning coal is certainly a laudable goal but when the economy is already in the toilet, doing anything that reduces jobs in a hurting industry (especially one that is the backbone of a state) is going to make you unpopular there.

As noted before, West Virginia is already lost so no real harm, no foul there. But Democratic strength in Pennsylvania is anchored by Philadelphia and heavy union turnout in Pittsburgh. If this turnout is depressed in any way, it could make the contest for Pennsylvania much closer than it should be.

As an aside, this is my 666th post. OOGA BOOGA!

Mystery: Part 3

Two more themes for those interested in Mystery! The first is the spiritual father of the show: Lord Peter Wimsey. Lord Wimsey actually was shown on Masterpiece Theater back in the 1970's and it was so popular that it inspired the folks at WGBH in Boston to start up their own show based on mystery literary content.



The second is Reilly: Ace of Spies. I know very little of this one, but the theme is the Romance from the Gadfly Suite by Dmitri Shostkovitch and it is quite beautiful.



If I could find a copy, I'd put Rumpole of the Bailey in here as well, but I haven't found a seperate recording of that theme as of yet.

Cute HP Houses

I find these amusing.



Via TeeTurtle

VERY GOOD!

You can only truly appreciate this if you've watched Dora, although I'm sure others will still find it funny. My only complaint is that it should be longer.

Useless Statistics

Much like baseball, politics has a statistic for everything. I'm sure you could find how left-handed politicians did when facing off against right-handed incumbent Senators in off-year elections.

One such statistic has been making the rounds lately: since 1956, no President has been reelected while getting less of the Electoral College vote than he did when first elected. I did a quick check on this.

Eisenhower: 1952 - 442, 1956 - 457
Nixon: 1968 - 301, 1972 - 521
Reagan: 1980 - 489, 1984 - 525
Clinton: 1992 - 370, 1996 - 379
W. Bush: 2000 - 271, 2004 - 286

Arguably you could include Johnson in this as well. He and Kennedy were elected with 303 votes in 1960 and Johnson crushed Barry Goldwater in 1964 with 486 votes.

However, this doesn't really mean much other than the opposition ran bad candidates against an incumbent or things were going fairly well (sometimes both). FDR passed his 1932 total (472) in his 1936 reelection (523) but fell in both his third term (449) and fourth term (432) elections. Wilson only barely squeeked by Charles Hughes in 1916 (277) by 3,800 votes in California after romping Taft and Roosevelt in 1912 (435).

Barak Obama won in 2008 with 365 Electoral College votes, which means that he can lose 95 votes and still win reelection. I personally think that 365 is impossible to achieve again but 270 is very possible. Statistics like this make for amusing parlor games, but are not viable in reality. After all, President Kerry would like to remind everyone how that if the Washington Redskins lose their last home game before the election, the incumbent party also loses the White House (they lost 28-14 to the Green Bay Packers).

Two Small Elections

There are eight states that are going to the polls today for various issues. None are of any major significance but two are somewhat interesting.

The first is a special election in Arizona's eighth congressional district. This was Gabrielle Giffords old seat that became vacated when she opted to retire while dealing with her recovery. This area is strongly Democrat and should be a fairly easy victory for the Democratic nominee Ron Barber. The Republican is Jesse Kelly, a military veteran running for his first significant office.

The second is a ballot measure (issue 2) in North Dakota to eliminate the state property tax. The background of this is that North Dakota has been taking in large amounts of money through sales and corporate taxes because there has been a large oil business boom. The state has seen so much revenue coming in that members of the legislature decided to try and eliminate the property tax as an extra boon to their citizens. This measure was defeated in 2009. Independent groups then grabbed the idea and collected enough signatures to get the measure put on the ballot. Limited polling data has shown that the measure would be defeated with many citizens citing fear that if the boom economy collapsed, the state would be left completely bereft of revenue. I shall be curious to see what the final numbers are.

*UPDATE*

As expected, Ron Barber won AZ-8. The vote was a little closer than I expected (52-45), considering that Mr. Barber was Ms. Giffords former aide and had also been shot in the attack.

North Dakota's elimination of property tax (issue 2) also failed by a whopping 76.5 to 23.5.

June Trends

About six weeks ago, I gave my first early handicapping of the race between Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama. Charting a few things, I thought I would update on how the landscape has changed in that time.

I've added some degree of freedom since that first post. Rather than just have it be Obama, Romney, and Toss Up, I've added "slight" and "lean" to the mix (which is more in line with how things are done at RCP.



I've made three changes to the map since I first added the degrees of freedom at the beginning of May. I originally had both Ohio and Colorado as "slight Obama" and Wisconsin as "lean Obama". There have been several polls in May and early June that have shown a very tight race in Ohio and Colorado so I thought it better to move them into "Toss Up" status. Wisconsin has been a bit harder to track but with as well as Walker did, I thought it best to downgrade Wisconsin by one notch (but still keep it in the Obama column).

I've seen some sites and polls suggesting that things are tightening in Nevada and Michigan as well, but not enough to suggest moving things around.

If you give slights and leaners to each side, Mr. Obama leads Mr. Romney in the electoral college 253-206. Mr. Obama would only need another 17 electoral votes to win and the easiest path to that would be to take either Florida or Ohio. Conversely, Mr. Romney could take Florida, Ohio, and Virginia and he would still be 4 electoral votes short (i.e. needing one of New Hampshire, Iowa, or Colorado). At the moment, that would seem to present a steeper hill for Mr. Romney.

You can play around with the numbers yourself by giving various states to either side using this site.