For the best electoral polling, the site is fivethirtyeight.com

Here's an article on the guy behind the site, Nate Silver.

The Spreadsheet Psychic

In fact, the work of stat hounds in general, and of Baseball Prospectus in particular, is so obviously the product of high-wattage brainpower and creativity that you can’t help but occasionally wonder: What if someone applied all this energy to something that actually mattered, like, I don’t know, politics?

Last year, at the start of an unusually unpredictable election season, Nate Silver began to wonder the same thing.MORE

So I don't watch Gossip Girl, but I do read some slash...

and this is a really cool video. From chuck_dan


Dan/Chuck

Another email from "No on 8". People, what is equality worth to you?

The latest tracking polls show that if the election were held today among voters who have seen both our ads and the other side's ads that we would WIN!

Unfortunately, we don't have sufficient funds to get our ads seen by all the voters who’ve seen the other side’s ads. So it's that simple... without more funds we’ll lose.

But we will win if we have enough money to reach voters. So DONATE NOW!

A powerful array of motivated groups have organized against us. Yesterday’s Sacramento Bee reported that:

 

"Mormons... have emerged as the leading financial contributors to the controversial Nov. 4 ballot measure. Church members have donated about 40 percent of the $22.8 million raised to pass the initiative since July."

What is also unfortunate is that only 30,000 people have donated to the No On 8 campaign compared to the 60,000 who have donated to the other side. In a state with about two million LGBT people, in a country with millions more and tens of millions of straight allies, we have to get everyone to support this fight. If every LGBT person donated we can win!

Yesterday's Sacramento Bee also reported on the sacrifices being made by members of the Yes on 8 campaign:

"That's why Auburn resident David Nielson, 55, is giving... He and his wife, Susan, live on a budget. The couple donated $35,000, he said, 'because some things are worth fighting for.' The couple will forgo a vacation for the next two years and make other sacrifices to pay for their donation, he said."

So, what is your equality worth to you? What is your equality worth to your friends and family? How much will you sacrifice for your own freedom?

We are running out of time. We need your support now. We need the support of your friends and family now. DONATE NOW! FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO ALL OF YOUR CONTACTS!

In Solidarity,
Geoff

Click to contribute >>>>>

 

What the HELL has gotten into Campbell-Brown? Sense, for change??

Campbell Brown - So what if Obama was a Muslim or an Arab?

Transcript

Now, I commend Sen. McCain for correcting that woman, for setting the record straight. But I do have one question -- so what if he was?

So what if Obama was Arab or Muslim? So what if John McCain was Arab or Muslim? Would it matter?

When did that become a disqualifier for higher office in our country? When did Arab and Muslim become dirty words? The equivalent of dishonorable or radical?

We've all been too quick to accept the idea that calling someone Muslim is a slur.

Whenever this gets raised, the implication is that there is something wrong with being an Arab-American or a Muslim. And the media is complicit here, too.
I feel like I am stating the obvious here, but apparently it needs to be said: There is a difference between radical Muslims who support jihad against America and Muslims who want to practice their religion freely and have normal lives like anyone else.

There are more than 1.2 million Arab-Americans and about 7 million Muslim-Americans, former Cabinet secretaries, members of Congress, successful business people, normal average Americans from all walks of life.

These are the people being maligned here, and we can only imagine how this conversation plays in the Muslim world. We can't tolerate this ignorance -- not in the media, not on the campaign trail.

Of course, he's not an Arab. Of course, he's not a Muslim. But honestly, it shouldn't matter.

GRIT TV

After taking a particularly nasty turn toward the gutter, John McCain has finally tried to temper some of the raw emotion spilling over at recent rallies, much of it stoked by Sarah Palin’s calls that Barack Obama does not see America the way you and I do. Over the weekend, Congressman John Lewis from Georgia charged McCain with “sowing the seeds of hatred and division,” invoking an earlier era of invective which turned to violence. In the third and final debate, will John McCain confront Obama on his threadbare relationship to Bill Ayers? Steve Cobble says he can’t afford to. And recent polls seem to bear that out.
But the McCain/Palin rallies are also tapping into a strain of American populism buoyed by economic anxiety and the drumbeat of fear—fear of war, of financial collapse, and of terror. The Republican Party is throwing them all in the pot.
On GRITtv, Steve Cobble, Former Political Director of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH Coalition and Brian Jones a New York based teacher, activist, and writer discuss the tenuous populism upon which the McCain campaign rests.
And what of green populism? Does it have a future? How about a green New Deal? Van Jones, the author of The Green Collar Economy, says that it may very well be the future. From greening the bailout to a green recovery—alternative energy credits were part of the bailout package--there are many possibilities to explore. In his book Van Jones proposes a way out of the pollution-based grey economy and into the healthy new green economy.

Becoming a blogger/activist

Baratunde Thurston on how he became a blogger

Naomi Klein on Becoming an Activist

Majora Carter on Growing Up in the Bronx

The invisible hand of ....incompetence, to be VERY charitable.

Well, whaddya know???


Via:Daily Kos

Since 1929, Republicans and Democrats have each controlled the presidency for nearly 40 years. So which party has been better for American pocketbooks and capitalism as a whole? Well, here’s an experiment: imagine that during these years you had to invest exclusively under either Democratic or Republican administrations. How would you have fared?

As of Friday, a $10,000 investment in the S.& P. stock market index* would have grown to $11,733 if invested under Republican presidents only, although that would be $51,211 if we exclude Herbert Hoover’s presidency during the Great Depression. Invested under Democratic presidents only, $10,000 would have grown to $300,671 at a compound rate of 8.9 percent over nearly 40 years.HUGE GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATING THIS HERE

The Party of Business, huh?