No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for March 6th, 2008

Not all polls are created equal

Jim Geraghty sniffed something wafting from a Washington Post poll that had John McCain down nationally by 6 to Hillary Clinton and 12 to Barack Obama. He took a look at the crosstabs, and found that 15% weren’t even registered to vote.

Ed Morrissey dug a bit deeper and found a serious flaw in the identification. Self-idenitying party idenfitication in the WaPo poll was 40% Democratic, 28% Republican, 28% independent, which isn’t exactly what Rasmussen recently found (38.7% D/33.1% R/28.2% I). Worse, when WaPo pushed the independents and folded it into the results, it turned into 55% Dem, 36% Pubbie.

The takeaway paragraph from Ed is worth archiving:

The result is an unreliable poll, but one hell of a headline. McCain trails by twelve! And when McCain beats Obama or Clinton, we’ll hear once again that the election had to have been stolen "” because all of the polls showed McCain behind.

Just how inaccurate? Rasmussen’s tracking poll has had McCain up on Clinton since the start of the track on February 7, and McCain up on Obama since February 23.

Of course, we don’t do a national election, but 51 individual state-by-state-by-federal-district contests. I believe you know how much salt should be taken with any national poll; the question is whether you have enough left after The Winter That Won’t Die™.

Finally, somebody’s not blaming Scott Walker

by @ 19:34. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Of course, we have to go to Maine to find Slublog, who blames his cold on winter and George W. Bush.

Safe Text streets?

by @ 15:31. Filed under Miscellaneous.

I have no idea who to give this hat tip to, so I’ll go to that after I deliver the news from Britain and the Daily Mail:

Britain’s first ‘Safe Text’ street has been created complete with padded lampposts to protect millions of mobile phone users from getting hurt in street accidents while walking and texting.

Around one in ten careless Brits has suffered a “walk ‘n text” street injury in the past year through collisions with lampposts, bins and other pedestrians.

The 6.6million accidents have caused injuries ranging from mild knocks and embarrassing cuts and bruises through to broken noses, cheekbones and even a fractured skull.

Now, let’s see. Fred is running a caption contest, Nick wonders how they won WWII, Mary Katharine says that state-issued helmets and elbow pads are up next, and John Hawkins relates a story one of his college buddies had about walking into a pole while observing a Brazilian heartbreaker. Naturally, I won’t have anything nearly as good as that, but I’ll try anyway.

I guess when basic health care is rationed, and the populace becomes too stupid to walk and chew gum at the same time, preventative measures are a must. At least they’re not talking about banning “walk ‘n texts” yet.

A comparison of virtue

by @ 14:04. Filed under Sports.

“If I have to be remembered because of statistics then I did something wrong along the way.”

  Brett Farve at the press conference announcing his retirement

“Come on guys; I answered like eight questions. We’re running late."  

Barack Obama at his first unfriendly press conference.

Open Thread Thursday – It’s been too long

by @ 9:17. Filed under Open Thread Thursday.

Let’s see some chatter out there; Shoebox can’t do it all himself :-)

The new “Lost Generation”

by @ 9:06. Filed under Miscellaneous.

The “Lost Generation” is a term that often refers to the generation of literary greats that moved to Europe following WWI.   Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ezra Pound are some of the names included in this group.

Another definition of the “Lost Generation” refers to the generation of people coming of age during and shortly after WWI.   According to Wikipedia:

The “Lost Generation” was said to be disillusioned by the large number of casualties of the First World War, cynical, disdainful of the notions of morality and propriety of their elders and ambivalent about 19th-century gender ideals.

With Hillary Clintons “comeback” wins of Tuesday night, I think the Democratic party has a chance to create the 20th Century version of the Lost Generation. (more…)

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