This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter). Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon

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Dirt Road Detour

Alex didn’t want to go to Crystal Lake Cave, and he didn’t want to go see the world’s largest popcorn ball, so that left the “fun thing of the day” an earlier detour we took when US-20 was closed for a stretch, then the next turn the GPS told us to take was closed too, and later a third road was closed too. So we spent an hour or so (at least) on back roads in rural northwestern Illinois. A good portion of those roads were dirt roads!

Alex verdict: Whatever I was doing there?

Brandy verdict: It was funny and a little scary.

Sam verdict: I love dirt roads. YEE HAW!!

Curmudgeon’s Corner: Return of the Beep

On Curmudgeon’s Corner this week, Sam and Ivan’s main topics are North Korea and the dust up between CNN and the guy on Reddit. They pack a lot of smaller topics in this week too though. Rick Perry on Economics. The 2014 Annie remake. Dress codes in Congress and elsewhere. The Seattle minimum wage. A listener fact checks our last episode. And much much more…

Click below to listen and subscribe!

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Show Details:

Recorded 2017-07-07
Length this week – 2:04:17

  • (0:01:05-0:26:59) But First
    • Fireworks
    • Agenda
    • More fireworks
    • Plane Incident
    • Fact Check!
    • Jones vs Bell
    • Couch Update
  • (0:28:08-0:47:41) North Korea
    • Cobol and Y2K
    • The missile
    • Motivations
    • Trump strategy?
    • Escalation?
    • Trump engaged?
  • (0:48:57-1:11:07) Trolling CNN
    • Air Conditioner
    • Jill Innocenti
    • The meme
    • The troll
    • CNN threat
    • Incitement?
    • Found her?
  • (1:12:53-2:03:58) Lightning Round
    • Changing the battery
    • It is not her
    • Rick Perry economics
    • Movie: Annie (2014)
    • Dress codes
    • Youtube shooting
    • Trump dissed?
    • Seattle minimum wage
    • Illinois budget
    • Alex interlude
    • Trump-light again

 

The Curmudgeon’s Corner theme music is generously provided by Ray Lynch.

Our intro is “The Oh of Pleasure” (Amazon MP3 link)

Our outro is “Celestial Soda Pop” (Amazon MP3 link)

Both are from the album “Deep Breakfast” (iTunes link)

Please buy his music and support his GoFundMe.

Curmudgeon’s Corner: Walk 5000 Steps

On this week’s Curmudgeon’s Corner Sam and Ivan hit all the things you would expect about Election 2016, the attacks in Brussels and the announcements at the latest Apple event. They also talk a bit about fitness, #ManInTree, Waze, Obama in Cuba and more! Even a bit about events in the Nixon administration!

Click below to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!

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Recorded 2016-03-24

Length this week – 1:51:13

1-Click Subscribe in iTunes
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Show Details:

  • (0:00:00-0:02:52) Alex Prelude
  • (0:03:05-0:14:21) But First
    • Health
    • Fitness
    • Man In Tree
  • (0:15:01-0:56:58) Election 2016
    • Delegate Math
    • Types of Contested Conventions
    • Upcoming States
    • California
    • Virgin Islands
    • Delegate Selection Processes
    • Trump’s Lost Illinois Delegates
    • Clinton vs Trump
  • (0:58:02-1:06:19) Brussels
    • Belgian Citizens
    • Radicalization
    • History of Terrorism
    • Responses
  • (1:07:36-1:19:56) Brussels Part II
    • Overreactions
    • Suicide Bombings
    • IS Strategy
    • Cruz and Trump on Brussels
    • When it happens in the US
  • (1:20:35-1:33:43) Apple Stuff
    • No surprises
    • Android codenames
    • OS X codenames
    • FBI vs Apple update
  • (1:34:22-1:50:53) Lightning Round
    • TV Series: Minority Report (2015)
    • Obama in Cuba
    • Obama in Argentina
    • Nixon Administration on Drug War
    • Rob Ford

Electoral College: 01:15 – Lots of states, All expected

Romney Obama
Romney Best Case 310 228
Current Status 206 332
Obama Best Case 190 348

There were no states called between 00:45 UTC and 01:00 UTC so there was no 01:00 update.

But there were tons of states called between 01:00 and 01:15 though.

  • Obama: CT, DE, DC, IL, MD, MA, ME-All, ME-1, RI
  • Romney: OK, GA

I also corrected the light blue line in the chart, which I’d neglected to decrement when Romney won South Carolina. That line represents the states where Romney was ahead by more than 5%, but less than 10%.

The three scenarios remain the same though, as no close states have been called. In 2008, since McCain’s best case was still to lose, I also tracked a “McCain SuperBest” case on election night, the case where he would have won all the states he was behind by less than 10% in. That was to keep it interesting in a race that wasn’t close. No need for that this time.

This time we wait for the states that are actually close.

2012 Republican Delegate Count: Romney Wins Illinois Big, Finally Pulling Away

Charts from the Abulsme.com 2012 Republican Delegate Count Graphs page. When a candidate gets down to 0%, they have cinched the nomination. If they get up past 100%, they have been mathematically eliminated. The first chart is by date, on the second chart rather than the date on the x-axis, we show the “% of Delegates Already Allocated” as this better represents the progress through the race. Note that these numbers include estimates of the eventual results of multi-stage caucus processes which will be refined as the later stages occur.

So this looks like it might be it. As I indicated might be a possibility in yesterday’s update, between Romney’s lead growing rapidly in recent polls and Santorum failing to file proper delegate slates everywhere, Romney did indeed do well enough to be moving in the direction of getting to 1144. (In fact he blew away the percentages he needed to get for that.) He is now in the best position he has been in since the race began, and the chances of any brokered convention shenanigans are receding quickly.

Lets look at the specifics.

With 99% of precincts reporting, Romney has 46.7% of the popular vote in Illinois. But because of the specifics of how delegates are allocated, and Santorum’s failure to have delegate slates everywhere, this translates into getting 42 of the 54 delegates that were up for grabs tonight. That is 77.8% of the delegates. WELL above the 48.5% of delegates he needed to improve his position overall.

Santorum gets the other 12 delegates allocated tonight. Gingrich and Paul are shut out and get nothing.

Also today the one Puerto Rican superdelegate who had previously endorsed Gingrich decides to echo the election results there, says it is “time to unite” and switches his endorsement to Romney.

This makes the totals for today: Romney +43, Santorum +12, Gingrich -1

And looking at “% of remaining delegates needed to win”:

  • Romney: 48.5% -> 47.1%
  • Santorum: 69.8% -> 71.8%
  • Gingrich: 76.1% -> 79.5%
  • Paul: 82.2% -> 85.8%

Looking at the charts at the top of this post, between Puerto Rico and Illinois, Romney is finally starting to really drive down this number. His line is finally starting to move downward rapidly. The three non-Romneys continue their race toward mathematical elimination. It won’t be long now.

How about the possibilities for blocking Romney? Well, at this point the combined non-Romneys would need to consistently get 52.9% of the remaining delegates in order to be on a pace to stop Romney from getting to 1144. Up to this point the non-Romney’s have managed 46.5% of the delegates. Making the jump from 47% to 53% is a big jump, but still not an unimaginable jump. Perhaps with a few major Romney stumbles in a row? And a few good states in a row? Louisiana maybe? The RCP average for Louisiana has the non-Romneys at 56%. If the popular vote ends up like that, and the delegates parallel the popular vote…

Well, yes, Romney may not get what he needs in Louisiana. But after that the calendar starts looking better for Romney again. And with it being essentially 100% clear at this point that none of the non-Romneys have a chance at 1144 (despite what Santorum’s camp was saying recently) and it is all just about blocking Romney, do people continue to vote for candidates who are clearly losing? And perhaps just as importantly, do rich donors still throw millions at candidates who clearly are going nowhere? Probably not.

It has taken awhile, but it really does look like Romney is finally starting to put the chances of being blocked in the rear view mirror. I’m not ready to call it impossible quite yet. But it is getting closer to that point and is already very unlikely. We can already say that the non-Romney’s getting it together enough to block Romney would require a major change to how they’ve been doing so far, and a reversal of recent trends.

Once Romney’s “% of remaining needed to win” drops below 45% or so we can pretty safely call this a done deal absent a major catastrophe. From then on out, it will just be Romney slowly but surely grinding his way to 1144. But we aren’t there quite yet.

Lets see how Louisiana, DC, Maryland and Wisconsin go. (Those last three are winner take all, so April 3rd will be a big day!)

This of course does mean that Santorum is now the frontrunner to be the 2016 Republican nominee. (Since Romney will lose to Obama in November according to current polling, and by coming in 2nd this time around, Santorum would be “next in line” on the Republican side.)

Too soon?

2012 Republican Delegate Count: Georgia Update

Chart from the Abulsme.com 2012 Republican Delegate Count Graphs page. When a candidate gets down to 0%, they have cinched the nomination. If they get up past 100%, they have been mathematically eliminated. Note that these numbers include estimates of the eventual results of multi-stage caucus processes which will be refined as the later stages occur.

A minor update from Georgia today. My primary source, Green Papers, previously had the results from Georgia as Gingrich 54, Romney 19, Santorum 3. This has now been updated to Gingrich 52, Romney 21, Santorum 3.

So the net for the day is Romney +2, Gingrich -2.

So Romney’s “% of remaining needed to win” drops from 48.7% to 48.5%. (And Gingrich’s rises from 75.9% to 76.1%.)

This is a minor change that does not change the state of the race significantly. But since there is an update today, it gives me a chance to modify something I said in the last update based on new information. I had said:

Next up is Illinois. Romney is ahead in the polls in Illinois, but isn’t over 48.7% in those polls, and of course nobody else is close to the numbers above either. The contest there is a “Loophole Primary” which is a bit odd, but if the delegate results are even close to being proportional to the popular vote result, then we can expect Illinois to be another of the “everybody loses” states where nobody actually gets closer to the nomination in terms of being on pace to win.

Well. two things.

First, recent polls have been moving in Romney’s direction over the last week. The most recent poll as of this writing was a poll from PPP (pdf) that has Romney at 45%. Now, polls predict popular vote, not delegates, and the 48.5% Romney needs is a percentage of delegates, not a percentage of the popular vote. But assuming at least some correlation between popular vote and delegates, those numbers are getting pretty close to each other. Which brings us to…

Second, Santorum failed to properly file for delegate slates in some parts of the state. This means that Santorum’s delegate take will almost certainly underperform his performance in the popular vote. This implies that Romney’s delegate take may well overperform his popular vote number.

With these two factors together, Romney’s chances of getting to the 48.5% he needs to improve his “% of remaining” number and move closer to the nomination and further away from the scenarios where he doesn’t get to 1144 is much more likely than it looked previously.

By this time tomorrow, we should know how that turned out.