This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
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There are new polls in 36 states today. 34 of them are from a massive dump of new polls done by Zogby. Of those 36 states, 9 states changed status in the way I group states. Of those, 6 moved in or out of the leaning “swing state” status. None actually changed who was in the lead in my “last 5 polls” averages.
Of the 9 states, 2 states (with 34 electoral votes) moved in McCain’s direction, 7 states (with 85 electoral votes) moved in Obama’s direction. On balance, this is a good result for Obama. The specifics follow.
Good for McCain:
- 27 EV – Florida – Lean McCain to Weak McCain (no longer swing)
- 7 EV – Iowa – Weak Obama to Lean Obama (now swing)
Good for Obama:
- 34 EV – Texas – Strong McCain to Weak McCain
- 17 EV – Michigan – Lean Obama to Weak Obama (no longer swing)
- 10 EV – Arizona – Strong McCain to Weak McCain
- 8 EV – South Carolina – Weak McCain to Lean McCain (now swing)
- 7 EV – Oregon – Weak Obama to Strong Obama
- 5 EV – New Mexico – Lean Obama to Weak Obama (no longer swing)
- 4 EV – New Hampshire – Lean Obama to Weak Obama (no longer swing)
All of this leaves us with this new summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 284, Obama 254
Obama Best Case – Obama 362, McCain 176
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 306, McCain 232
Now, one interesting thing here. Obama’s total in the case where he gets NONE of the leaning swing states (McCain’s best case scenario) still gives Obama 254 electoral votes. Give him DC (a near certainty) and he has 257. That is only 13 electoral votes from winning. If either Ohio or Virginia… currently Lean Obama states… strengthen into Weak Obama states… then Obama would have enough states where he leads by more than 5% to win WITHOUT ANY SWING STATES. In my averages right now, Obama is ahead by 3.4% in Virginia and 4.6% in Ohio. It wouldn’t take all that much to push him over the 5% threshold.
Leaving Ohio and Virginia as swing states for the moment, it leaves us with 11 swing states with 105 electoral votes. Obama only needs 13 of those electoral votes to win. Taking any of Ohio, North Carolina or Virginia alone would do it. Various combinations of the smaller states would also do.
McCain’s lead in Florida climbing back up to 5% (exactly, barely putting it back in the Weak category instead of Lean) is good news for McCain. So is Iowa weakening for Obama and coming into play. But…
McCain really needs to start doing something here. It has been a month now since Obama wrapped up the nomination. This has been a pretty huge bump. It may start to fade a bit, but McCain has to start actually DOING something if he wants to make a race out of this rather than just slowly going through the motions of a loss.
At this point it almost looks like McCain just trying to prevent an Obama landslide, rather than McCain actually trying to win.
Important – Added 10 Jul 2008 15:25 UTC – A correction. I’d made a transcription error on the Iowa poll numbers. The race there is closer than it was, but did not actually dip below the 5% threshold (although it is close). Iowa therefore remains a “Weak Obama” rather than a “Lean Obama” and should not have changed in the update above. It will be corrected on further updates.
Playing with the 30 day free trial of JungleDisk at the moment. I’ve been getting increasingly ancy that while I have an onsite backup, I don’t have an offsite backup. I’ve of course known about JungleDisk since it’s first release, and S3 even before that, but never bothered to actually try it for anything until now. I’ve always done the math and determined that A) Backing up EVERYTHING at S3’s prices would be more than I really want to pay per month and B) With the volume that changes each day on my machine, I don’t have enough bandwidth with my pokey DSL connection to keep up with it.
Those things aside, I am giving it a shot on just one folder… my pictures… and seeing how it goes. That is a lot less than “everything” that I would really want an offsite backup of, but having just started it about 5 minutes ago, it is estimating “6 days” to complete the initial backup of that folder (29 GB of images). And that is probably sucking bandwidth that the three of us in the house might want to be using for other things.
And yes, I know I could switch to cable instead of DSL and get significantly more bandwidth. My upload and download speeds both suck, and faster DSL is not available at my address, but much faster cable is.
Hmmm… I wonder if my neighbor’s unsecured WiFi is a faster connection than my own… :-)
I just switched my default browser back to Safari. I’m not sure if it is a permanent decision. We’ll see if after a few days I miss any features enough to switch yet again.
Sam and Ivan talk about:
- Greg’s Comment
- Ivan’s Econ Update
- Moving to the Center
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 While Amy was away, it was time for us to watch a DVD we own, but that we had not watched yet. Since Amy was not there, we could watch one that she had seen, but Brandy and I had not. So Bridge to Terabithia it was. Brandy had read the book a few months back, and had given away that it had a sad ending, but not what that ending was. Otherwise, I was spoiler free. I had no idea what it was going to be about, and actually expected a Narnia wannabe sort of movie. That is not what it was.
I was expecting from the beginning for something bad to happen to the girl because of Brandy’s one spoiler, but I must admit, what actually did happen was not what I expected to happen. For anybody else spoiler-free, I have already said too much, and won’t say more. For those who have read the book or seen the movie… well, you already know.
Anyway, the exact nature of what happened was actually a bit more powerful than what I was expecting. And in a bit different way than your standard tear jerker. It just left me a bit cold. A sort of “Wait, that’s it?” sort of thing. But I think that was kind of the point.
Anyway, a good movie. Not a WALL-E but still a decent movie. It was worth a watch.
 In the couple of days right before we sent Amy off to Canada I started getting a more and more intense desire to go see Wall-E. I don’t know why exactly. I’d seen things about it for years of course, but had not gotten too horribly excited. But in the last few days, I kept asking Brandy, “Can we go see Wall-E?”. Eventually on the night before Amy left on her trip, her last rehersal ended with enough time left over for us to catch the next to last showing at the nearby movie place. So we got our tickets, we got our popcorn, and in we went.
Bottom line here, If you’ve read any other reviews of this movie, I’m not going to say anything new here. I’m going to agree with all of them. This was a great movie. Looking quickly at my list of movies I’ve seen at the theater in the last few years, it is easily the best of all of them since I have been keeping track. That might be true of the DVD list too.
Now, those of you who pay attention know the kind of movie I like… emotional, cute, a little humor, a little different… this completely does all of those and does it well.
The first half hour is wordless. Just getting to know Wall-E and his world. It is great. The use of Hello Dolly!… Great. Oh, I dunno. This is just the kind of movie that hits pretty much all of my buttons directly. I’m sure it is not for everybody. Some people hate things that are a little sappy… and yes, predictable… I don’t think there is ever even one second of doubt about how the movie will end… and there are some folks who have been mad that in some ways it looks like a bit of environmentalist propaganda… but whatever. It made me cry and laugh and had me in rapt attention from the first few seconds to the last seconds of the credits when there was a dedication to a member of the production team who passed away.
This is an awesome movie. Regardless of the presence or absence of children in your life (the theoretical primary audience for a “family” movie of this sort) if you didn’t see it yet, make room on this holiday weekend to go see it. Really. Go see it. Now.
The bounce continues. Surely at some point things will start heading back in McCain’s direction, right?
In any case, a new poll in Montanta. We’ve had very few polls in Montana. This is only the third since November 5th, 2007 (one year before the election). This one moves the state from “Weak McCain” to “Lean McCain”. (Obama is actually ahead in the newest poll, but McCain keeps the lean on the strength of the two older polls.) This effectively makes Montana a swing state. Of course, Montana is only 3 electoral votes, so it only has a small effect on Obama’s best case number. But little states do add up. Oh, and it looks big on the map. :-)
Current Summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 303, Obama 235
Obama Best Case – Obama 381, McCain 157
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 306, McCain 232
 Yesterday we dropped Amy off with her chorus and later in the day they crossed the border into Canada on the way to the Kathaumixw festival. According to their website:
The International Choral Kathaumixw is a global gathering of choirs and conductors, featuring international concerts, choral and vocal solo competitions, common song singing, conductors round tables, concert tours, social events, workshops, and seminars.
The International Choral Kathaumixw takes place in the picturesque seaside town of Powell River, British Columbia, Canada.
…
“A gathering together of different peoples.†When organizers chose the Sliammon name “Kathaumixw†(pronounced Ka-thou-mew) for their festival more than 20 years ago, they never dreamed how fitting a name it would be.
Over the past two decades, International Choral Kathaumixw has become an illustrious event. More than 30 choirs from all over the world take part in each festival, which is held every second summer in the small town Powell River on the coast of British Columbia, Canada. International concerts, choral and vocal solo competitions, common song singing, conductors’ round tables, concert tours, social events, workshops and seminars are the focus of the festival.
International Choral Kathaumixw is known not only for the high quality of its music, but also because of the philosophy that defines it. The festival brings together musicians and music lovers, and it celebrates music and music’s ability to bring peace to the world. The setting, a quiet town in the midst of a temperate rainforest overlooking mountains and ocean, is conducive to this philosophy.
She will be gone about a week. Brandy doesn’t like it at all when Amy is away. :-) But we will be fine and get some things done at home over the holiday, and Amy will have a great time.
(Edited 2008 Jul 4 06:02 UTC to make the image a bit smaller.)
It is very much a swing state, the margins being very close at the moment in the “last five polls average”, but Virginia now flips from “Leaning McCain” to “Leaning Obama”. This doesn’t change either candidate’s “best case” numbers in my summary, since I allow for leaning states to go either way. But this does push Obama’s lead in the “everybody gets their leans” number further ahead.
The bounce continues.
Current Summary:
McCain Best Case – McCain 303, Obama 235
Obama Best Case – Obama 378, McCain 160
If everybody gets their leans (and Obama gets DC) – Obama 306, McCain 232
Obama’s lead in that metric is now bigger than McCain’s was at his peak from May 15th to May 20th, but not yet larger than the lead McCain had from March 8th to March 10th when we first had polls in all 50 states.
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