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Friday, June 20, 2008
Obama-McCain tied in Ga?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s conceivable that Barack Obama could make Georgia at least competitive. But I’m not buying the results of the latest poll from Insider Advantage, which reports that McCain holds a statistically insignificant lead of 1 percentage point in Georgia.
Insider Advantage has a mixed record at best in its polling. Right before the North Carolina primary, they had Obama up by just 3, when other pollsters had the margin in double figures. He won by 14.
Here in the Georgia primary, they had Obama up by 15; he won by 35.
So until other pollsters come up with numbers suggesting a tight general-election race here in Georgia — most of them report a McCain lead of around 10 points — this one should be treated as an anomaly.
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Scattered vs. isolated
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’ve always wondered about this, so I did some googling and found this explanation posted by a Weather Service employee:
“National Weather Service forecasters will forecast ‘isolated’ thunderstorms when we are pretty certain that storms are going to form, but we only expect them to affect about 10% of the area. In other words, 90% of the area won’t get wet.
Just so you know, when our forecast says…
“Widely scattered thunderstorms”, it means 20% of the area will be affected. “Scattered thunderstorms” means 30-50% of the area will be affected. “Thunderstorms likely” means 60-70% of the area will be affected. and if we just say “Thunderstorms”, we expect that 80-100% of the area will see rain.
Problems arise, however, when that isolated thunderstorm happens to develop over the most populated city in the area. When that happens, most of the people get wet, even though only a small area received rain. So to many people, forecasters are “wrong” even when we are “right”!
So now I know, and you do too. Of course, given the lack of rain in these parts, that knowledge is only of theoretical importance.
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We’re racist, doncha know?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
From a commenter about our endorsement of Jim Martin over Vernon Jones as the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate:
“Why does the AJC repeatedly insult the intelligence of African-Americans? Folks don’t be blind to this blatant racism portrayed by the AJC and it’s writers such as Mr. Bookman. Vernon Jones is a threat to the “good ole boys” so rather than talk about the accomplishments he achieved for DeKalb County, you’d rather make personal attacks.
What is Jim Martin really known for? Besides losing the Lt. Governor’s seat—boy that’s one strong candidate. Perhaps Mr. Jones voted for Bush because he was tired of the poor choices (ie losers) the Democratic Party continued to pick to represent us. Jim Martin doesn’t bring any more credit to our party or our state than Dale Cardwell did by climbing a tower—idiot. His only credibility is the fact that he’s White and the so called “stronger” pick of the White candidates. I guess if Martin hadn’t stepped into the race, you would have endorsed the software salesman. It’s a sad day in Georgia when people still have this ignorant mentality in the year 2008. An African-American can represent our state (and our country) just as well as a White person. What are you afraid of? Free your minds people! Vernon Jones for U.S. Senate!”
The funny thing is, it was sent from a DeKalb County government computer….
