Schrodinger's President

From Richard Fernandez:

And so Chavez can rule for so long as he lives. And he lives for as long as Castro says he does. Since no one is allowed to examine Chavez without the permission of the Cuban officials no one can gainsay the continued existence of the virtual Hugo Chavez except Fidel Castro.

Chavez is in a box. There are only two possibilities: He is alive or he is not. The likelihood of him being alive cannot be determined, so I am going to arbitrarily assign it a probability of precisely 50%. Therefore, according to Schrodinger, until the box is opened, Chavez is both alive and dead.

An "In Kind" Contribution?

Presented without comment:

From TwitPic.

All of Those Polls

There's a new poll every few seconds, it seems, and all of them pointing in different directions. Assuming that all of them are polls of likely voters, it seems to me that the largest factor giving rise to the variations would be the weight accorded to the three voting groups, Democrat, Republican and Independent, whether or not they adjust for that factor.

Sometimes the D/R/I split for a given poll is announced, and sometimes not. Frequently, however, along with the overall result (Romney by 1, Obama by 2...) the poll will also provide the split among independent voters. When that occurs, with a couple of relatively safe assumptions, you can figure the D/R/I split yourself with my handy dandy spreadsheet.

First, open MS Excel. Put in your column and row labels, just like I did. Then the fun part starts. In the column labeled "Total Voters" enter estimates of the D/R/I split, but only for Dems and Reps. The entry for Ind shoud the 100 less the sum of the first two rows. Remember, boys and girls, this is only an estimate.

Next comes our first assumption: That 95% of the members of each group is already committed to the candidate of his or her choice. So in the column labeled "5% undecided voters", tell the spreadsheet to muliply the appropriate row of "total voters" by 0.95.

Then comes our second assumption: That 90% of party-affiliated voters will vote for their own candidate. So in the column labeled "%age voting R" enter 0.10 in row 1 (D voters) and 0.9 in row 2 (R voters). In row 3 (I voters) enter the percentage given by the poll as voting R. Similarly, in the column labeled "%age voting D" enter 0.90 in row 1 (D voters) and 0.1 in row 2 (R voters). In row 3 (I voters) enter the percentage given by the poll as voting D.

Next, in the column labeled labeled "votes R", tell the spreadsheet to muliply the appropriate row of "decided voters" by the entry in the same row in the column to the left. And in the column labeled labeled "votes D", tell the spreadsheet to muliply the appropriate row of "decided voters" by the entry in the same row in the column to the left.

Finally, have the spreadsheet prepare a total of the "votes R" column and the "votes D" column, and then, in the last column, tell the spreadsheet to subtract one total from the other.

Now, boys and girls, we are ready to play. Remember the estimated D/R/I split we entered in the "total voters column"? Well, to figure the D/R/I split in the poll you are trying to figure out, simply adjust the D and R amounts until the last column of the spreadsheet matches the overall result given by that poll. Voila, this is likely to be very close to the D/R/I split in the poll, even if the pollster doesn't provide that information. Your mileage may vary.

You can do this at home. No adult supervision is required. Send lots and lots of money to me at Man with Shovel and I will send you your very own spreadsheet.

But wait! There's more!

Respond before November 6, 2012 and I will double your order at no extra charge! Not even shipping and handing!

Must. Try. To. Resist.

Via Instapundit (of course):

Over the past two years, the Obama administration has been secretly developing a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists, a next-generation targeting list called the “disposition matrix.”

Have you ever seen a matrix? It's a fancy name for a spreadsheet with rows and columns (but its not limited to only two dimensions). Like a bingo card. If sufficient resources line up with adequate opportunity: Bingo! One (or more) dead terrorists.

God help us all, President Peace Prize is playing Disposition Bingo.

Its completely unfair to say that, I know. But I just could not resist.

President Snark

Mr. President, I hope you don't speak to your employees (especially those in the armed services) like this:

“You — you mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines."

Would You Call This Morbid?

Nah!

From the Morbid Anatomy Library and Museum in Brooklyn, via CNN.

Not Optimal? Really?

Pat Smith, mother of one of the diplomats murdered in Libya, responding to Obama's glib response to Jon Stewart's glibber(?) question:

My son is not very optimal – my son is very dead.

For what it's worth (and that is obviously close to nothing), I am sorry her son was murdered. I cringed when I heard President Empty Chair's response to Stewart. Worse, it was delivered with a smile while yucking it up on Comedy Central.

Mitt Romney was heavily criticized for "politicizing" the events in Libya. For example, here's was NY Times pit viper Maureen Dowd criticizing Romney for having the temerity to say what Obama said two or three hours later:

Romney’s cynical braying about Obama appeasement in the midst of the attack on the American diplomatic post in Libya and the murder of the brave ambassador, Christopher Stevens, was shameful.

I guess unless Obama says it first, you are politicizing it.

I also remember something else Dowd wrote in 2005.

It's amazing that the White House does not have the elementary shrewdness to have Mr. Bush simply walk down the driveway and hear ... [Cindy Sheehan, mother of slain soldier Casey Sheehan] ... out, or invite her in for a cup of tea. But W., who has spent nearly 20 percent of his presidency at his ranch, is burrowed into his five-week vacation and two-hour daily workouts. He may be in great shape, but Iraq sure isn't.

That was Dowd berating Bush because he refused to politicize the death of Casey Sheehan

This situation is identical, so why aren't Dowd and the NY Times printing columns about Obama's failure to stop by the Smith residence and "just hear the woman out?" Or better yet, columns about Obama "cynically braying about non-optimal states of affairs?"

On the Comedy Channel.