Interogation

Andrew Sullivan has talked eloquently about this issue, but he's missed the important point: there's a better way. I have experienced that better way. Through a strange bit of coincidences, I faced an international drug trafficking charge. It was no joke (25 years in jail), but I was completely innocent. So how do I prove that? I don't know, all I know is that I'm facing a crack team of interrogators, and they're looking looking to bust me. But it's okay, I'm not in America, I have rights, and I'm innocent.

My crime? They think I'm involved in international methamphetemine smuggling. And I'm in the Auckland airport as an American citizen. And they have detected methamphetemine on my luggage, but no significant quantities of it. I have no rights (not a citizen) and have been accused of a very serious crime. Needless to say, I'm nervous. But I have one positive thought: the people of New Zealand would never allow a person to be mistreated. And they would offer me rights in a court of law. But that only helped me because I was innocent. If I weren't, I still be in jail in New Zealand. (As an aside, can Firefox update its spellpeck to include New Zealand?)

So I was interrogated for three hours by two New Zealand customs officials, two New Zealand drug agents, and one Australian official of unknown agency. At any given time, there were three interrogators, but they rotated. I told the story of my flying from Bangkok to Auckland through Bali and Brisbane at least five times. And I made it clear that I hadn't touched my bags since going through security in Bangkok. But in no instance did they ever allow me to tell that story in chronological order. Someone would always break in on my story about the Bangkok airport with what happened in Brisbane. "And how did your bags get from from Bangkok to Brisbane?" And I reply: "Umm, I don't know how Garuda Indonesia sends my bags, and I probably don't want to know." It was a constant stream of different questions from different people from different countries. There was simply no way I'd could ever create a coherent lie under that situation. The truth was really the only path. I could occasionally make a joke because my interrogators were actually quite nice. But they weren't easy. Fortunately, the truth saved me.

So what's the truth? There really was, and probably still is, a Brisbane to Auckland methamphetimine route that used excess baggage space as the means of transport. It was done through the baggage handlers. My backpack was very underloaded and could easily handle another 50 kilos. So they used my baggage space to transport their goods. And I ended up facing a very serious situation because of it. But the truth is simple: I was innocent and they figured that out. If they had tortured me, I'd have admitted to anything. And I'd still be in jail. And they would be no closer to catching those that committed the crime. In fact, they'd be farther away. And the truth is this: I didn't really like being held and interrogated under those circumstaces, but I have great respect for those that interrogated me. They did what they had to do (and I was scared), but they did get the right information.

Slacking

Haven't posted in a while. It's not that I don't have ideas. It's just that I feel like I feel like those ideas have to be good for them to be posted. And those ideas should be expressed in a reasonable manner. What's happened this week so infuriates me that it's difficult to be reasonable. Offshore drilling, Obama's cave on FISA, the usual right wing Christian craziness, etc. I guess the thing I find about blogging is that I'm much more hesitant to express my feelings than I would be just commenting on someone else's blog*. Part of it is that is is easier to react than create. But the bigger issue is that things I write in the main post are really mine. And I'm afraid to own something that is really stupid. Not that I haven't written stupid things here, I just don't want to do it knowingly. I also want to avoid issues that are already beaten to death. Offshore drilling is such an issue. If you haven't already read several dozen tirades against the plan, you haven't been reading. So, in the interest of providing something new, here's this and this. The first is about a katoey in Thailand and the second is about animals taking over airport runways in India. Both are from Asia Times, and neither are even remotely surprising. I've decided that I should make an effort to provide weird stories from India and Thailand because, let's face it, the weirdest stories usually come from those two countries . But I don't do this to denigrate either country, I do it to reveal the very real differences in attitude that exist in the world.

*Here's an example of a recent comment on gay issues:

"John, you raise a good point that is probably lost on most people outside of Thailand. I personally don't care much about the marriage issue, but I do support anyone's marriage rights and vote that way. I was born heterosexual and no amount of social pressure would ever change that. But I have no problem having drinks with the katoey in Bangkok- but just drinks, thank you. While I'd agree that sexuality is a continuous spectrum, I'm pretty far to one side. And I'm comfortable with that. And that's precisely why I enjoy the company of anyone who's anywhere on the spectrum. It just doesn't matter to me because I'm comfortable with myself. It's when people are acting in way that is inconsistent with their placement on the spectrum that problems arise. And based on the number of gay Republicans espousing anti-gay rhetoric, it's pretty clear that the failure to accept one's placement on the spectrum creates serious emotional conflicts. In the end, The Closet is the most emotionally destructive force in sexuality. We need to create a society where nobody feels the need to be in The Closet. And that needs to include the transvestites, transgendered, and transexuals as well. Thailand does it pretty well. So can we."

As you can see, it's longer than many of my posts. I think it's time to stop worrying about what I write, and just write. It's easier that way.

Tim Russert

Shocking news. I guess it's another reminder that we never really know when the end will be. I generally liked Tim as an interviewer. His toughness sometimes slipped into gotcha questions, but not too often. And he generally stuck to substantive questions. Overall, I'd say he was one of the better journalists on television. He will be missed.

Why is Sysia Talking?

Gulf News has a good answer. It turns out that they need Western investment. So why is Israel talking? Well, Olmert is in legal trouble again, so he might want to deflect attention from that. And doing something the liberals (his main enemies) might like is a good start. But I probably shouldn't be so cynical. Olmert sees an opportunity. The Syrians know they would be better off distancing themselves from Iran and Hezbollah. And they want to become closer to the West and the Arab world for financial reasons. Israel would like to encourage that transition. But if they bomb Syria, they'll prevent that transition. If they talk, they'll encourage it. So they're talking, even though they would probably prefer bombing. I'm still somewhat skeptical about the negotiations, but both sides seem to be operating in a rational fashion, so there's hope. In the end, peace is the only rational option. Maybe the two sides will get there.

Update: Gershom says that elections might be coming. You'll need to click his link to get to the full article. I link to him because his intro is great. Money quote:

"Here we have an election whenever the humidity, the soccer results, the stock market and the mood in the State Prosecutor’s Office line up in a formula known only to several deceased alchemists."

Now that's Jewish humor.

Not the Best Backround

I don't have a problem with either green or Jello. But "Good for Dentures"? I'm sure it speaks to McCain's base, but maybe that doesn't send the right message to those of us under 60. I remember a time (all of my life, actually) when Republicans were really good at message control. What happened? (hat tip: DailyKos)

I guess I should add that my roommate and I were just talking about how press photographers have been putting out some rather unflattering photos of politicians in recent years and how that wasn't the case when we were young. Yes, photos came out of Lyndon Johnson putting the fear of death into other politicians when he talked to them (yelled at, actually). But Johnson liked those pictures and the persona they conveyed. He wanted people to be scared before they even entered the Oval Office.

Things to Think About

Science catches up to the Fiction: Levitation, and I'm not kidding. I would caution that many medical studies should be done before we build our levitating cars. But Luke's desert speeder seems in grasp. Reversing the Casimir force is something I wouldn't have guessed. Not so much that it couldn't be done, but that it could be done over such distances.

Secret Meetings: Obama took Lieberman into a corner in the Senate and gave him a stern talking to. It wasn't quite the "Johnson treatment", but the accounts imply that Obama might have had some LBJ in him. Good for him. And apparently Harry Reid had a little 'talk' too. Old Joe might be getting the boot if the Dems have the votes. Harry Reid defends Joe, of course, but that could change. Oh, and Obama and Hillary had a meeting. Unfortunately, we have no details. Oh to be a fly on the wall...

Bollywood in Bangkok: The International Indian Film Academy is having it's awards in Bangkok. Most people in the world cannot really appreciate how strange that is. In general, the Indian and Thai cultures are very different. If you think either of those cultures is weird, you should understand that they seem far weirder to each other . Indians do go to Bangkok in fairly large numbers, but they tend to keep to themselves when there. Most Indians can't eat at any Thai restaurant for dietary reasons. And the Thai like them even less than anyone else who's visiting. And, trust me, the Thai don't really like anyone who's not Thai. And they certainly don't watch Bollywood movies. Trying to sell Bollywood in Bangkok is like trying to sell skin whitener in Iceland. The Thai have their own really weird movies, thank you.

Clear enough?

Here's the DNC's contribution page. Hillary should visit it. I like the "Thank You Hillary" part. We do thank you. BUT IT"S TIME TO LEAVE. There's work in the Senate, DO IT.

Update: Okay, she's leaving. And even Taylor Marsh is calling for unity (sort of- but what can you expect?). The general Election begins....

Montana and South Dakota

Finally! The last primaries. The consensus seems to be that Obama wins both of them. But recent South Dakota polls show otherwise. Obama will win Montana by 10 points, and Clinton will win South Dakota by 2 points. Obama currently needs 40 delegates and will win 17 pledged delegates tonight. He'll also pick up 5 superdelegates from Montana, as they have pledged themselves to the winner of the state. He'll need 18 superdelegates to commit today if we wants to declare himself the winner tonight. I think he'll get them by the time he speaks tonight. He'll make that point subtly clear tonight. Hillary will wake up tomorrow with only a floor fight at the convention to give her hope. But it's pretty clear she'll lose that fight. She should concede on Wednesday, but she may just suspend her campaign. A suspension makes it easier for her to continue raising money while not spending any of it. But I don't think she'll be able to raise a whole lot of money. She'll raise the kind of money a Senate candidate might raise, not the kind a Presidential candidate would. But that might get her close to being out of debt.

Update: FiveThirtyEight has Obama winning by 18 in Montana and 5 in South Dakota. They've been pretty accurate so far with their combined demographics and polling model. Given the sparsity of polls for the states, they should do a lot better than the traditional polling methods. So it may not be wise to go against their predictions. I'm still sticking with my prediction, however. The reason is that Hillary's supporters are desperate now and will turn out in full force. Obama's supporters already know he's going to win the nomination, so they'll stay home in droves. If Hillary had a realistic chance, I'd go with FiveThirtyEight's predictions, but she doesn't.

RBC Meeting

Okay so Clinton netted 29 (19 from Florida, 10 from Michigan) pledged delegates, but they only get 1/2 a vote. But the NY Times reports that she nets a total of 24. I guess they're counting the superdelegates that have committed from the two states as well. Maybe they are also counting Edwards' delegates. Regardless, everyone seems to agree that Obama needs 64-66 more delegates to clinch the nomination now. I was a bit surprised by the 69-59 split in Michigan. I had heard about the plan, but both camps rejected it, so I didn't think it was likely. But I guess the fact that neither camp was happy with it makes it a good compromise. I guess I should have seen that.

Back to the race, Obama will probably win about 42 delegates in the last three primaries. So he needs another 25 or so superdelegates and he's over the top. I'm guessing he'll have those lined up by Tuesday night. I think he'll try to subtly say that he's really the nominee and hope that Hillary will concede without further prodding. My prediction: Hillary concedes on Wednesday afternoon. That may seem really optimistic, but consider the votes today. The Florida vote was unanimous, with all of Hillary's supporters voting for the plan. The Michigan vote was 19-8, which is a pretty solid margin. Hillary's only chance is to challenge the delegates at the Credentials Committee in July. But with margins this large, it's unlikely she'll get a different result. Obama played this right, by the way. Chuck Todd is reporting that the Obama camp had the votes for the 50-50 plan, but went with the 69-59 plan to have it pass by a larger margin. Clinton supporter Don Fowler said it best: "Guys, it's over." By Wednesday, it really will be.

Puerto Rico

On Sunday Puerto Rico votes. Given that it's a territory, you might think it's not an important primary. But this is the Democratic Party, so reason and sensibility must be dispensed with. It turns out that, under DNC rules, Puerto Rico sends more delegates to the Democratic Convention than twenty seven states. Yes, you read that right, TWENTY SEVEN STATES. Don't believe me? Here's the Evil Orange Menace, Markos, with a list. Amazingly, Colorado has an above-median 71 delegates and comfortably beats out Puerto Rico's 63 (you can see that here). So what kind of crazy math would make Colorado so valuable? Don't ask, you don't want to know. Anyway, the Puerto Rico primary is the largest remaining primary (but not as large as the Rules Committee meeting). Clinton will win it by 20 points and net 21 delegates. And it won't be enough.

I'm starting to wonder whether the best option for both candidates is a bullet in the head of the opponent. I will make it clear that I am not advocating either such possibility, but it doesn't seem like anything else will stop either candidate. Hillary would be well within her rights to take it to the convention, but she shouldn't do it. And Obama is winning, so why would he give up?

But we can joke, can't we? How about a cage match? Hillary would have have significant age, strength, and physical stature disadvantages, so she should get a whip. Wouldn't that put America's history in an interesting perspective? White woman whipping a black man- that'll raise some eyebrows. But it'd be fun, because Obama would find a way to win (he's had to before). But I'm not really sure I want to see Hillary in spiked leather and chains, however. It was painful enough just to write that last line- I can't help but visualize what I write. And it was scary. Much scarier than them fighting to the death. Please, Hillary, make it stop.

Michigan and Florida

No, the Democratic primary campaign is not over. But it will be soon. Hopefully. But Saturday is a big day. There's more delegates at stake than in the remaining three primaries. Get ready, because it's the Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting! Normally, a meeting like this would be a good place to read a book in peace, but not this year. There will be protests organized by Hillary, but I'm sure the real fireworks will happen inside. But that's all it will be: fireworks. Even if Hillary gets all she wants, she'll still be far behind. The committee is made up of 30 members, with 13 committed to Hillary and 8 committed to Obama. Hillary's got the edge, but she's asking for some pretty ridiculous things and she needs 3 of the 9 uncommitted members to go along. I don't think that will happen. Obama has been reluctant to say what he would like to do with the delegates. Away from the cameras, he would probably say that neither delegation should be seated at all. Those were the rules, but they will be changed in an unsuccessful effort to appease Hillary. I'm all for sticking to the rules, but it's not going to happen. The Democrats should have adopted the Republican plan for these two states (cut the delegation in half, but hold the election anyway.) Here are the possible outcomes for both states:

Hillary Plan: All delegates are seated as they went in the election.
Half Hillary Plan: All delegates are seated, but get 1/2 a vote.
Half District Plan: The delegation is cut in half and delegates are reassigned by district.
50/50 Plan: Delegates are split evenly.
Half 50/50 Plan: The delegation is reduced by half, and then divided evenly.
Obama Plan: The rules stay the same and no delegates are seated.

So what happens?

Florida: Both candidates were on the ballot, and I think Hillary can get three votes of the nine uncommitted for the Half Hillary Plan. It might seem that the Half Hillary Plan and the Half District Plan would produce the same result, but this is America, and electoral counts never make sense here. Chuck Todd explains why (but with no permalink) and FiveThirtyEight agrees (again, without a permalink). But as FiveThirtyEight notes, the effect goes a little bit the other way for Michigan. But the Half Hillary Plan gives Hillary a few more delegates between the two states, she'll push for that one. The Half Hillary Plan also means that more party loyalists get to go to Denver, so it will win. The full Hillary Plan is pretty much out of the question. The consensus seems to be that it's illegal under DNC rules. And it has all the fairness of one of Papa Doc's elections in Haiti.

Michigan: Michigan is different because Obama wasn't on the ballot. There are two ways to look at it when it comes to the Hillary plans: Give Obama zero delegates or give him the "uncommitted" delegates. Neither is fair, and the latter is probably illegal (but somewhat fair, given that Obama encouraged his supporters to vote uncommitted). The Hillary camp argues that the uncommitted should be seated as uncommitted. But she made a special effort at the Michigan Democratic Convention to select those particular "uncommitted" delegates, so she'd end up with even more delegates than when she ran unopposed (basically). I think we'll see either the Half Hillary Plan with Obama being awarded the "uncommitted" or the Half 50/50 plan. I'll take the Half Hillary Plan with a side of Obamized Uncommitteds.

FiveThirtyEight did an analysis that showed that Obama actually would have won the state by a hair, but I'm somewhat skeptical. They've been pretty damn good so far using an unconventional polling/ demographics model. Their Michigan model uses comparisons of election results from demographically similar districts in neighboring states. That's not a problem in itself; in fact I think their methodology is basically sound. The problem is that those elections in neighboring states were held later in the season, when Obama had better name recognition. He would have been a weaker candidate when the Michigan and Florida elections were held. Nonetheless, I'd agree that the Half 50/50 plan has merit. Without both candidates on the ballot, it's impossible to judge the results. There's news that the committee is considering the Half 50/50 Plan for Michigan. But I'm not buying it. The Half Hillary Plan is more easily done across both states, so it would be easier to justify for everyone. But I doubt three of the committee's uncommitted would go for it without Obama getting those "uncommitted" delegates from Michigan.

So What's the Bottom Line? Hillary nets 27 delegates on Saturday.

Caveat: Hillary can appeal these decisions to the Credentials Committee or take it to the convention floor. Only Hillary can really stop this. And recently, she hasn't really been one to listen to reason. But Pelosi and Reid are asking the remaining uncommitted superdelegates to make a decision next week (after all the primaries are FINALLY over). Many of those superdelegates have bills and amendments that they'd like to get through their respective legislatures. Pelosi and Reid can do much to affect the passage of such bills and amendments. In theory, they could pull some serious weight on the matter, but this is the Democrats we're talking about.

Update: Poblano at FiveThirtyEight reveals his identity.

Update II: Apparently, Clinton may not have those 13 committed members on the committe.

Golan Heights Park?

Apparently, that's not out of the question. Here's Gershom Gorenberg:

"The “non-paper ” - or unsigned framework agreement reached by Liel and unofficial Syrian negotiator Ibrahim (Abe) Suleiman is important reading, because it gives a sense of how an Israel-Syria deal is likely to look. One creative feature: in order to keep the Golan demilitarized and to prevent competition over Jordan River water, the Golan would be turned into a giant park after Israeli withdrawal - with free access for Israelis."

That is pretty creative. Few people have ventured into the Syria-Israel negotiations, unless they just want to make a snarky comment about how Bush/McCain wouldn't talk while Israel will (yes, I'm guilty of that). And for good reason, we really don't know what these talks will produce. Gershom goes where no man dares to go. But he's a Jew living in Jerusalem, so he can get away with it, unlike me. But I'm with Gershom on this. I'm somewhat skeptical, but I do genuinely believe that Syria can negotiate honestly and keep to whatever deal comes out. Peace is not a zero-sum game. It is a positive-sum game. War is a negative-sum game. You can take your pick, but I'll always fall on the side of peace. It's worth a chance.

So what should we think of Bashar Assad? I wasn't a fan of his father, and my natural reaction was to dislike Bashar as well. My opinion changed when I was in Pummukale, Turkey. I had just gotten off a really angry phone call with my bank and was relaxing with drinks and tobacco in the courtyard of my hotel. And then they came. A tour bus dropped off about 60 Syrian tourists. They were mostly Muslims, but there were quite a few Christians and Druze as well. And they created quite the spectacle with their singing and dancing. I talked to about ten of them. About half hated Assad and the rest loved him. But they all agreed that Assad was the only person who could be the leader of Syria. Even those that hated him had respect for him and believed he was doing a good job. All them believed very strongly in religious pluralism and believed that Assad supported that goal. Even the Wahabbi scholar I talked to for a few hours. Assad really does have the support of his people and they will go along with any agreement he reaches with Israel. I feel very confident about that.

Israel, of course, is a democracy with very lively debate. I have no doubt that there will be strong opposition to whatever Olmert is willing to agree to. But any seasoned politician in Israel is used to that. Olmert needs to hold strong against that opposition and do what he believes is right for Israel. I'm not really a fan of Olmert, but my heart goes out to him on this issue. I wish him the best of luck.

Oregon, Kentucky, Ollie, and Appeasement

Not that it really matters anymore, but there are more primaries tomorrow. So there are more predictions. Obama will win Oregon by 12 points. Clinton will win Kentucky by 30 points. Clinton will net 9 delegates for the night (67-58). It's possible Obama could win the nomination without a single additional super delegate after tomorrow. But probably not. Hillary looks strong in Puerto Rico. But, barring a radical rule change, she's done for. And it looks like even the rule changes she wants wouldn't be enough for her. Her only hope is to get out of debt before she drops out.

I didn't want to write about Bush's appeasement comments in Israel. I basically came up with the same argument as Chris Mathews: Chamberlain wasn't wrong to talk to Hitler. He was wrong to give up the Sudetenland. That was the appeasement. Simply talking does not ensure bad results. I wasn't even going to say this, because it's so obvious. But then I saw Ollie North saying this:

"As you know, I’m the history guy at Fox News Channel, right? I’ve done this WWII series – 52 of our episodes about WWII. Had it not been for Chamberlain going to sit down with Adolf Hitler and try to cut a deal in Munich, WWII might never have happened, but it emboldened the dictator. That’s what the President said yesterday in Jerusalem. And a little reminder today, a shot across the bow here at the NRA, when John McCain got up and said, ‘You cannot have these kinds of unconditional, no preconditions discussions, with despots and dictators’ - dead on the mark."

Umm, Ollie, you not only talked to Iran, but you gave them weapons! That's not just diplomacy, and it's not just appeasement, it's collaboration. I was going to write of pots and kettles, but this is different. This is the pot calling the tea cup black. Of course, Bush's grandfather helped arm and finance Hitler, so I guess Bush shouldn't be talking about appeasement, either.

As for Ollie being the "history guy at Fox," well, that just about explains everything at Fox News, doesn't it?

As for McCain, I guess he wouldn't have talked to Krushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He'd either have left the missiles in Cuba or started a nuclear holocaust. My guess is that McCain would have followed Barry Goldwater's advice and launched an attack. And most of us wouldn't have ever been born because our parents would have been killed. And he thinks Obama is "reckless"? Once again, the pot calling the tea cup black. When you refuse to negotiate, you leave only two options: ignore the problem or go to war. If you ignore the problem, it only grows and leads you to the same two choices. Eventually, war will become the only option. But McCain's only solution to any problem is war. So it's not surprising he'd advocate a policy that can only lead us there.

Update: it seems those dirty hippie appeasers in Ehud Olmert's government are negotiating with Syria. There have been rumors to this effect for months, but now Syria and Israel are acknowledging the negotiations. The consensus seems to be that real progress is being made or they wouldn't be talking about it. Let's all hope that's true. Some analysts are even hinting that Israel might give up the Golan Heights. I never would have dreamed that possible, although demographic issues have forced considerable reassessment within Israel. Turkey deserves a lot of credit for setting up the negotiations. And Syria and Israel deserve even more credit for following through.

Update II: Speaking of Hitler, Pastor John Hagee thinks Hitler was just fulfilling God's plan for the Jews. Hagee has said quite a lot of really crazy things, but that's about as crazy as it gets. I hope so, at least. But who knows what further media scrutiny will bring?

Tea from Heaven

And a sweater, too! On December 8, 2007, I sent myself a package from Siliguri, India. And I finally got it! In celebration, I've figured out how to embed pictures. It's really easy, but I just hadn't tried before. Normally, shipping things from India takes about 10-14 days. But because tea is an agricultural product, it spends a while in US Customs. Months, in fact. So, what do they do in Customs? Apparently, nothing. The package hadn't been opened or tampered with in any way. I'm guessing it went through X-ray and was sniffed by dogs, but that happens on arrival to all packages. So why the delay? Anyway, I'm glad to have the tea (that's about $150 worth, don't be deceived by the size of the packages) and the sweater ($8).

Update: My sister got tea, too. And on the same day. There could be more coming.

Huh?

David Brooks is pretty good at proving he doesn't know what he's talking about, but this is strange. Here's where I have a problem with it:

"And yet my guess is that the atheism debate is going to be a sideshow. The cognitive revolution is not going to end up undermining faith in God, it’s going end up challenging faith in the Bible."

The revolution he speaks of has to do with the introduction of Buddhist philosophy into the field of cognitive neuroscience. He's right about that, but how does this not undermine faith in God? Earth to David Brooks: Buddhists don't believe in God. One of the Buddha's most fundamental messages is that there is a Middle Path between nihilism and worship that recognizes spirituality but denies the existence of God. A simple Wikipedia lookup would have cleared that up. Does Mr. brooks have no internet, or is he just lazy? And Andrew Sullivan is no better. The lesson here is that we should not talk about religions with which we are not familiar. I don't talk about Sikhism or Jainism, and Brooks and Sullivan shouldn't talk about Buddhism.

Update: Strangely, John Derbyshire seems to have the best take on this. This discussion has obviously entered a realm so unfamiliar that nobody knows upon which side of the line to stand.

West Virginia

Yes, the primaries are still going on. Hillary will win West Virginia by a 25% margin. Hillary does well in Appalachia. Which is another reason not to vote for her. But here's something that I didn't know. It turns out that John McCain is older than Chocolate Chip Cookies. Now, if you told me that John McCain was older than the nearby mountains, I might have believed it. But who would have thought that chocolate chip cookies were such a recent invention?

Credit Where it's Due

A remarkable speech from Mitt Romney. Money quote:

"But upon reflection, I realized that while I could defend their absence from my address, I had missed an opportunity…an opportunity to clearly assert that non-believers have just as great a stake as believers in defending religious liberty.

If a society takes it upon itself to prescribe and proscribe certain streams of belief — to prohibit certain less-favored strains of conscience — it may be the non-believer who is among the first to be condemned. A coercive monopoly of belief threatens everyone, whether we are talking about those who search the philosophies of men or follow the words of God.

We are all in this together. Religious liberty and liberality of thought flow from the common conviction that it is freedom, not coercion, that exalts the individual just as it raises up the nation."

Amen, brother.

Bob

Some of you readers may know my former roommate, Bob. Bob moved to Florida and ended up getting some very bad news shortly thereafter. He's been diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Suffice it to say, that's not a good diagnosis to get. But it is moderately treatable. It's pretty much a crap shoot as to whether the treatment (chemo) will be effective, but Bob's always been a gambler (and he usually wins). He's in good spirits after his first round of chemo. We don't really know if the treatment is working yet. But we can hope. He's optimistic, so we should all be. And he can still laugh at his situation, which is a very good thing. It's much better than crying. I wish him the best.

Campaign Deathmarch

Obama wins North Carolina by six points. Clinton wins Indiana by five. Obama nets 5 delegates for the night. Oh, and the all-important Guam Caucus was a tie. And the campaign marches on....

Early Update: It seems I've been fooled by the media again. Obama is doing much better than expected in North Carolina and Hillary could still lose Indiana. No doubt, she'll spin it like a win for her (NC doesn't count, Indiana was a major comeback, Obama can't win rednecks, etc.), but she is now so CTD that she's in another world now. Haven't checked the MSM yet, but I'm sure even they are starting to admit that it's time to stick a fork in her.

Late Night Update: The media is going against Hillary. She's canceled appearances. She's in debt. Hmmm. I wonder what she'll have to say tomorrow? I know this: I'll either love it or hate it. Now, I know that I shouldn't prejudge that speech, but the fact is that it has to be a a concession. I know that this is all based on the media spin, but the media spin was all Hillary had left. The math has long been against her. She's got nothing but the "vast right wing conspiracy" to back her now. Please, Hillary, go away.

Muqtada al-Sadr

I have little to say about this. Except that it's the best analysis of Sadr's situation I've read. If you aren't already reading the Asia Times, you should be.

Biofuels and the Price of Rice

Mark Steyn has an article over at NRO where he blames the admittedly unwise ethanol subsidies for the global food crisis. It is a good example of what happens when you try to force a pet issue into the context of an unrelated issue. You end up missing the big picture. Let's be clear, I think corn ethanol subsidies, like all agricultural subsidies, are a very bad idea. But are they really killing people? Not really. In fact they are a pretty small part of the problem.

First, are rising corn prices the problem? No, rising rice prices are the biggest problem. Rice is the world's most popular food item and its price has risen faster than any other grain. Yes, their have been some riots over corn and wheat, but most of the riots are about rice prices. But Mr. Steyn doesn't talk about rice, does he? The reason is obvious: rice isn't used to make biofuels. Nor is rice a substitute crop for either corn or sugar, the primary sources of biofuels. Rice fields need to be flooded at the beginning of the growing cycle. If you do that to a corn field, the corn will rot and you will lose your crops. So you cannot convert a rice field to a corn field without expensive water control infrastructure. Even if the infrastructure changes were free, farmers still wouldn't do it because rice prices are rising faster than corn prices. So it's clear that the most important price increase has nothing to do with biofuels. But that doesn't fit Steyn's argument, so he ignores it.

So what's causing the rise in rice prices? There are some supply factors. The ten-year drought in Australia has caused rice production to fall by 98%, according to a recent NY Times article. The authors try to lay the blame there, but last year's cyclone in West Bengal and Bangladesh wiped out more rice than Australia ever produced. The article ignores that part of the problem because it doesn't fit their theory. There have also been droughts in Africa, but taken all together, the supply issues are not that much different than in any other year. There are always droughts and cyclones. The real problem is on the demand side. And it's not due to an increase in population, because rice production has risen at about the same rate as population. The real culprit here is the rising affluence of Asia. The growing affluence allows people in Asia to be able to afford to eat meat. And the demand for meat in Asia has surely skyrocketed. In nutritional terms, meat takes about ten times the amount of grain to produce the same nutrition as the grain itself. This is creating an unusual demand spike that will take years to compensate for with increased production. But few among us are willing to admit that our meat consumption is really the primary cause of the problem. So, like Mr. Steyn, we invent other culprits.

Ahh, but that doesn't explain the rise in corn prices, does it? That is surely caused by ethanol production, right? Wrong. To understand this, we need to understand what corn is really used for. Only 15% of the world's corn is used for ethanol. By comparison, 55% is used as feed to produce meat. By any reasonable standard, we should place at least three times the blame on meat than we place on ethanol. But most of us eat meat, so we don't want to hear about that, do we? So we say: "yeah, but meat production has always occurred, while ethanol is the new factor." While this is mostly true (whiskey has long been produced from corn), the increase in global meat consumption still accounts for a greater increase in corn demand. But there's another issue as well. One of the byproducts from producing ethanol from corn is feed for livestock. In fact, the ethanol byproducts are actually better nutrition for the animals than raw corn because it's easier to digest. So, we take corn that would have been fed to pigs and make ethanol out of it. Then we take the byproducts and feed them back to the pigs. There is a small nutritional loss in the system and there are assorted transportation costs as well. But the crowding out effect is much smaller than we would think. And much smaller than the overall rise in demand from meat consumption.

But the dirty secret here is that I've so far ignored the primary cause of the increase in corn prices: the collapse of the US Dollar. Measured in Euros, corn prices have risen fairly slowly. Roughly half of the current price increase is due to the decrease in the value of the dollar. For rice, it's less of a factor because rice has risen more sharply, but it's still a big one. But is anyone blaming the Treasury Department for people starving? Of course not. It would be unseemly to blame a Republican for the consequences of his policies. Of course, that affects the US price, but what about the rest of the world? Well, riots over corn are occurring mostly in Mexico, South America, and Central America. And those countries have currencies that have recently been performing even worse than the American dollar. So the exchange rate issue is even more acute for them. Which is why they're rioting. The Asian currencies have performed considerably better than the dollar, but they mostly eat rice, which has risen faster, so they're pretty much in the same boat.

The final problem with Steyn's argument is that he equates corn ethanol and biofuels. Corn ethanol is a very inefficient process, but sugar cane ethanol is not. The complaints about supply crowding that aren't particularly valid are even less valid for sugar cane. And Bush's favorite, switchgrass, grows on land that really isn't suitable for food production and produces no crowding effects. For once, George Bush actually got something right. But he is actually a closet environmentalist, so it's not really surprising he'd get it right on switchgrass. If Steyn wants to complain about corn ethanol, that's fine and I'll support him on it. But he should not blame all biofuels for the problems with corn ethanol. And he certainly shouldn't blame biofuels for the current food crisis. He should blame himself for voting for George Bush's weak dollar policy. And, unless he's a vegetarian, he should blame himself for eating meat. And I should listen to my own words and cut down on my meat consumption.

Pennsylvania Primary

I've been pretty light on the posting, but I am determined to predict nearly all of the primaries. I did miss the all important Wyoming Republican primary and I'm not predicting territorial or ex-pat primaries. Except for Puerto Rico, of course, which counts for more than Oregon despite not being able to vote in the General Election. Really. But I won't have a perfect attempt record. I do know I've attempted more primaries than Zogby. And I'm sure I've been more accurate.

As for Pennsylvania, Clinton wins by 6%. I thought Obama would catch her in six weeks, but apparently not. Pennsylvania is a pretty interesting state, both in the primary and the general. Of course, it rarely factors into the primaries. So, I really wonder about the polling. It's a lot harder to predict what a "likely voter" would be when turnout is expected to quadruple. And I think that says a lot about why the polling has been all over the map despite the pollsters being there for so long. Pennsylvania's history of irrelevance and corresponding low turnout in the primaries makes extrapolation of previous data to this election difficult. And I think the trend of Obama outperforming the polls still holds, but less so. Which is why I'm going on the low side of the spreads.

Some things to watch:

The Margin: Obviously. Clinton's campaign is becoming increasingly quixotic. But she won't even think about ending her campaign unless she loses by 10%. For what it's worth, Chris Mathews says she needs an 8% win. I don't see her going anywhere without a 15% win, followed by a 5% win in Indiana. And highly favorable rule changes on Michigan and Florida. And 30% wins in Puerto Rico, Kentucky, and West Virginia. And so on....

Bucks County: This is a traditional Republican county that has recently become very competitive. Polling there is very inconclusive, both for the primary and general elections. It's not really so much of an indicator of anything, but more a measure of what's really going on in Bucks county. Which is not clear.

Update: Well, Hillary not only won, but she beat the spread too. But she's like a 2-6 NFL team at midseason that just won their 3rd game. She's kept herself alive, but she didn't do anything to change the nearly insurmountable odds against her. But I think she's moved ahead of John Edwards now to become the third most likely candidate to win the nomination. She needs a convention floor fight to win, and I'd still favor Al Gore over Hillary to win that fight. I'm starting to think that on Inauguration Day, we will be in a four-way court battle between McCain, Bush, Obama, and Clinton over who should be president. I think the courts will call it for McCain. And, no, it doesn't matter what the actual legal issues are, they'll call it for McCain. As John Yoo has proved, legal arguments can be reversed depending on which side you want to win.

The Mountaintop

I have little to say about this. But watch it.

"I may not get there with you." More poignant words were never spoken. He was killed the next day.

Dith Pran

I've been busy and didn't have time to write about this. But Dith Pran died over the weekend. You can read the NY Times obituary here. I'm sure nearly all of you have seen the movie "The Killing Fields," so I'm not going to say much about Mr. Dith's life. Except to say this: Dith Pran was lucky. I don't mean to make light of the horrors he endured, he certainly had a very rough life. But his life had a happy, Hollywood-ready ending. Few people in Cambodia can say the same. Nearly everyone had a member of their nuclear family killed (as did Dith Pran), and everyone who wasn't a member of the Khmer Rouge spent time in a forced labor camp. But Dith Pran avoided the aftermath and escaped to America, where he lived a life most Cambodians can only dream of. He most certainly deserves credit for his unceasing effort to expose the subsequent genocides that have occurred around the world and to give a voice to the victims. We should all be grateful for his efforts. He was a great man, but he was still lucky.

Just so you understand, I'll tell the story of another lucky person named Phannak (I don't remember his family name). I met Phannak in Phnom Penh. He managed the hotel I stayed at and we spent a lot of time together. I've heard many stories from Cambodians about their experiences during the Khmer Rouge rule and subsequent Vietnamese occupation. They are all strikingly similar. But what makes Phannak's story so striking to me is that Phannak and I were both born in April of 1968. So when I was hearing his story, I was constantly comparing my life to his and thinking about how grateful I was to have lived my life instead of his. Phannak wasn't as lucky as Dith Pran, but he was luckier than most Cambodians.

Phannak grew up in a rural village west of Phnom Penh and the Khmer Rouge didn't reach his village for about six months after the takeover. His family was pretty well educated and owned books, which would surely result in their death. But they had advanced warning of the KR's arrival, so they burned their books, destroyed their identifications, and left their village. Two days later, the Khmer Rouge arrived at the village and killed everyone, including nearly all of Phannak's extended family. Phannak, his parents, and his brother managed to avoid the KR for six months, but they were eventually caught and taken to a holding facility. The next morning, Phannak awoke to find that his family was gone. So this seven year old child was forced to face the KR on his own. It was Khmer Rouge policy to separate all family members and take them to separate work camps. Phannak was the taken to a forced labor camp, where he spent the next 32 months of his life. Being a young child he was given fairly easy work. He guided water buffaloes to plow the rice fields. Luckily, his camp was one of the earliest to liberated by the Vietnamese army.

But the story doesn't end there. I had previously thought that the liberation must have been similar to what the victims of Auschwitz must have experienced, but that's not the case. The victims of Auschwitz must have been very happy to see the Americans arrive. And the Americans certainly treated those victims with the utmost care and empathy. But in Cambodia, the Vietnamese were long time enemies and seeing them arrive was hardly a cause for joy. And the Vietnamese did nothing to help them. All they did was open the gates and tell the Cambodians to leave. The Cambodians were so stunned that they didn't know what to do. They didn't know where to go and many stayed for days. When it became clear that the Vietnamese wouldn't give them any food, they left.

And they wandered, looking for their loved ones. When they reached a village, they would check the message boards and leave their own messages. There were two kinds of message boards. One kind was a list of everyone known to have been killed. If you knew someone was dead, you added their name to that board. The other kind was for the living. You listed who you were, what family members you were traveling with, what villages you'd been to, and where you were going to next. These message boards allowed people to reunite with their families. Phannak's job was relatively easy. He already knew that most of his relatives had been killed, and he was only looking for three people. It took about a year for Phannak, but he eventually found his remaining loved ones. He was lucky.

Phannak's family eventually returned to what was left of their village and built a new home. His parents educated him as best they could, and Phannak learned how to read and learned a little math as well. The Vietnamese occupiers made no effort to provide education, so Phannak was lucky his parents were still alive and educated. That made him a highly educated person by Cambodian standards. The Vietnamese occupation ended after eight years, and Phanak took his skills to Phnom Penh to look for work. He quickly learned English and worked as a translator for the NGO's that had come to help rebuild Cambodia. Eventually he got a job managing a hotel, the Indochine, in downtown Phnom Penh. He doesn't make much money, but what little he makes, he spends educating himself in computer technology. He hopes to someday buy a computer of his own. And someday, he hopes to marry and raise children that won't have to experience what he did. I can only wish him luck, but he has fortunately been lucky so far. And he's the first to admit it. When Phannak finished telling me his story, he added the haunting words that you hear so many times from these people: "and I was lucky." Given that 1/3 of the Cambodian population was killed by the Khmer Rouge, he really was lucky. It's hard for us to see it that way, but it's true.

Dith Pran is dead now, and we should all mourn him and be grateful for his admirable work. But Phannak lives on, and we should all be hopeful for the continued progress he and his countrymen are making. And we should never forget the horrors that happened to them. And we should be sad that such horrors continue to happen in Darfur and the Congo. And we should ask ourselves: Why do we let it go on? Not once in the history of mankind has a genocide been stopped, and that is something that really needs to change. Dith Pran tried. Now that he is dead, we all need to do more. Dith Pran would ask that of us, and so does Phannak. I offered Phannak money for his education, but he refused it. He asked that I help to ensure that others don't experience what he did. I only wish I knew how.

Being Lazy

Being lazy, I'm going to reproduce a comment I made on another website. You can read the full context here. I have a problem with Geert Wilder's new film 'Fitna' condemning Islam. Everytime I find a new link to the film, it gets cut off, so I can't offer you a link. But it's probably the most offensive thing I've ever seen. Islam most surely has it's problems and I should do a post about that, but taking random quotes out of context from the Quran and claiming that it means that all Muslims are evil is inflammatory at best. Nevertheless, I support Mr. Wilder's right to have his say. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees. But I do get to have my say, but I'll warn people that I condemn violence regardless of who it's committed by. And no religion gets a pass, not even my own. Although Judaism only gets condemned by inference. So anyone who wants to accuse me of anti-semitism, understand that they got treated better than everyone else (and on purpose). But it's not the Likud line, so I guess I'm evil. As for it being anti-Christian, well, I think the actions of Christians in the past are not consistent with the message of Jesus. But they are consistent with the message of the Book of Revelations (and Joshua). Christians should decide which side they're on. I'm with Jesus, but I'm not a Christian, so it doesn't matter. I'll add that I don't believe that any religion needs to tear out pages of their respective texts (unlike Wilder, who is adamant about HIS right to free speech, but not anyone else's) . Here it is (with some spelling corrections):

If you think that’s violent, read the Book of Joshua. A clearer endorsement of genocide cannot be found. And when we look at history, it’s clear that the Christians took the message of genocide to heart. Here in America, the Christian colonists not only acted out the message, but upscaled it Cecil B. DeMille style.

Before Mr. Wilders asks Muslims to tear out the offending passages of the Quran, he should tear the Book of Joshua out of his Bible. And he shouldn’t stop there. The Book of Revelations is even worse (and considered to be a war plan by many Christians, most notably John Hagee). And there are passages in Exodus (also repeated in the Quran) that really should go too, like the actions of the Sons of Levi, which are an obvious endorsement of genocide against Hindus.

Look, if the Muslims had any real power, I might be worried, but they don’t. The Christians have long been the dominant military force on the planet. Just look at a map of the world in 1916. The Christians controlled the entire world except for Japan, Thailand, Iran, and Turkey (Ottoman Empire, sort of). Their domination was very nearly complete. And these people want to recreate the story of the Book of Revelations.

I’m neither a Christian (who’d have guessed?) or a Muslim. And the Muslims have always treated my religion far worse than they ever treated the Christians (unless you consider higher taxes to be a fate worse than death, which those of my religion received). So I have every reason to be concerned about Islam. But the Book of Revelations promises me an equally horrible fate, and those who believe it are far more powerful and dangerous than the Muslims will ever be.

This is why McCain’s desire to have John Hagee’s endorsement bothers me so much. He could be given the military might to carry out the Book of Revelations and seems to agree with Hagee that it should be carried out.

A few months ago, I saw the most powerful speech of my life. It was the Dalai Lama’s warm-up act for the dedication of the new Drepung Loseling monastery in Mundgod, India. And it was given by the Hindu guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. The speech was about the need to confront religious extremism and ‘communalism’ everywhere it exists and regardless of which religion it comes from. It was made all the more powerful by the Dalai Lama’s presence behind him. The religions of the world can come together. But it won’t happen until we confront the extremists within our own ranks. Surely Islam needs to do this, but Christianity needs to do it as well. Even my religion, Buddhism, needs to do it, as evidenced by the appalling behavior of some of the rioters in Lhasa. To his credit, the Dalai Lama did condemn the violence, just as Sri Sri Ravi Shankar condemns the violence committed against Muslims by his fellow Hindus. Unfortunately, the Abrahamic religions seem caught up in Old Testament hatred, which blinds them to their misdeeds.

More Random Thoughts

I'm still working too much. But I'll post anyway. But it will be mostly links.

First, here's a good rundown on the Shia factions in Iraq. One can only hope that McCain will read it and learn something. There's a real danger he may be president, so it would be nice if he became informed on Iraq. I haven't seen a similar rundown for the Sunni and Kurdish factions. But I don't really think anyone has a good handle on the Sunnis. Most especially our government.

Speaking of Iraq, this and this are some pretty good explanations of what's going on in Basra. You'll note that they aren't really in agreement, but that's because it's not really clear what's going on. I doubt the actual participants even know. But I think everyone would agree that it's not good. Except for the Bush administration, of course. They think that more violence is a positive development. Really.

And then there is this. If there's a worse example of the incompetence of this administration, I don't even want to hear about it. They actually gave a 22 year old kid $300 million in defense contracts, which he promptly screwed up. No doubt he'll receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his efforts. That seems to be the standard punishment for incompetence.

Oh, and McCain says he hates war. The media, of course, will ignore the fact that he's never opposed a war in his life and has consistently criticized our wars for being insufficiently violent. And they will take him at his word. He's a mavericky Straight Talker, after all. Apparently throughout history, we have all been using the wrong definition for "hate." It really means "strongly support." Good thing St. John is around to set us straight.

And it seems that I actually have more than two readers. I guess I'll have to step it up.

Update: A rice shortage in Thailand? Probably not. Thailand, despite chronic political instability, is a fairly well managed country. As the article suggests, Thailand will likely avert a crisis. But the worldwide rice shortage is for real. On a positive note, rice farmers should make some pretty good money this year. Maybe the rice farmers of Laos will be able to afford schooling for their children. And maybe we can stop subsidizing the rice farmers in our country. Oh, silly me, those farmers are Republicans who 'deserve' a socialist safety net just like Wall Street, unlike their counterparts in communist Laos who operate under capitalism. Go figure.

Schadenfreude Update: Slate brings us the Hillary Deathwatch. Synopsis: She doesn't know how dead she is.

Building Stonehenge By Yourself?

I'm not quite sure how to embed a YouTube. But Here's a link:

Moving Big Stones

I've always been fascinated by ancient technology. In my travels, I've seen stunning structures that were built without cranes, pulleys, or engines. I've always noticed how engineers of those days found creative solutions in construction technology. But this guy really takes the cake. He raises a very large slab of concrete by himself with very minimal effort. His secret: gravity. I think the coolest part is how he raised the slab to it's horizontal position. Brilliant and simple.

Random Stuff

The thing about blogging is that you actually have to write from time to time. And I've been a slacker because I have to work. I think both of my readers have given up anyway, so maybe it's not a problem.

On the campaign, it looks like there will be no revotes. People will still circulate plans for revotes, but they won't happen. That said, here's Dave Barry's Plan.

On Tibet, I don't have time to do it justice.

And I added a new link: South Jerusalem. It's a different perspective than we usually get about Israel. And it's actually written by Israelis. And they are actually real journalists. I've found it interesting.

Continuing Election Coverage

There aren't any elections or caucuses for more than a month, so not much should be going on. But the bizarre nature of our nominating process means things are always happening. Over the weekend, Obama picked up a net 10 delegates in Iowa. This is mostly due to Edwards delegates switching to Obama, but Hillary actually lost a delegate. Because the caucuses are multi-layered, the delegate count can shift like this. Regardless, Obama picked up more delegates over the weekend than Clinton did in her Super Awesome Ultra Critical Blowout Win in Ohio. But, of course, Iowa doesn't count. But superdelegates do, and Obama picked up a few dozen of those in the past two weeks. Hillary lost a few. They are roughly tied now on superdelegates.

Obama is taking some heat for his pastor, Jeremiah wright. It's probably a good thing this came out now rather than later. In the long run, I think it'll blow over. The American electorate's capacity to forget knows few bounds. Obama has responded pretty well to the controversy and, unlike McCain, has actually rejected the offensive statements. Granted, it would probably take McCain months to reject all of Hagee's offensive statements, but he could start with some of the more egregious ones. I'd like to hear him just say that trying to bring about Armageddon might not be such a great idea. Is that really so hard to do? Apparently so.

And then there's Florida in Michigan. It doesn't look like there will be a revote in Florida. Obama would be smart to just concede the original Florida results and move on. Hillary won't get enough delegates to make a real difference, but resolving the issue would get her to shut up about it. Michigan is another story because Obama wasn't even on the ballot. But they look like they will schedule another election, which will be so close that it will only amount to a delegate or two either way. But, again, it will get Hillary to shut up about it. Obama will still be ahead by a solid margin even if Hillary were to get the original delegates from Michigan. I really don't see a plausible way for her to win. The only thing she can do is maintain uncertainty about the election. Resolving Michigan and Florida quickly will take away a lot of that uncertainty and take away her only justification for being in the race. Of course, Hillary will have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, from the race. Having no reason to continue will not be enough for her.

And then there's a little trouble in Tibet. I'll write more when I get better information from my Tibetan friends. My first take is that the Tibetans want to keep the issue in the news until the Olympics. But I don't think they were expecting this level of violence. And China is learning that it has less control over the media than it would like.

In lighter news, the chief of police for Tehran was caught naked in a brothel with six prostitutes (also naked). Given that he's in charge of enforcing Iran's moral codes, it's more than a little embarrassing. But hardly surprising. It seems nearly every self-righteous moralizer is hiding some nefarious behavior. At least he got caught in style. Although for logistical reasons, I question the need for six prostitutes. Three should be enough.

Tibet Update: Well, it seems China is controlling the media a little better than I had expected. Obviously, they can do nothing about information that leaves their borders and such information is certainly getting out. But they have clearly learned a new technique: Spin. Rather than shut down all information (no longer possible), they are putting it out with masterful spin. And the Chinese seem to be buying it. Also, here's the best take I've read so far on the issue:

China's Only Path

Mississippi

There's a primary today in Mississippi. Obama will win in a landslide. It turns out the Hillary got a net six delegates in her "big win" on Tuesday. Obama's win today will easily wipe out Hillary's gains. But, alas, Mississippi "doesn't count."

Update: Okay, they called for Obama with no precincts reporting. How do they do that? I guess it's based on exit polls, but I've felt that maybe they should count a vote or two before making that judgment. Admittedly, I've never seen such a prediction be wrong, so maybe I'm overreacting.

Also, there have been some adjustments to some of the delegates. Obama picked up two delegates on the final certification in California, and he's now expected to get another two Ohio. In Colorado, Hillary may gain a delegate or two because the delegate ratio seems to have shifted in the county conventions. Don't ask me more about that story, it's really below-the-radar right now and it's hard to get credible information. Some Obama supporters are claiming nefarious activities, but I remain skeptical. It could just be a simple twist of math.

But that brings up an important aspect of American elections. They make no sense at all, and take weeks or months to ultimately get resolved. Elections in India are easier to understand, and they're reported in some weird language like Hindi or Gujarat. Most countries in the world can count each vote, and give the election the the person who got the most votes. It's really not that hard. Why can't we do that? Yeah, I know, we'd have to change the Constitution. Damn!

Critical Wyoming Caucus

You may not know about it, but there's a caucus in Wyoming! Yeah, yeah, how important could that be? Well, with twelve delegates at stake, it's entirely possible that Obama could net as many delegates in Wyoming than Hillary did on Tuesday. She only came out ahead four delegates, so if Obama gets a 8-4 split, he wipes out all of Hillary's gains. So Wyoming could prove to be more important than Ohio, Texas, Connecticut, and Vermont combined. I'm predicting a comfortable win for Obama and a net 3 delegates.

It won't really change the "momentum" granted by the media, but momentum is bullshit. The fact is that some states are better for some candidates than others. And like any randomly generated system, the strong states for any candidate are not evenly distributed, but often come in clusters. Obama had "momentum" when his strong states came in a cluster. Then Hillary had "momentum" when her strong states came in a cluster. In the end, it's a race that's too close to be determined by the voters. Ultimately, the superdelegates will decide the election. If Clinton were to end up ahead in the pledged delegate count, I suspect Obama would probably concede in the interest of unity. But that won't happen. Instead, Obama will end up ahead in the pledged delegates and Hillary won't even think about giving up until she's mathematically eliminated, which won't occur until the convention.

Some people admire Clinton for her tenacity, but I don't. She just takes it too far. She is far more willing to destroy the party than she is to lose. And she may end up doing both if the convention gets nasty. I don't mind an extended race or even a brokered convention. But it really pisses me off that she is willing to sacrifice the general election to ensure that she's the nominee. What's sad about this is that I liked Hillary at the beginning of the campaign and felt she was being unfairly attacked. Through her actions in this campaign, I am now convinced of the opposite. Now I think she's Vladimir Putin in a pantsuit. I really don't want to vote for her, and I know I'm not alone. Sadly, the alternative is a man who will surely start the next world war. One can only hope he puts some bleachers in the sun and has it on Highway 61.

Update: With more than 7500 votes cast, Obama wins 61-38. This leads us to the obvious question: There are 7500 Democrats in Wyoming? Apparently so. I would never have believed it. Obama picks up two delegates from the contest. Which makes me ask the question: Why did I choose an odd number of delegates for Obama to net in a race where an even number of delegates were at play? I'm actually pretty good at math, so I'm a little embarrassed by making such an obvious mathematical blunder. But it turns out that the wacky Democratic rules have saved me. Wyoming will be granted one "add-on" delegate, which is awarded to the winner of the state by Wyoming rules. So Obama really did pick up 3 delegates, it's just that the third add-on delegate does not get officially awarded until the convention. I'm a little new to the add-on delegates and how they are doled out. When I know more, I'll explain them in detail. They could turn out to have as much influence as the superdelegates.

Also, there was a special election in Illinois' 14th district for Hastert's old seat. Democrat Bill Foster (no relation, probably) won comfortably. So the Dems picked up a House seat. Of course, they'll have to win it again in November, but now Foster runs as an incumbent. I wasn't even going to mention this race, but it turns out that Foster is a physicist. American politics is chock full of economists and lawyers, but it has a severe shortage of people who actually understand science. Bill Foster is a much needed addition to Congress. Given the technological challenges the world faces today, we certainly need more politicians like Bill Foster. And we need far fewer politicians who pander to the likes and John Hagee and Tim LaHaye. (That's you, St. John)

March 4 Primaries

First, with all the delegates at stake, you might think this could be a big day for one of the candidates. It won't. I'm predicting a delegate margin of less than 10 for the day.

Vermont and Rhode Island: Obama wins Vermont in a landslide and Hillary wins Rhode Island comfortably. As a result, the states will cancel each other out in delegates. Oh, and McCain wins comfortably in both. Move along, nothing to see here.

Ohio: Hillary wins by a narrow margin, but gains only a small delegate advantage. I was tempted to go with Obama because he's been gaining quickly and he's been outperforming the polls recently. But the Hillary started moving back up recently and I wasn't so sure. What pushed me over to Clinton is the recent Zogby poll showing Obama in the lead. Contrary to popular opinion, Zogby isn't actually the worst pollster. But he's bad enough to bet against with confidence. Oh, and McCain wins comfortably.

Texas: The counting goes well into the night with Obama winning by a razor-thin margin. But because of the bizarre delegate system in Texas (check the comments on the previous post for more detail), Obama actually gets a bigger delegate margin than Clinton gets in Ohio. As for McCain, if there were any chance of him losing the nomination, this would be a close race. But the far right has a campaign to vote for Hillary and Texas allows crossover voting. So McCain still wins comfortably.

Final Results: In terms of delegates I'm calling it a net 4 delegates for Obama, and a tiny win for Clinton in the overall popular vote. It doesn't really matter for McCain, Huckabee will finally drop out. But what about Clinton? She will end the night a little more behind and her chances will look pretty grim. But she won't drop out because she won Ohio, THE MOST IMPORTANT STATE IN AMERICA. She'll argue that she has more appeal in the swing states and deserves the nomination even if she can't win the pledged delegate battle.

But Wait, Is There More?: Yes, there could be. Gov Charlie Crist of Florida has offered to re-run the Democratic primary. Hillary would rather take her previous win, but she might not get it if the Rules Committee doesn't go along. So she might bite at that offer. And Obama would look really bad if he balked. He'd have to go along. So maybe Hillary could pick up some more delegates in Florida. What's especially interesting about the timing of the offer is that it would allow Republicans time to switch parties and throw the election more towards Hillary. Who knows? This move might put Florida Republicans in the position of deciding the Democratic nominee. I'll note that Gov. Crist is a big supporter of McCain and let you be the cynic.

Wisconsin and Hawaii

Polls show Hillary closing the gap on Obama in Wisconsin. I haven't seen a poll for Hawaii. I'll say Obama gets a narrow win in Wisconsin and a landslide win in Hawaii. I can't say I remember an election where Hawaii mattered. Of course, the Clinton campaign will say it doesn't matter, but that's only because she'll lose the state. But without polling it's hard to know. Maybe Clinton can pull out a win there and make the state matter. Oh, McCain will win both states in a landslide.

Update: Oops. The Republicans aren't voting in Hawaii. But they are voting in Washington. Again. This time it's a primary, instead of a caucus. Apparently, Washington wants to compete with Texas for the Weirdest Primary System award. McCain will win Washington narrowly.

Chessie Primary

Obama wins Virginia comfortably. He'll get a close win in Maryland. And he'll win in a landslide in DC. Hillary has got to be concerned by now. And she is.* There will be no Obama/ Clinton ticket, by the way. Obama needs someone like Wes Clark on the ticket. Oh, and McCain wins all but Virginia comfortably, and gets a narrow win in Virginia.

*From Vox: "Said one superdelegate: 'She has to win both Ohio and Texas comfortably, or she’s out. The campaign is starting to come to terms with that.'"

Maine

Forgot the Maine caucus. Obama will win narrowly. I had a bad prediction day yesterday. I was under the mistaken impression that Republicans would accept their fate and vote for McCain. I guess not. Obama had a much stronger showing than I would have thought. I knew he'd win, but the margins were astounding. I don't think he can win the nomination without the super delegates, but if he can have a strong showing in Ohio and Pennsylvania, he might come pretty close. He'll get crushed in Texas, but he'll have a lot of strong wins in other states. By the way, when was the last time Pennsylvania mattered? 1984 maybe?

More Primaries

Almost forgot. McCain and Obama win them all today. McCain by large margins, Obabma by small.

A Wave of Predcitions

Okay, it's time for my Super Duper Fat Tsunami Tuesday from Hell predictions!

First, this will be a good day for McCain. Not only does he have a substantial polling lead, but he was blessed by the delegate rules. The Republicans have very inconsistent delegate rules, with some states being proportional, some winner take all by district, and some winner take all by state. McCain is leading in all the winner take all states except Utah. To add insult to injury, Romney will get about 80% of the Utah vote, thereby minimizing the winner take all advantage. So McCain will come out a clear leader in delegates. The consensus is that he will wrap up the race today, but I'm not buying that. He still needs a majority of delegates at the end of the primary season, and Huckabee might prevent that (he'll have some strong second places in proportional states today). McCain may need Huckabee's delegates to win the nomination and Huckabee might not grant them (or might give them to Romney). If Huckabee drops out, McCain will get the nomination. But he might stay in and force a brokered convention. It's possible that Huckabee's support will decline enough to allow McCain to get an outright win in the end, but there are plenty of Republicans who want a brokered convention so they can get a new candidate. So they have an incentive to vote for Huckabe as kingmaker.

On the Democratic side, there will be no clear winner but Clinton will likely get more delegates. But I'm confident that Obama will end the day within 100 delegates of Clinton. Everyone talks about California as the big prize, but with proportional representation in the delegate awarding, it could easily come out a draw (and therefore no prize at all). In fact, because of the quirks of districts with an odd number of delegates, Obama might pull off a repeat of Nevada and lose the overall popular vote and still come out with more delegates. The key here is the rural 3 delegate districts. With 51% of the vote, he can get 67% of the delegates. And Obama usually beats Clinton in rural districts. This effect is not limited to California and will happen across the country. I tend to think that because of this, Obama's delegate count will be a little higher than the popular vote numbers would suggest.

As a result, Obama will be close enough to continue the campaign. His numbers are rising and he has more money the Clinton, so he can pull ahead in the post Feb 5 elections. For Obama time is really on his side. If he can stay close, he really has a good chance ending the primary season with more delegates. But not the nomination. The Democrats use a sytem with 10% of the delegates being unelected "super delegates." These delegates are political office holder and party officials and they are not bound to a candidate (although Bill Clinton will surely vote for his wife). Because the election will be so close, they will be able to swing the election either way. Traditionally, they have given near- unanimous support to the candidate leading the delegate race. But that may not happen this year. There won't be a brokered convention, but there will probably be a small super delegate convention to get the super delegates pledged before the real convention. That way, the candidate will win on the first ballot and keep the convention peaceful. This super delegate pre-convention will not be a physical gathering; it will be a long series of conference calls, emails, and internet horse- trading. We won't even know it's happening. Or what will the result will be.

So here it is, state by state (biggest states first):

Democtrats: (Clinton a slight winner, Obama within 75 delegates)

California: Obama wins by a hair
New York: Clinton wins in a landslide
Illinois: Obama wins in a landslide
New Jersey: Clinton wins by a hair
Massachusetts: Clinton wins by a hair
Georgia: Obama wins comfortably
Missouri: Clinton wins by a hair
Minnesota: Obama wins comfortably
Tennessee: Clinton wins comfortably
Colorado: Obama wins comfortably
Arizona: Clinton wins by a hair
Connecticut: Obama wins by a hair
Alabama: Obama wins by a hair
Oklahoma: Clinton wins comfortably
Arkansas: Clinton wins in a landslide
Kansas: Obama wins comfortably
New Mexico: Clinton wins by a hair
Utah: Obama wins by a hair
Idaho: Obama wins by a hair
Delaware: Clinton wins by a hair
North Dakota: Obama wins by a hair
Alaska: Obama wins comfortably

Republicans: (McCain a clear winner, but doesn't lock it up*)

California: Romney First, McCain second, Huckabee third
New York: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Georgia: McCain First, Huckabee second, Romney third
Illinois: McCain Romney First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Missouri: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Tennessee: McCain First, Huckabee second, Romney third
Arizona: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
New Jersey: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Alabama: McCain First, Huckabee second, Romney third
Colorado: Romney First, McCain second, Huckabee third
Massachusetts: Romney First, McCain second, Huckabee third
Oklahoma: McCain First, Huckabee second, Romney third
Minnesota: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Utah: Romney First, McCain second, Huckabee third
Arkansas: Huckabee First, McCain second, Romney third
West Virginia: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Connecticut: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Alaska: Romney First, McCain second, Huckabee third
North Dakota: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third
Montana: Romney First, McCain second, Huckabee third
Delaware: McCain First, Romney second, Huckabee third

*unless Huckabee drops out tonight.

There it is, if I get 3/4 of this right, I'll be surprised. I'd also add that there is a theory that Huckabee steals almost all his votes from Romney. That is somewhat true, but not entirely. About a third of evangelical voters will not vote for a Mormon under any circumstance. And the proportion is probably higher in Huckabee's camp. If Huckabee is out, most of his voters will go to Romney, but about a third will opt for McCain. That will be enough to keep Romney competitive, but it will also be enough to push McCain over the top. He only needs a little help at this point. If Huckabee drops out tonight, McCain's lead will be insurmountable.

Update: for the purpose of grading my picks, "wins by a hair" will be a win by 4% or less. So a 52-48 win will be a win by a hair. A win of 20% or more will be a landslide win. Everything else is a "comfortable win." For the Democrats, I'll give one point for the win and one point for the margin. For the Republicans, I'll give one point for a correct first place prediction and one point for a correct second place. So there's 42 points on the Republican side and 44 on the Democratic side (86 total). As for delegates, I'll call it 865 for Hillary and 816 for Obama. I'm not going there on the Republican side, their rules are too complicated. But McCain will beat Romney by more than 160 delegates.

Update 2: What's up with Huckabee? Yeah, he's only won in The South, but he's won more than Arkansas. And after hearing his speech (well timed, by the way), he's obviously staying in. His answer to Chris Matthews about the vote switching in WV was almost Clintonesque in avoiding the issue. Just admit cooperating with McCain damn it! It was a smart move by both camps. The only one who should be embarrassed is Romney, who didn't do the proper horse-trading to get his delegates. You'd think a CEO would know that. But I guess neither George Bush or Ken Lay could have figured that out. But those aren't exactly good CEO's are they? Yeah, I know, Ken Lay was only briefly CEO, and not when the problems happened. But he was always (well, before the fall) championed as an expert in executive leadership. Anyway, Huckabee is surely strong enough to stay in the race. And Obama is doing well enough to to seriously challenge Hillary as the primaries go on. Romney is looking like the only loser tonight.

Update 3: Wow, I did really bad in California. I tried not to get caught up in the poll trend lines, but I guess I did for California. Apparently, Romney is having a "frank" discussion with his staff. I can't imagine he's withdrawing, but he certainly knows he's doomed.

Mini update: from TPM:
"Sort of makes you wonder, can you imagine Mitt Romney having a frank discussion."

Update 4: While Guiliani has clearly won the all-time contest for most money spent for a single delegate ($51M- woohoo!), Romney is competitive in the most money per delegate for a candidate with multiple delegates. He's at $1.16M per delegate now, still well behind Phil Gramm's $2.5M per delegate. But if Romney goes on, he could take that crown. Reach for it Mitt! It's already in you, you just have to see it.

I'll note that the Democrats use more delegates (~80%) and usually (but not recently) have less money, so the Democrat record on this is certainly much lower. But I'm guessing on that , I don't really have the stats. Although I do know that Guiliani's record holds for both parties. At least he'll always have 911 to delude himself about. I'm pretty sure that that's the last dig I can get in on Rudy. He's already too irrelevant to be worth joking about. When the comedians give up on you, you're history.

Debating

I think we're moving into the phase where this blog becomes more of a forum for political discussion. But I will add some more pictures from the trip (see below). Anyway, I'll offer my thoughts on the Clinton- Obama Death Match. Okay, it wasn't really a death match. In fact, it was remarkably cordial. It's hard to say whom that really helped. Clinton is the better debater whether it's polite or not. But Obama has become a much better debater as the campaign has gone on. By the end of the campaign, I suspect he'll be as nimble, ruthless and polished as Hillary. I thought he held his own pretty well.

In fact, I think he won it by a hair. Hillary certainly showed that she has the better command of the facts and a more sophisticated policy stance. But she still gets tripped up the her Iraq authorization vote. What she needs to say is this: "That vote was a mistake, but we need to move on to what to do about it now." But, like her husband, she will need to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to actually face that truth. And then she still won't acknowledge or admit it. Obama is wise to push the "judgement" issue. He was right, after all. It's really that issue that makes me think that Obama won. He responded to every question well (although there were a few awkward moments), but Hillary really doesn't have an answer to one question that's been asked of her for years. To put it in baseball terms, Obama won a 1-0 game on an unearned run. But in the end, I think either of them will make a solid candidate.

By the way, have any of you noticed that "Obama" isn't in Firefox's spell check feature? What's up with that? They send me an update nearly every day. Can't one of those contain an update to the spelling dictionary that adds Obama's name? Clinton is already in. And so is McCain. Even Romney is in. So why not Obama? He's, like, running for president, you know. People might actually talk about him.

Forgot Florida

I forgot to post my Florida predictions, which turned out to be perfectly accurate. Guiliani (or 9ui11ani) is done. It seems the early voting allowed him to pull off a third place finish against Huckabee, but that wasn't good enough. He'll endorse McCain tomorrow. Hillary won Florida, but it's not clear that she will get any delegates from it. But I don't think it will matter. Obama will do well enough on Super Tuesday to hang in the race, but not well enough to overcome his deficit in super delegates. Hillary will win the nomination without needing the Michigan and Florida delegates. On the Republican side, two things can happen. One is that Huckabee eventually drops out and gives his delegates to McCain to avoid a brokered convention. The other is that Huckabee stays in and forces a brokered convention. Under that circumstance, I'd give even odds to McCain, Romney, and Newt Gingrich. Either way, I think Huckabee is now the favorite for the VP slot. He is also, strangely, the candidate with the most power in the GOP race. As punishment for my failure to predict Florida, I will do a state by state prediction of Super Tuesday. But, for now, I'll predict the final: it will be McCain vs Clinton in the presidential election, and Clinton will win. Give credit to where it's due, the Clintons know how to win. They lost one election when they were young, and have won every election since then. They know how to beat McCain (it's the economy, stupid), and they will do it.

Update: This is pretty funny (from the National Review):

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjgwNjIxZDA0MjM4YzkyMWE1ZTZmMDcwOGIxNGZiYzg=

Feel the schadenfreude.

South Carolina

I'm not sure that anyone is reading anymore, but I'll do my South Carolina predictions:

Democrats: Obama first, Clinton second, Edwards third.

I didn't do so well in the last primaries. I was a little surprised by Clinton's Nevada win, and I now think Obama is pretty much doomed. He'll do fine in the South, but Hillary will win everything else. She can't wrap it up on Super Tuesday (mathematically impossible), but she could be the prohibitive favorite. Edwards will hang in there to try to be kingmaker at the convention, but that may not work for him. Hillary will be too strong to need help from Edwards.

McCain's SC win didn't surprise me that much. It did put Huckabee out of any real running, but he still can be a kingmaker, so he'll stay in. Romney is starting to look strong as he is taking most of Thompson's supporters. But he'll have problems in the Southern states with the Mormon issue. And voters in the Northeast won't really recognize him with his change in positions on nearly every issue. I think the Republicans are heading for a brokered convention, with Huckabee being a major wrench in the system.

By the way, I've added a picture at the bottom (apparently, that's the only place I can put pictures). I'll have more as time goes on.

NV-SC Predictions

I'll continue with the predictions:

Nevada is really tough. It's their first ever caucus, so nobody really knows how the system will work. Polling is light on the Democratic side and almost non- existent on the Republican side. Obama got some lift with the endorsement by the restaurant workers union and the upholding of the at large caucuses for casino workers. The Republicans have mostly ignored the caucuses, favoring the same-day primary in South Carolina. The Democrats hold their South Carolina primary next week, so this isn't a conflict for them. Romney is the only Republican to spend any time there and leads the polls. But Rudy has actually polled well in Nevada (must be the mafia connections), so he might have a surprising showing given the expected low turnout. Huckabee's moral attitudes will hurt him in Nevada. You'd think Thompson would try to get some delegates in Nevada given the weak competition, but he hasn't. So here it is:

Republicans: Romney first, McCain second, Giuliani third.

Democrats: Obama first, Clinton second, Edwards third.

South Carolina should be easier to call given that only one party has a primary this week. But it's bunched up such that first and second are even statistically, and so are third and fourth. Between McCain and Huckabee, I think McCain wants it more because of the 2000 results. But Huckabee has more dedicated followers. Given the expected nasty weather, I think Huckabee takes it. Between Thompson and Giuliani, I think Thompson takes it, but only because he's been camped out down there for a while now. Well, also because Giuliani is really focusing on the upcoming Florida primary (lot of retired and wealthy New Yorkers there- he has a chance). And I have a hard time seeing South Carolina voters even voting for a Catholic, much less a New Yorker. So, here it is:

Republicans: Huckabee first, McCain second, Thompson third.

If Thompson doesn't get a third place, I think he drops out and endorses nobody. If Huckabee wins SC, I think the party bigwigs will start pushing voters towards McCain. They really don't want Huckabee to win it all.

Recovering

Well, I've been back home for two days. It seems every time I take another plane flight, my flu comes back. And I'm still not time- adjusted yet, which is a little unusual for me. And I have work to do, so I still haven't completely unpacked yet. Hopefully, I'll be better in a few days and can tackle the huge pile of woolens and silks that all need to be hand- washed. That is especially true of the wool sweaters which soaked up most of the rum spillage in transit. But I did get back safely.

Wow

In Michigan, Hillary got 55% to 36% uncommitted. Wow. And this is in a race where Edwards and Obama weren't on the ballot and Democrats could vote in the Republican primary instead. I should note that, for the first time, Republican turnout outnumbered the democrats. And by amost a 2-to-1 margin. That implies a lot of crossover voting. The ABC vote (Anyone But Clinton) is for real. But the problem is that nobody else really has a clear second place yet. Yes, Obama polls better now, but he's falling. Edwards could win Nevada and place well in South Carolina. So, both could go on to Super Tuesday because they will both have a shot. After that though, one has to drop out or it will be Hillary winning the nomination. But which one drops? I used to think that was obvious, but support for Obama seems to be slipping without Hillary really gaining. Edwards may still have a chance. In the end though, unless Obama and Edwards come to some agreement, I think Hillary has the upper hand. That's especially the case in a brokered convention. Someone's got to beat her before the convention or she's a shoo-in.

On the Republican side, who knows? McCain would be the strongest in the general election, but that may not be enough for him. Romney can win in a state with lots of Mormons and where his dad was governor. But does he have anything else? Huckabee is a complete lunatic, but that works in the South. But the South ain't enough for the nomination. Some in the right wing blogoshere still think Thompson will win, but the guy hasn't broken into double digits yet. Rudi thinks he's okay in the standings, but he's batshit crazy. I'm still holding out for Newt Gingritch in that race.

(corrected for typos)

The Center of the Universe

I had a light day in the Bay Area. But I needed it. The jouney from Bangkok to San Francisco takes about 17 hours. But you arrive 30 minutes later on the same day (International Date Line). I've heard people complain about jet lag, but trust me, that's a really weird shift. And I've been through some radical time shifts many times before. There was a little glitch in being picked up (my fault), but otherwise the trip went smoothly. I am one more bottle short on the rum, but that's because I gave one to my sister. And the weapons were no problem. But they are minor weapons. My chef's knife is deadlier.

So my first night, Julie and I went out for a few beers and then talked. She had to go to bed early because she works now (first time in ten years). I pretty much slept the entire next day. Except for making my accurate Michigan predictions, of course. Today, we went out to my favorite Cuban restaurant in Palo Alto. I can't ever remember the name, but it's really good. Then we drank some beers, scotch, and Indian rum. And then we switched to me making bloody mary's by the glass. Different taste every time. And that's where I am now. I pitty Julie having to going to work, but I am in full knowledge of the fact that I will be in the same situation tomorrow. After a short flight, of course.

But it was great being in the Center of the Universe again. It always amazes me when I travel here about the importance of this area. The Bay Area of California is Ground Zero for technoligical development. It's the only place where a large portion of the population wakes up with the thought: "How am I going to change the world today?". There are many places, including Boulder, where there is a tremendous amout of development. But the Bay Area is where the real ideas start and where the really big ideas come into being. Nowhere else really compares. They have the critical mass of intellect, and it's wonderful to see.

So that's about it for the real time trip blogging, but there is more to come. I will post some low resolution pictures. If you want 8 Mpixel copies, email me about that. I will also continue my election predictions. I'm doing pretty well so far, but Super Teusday looms as a monstrosity of unpredictability. That will be my Vietnam. For SC/NV, I'll predict them individually, but I doubt I want to try to predict Super Teusday on an individual basis. We'll see.