This is beginning to get confusing. Michael J. Totten is posting over at Instapundit and Armed Liberal AKA Marc Danziger of Winds of Change is posting at Michael J. Totten (due to technical problems at WoC). AL has written an important post taking issue with the conclusions of the Century Foundation. AL quotes an from the Century Foundation’s paper:
…all three of these outlets have quickly achieved significant market share and at least a modicum of credibility among their listeners and viewers (see Figures 5.1 and 5.2, page 96). Polling data show that 74 percent of Iraqis watch al-Iraqiya on at least a weekly basis and 21 percent of those consider it “objective.”9 Al-Hurra, though not boasting ratings as high as al-Iraqiya’s, still claims a respectable average adult viewership of 29 percent in a dozen urban areas surveyed in North Africa, the Levant, and the Gulf region. Just over half of its viewers rate its news coverage as “very reliable” or “somewhat reliable.” Finally, Radio Sawa has staked out a weekly following of 38 percent of listeners polled in six Arab countries, including a high of 73 percent in Morocco. Remarkably, four of five listeners feel its news meets the same reliability criteria. Thus, on the basis of both market penetration and trust, these initiatives certainly appear successful at first glance.
If your home is anything like ours, from now until Christmas your mailbox will be crammed full of catalogs. Frequently our mail carrier doesn’t even both trying to shoehorn the arriving catalogs into our mailbox. He (or she) will just dump the mail on our doorstep and flee as quickly as possible having unburdened his (or her) cart of another ten pounds of third class mail.
The variety of what we’re receiving is mind-numbing. We will receive at least a dozen copies of each of L. L. Bean’s many catalogs. We will receive some fairly upscale catalogs. And some that could best be labelled Kitsch ‘R Us.
Recently I’ve noticed that most or all of these catalogs have associated web sites. So, for your viewing pleasure, I’d like to direct you to one of each—high comedy and low.
From now until Christmas I think I’ll feature one site each day that I’ve found useful for holiday shopping or preparations. Or just hilarious.
I’ve been looking at the most recent set of poll compilations from Real Clear Politics. Clearly, the current trends are not particularly good for Kerry and he’ll have to do something to change that.
But I’ve been looking at something else as well. Am I imagining it or is there a periodicity in the sawtooth? My interpretation of that is that it appears to coincide with Kerry campaign surrogates fanning out and hitting the Sunday talking head programs to do damage control. But they haven’t been able to make any real headway—just damage control.
UPDATE: Steven Taylor quite rightly points out that these margins are quite small:
The bottom line for any and all analyses of these numbers: the margins are so small, I am not that any given variation that is within the MOE can be considered significant–nor can it likely be explained by any specific event or issue.
He’s right. It may be my imagination or chance. But I’m willing to bet a shiny new dime that the trend is of concern to the Kerry campaign and that the Kerry surrogates (including the MSM) will be out in force tomorrow morning to turn things around.
Worlds of wanwood are certainly lying leafmeal over every path here. This is what I saw as I walked out my door early enough that my good neighbors had not yet had a chance to clear the leaves from yards and walks. We’ve had a lovely Indian Summer here this week. The skies have been (mostly) clear and the temperatures in the balmy seventies. They tell us that there’s a cold front coming in and the winds have picked strongly enough to toss the branches in every direction and steal most of the leaves from our trees.
Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By & by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep & know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.
As I mentioned here, I had nursing home duty this morning. By that I mean that I went to assist the residents of a local nursing home in preparing their ballots to vote absentee.
I was assigned to the same nursing home as last time but there were far fewer voters and it was much quieter and more orderly. There were no arguments, no shouting matches. No people with serious dementia telling me their life stories. In short, it was quite dull.
I arrived a little before 9:00am, helped my colleagues complete the setup, assisted about half of the voters in preparing their ballots (the other half either required no assistance or were assistend by someone else). For those who are concerned about this process, the voter must complete an affidavit requesting assistance and they are then assisted by two people—one Republican and one Democrat. We do our best to preserve the voter’s privacy during the process.
I won’t violate my voters’ privacy by telling you how they voted. Suffice it to say that it will be interesting to see how good a predictor the nursing home vote is for the final results.
The predictions of GROWTH, INFLATION, and GOODNEWS for the previous forecast from the US model (July 31, 2004) were 2.7 percent, 2.1 percent, and 2, respectively. With the release of the NIPA data on October 29, 2004, all the actual economic data are available for the vote prediction. The actual values (as of October 29, 2004) of GROWTH, INFLATION, and GOODNEWS are 2.9 percent, 2.0 percent, and 2, respectively.
Given that the actual economic values are close to the values used for the previous vote prediction, the current vote prediction is little changed. The new economic values give a prediction of 57.70 percent of the two-party vote for President Bush rather than 57.48 percent before.
If Dr. Fair’s prediction proves wrong, it strongly suggests that it’s not the economy, stupid.
Carnival of the Recipes is up! This time it’s being hosted by SarahK of Mountaineer Musings. I see Throwdown Crawfish Etouffee, Shrimp Curry, Afghan Curry, and scads of other recipes. All four food groups are represented. That would be salt, grease, alcohol, and chocolate. And a few recipes for left-over turkey.
Alice Banchini of Alice in Texas has written an interesting post on Civilisation and its enemies. In this post she analyzes the three factions she sees: Islamofascists, Americanists, and Europeanists. Steven Den Beste wrote something a little similar to this early this year in his post Three-way Struggle. Viriginia Postrel in her book The Future and its Enemies describes the struggle between dynamists and stasists.
I think they’re all talking about roughly the same thing and I’d like to suggest a slightly different way of looking at it: tribal traditionalists, Fordists, and millenial capitalists. [continue reading…]
Try this for a fancy dessert that’s incredibly delicious and incredibly easy. Please note that this recipe calls for bittersweet chocolate. Not milk chocolate. Not baking chocolate. Lindt Excellence is especially good. If you’re feeling flush use Callebaut.
Bittersweet Chocolate Truffle Tart
at least 10 servings
1 pie crust made with Oreo crumbs (homemade or pre-fab)
10 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1¼ cups heavy cream
1 Tbsp. orange liqueur or 1 Tbsp. dark rum
Make a chocolate crumb crust according to the instruction on the Oreo crumbs box or see below.
Place the chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl. In a small saucepan,
bring the cream to a simmer over moderate heat. Pour the hot cream over the
chocolate and let stand for 30 seconds. Stir until the chocolate is melted and
smooth. Add the liqueur. Strain the chocolate cream into the crumb crust and spread to form a smooth even layer. Refrigerate until chilled and set, 3 to 5 hours. As soon as the chocolate is firm , cover the tart with plastic wrap. Keep refrigerated until ready to use.
It’s particularly nice when you garnish the center of the tart with a few fresh raspberries or strawberries and a few fresh mint leaves.
Oreo Crumb Crust
1 cup Oreo crumbs
¼ cup melted butter
Mix crumbs with butter.
Press into 9” tart pan or springform pan (or regular pie pan).
Robin Burk of Winds of Change has a great interview with a young Iraqi woman who is working as General Petraeus’s translator. Get another distinctive point-of-view on the war in Iraq.
