How Important Are the Iowa Caucuses?

 Posted by at 12:02 am  Editorial, Politics
Jan 032012
 

3IowaFor the last couple of weeks  the race between Republicans to win the Iowa caucuses has dominated the news.  Millions od dollars have been spent.  Pundits have agonized over the unpredictability of the race, and it’s impossible to turn on news without seeing a talking head drone on about the subject.  So I asked myself if the Iowa Caucuses are important enough to justify all the attention.

Here are the latest standings, according to the Chicago Sun Times.

24 percent Mitt Romney

22 percent Ron Paul

15 percent Rick Santorum

12 percent Newt Gingrich

11 percent Rick Perry

7 percent Michele Bachmann

The Republican Party is not really representative of Iowa.  Obama won the state by a 10 point margin.

In addition, the Iowa caucuses are not really representative of Iowa Republicans.  Only the most dedicated activists attend. According to the New York Times, the 2008 caucuses set an attendance record, but attracted only 118,192 voters.

Now, let’s assume that both that they equal their record, and that one of the above losers wins 51% of the vote, absurd though that may be.  51% of 118,192 votes equals 60,278 votes for the winner.

Moving along, I live in Portland OR, home of 583,876 people.  60,278 would represent 10.3% od Portland’s population.  If I were to say to you,  “10.3% of Portlanders like Mitt Romney,” you might say, “So what?”

Lets look at this another way.  There are approximately 169,000,000 registered voters in the US.  60,278 would represent .036%.  That’s 3.6 one hundredths of one percent, an insignificant number.  Seen in that light the Iowa caucuses hardly matter at all.

What we have been experiencing here is pure media hype, and it gives a small handful of activists a lot more influence  than they warrant.

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Poll Results–1/3/2012

 Posted by at 12:01 am  Blog News
Jan 032012
 

Here are the results of our New Year’s Resolutions poll.

Poll0103

And here are your comments.

From Lynn Squance on December 28, 2011 at 4:45 am. 

 

Well, I don’t smoke and I don’t drink so those are out. I am going to try to increase the amount of water I drink from 2 litres per day to 3-4 litres, none of in tea or in coffee which I am allegic too. It is really good for everybody. I also want to learn more about politics, both Canadian and American, and help others understand through my online posts.

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From Fred Lemon on December 27, 2011 at 7:55 am. 

 

I did make my first New Years resolution in 2010. It was to lose weight. It even worked. I went from 180 to 115 pounds. All it cost was the removal of my spleen and my pancreas.

My last New Year’s resolution was the only one I’ve kept.  I resolved to make no more New Year’s Resolutions.

The new poll is up.

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Open Thread-1/3/2012

 Posted by at 12:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 032012
 

Yesterday was another slow news day, so I wrote my first editorial of the year, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching Oregon best Wisconsin 45 – 38 in the Rose Bowl.  It was a fast paced game, and I was thoroughly impressed with the Badger offence.  I’m current with replies.  Today I have chores to do.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 4:00 (average 5:08).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Final Fantasy Football Report:

Here is the final report for our fantasy football league, Lefty Blog Friends.

3LBFFinal

Congrats to Rob, Dusty and Robb!

Short Takes:

From Think Progress: On New Year’s Eve, a magnitude 4.0 earthquake struck northeastern Ohio, the second quake to strike the region in a week. Saturday’s earthquake, which occurred in an area not typically known for this type of natural disaster, is being traced back to fluid injection wells at a Youngstown fracking site. According to the Akron Beacon Journal, “the quake was the 11th over the last eight months in Mahoning County, all within two miles of the injection wells.” They also point out that injection wells have been linked to earthquakes in other states as well, including Arkansas, West Virginia, Colorado and Texas.

What better reason could we have that fracking should be banned?

From Hypervocal: Small-government conservatism: Where freedom and liberty are no match for faux patriotism.

A Republican state senator from Indiana has introduced a measure that would literally fine any and all singers of the United States’ national anthem who don’t meet “acceptable” performance standards of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at any event sponsored by public schools and state universities.

Scheeeesch!  Busted for missing High C!  What Teabuggery!

From Crooks and Liars: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) held a press conference Wednesday to take credit for lifting caps on a Family Care program designed to keep elderly people out of nursing homes. What he didn’t include in the press event was that the caps he is lifting are caps that he imposed and that he’s only lifting them because the federal government ordered him to do so.

Wisconsin, make sure everyone knows that the feds made him do it, the lying sack of…

Cartoon:

3Cartoon

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Monthly Report for December 2011

 Posted by at 12:04 am  Blog News, Monthly Report, Uncategorized
Jan 022012
 

In December, Politics Plus dropped in Uniques and Visitors, but Page Views, Hits and Bandwidth were up.  Because I was ill for almost half the month, I’m surprised that we did that well.

 

Unique visitors

Number of visits

Pages

Hits

Bandwidth

Viewed traffic *

15,455

31,478

(2.03 visits/visitor)

345,113

(10.96 Pages/Visit)

1,093,133

(34.72 Hits/Visit)

26.04 GB

(867.3 KB/Visit)

Not viewed traffic *

 

 

279,999

350,618

5.79 GB

Not viewed traffic is people who read our blog without coming here, using RSS Readers, such as Feed Demon, and Aggregation sites, such as Google Reader and MyWeb.

Stats12-2012

Here is our most recent ClustrMap, last updated on January 1.

Clustrmap12-2012

Our ClustrMap reset the morning of 2/28/2011, starting over from scratch. This map counts only visits since then. The largest circles represent over 1,000 visits. The tiniest represent one to ten.

Our average durations were up from 279 seconds last month:

Number of visits: 31,478 – Average: 299 s

Number of visits

Percent

0s-30s

24,995

79.4 %

30s-2mn

1,639

5.2 %

2mn-5mn

812

2.5 %

5mn-15mn

967

3 %

15mn-30mn

778

2.4 %

30mn-1h

1,228

3.9 %

1h+

1,059

3.3 %

Search engine referrals were mixed.

21 different referring search engines

Pages

Percent

Hits

Percent

Google

5605

55.2 %

8,478

38.1 %

Stumbleupon (Social Bookmark)

3895

38.4 %

12,668

56.9 %

Microsoft Bing

223

2.1 %

387

1.7 %

Yahoo!

156

1.5 %

265

1.1 %

Google (Images)

79

0.7 %

150

0.6 %

Microsoft MSN Search

56

0.5 %

56

0.2 %

Unknown search engines

37

0.3 %

56

0.2 %

AOL

37

0.3 %

39

0.1 %

Ask

17

0.1 %

17

0 %

Yandex

17

0.1 %

22

0 %

Microsoft Windows Live

12

0.1 %

35

0.1 %

MyWebSearch

4

0 %

4

0 %

Earth Link

2

0 %

2

0 %

GoodSearch

2

0 %

3

0 %

MetaCrawler (Metamoteur)

 

 

1

0 %

Dogpile

 

 

4

0 %

Virgilio

 

 

1

0 %

Mamma

 

 

4

0 %

InfoSpace

 

 

7

0 %

Go.com

 

 

30

0.1 %

Voila

 

 

1

0 %

Our top five non-blog referrers are:

http://www.care2.com                4,277

http://www.reddit.com/              2,379

http://www.jabberwonk.com/         539

http://www.facebook.com/             276

http://www.tumblr.com/                161

Our top 15 blog/news referrers are:

http://www.alternet.org/

http://www.democraticunderground.com

http://america-weeps.blogspot.com/

http://infidel753.blogspot.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com

http://themanwhowalksalonewalksfaster.blogspot.com/

http://jackjodell53.wordpress.com/

http://parsleyspics.blogspot.com/

http://truthlover.newsvine.com

http://bildungblog.blogspot.com/

http://katieschwartz.com/

http://reconstitution.us/rcnew/

http://www.bbc.co.uk

http://themoderatevoice.com/

http://republic-of-gilead.blogspot.com/

http://annette-justmylittlepieceoftheworld.blogspot.com/

There is an extra, because there was a tie for 15th place.

Here’s some linkey-love in return  The best ways you can spread the message to others is to use the share button at the bottom of each article to list our articles on the the networking sites where you belong. Quote PP articles on your own blogs also helps.  The operative commandment here is “thou shalt steal.”  We’re on the same side here, and I encourage it.  Even if you want to repost a whole article, that’s OK.  Just link back, please.  Also, feel free to swipe my graphics in the articles.  If they are labeled with our Politics Plus URL, they are my work.

The top fifteen commenters for December are missing.  I went to copy the names at 8:45 PM on the 31st, and it had already reset.  I thought it reset at Midnight EST.  I guess I’ll just have to do it earlier in the day. The widget is in the right column.  I don’t count, as I’m the resident big mouth, and I try to reply to every comment, except replies directed at someone else.  Those who leave their URLs in their comments, get linkey-love here. Hopefully I’ll get them next month.

We have 604,268 links on other websites, down from 656,839 last month.

We have 3,050 articles and 27,150 comments, as of midnight 1/1.

I recommend using your own avatar. Go to Gravatar.  Sign up using the email address you use to post comments here and upload the image you want to use.  Whenever you comment under that email address here or on any WordPress blog (several others too), that image will be your avatar.

We also have a special announcement.  I have authorized two other people to post articles on Politics Plus.  On the subjects of Canada and Canadian politics we have Lynn Squance, who understands the US better than any Canadian I have known.  On the subjects of Health Care and Medical Issues, we have SoINeedAName, affectionately known here as Nameless, who is a doctor.  I do not know when we can expect to hear from them, but they have the access to post any time they choose.  Please welcome them.

Your participation remains a major part of what makes this blog worth reading, not to mention worth writing. Many people who visit here have told me that they come here to read your comments in addition to my articles, and people continue to write comments about your comments on other sites.  Politics Plus exists to help end right-wing insanity and send the Republican Party the way of the Whigs.  Thank you all for all you do, here and elsewhere, to help make that happen.  Together we will make a difference.

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Open Thread–1/2/2012

 Posted by at 12:02 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 022012
 

Yesterday was a day for football, not news, so I spent most of the day meditating upon the Ellipsoid Orb.  I would have preferred for the Broncos to win their way into the playoffs, and will be surprised if they make it out of the wildcard round.  I’m current with replies.  Today is the Rose Bowl.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 4:53 (average 5:10).  To do it click here.  How did you do?

Religious Agony:

0101-Broncos3-Chiefs7

Short Takes:

From Think Progress: Just weeks after the solar industry installed the one millionth system in Germany, the country’s solar trade association announced that the technology accounted for 3% of total energy generation in 2011 — increasing 60% over 2010 to 18.6 terawatt-hours (18.6 billion kilowatt-hours.)

Kudos to Germany.  The US should be investing in this, not war.

From Huffington Post: Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), who is expected to do very well in the Iowa caucuses this week, aggressively fended off accusations on Sunday that he has engaged in 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Have you ever noticed that, the more guilty he is, the more indigent he gets?

Cartoon:

2Cartoon

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Obama’s New Year Message and the NDAA

 Posted by at 12:01 am  Politics
Jan 012012
 

Obama Year Four

Yesterday, President Barack Obama addressed the nation briefly.  Here are my thoughts and the video of that address, or, if you prefer, you can read the complete transcript.  In addition, I have some research on the NDAA.

I think he gave too much credit to Republicans, who gave in, because not to do so would have been political suicide. 

I am pleased that Obama intends to do what he can in 2012 to help the economy by executive order, rather than trying to negotiate with Republicans, who have repeatedly shown their willingness to sabotage America to hurt Obama.

I am disappointed that, at the last moment, Obama signed the Defense Budget,  that contains the infamous NDAA.  However, it does contain an amendment that it cannot affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens or lawful resident aliens of the United States or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.  The Non-Detention Act of 1971 does not permit the indefinite detention of US citizens.  Realistically a veto would have done no good, as the margins by which the measure passed both houses is sufficient to override the veto.  Congressional Democrats lack the stomach for a hostage situation involving defunding the entire military in an election year, and they believe the amendment noted above removes threat of indefinite detention of US citizens.

From the signing statement:

…Section 1021 affirms the executive branch’s authority to detain persons covered by the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) (Public Law 107-40; 50 U.S.C. 1541 note). This section breaks no new ground and is unnecessary. The authority it describes was included in the 2001 AUMF, as recognized by the Supreme Court and confirmed through lower court decisions since then. Two critical limitations in section 1021 confirm that it solely codifies established authorities. First, under section 1021(d), the bill does not "limit or expand the authority of the President or the scope of the Authorization for Use of Military Force." Second, under section 1021(e), the bill may not be construed to affect any "existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States." My Administration strongly supported the inclusion of these limitations in order to make clear beyond doubt that the legislation does nothing more than confirm authorities that the Federal courts have recognized as lawful under the 2001 AUMF. Moreover, I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a Nation. My Administration will interpret section 1021 in a manner that ensures that any detention it authorizes complies with the Constitution, the laws of war, and all other applicable law…

Inserted from <The Whitehouse>

This makes it clear that Obama sees it the same way.

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Open Thread–1/1/2012

 Posted by at 12:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 012012
 

Yesterday was a slow day for news, and when I returned from my errands, I did some research and took a long nap.  I’m current with replies.  Today I shall cook a big meal and meditate on a very important holy day for the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb, but the meditation between the Broncos and the Chiefs will nit be televised here.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 3:56 (average 4:45).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From USA Today: Iraq’s prime minister hailed the end of the American military presence in Iraq as a new dawn for his country and urged Iraqis to preserve the unity of a nation still under attack by insurgents and beset by sectarian divisions.

I see nothing good from that nation any time soon.

From ABC: Iran said Saturday it has proposed a new round of talks on its nuclear program with six world powers that have been trying for years to persuade Tehran to freeze aspects of its atomic work that could provide a possible pathway to weapons production.

The country’s top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, said he has formally called on the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany to return to negotiations.

I certainly hope Iran intends to negotiate seriously.

From Think Progress: A recall of controversial Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker now appear inevitable. In just 28 days, activists collected 507,533 signatures. Organizers have until January 17 to collect 540,208 signatures, which is equal to 25% of the state’s 2010 general election turnout. To be safe, recall advocates have set a new goal of 720,277 signatures by the deadline.

Here’s excellent news to start the new year!

Cartoon:

1Cartoon

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