Melanie Phillips: An American view

There is probably no extravagant verbiage which hasn't been visited on Melanie Phillips by cumulative LibDem blogs over the last few years.

However, on today's Daily Kos pundit round-up there is a little American perspective on the great Mail columnist:

Melanie Phillips: The Brit wingnuts could teach our wingnuts a thing or two about wingnuttery. Example:

"Insofar as the American public has managed to obtain some of this suppressed information [about tightening polls], it has been delivered by the Western Resistance comprising internet journalists, Fox News and talk radio. The British press, however, have taken their cue entirely from the fifth-columnist liberal US media."

In the same round-up, I like this quote from veteran pollster Charlie Cook:

John McCain probably can't win without divine intervention.

Melanie Phillips: An American view

There is probably no extravagant verbiage which hasn't been visited on Melanie Phillips by cumulative LibDem blogs over the last few years.

McCain's chances of winning are worse than 1 in 256

I've been dusting off my little spreadsheet, looking at how the land lies for Tuesday's US Presidential election.

What is extraordinary, when you reflect back on the tasks which Kerry and Gore had in 04 and 00 respectively, is that Obama doesn't have to seize Ohio or Florida to win - although they would help.

If he wins all the states that Kerry won in 04 plus Iowa, New Mexico and Colorado, then he is over the 270 mark and home to tea.

To win the Kerry states, the one potentially vulnerable state is Pennsylvania where McCain has been tightening Obama's lead in the last week. However, electoral-vote.com gives the average of the 10 most recent polls there (from 30th October) as giving Obama 52% and a 9 point lead.

Obama has led all year in Iowa and New Mexico and is currently 13 and 8 points ahead respectively in those states.

Obama is 7 points ahead in Colorado.

If any one of those states goes Pete Tong, then Obama has strong prospects in Florida, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina and Indiana. Or he has a shot at Montana and North Dakota.

So Obama has quite a bit of room for manoevre.

McCain has to win, without fail, in Florida, Ohio, Virgina, Colorado, North Carolina, Indiana, North Dakota and Montana.

As Votemaster puts it:

If we assume that all eight of these states are 50-50, then McCain has to flip a coin and get heads eight times in a row. The chances of this are 1 in 256. But it is worse than that since a number of these states, especially Colorado, look a lot worse for McCain than 50-50.

Or to put it another way: There is going to have to be one hell of a "Bradley effect" for McCain to win!

The Washington Post confirms all this today:

Barack Obama and the Democrats hold a commanding position two days before Tuesday's election, with the senator from Illinois leading in states whose electoral votes total nearly 300 and with his party counting on significantly expanded majorities in the House and Senate.

John McCain is running in one of the worst environments ever for a Republican presidential nominee. The senator from Arizona has not been in front in any of the 159 national polls conducted over the past six weeks. His slender hopes for winning the White House now depend on picking up a major Democratic stronghold or fighting off Obama's raids on most of the five states President Bush won four years ago that now lean toward the Democrat. He also must hold onto six other states that Bush won in 2004 but are considered too close to call.

Were the pranksters pranked?

I have listened very carefully to this prank call (below).

I am convinced that it is the pranksters themselves who were pranked. It is obviously not Sarah Palin on the line. The voice is far too girlish - there's too many little giggles and "aw shucks" remarks. In particular the "We love you" is far too over the top.

I am convinced that it is Tina Fey impersonating Sarah Palin on the recording. The "maybe in eight years" remark is just like Tina Fey.

And obviously, the real Sarah Palin would have smelt a rat with the "Sarkozy" reference to hunting by helicoper, rather than saying: "We should go hunting together". And obviously Sarah Palin would have realised that "Sarkozy's" reference to "my Special American adviser Janny 'Alliday" indicated a phoney.

Surfing over the top of a major telecommunications link

Here's some photos I took last week in Widemouth Bay and Bude, Cornwall. This first one (below) shows a telecommunicatons cable inspection ship offshore at Widemouth Bay with surfers in the foreground. This was on last Sunday, 26th October. The ship just stayed offshore in the same place all afternoon, buffetted by the roughish sea. I pity the people who were inside it.

Here's a rather grainy zoomed shot of it showing more detail. Am I turning into an anorak? Of course not - I've been one for years.


Here's a short video showing the ship, the surfers and the choppy conditions.

Many people visit Widemouth Bay to surf, swim and sunbathe. Not many realise that, running under their feet, there is a major transatlantic cable. The only evidence normally is the sign below. I remember seeing the huge cable laying ship actually installing the cable back in the sixties.

While I am at it, here's a shot of Widemouth beach look down towards Crackington Haven and Trevose Head:

Here's one of a rainbow out at sea on Monday 27th October:

And, just for good measure, here's the Bude Light:

Americans! I beg you! Please spare the world from this TOTAL DINGBAT!

This is just utterly and completely pathetic. Just when I thought nothing more could come out about Sarah Palin which would further insult the intelligence of the American people.....

In a conservative radio interview that aired in Washington, D.C. Friday morning, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin said she fears her First Amendment rights may be threatened by "attacks" from reporters who suggest she is engaging in a negative campaign against Barack Obama.
Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama's associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate's free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.
"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Chris Plante, "then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."

The audio of the interview segment is here on Tinyrevolution.com under the title "So stupid it hurts".

The First Amendment says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

kos says:

Oh Sarah, don't you know the First Amendment merely limits the ability of Congress to make laws abridging freedom of speech? Of course not! She doesn't even know what a vice-president's job is!

Glen Greenwald on the Salon, destroys Palin's statement very powerfully:

The First Amendment is actually not that complicated. It can be read from start to finish in about 10 seconds. It bars the Government from abridging free speech rights. It doesn't have anything to do with whether you're free to say things without being criticized, or whether you can comment on blogs without being edited, or whether people can bar you from their private planes because they don't like what you've said.
If anything, Palin has this exactly backwards, since one thing that the First Amendment does actually guarantee is a free press. Thus, when the press criticizes a political candidate and a Governor such as Palin, that is a classic example of First Amendment rights being exercised, not abridged.
This isn't only about profound ignorance regarding our basic liberties, though it is obviously that. Palin here is also giving voice to the standard right-wing grievance instinct: that it's inherently unfair when they're criticized. And now, apparently, it's even unconstitutional.
According to Palin, what the Founders intended with the First Amendment was that political candidates for the most powerful offices in the country and Governors of states would be free to say whatever they want without being criticized in the newspapers. In the Palin worldview, the First Amendment was meant to ensure that powerful political officials such as herself would not be "attacked" in the papers. Is it even possible to imagine more breathtaking ignorance from someone holding high office and running for even higher office?

Could Sarah Palin follow in Ronald Reagan's footsteps?

The video clip below is fascinating. It is Sarah Palin in 1988 when she was 24 years old and starting as a sportscaster on a local television channel called KTUU-TV in Anchorage, Alaska. It includes news of "Dillingham's Beaver round-up". Don't laugh. Another sportscaster went on to become US President. His name was Ronald Reagan. Geoffrey Nunberg discusses accents here, and includes a reference to how Palin's accent has changed since she read the sports news.

Below that is a video of Palin (or Heath as she then was) in 1984 and the swimsuit section of a beauty pageant.