Journal de bord

[Photos Pete Souza / White House.]

À gauche, portrait officiel de 2009, a droite, portrait officiel de décembre 2012.

Pour protester contre la candidature unique à la chambre des Représentants d’un militant du «Tea Party» créationniste, des électeurs d’un comté de Géorgie ont donné plus de 4000 de leurs voix à… Charles Darwin, père de la théorie de l’évolution.

Les votes en faveur du biologiste anglais ont été inscrits manuellement à l’occasion des élections se tenant dans une partie du comté de Athens-Clarke en Géorgie, indique le site internet du Athens Banner-Herald.

Les électeurs entendaient ainsi protester contre la candidature unique à sa réélection à la Chambre des Représentants de Paul Broun, membre du “Tea Party” et créationniste, un mouvement de pensée qui affirme que seul Dieu a créé l’homme.

Selon le site, les électeurs répondaient à l’appel d’un biologiste de l’université de Géorgie, Jim Leebens-Mack, qui a lancé une page Facebook “Darwin au Congrès”, après des propos publics de l’élu où il affirmait que la théorie de l’évolution et d’autres sujets de sciences étaient des “mensonges venus de l’enfer”.

AFP.

Quoi qu’en disent les pédés efféminés du NYT, Mitt Romney va gagner l’élection présidentielle du 6 novembre 2012.

[…] Silver currently writes about the polls and politics at a web site called FiveThirtyEight.com that is affiliated with the New York Times. His currect projections of the presidential race look quite favorable to the incumbent, President Obama, both nationally and especially in the swing states. Routinely he assigns percentage odds of a candidate (usually his beloved Obama) winning a state far higher and disproportionate any reasonable odds of that candidate winning a state as indicated by the polls.

His blog site has an article yesterday arguing that Mitt Romney’s momentum in the polls has stopped. This is wishful thinking of a liberal given that the polls continue to improve for Mitt Romney. He still has Obama winning in Virginia and Colorado even though the most recent and credible polls in those states show Romney winning them. He gives Obama a 73.4 percent chance of winning Ohio, which is downright absurd, as Rasmussen has the candidate tied in Ohio, which really means the undecided voters tip the state of Ohio to Romney if the election were held today. So much for that fantasy-land 73.4 percent chance of Obama winning Ohio.

Nate Silver is a man of very small stature, a thin and effeminate man with a soft-sounding voice that sounds almost exactly like the “Mr. New Castrati” voice used by Rush Limbaugh on his program. In fact, Silver could easily be the poster child for the New Castrati in both image and sound. Nate Silver, like most liberal and leftist celebrities and favorites, might be of average intelligence but is surely not the genius he’s made out to be. His political analyses are average at best and his projections, at least this year, are extremely biased in favor of the Democrats.

Apparently, Nate Silver has his own way of “skewing” the polls. He appears to look at the polls available and decide which ones to put more “weighting” on in compiling his own average, as opposed to the Real Clear Politics average, and then uses the average he calculates to determine that percentages a candidate has of winning that state. He labels some polling firms as favoring Republicans, even if they over sample Democrats in their surveys, apparently because he doesn’t agree with their results. In the end the polls are gerrymandering into averages that seem to suit his agenda to make the liberal Democrats candidates apparently strong than they are.

He claims to have been highly accurate in predicting the 2008 election results, and perhaps he was. But it’s highly unlikely his current methods and projections will have the level of accuracy unless he changes then quite a lot between now and election day. The race has shifted profoundly in favor of Mitt Romney while Nate Sillver is still projecting an Obama win. Unless he changes that, the credibility he earned in 2008 will be greatly diminished after this years election.

Examiner.com, Dean Chambers: “The far left turns to Nate Silver for wisdom on the polls.”

Slate.fr, Jean-Laurent Cassely : “Le statisticien Nate Silver, président des prévisions électorales”.

Oh my goodness, do we feel bad now:

“A 4-year-old Fort Collins girl expressed her frustration over the seemingly never-ending presidential campaign,” Denver’s 9News reports. “Viewer Elizabeth Evans said she and her daughter, Abigael, were listening to NPR on a trip to the grocery store Tuesday when [Abigael] started tearing up.

“The mother asked Abigael why she was crying and she responded, ‘I’m tired of Bronco Bamma and Mitt Romney.’ “

You will want to watch the video.

On behalf of NPR and all other news outlets, we apologize to Abigael and all the many others who probably feel like her. We must confess, the campaign’s gone on long enough for us, too. Let’s just keep telling ourselves: “Only a few more days, only a few more days, only a few more days.”

NPR, Mark Memmott: “Dear Little Girl: Sorry We Made You Cry About ‘Bronco Bamma’ And Mitt Romney.”

The U.S. and Mexico are not secretly planning to invade Canada, a State Department spokeswoman confirmed to laughter during a daily press briefing.

Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland was taking questions from journalists about its activities Tuesday, which included a meeting between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Mexico Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa.

She was asked about “a signing ceremony” with Espinosa – what was being signed and why was the ceremony not open to the press.

“I think it’s an update on Merida, but I will get that for you,” Nuland reported, referring to the Merida Initiative to fight organized crime.

The journalist asked, “This isn’t some secret thing … to invade Canada or something like that?”

Amid laughter, Nuland replied: “No, no, no. It’s not anything classified.”

The U.S. did draw up a secret plan to invade Canada in 1935, codenamed “War Plan Red,” some of which was accidentally published by mistake and reported by The New York Times.

A U.S. invasion of Canada also featured in the film, “Canadian Bacon,” starring John Candy, Alan Alda and Rhea Perlman, and the movie South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, which included the song “Blame Canada.”

There is also a website called www.invadecanada.us, which lists reasons such as connecting the mainland U.S. with Alaska, “they’re just a little too proud,” and “they stole our basketball teams.”

NBC News, Ian Johnston: “State Department: No secret plan to invade Canada”.

Nous voilà soulagés. Pour le moment.

WASHINGTON, DC — […] “We will never have the media on our side, ever, in this country,” Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, told the audience at the Omni Shoreham hotel. “We will never have the elite, smart people on our side.”

[…] Santorum also criticized the libertarian wing of the Republican party for not supporting what he sees as the pillars of conservatism: religion and family.

“When it comes to conservatism libertarian types can say, oh, well you know, we don’t want to talk about social issues,” Santorum said. “Without the church and the family, there is no conservative movement, there is no basic values of America.”

Parfois les politiciens, même endurcis, ont de troublants accès de sincérité.

PBS NewsHour: “Where Do You Fit?”.

Je ne connaissais même pas Jill Stein…

I side with…

Hier, deux participants au rassemblement du Parti républicain à Tampa ont été expulsés de la salle par la police. Il jettaient des fruits secs à une cadreuse noire travaillant pour CNN en expliquant “C’est comme ça que nous nourrissons les animaux”.

Cela ne va pas arranger les sondages qui font que Barack Obama capte 94% du vote noir.

P.S. Les journalistes français sont vraiment mauvais dans le factuel, que ce soit par exemple Adèle Smith au Figaro, ou encore Cécile Dehesdin chez Slate.fr : non, il n’est précisé nul par que ce sont des cacahuètes, ça pourrait aussi être des noisettes, des amandes ou des noix de cajou… Tous les médias américains parlent de “nuts” sans autre précision ; et non, il ne s’agit pas officiellement d’une journaliste, la victime est présentée comme une camerawoman par son employeur.

“Grand Old Party” is a data visualization project. It is also a set of butt plugs. Each shape is determined by voter approval ratings amongst registered republican voters for each of the GOP presidential candidates. The height is a measurement of time, beginning December 10, 2011 and ending on April 1, 2012 (bottom to top). The width of each object is the quantity by percentage (out of 100%) of approval for that candidate. All data comes directly from Gallup polls.

Matthew Epler: “Grand Old Party.”

(Merci Joachim.)

John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.

“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenaged son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

[…] After the incident, Lauber seemed to disappear. He returned days later with his shortened hair back to its natural brown. He finished the year, but ultimately left the school before graduation — thrown out for smoking a cigarette.

Sometime in the mid-1990s, David Seed noticed a familiar face at the end of a bar at Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

“Hey, you’re John Lauber,” Seed recalled saying at the start of a brief conversation. Seed, also among those who witnessed the Romney-led incident, had gone on to a career as a teacher and principal. Now he had something to get off his chest.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t do more to help in the situation,” he said.

Lauber paused, then responded, “It was horrible.” He went on to explain how frightened he was during the incident, and acknowledged to Seed, “It’s something I have thought about a lot since then.”

Lauber died in 2004, according to his three sisters. […] He kept his hair blond until he died, said his sister Chris. “He never stopped bleaching it.”

The Washington Post, Jason Horowitz: “Mitt Romney’s prep school classmates recall pranks, but also troubling incidents.”

Pour suivre les élections aux États-Unis, le blogue de Richard Hétu, correspondant de La Presse à New York.

[…] Giuliani, c’est notre propre Mussolini à nous. J’habite New-York depuis des décennies, j’ai regardé de près et avec une grande indignation combien Giuliani s’est amusé de toute apparence à malmener grossièrement nos concitoyens « de couleur » au grand plaisir de sa « base », à savoir certains électeurs blancs de Staten-Island et de Queens (les électeurs blancs de New-York ont voté à deux tiers pour Giuliani dans l’élection de 1989, qu’il a perdue - le maire élu, l’Afro-Américain David Dinkins, a reçu quatre-vingts pour cent du vote noir, soixante-dix pour cent du vote hispanique, et un tiers du vote blanc - une combinaison suffisante pour lui donner un avantage de 3 pour cent des voix). Dans l’élection suivante de 1993, M. Giuliani a battu le maire Dinkins par 53.367 voix. Les démocrates ont ensuite proposé une candidate perçue comme hypergauchiste, Ruth Messinger de l’Upper West Side, que Giuliani a battu facilement, de 59 % à 41 % avec seulement 38 % des inscrits. Après sept ans comme maire, Giuliani n’était approuvé que par 36 % des habitants de New-York jusqu’à l’attaque sur le World Trade Center en 2001 - c’est alors que les vraies tendances « antidémocratiques » du maire se sont dévoilées - il a tout de suite demandé un prolongement « extraordinaire » de son mandat (refusé par l’assemblée et le sénat de l’État). […] Il est, c’est vrai, plutôt modéré sur les questions sociales « chaudes » - il n’est pas hideusement anti-gai, il ne veut pas interdire l’avortement à toute femme. Mais nous, les New-Yorkais, nous le connaissons trop bien, notre cher Rudy - et l’idée même d’une présidence Giuliani nous fait tressaillir… d’horreur.

Huckabee - en premier lieu il faut noter que pour nos oreilles américaines, juste le son du nom « Huckabee » nous fait sourire. Il a des résonances de Mark Twain (« Huckleberry Finn ») et aussi du film satirique « I Heart Huckabees ». Ça sonne plouc, genre « Beverly Hillbillies ». M. Huckabee a aussi un accent plouc, beaucoup plus prononcé que celui qu’a M. Clinton (mais moins que celui de l’ancien président Carter de Géorgie). Pour certains, c’est un avantage, pour d’autres, ça les énerve. On le trouve plus ou moins honnête - après tout, c’est un homme politique, ils mentent tous ! - mais un peu trop « chrétien » ou religieux pour beaucoup. Il a dit des bêtises sur les « goûts » des gais (ça ressemble d’ailleurs à la position catholique officielle où l’on peut être homosexuel mais on ne doit pas « agir » en homo). M. Huckabee gêne les « éminents » de Washington (la classe médiatico-politique traditionnelle), et c’est bien pour cela que je m’amuse à suivre sa campagne, mais au fond, il serait impossible.

[…] À mon humble avis tout à fait personnel, les candidats républicains sont d’un comique, d’une bizarrerie à stupéfier toute personne raisonnable, mais il ne faut pas surtout oublier qu’on a voté pour le petit buisson en 2004 et donc que nous sommes capables, nous Américains, des pires des jugements. Mais si par hasard l’un de ces candidats réussit à gagner la présidence, ce sera alors la chasse ouverte (et approuvée) aux homos, aux « gauchistes », aux athées, aux Mexicains, et à tout autre groupe inconvenant.

[Sale Bête : “De comitiis - pars secunda”.]