This morning finds me on a plane courtesy of the travel to interview scheme for JSA claimants. Unfortunately my interview isn't until tomorrow but there were no morning flights available for the location I needed to fly to available at the time I was told I was being interviewed (too many people maybe returning home at the end of a long holiday possibly).
Therefore blogging is liable to be light until tomorrow evening when I return to Northern Ireland post interview.
Thursday, 5 January 2012
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
The Maps of Iowa Counties and what they say about Romney and Santorum
Last night I stayed up, almost to the end of the Caucus results in Iowa, it was 99% declared and at that point we knew it was going to be no more than 100 in it either way, but I just ran out of stamina and fell asleep. In the end Mitt Romney won by 8 votes over Rick Santorum both on 25% of the Caucus.
I was sitting there with 10 taps open in Chrome including two maps. One from WYNC spliting the various counties by demographic and Google's in which you could drill down to see the strength of each candidate across the counties. In fact at times Newt Gingrich had the lead in two of the northern counties simultaneously (Winneshiek and Mitchell), Michele Bachmann held an early lead in Howard County and Rick Peryy held leads in four counties at various times of the evening. I was following a number of live feeds from the Guardian and BBC here in the UK to several stateside including a Cover It Live forum, plus of course all my friends on Twitter, following either Iowa or the hashtag #iacaucus was just impossible there were more people Tweeting that Republicans who Caucused* in Iowa.
One of the tabs I did have open was the webcast from KCRG the ABC affiliate in Cedar Rapids, Ia, nothing like getting the information straight from Iowans who knew where the significant counties were, had reporters at numerous of the caucus centres including the 63 precinct venue at the University of Northern Iowa's, Dome.
There was one point early on before too many votes had been declared (about 7:45pm local time) that they said that there were people in England and Denmark watching them and saying hi on Twitter. So I did. The end result was within minutes Northern Ireland got a name check, and not for the first time but twice more as they handed over to different news anchors I got bundled up with the other two nations again.
If you just looked at the map by who won each county you'd have thought Santorum had walked it. Of the 99 he won in 62 of them, Ron Paul in 18, Romney in 17 and Rick Perry in 2.
But these heat maps showing the proportion of the top two's support helps to explain the story.
What this shows is that in the big metroplitan areas like around Polk County (Des Moines and surrounding), Iowa City and Cedar Rapids Romney scored a lot better than Santorum. In the western metropolitan area around Sioux City even though Santorum did well so too did Romney. In other words Romney did well in the urban areas taking most of the most populace counties. Santorum who personally was in each county twice scored well in the smaller counties where the personal approach obviously worked for him.
I think I shall try and do it all again next Tuesday for New Hampshire though I wonder if it will be as exciting with the former Governor of neighbouring Massachusetts being Romney. However, as the Iowa born Bachmann now a Congresswoman in neighbouring Minnesota can't come better than 6th here you wonder how long she will stay in the race. Already Rick Perry who actually came ahead of her is considering his future in race with Santorum appearing to take up the mantel of the Christian right.
Update as I was writing this Bachmann announced she was suspending her Presidential campaign.
* Yeah through the night I heard or saw this used as a verb extensively.
I was sitting there with 10 taps open in Chrome including two maps. One from WYNC spliting the various counties by demographic and Google's in which you could drill down to see the strength of each candidate across the counties. In fact at times Newt Gingrich had the lead in two of the northern counties simultaneously (Winneshiek and Mitchell), Michele Bachmann held an early lead in Howard County and Rick Peryy held leads in four counties at various times of the evening. I was following a number of live feeds from the Guardian and BBC here in the UK to several stateside including a Cover It Live forum, plus of course all my friends on Twitter, following either Iowa or the hashtag #iacaucus was just impossible there were more people Tweeting that Republicans who Caucused* in Iowa.
One of the tabs I did have open was the webcast from KCRG the ABC affiliate in Cedar Rapids, Ia, nothing like getting the information straight from Iowans who knew where the significant counties were, had reporters at numerous of the caucus centres including the 63 precinct venue at the University of Northern Iowa's, Dome.
There was one point early on before too many votes had been declared (about 7:45pm local time) that they said that there were people in England and Denmark watching them and saying hi on Twitter. So I did. The end result was within minutes Northern Ireland got a name check, and not for the first time but twice more as they handed over to different news anchors I got bundled up with the other two nations again.
If you just looked at the map by who won each county you'd have thought Santorum had walked it. Of the 99 he won in 62 of them, Ron Paul in 18, Romney in 17 and Rick Perry in 2.
Santorum
Romney
I think I shall try and do it all again next Tuesday for New Hampshire though I wonder if it will be as exciting with the former Governor of neighbouring Massachusetts being Romney. However, as the Iowa born Bachmann now a Congresswoman in neighbouring Minnesota can't come better than 6th here you wonder how long she will stay in the race. Already Rick Perry who actually came ahead of her is considering his future in race with Santorum appearing to take up the mantel of the Christian right.
Update as I was writing this Bachmann announced she was suspending her Presidential campaign.
* Yeah through the night I heard or saw this used as a verb extensively.
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
Happy Eleventy-tenth or Twelvetieth Birthday?
On the 3rd January 1892 John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa where his father was managing a branch of the Bank of Africa (a British owned colonial banking concern).
When he was three his mother Mabel decided that the climate in England would be better for John and his younger brother Hilary Arthur Reuel so they returned while his father carried on in South Africa, but he died the following year of a severe haemorrhage as a result of rheumatic fever. His mother was to die in 1904 as a result of complications from diabetes. Therefore before he was 13 J.R.R. Tolkien found himself orphaned. This may well be why Frodo Baggins lost both his parents in a boating accident when he was twelve and like his creator was orphaned at the same young age.
The boys guardian upon their mother's death was Fr. Francis Xavier Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory. She had converted to Roman Catholicism in 1900 to the disgust of many of her Baptist family. Possibly a basis for the separation of Bilbo Baggins from the Sacksville-Bagginses. However, one of the places he visited on holiday growing up as an oprhan was his Aunt Jane at her farm Bag End.
Of course he may well have just be another Oxford Don who was only known to academics of Anglo-Saxon, had he not in the early 1930s started to write a story about imaginary lands and races. Starting with the line "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." The book that was published on 21st September 1937, with the birthday of its hero being the 22nd it was always getting mentioned near my own birthday. This year of course Peter Jackson, who has already brought the sequel The Lord of the Rings to the screen, will be finalising The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey to present to expectant audiences in December. The second part The Hobbit: There and Back Again is due the following year.
I shall probably not be alone this year is revisiting my first Tolkien book, and the others probably, in preparation for the film that I have been waiting for since the campaign to ensure that Jackson was selected to direct it.
But of course the best reason for celebrating J.R.R. Tolkien's Eleventy-tenth of Twelvetieth birthday is that I can of course show Gandalf's fireworks.
Of course as well as looking back we should also look forward, so here is that trailer which some of us can never tire of.
When he was three his mother Mabel decided that the climate in England would be better for John and his younger brother Hilary Arthur Reuel so they returned while his father carried on in South Africa, but he died the following year of a severe haemorrhage as a result of rheumatic fever. His mother was to die in 1904 as a result of complications from diabetes. Therefore before he was 13 J.R.R. Tolkien found himself orphaned. This may well be why Frodo Baggins lost both his parents in a boating accident when he was twelve and like his creator was orphaned at the same young age.
The boys guardian upon their mother's death was Fr. Francis Xavier Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory. She had converted to Roman Catholicism in 1900 to the disgust of many of her Baptist family. Possibly a basis for the separation of Bilbo Baggins from the Sacksville-Bagginses. However, one of the places he visited on holiday growing up as an oprhan was his Aunt Jane at her farm Bag End.
Of course he may well have just be another Oxford Don who was only known to academics of Anglo-Saxon, had he not in the early 1930s started to write a story about imaginary lands and races. Starting with the line "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." The book that was published on 21st September 1937, with the birthday of its hero being the 22nd it was always getting mentioned near my own birthday. This year of course Peter Jackson, who has already brought the sequel The Lord of the Rings to the screen, will be finalising The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey to present to expectant audiences in December. The second part The Hobbit: There and Back Again is due the following year.
I shall probably not be alone this year is revisiting my first Tolkien book, and the others probably, in preparation for the film that I have been waiting for since the campaign to ensure that Jackson was selected to direct it.
But of course the best reason for celebrating J.R.R. Tolkien's Eleventy-tenth of Twelvetieth birthday is that I can of course show Gandalf's fireworks.
Of course as well as looking back we should also look forward, so here is that trailer which some of us can never tire of.
Iowa what do the beans tell us
Well the first result from Iowa has been declared that of Hamburg Inn #2 Coffee Bean Caucus as I wrote about yesterday.
The results show a clear winner in Barack Obama (indeed polling 2,472 more than the Republicans combined), which in hardly surprising in this Democrat State. But what of the Republicans. Well Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Ricky Santorum have all stopped by while on the campaign trail. Yet only Bachmann seems to have benefited from her stop leading the poll. Santorum who is showing a last minute surge in the opinion polls to be in a tie with Romney and Paul is only the 6th best Republican in these parts.
So there you have it in the bean counters have been at their job and the result is in.
The results show a clear winner in Barack Obama (indeed polling 2,472 more than the Republicans combined), which in hardly surprising in this Democrat State. But what of the Republicans. Well Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Ricky Santorum have all stopped by while on the campaign trail. Yet only Bachmann seems to have benefited from her stop leading the poll. Santorum who is showing a last minute surge in the opinion polls to be in a tie with Romney and Paul is only the 6th best Republican in these parts.
So there you have it in the bean counters have been at their job and the result is in.
Hamburg Inn No. 2 COFFEE BEAN CAUCUS 2012 RESULTS
1: Barack Obama: 6,442
2: Michele Bachmann: 1,147
3: Mitt Romney: 850
4: Ron Paul: 724
5: Newt Gingrich: 548
6: Rick Perry: 295
7: Rick Santorum: 223
8: Jon Huntsman: 183
Monday, 2 January 2012
Luis Súarez needs to be shown the red card from Anfield
Luis Súarez was only born in 1987 by which time I had been supporting his current team for 13 years. However, I am not a Liverpool fan who will sit idly by when they are wrong!
On Saturday the Football Association released the report behind their decision to ban the player for 8 matches and fine him £40,000. It makes horrific reading in this day and age. I remember watching Match of the Day in the 70s when players like Viv Anderson and others who followed were the subject of racial abuse from the terraces and even their own fans. This was a decade before Saurez was born, so the excuse that he does not know that such language as he used should not be used on the field. It was always a ridiculous defense and one I'm ashamed that Kenny Dalglish and his team mates defended so publicly and erroneously.
In the meantime I'd like to remind Liverpool of the image below, of the club's poster to show racism the red card, including at the extreme right on the front row Súarez himself holding up one such red card. As a fan I love the contribution that Súarez has made the club, but as a liberal I think the club should try and offload him in the current transfer window.
On Saturday the Football Association released the report behind their decision to ban the player for 8 matches and fine him £40,000. It makes horrific reading in this day and age. I remember watching Match of the Day in the 70s when players like Viv Anderson and others who followed were the subject of racial abuse from the terraces and even their own fans. This was a decade before Saurez was born, so the excuse that he does not know that such language as he used should not be used on the field. It was always a ridiculous defense and one I'm ashamed that Kenny Dalglish and his team mates defended so publicly and erroneously.
In the meantime I'd like to remind Liverpool of the image below, of the club's poster to show racism the red card, including at the extreme right on the front row Súarez himself holding up one such red card. As a fan I love the contribution that Súarez has made the club, but as a liberal I think the club should try and offload him in the current transfer window.
Iowa Caucus but what news from the Hamburg Inn's Coffee Beans
The Iowa Caucus tomorrow kicks off the race to select Presidential Candidates the polls are saying that Ricky Santorum is gaining on Mitt Romney and Ron Paul in what is statistically as three way tie (while the other Republicans are polling low). However, what many are asking is what is happening over at Hamburg Inn #2 in Iowa City. It has been held since the 80s and replicated in The West Wing. Here is a look at a report from the 2008 Election Campaign Caucus when both fields were wide open.
But what of 2012?
Well Hamburg Inn #2 has seen action from a Gay Robot before Christmas when Michele Bachmann turned up to try and up her jar of coffee beans. Although as you watch the following you'll see that a police officer seems to threaten the Gay Robot's First Amendment rights. He says, "If you go back in you will be facing some additional issues."
It didn't get any better for Bachmann as this next clip shows in the same venue.
As for the Coffee Beans the runes that seem to have been pretty accurate for Reagan, Clinton and Obama amongst others there is little news over the last few days there may be more later today, if so I will let you know. But 5 days ago they were saying it was close between Romney and Paul before the latest surge from Santorum.
Here is a song about the White House wannabes.
Of course the Iowa Caucus is not a great indicator of who is going to win. But it will be a good indicator to a few of the candidates that they are not going to win.
But what of 2012?
Well Hamburg Inn #2 has seen action from a Gay Robot before Christmas when Michele Bachmann turned up to try and up her jar of coffee beans. Although as you watch the following you'll see that a police officer seems to threaten the Gay Robot's First Amendment rights. He says, "If you go back in you will be facing some additional issues."
It didn't get any better for Bachmann as this next clip shows in the same venue.
As for the Coffee Beans the runes that seem to have been pretty accurate for Reagan, Clinton and Obama amongst others there is little news over the last few days there may be more later today, if so I will let you know. But 5 days ago they were saying it was close between Romney and Paul before the latest surge from Santorum.
Here is a song about the White House wannabes.
Of course the Iowa Caucus is not a great indicator of who is going to win. But it will be a good indicator to a few of the candidates that they are not going to win.
Sunday, 1 January 2012
See Also Olympic links
See also:
- I Athens 1896
- II Paris 1900
- III St. Louis 1904
- Intercalated Athens 1906
- IV London 1908
- V Stockholm 1912
- VII Antwerp 1920
- VIII Paris 1924
- IX Amsterdam 1928
- X Los Angeles 1932
- XI Berlin 1936
- XIV London 1948
- XV Helsinki 1952
- XVI Melbourne 1956
- XVII Rome 1960
- XVIII Tokyo 1964
- XIX Mexico City 1968
- XX Munich 1972
- XXI Montreal 1976
- XXII Moscow 1980
- XXIII Los Angeles 1984
- XXIV Seoul 1988
- XXV Barcelona 1992
- XXVI Atlanta 1996
- XXVII Sydney 2000
- XXVIII Athens 2004
- XXIX Beijing 2008
- XXX London 2012
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