Obama vs McCain InTrade Market

The polling data that gets released daily, and reported by the media, often glosses over sample size, the dates over which the poll was taken, registered vs likely voters (and under-counting the new voters), and finally: failing to relate this to the Electoral College.

Despite the apparent/deceptive closeness in the polls, the odds are running about 60/40 in Obama's favor as the the likelihood he will beat McCain. The trading market represents a consensus opinion of where traders see the election going and the "stock value" of each candidate.

These trading markets (while not always perfect predictors) do represent a "collective wisdom" of experts and amateurs and have made some good predictions in the past, that were missed by other techniques.

BTW, GOP VP odds running about 70/20 for Romney vs Pawlenty

Here's the latest Presidential odds (this is link to InTrade, so it should stay up to date).

Obama:



McCain

Who Stole my Cheese?

Steven Pearlstein in the Washington Post has an interesting article Our Inequality of Outcomes.

In the article, he discusses recent Census and Congressional Budget Office data to explain:
But over the past 35 years, the typical American household has managed to eke out only a 15 percent increase in its pretax income. During that same period, the productivity of the American worker -- the value of the goods and services produced per hour worked -- has increased by 90 percent.

So where did all that money go?

Pearlstein explains the failures of the Bush, Republican and McCain tax plans that favored the rich over the poor (and explains it better than I normally do).

He also cuts through the criticisms and explains the merits of Obama's tax plans.

The article is very illuminating.

Bacteria Can Provide Clean Energy

Long term renewable energy is critical to our future. While many technologies are in the early stages, a lot of progress has been and continues to be made.

Every few weeks I read an article about a new method being discovered or an improvement in yields, energy efficiency or a new catalyst created by nanotechnology.

Science Daily: Hydrogen producers

and

Cyanobacteria to produce fuel
A key point noted by Eva Mari Aro, the vice-chair of the ESF conference, was that there is now universal agreement over the ability of photosynthesis to provide large amounts of clean energy in future. While the sustainable options currently pursued such as wind and tidal power will meet some requirements, they will not be able to replace fossil fuels as sources of solid energy for driving engines, nor are they likely to be capable on their own of generating enough electricity for the whole planet.
Meanwhile the current generation of biofuel producing crops generally convert less than 1% of the solar energy they receive to biomass, which means they would displace too much agricultural land used for food production to be viable on a large scale. There is the potential to develop dedicated systems, whether based on cyanobacteria, plants, or artificial components, capable of much higher efficiencies, reaching 10% efficiency of solar energy conversion. This would enable enough energy and fuel to be produced for a large part of the planet's needs without causing significant loss of space for food production.


Over the next few years, we will see the discovery and reapplication of existing bacteria, followed by genetic modifications and eventually some man-made "bacteria".
Bacteria can produce oil/gas type of hydrocarbon fuels as well as hydrogen for fuel cells.

SpencerBlog Gets Lamer

Today, Gil Spencer decided to change his blog to "Comments Moderated" to stem the tide of posting that spiral out of control (mostly because he never enforced much before and allowed blatant racism to run rampant).

Initial reaction was varied, but formed a consensus that Spencer was too lazy to keep it up for long or that people would get bored and go away.

Here at PADelcoWatch, the moderation is pretty limited, but you must post under a real Blogger Identity. NO ANONYMOUS POSTING (though, an blogger identity can be an alias, at least it will be a consistent one).

Let's see if I can get more hits than Spencer, by giving posters that instant gratification from seeing their post right away, not worrying it got lost, and having a rapid turnaround for debates.