Thursday, February 06, 2020

Jewels

My Gramie ring has arrived! That's the lower ring of gems below.  They're in the order the grands were born. 
I’m wearing it with my Mother’s ring, which is the ring on the top row. 
The stones represent all my sweet jewels, and serve as a way to carry them with me throughout the day.  
It's kind of like personalised rosary beads! 
Kid Row: Sapphire, Pearl, Gold Topaz, Opal, Sapphire
Grand Row: Peridot, Sapphire, Ruby, Diamond, Sapphire, Garnet, Ruby, Peridot



36 comments:

  1. Alan, sorry for the delay. I didn't see your posts on the last thread for awhile. Was in the middle of something. In response to your request that I post results from realclearpolitics.com, I can't just post the box you saw there because it doesn't translate to the text we use here. So I did what I could here. BUT WOW is it good news!!! GO BERNIE!!!

    via realclearpolitics.com

    IOWA, 96% Reporting:
    Candidate: Votes ~ % ~ 2nd Round ~ % ~ SDE ~ Delegates
    Sanders: 42,672 ~ 24.7% ~ 44,753 ~ 26.5% ~ 547 ~ 11
    Buttigieg: 36,718 ~ 21.3-% 42,235 ~ 25.0% ~ 550 ~ 11
    Warren: 32,007 ~ 18.6% ~ 34,312 ~ 20.3% ~ 381 ~ 5
    Biden: 25,699 ~ 14.9% ~ 23,051 ~ 13.7% ~ 331 ~ 0
    Klobuchar: 21,896 ~ 12.7% ~ 20,525 12.2% ~ 255 ~ 0
    Yang: 8,660 ~ 5.0% ~ 1,752 ~ 1.0% ~ 22 ~ 0
    Steyer: 3,001 1.7 407 0.2 7 0
    Gabbard: 326 0.2 15 0.0 0 0
    Bloomberg: 214 0.1 20 0.0 0 0
    Bennet: 146 0.1 1 0.0 0 0
    Patrick: 49 0.0 0 0.0 0 0
    Delaney: 9 0.0 0 0.0 0 0
    Other: 158 0.1 204 0.1 1 0
    Uncommitted: 955 0.6 1,410 0.8 4

    Yet CNN reports it this way:

    With 97% reporting...

    Buttigieg 26.2%
    Bernie 26.1%

    (CNN) Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are in a tight race for first place as Iowa continued reporting the last of its Democratic presidential caucus results early Thursday morning.

    With 97% of Iowa's precincts reporting, the former mayor remained the leader of the race, with 26.2% of state delegates. He's closely trailed by Sanders, with 26.1%.
    They're followed by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren at 18.2%, former Vice President Joe Biden at 15.8% and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar at 12.2%.
    Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price told state party officials on a call Wednesday night that the full results are expected by Thursday morning.


    STAY TUNED EVERYBODY! :-D

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  2. I thought you could post the graphic just as you do the photos at the beginning of a thread, listener. I converted it to a *.jpg file since that is the most common one for photos. Didn't mean to put you to so much work.

    I find it interesting that the news media either don't understand the numbers or deliberately mislead others. Bernie had the most votes in both the first and second rounds, and what matters ultimately is not the State Delegate Equivalents (SDE's), but the number of delegates--which has been tied. How they calculate SDE's and delegates is completely obscure to me.

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    1. And the number of "delegates" in the table doesn't seem to make sense--Iowa sends 41 delegates to the national convention, I read. All very obscure.

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    2. In previous years only the SDE was reported, so the news media decided to stick with what they'd always done. No one seriously anticipated that SDE and final alignment totals would not give the same result, although the theoretical possibility was recognized.

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    3. Great sleuthing! Thank-you!

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    4. Ahhh, now I see. That would have worked well, I bet. Wasn’t at my quickest at nearly 2am. LOL!

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  3. The House erred in focusing on Trump’s intent to promote himself at someone else’s expense. What he actually did was much more eggregious—he offered an American citizen up to the judicial inquisition of a foreign country. When the U.S. did that under a prior administration to foreign national, it was called “extraordinary rendition.” Although Biden was not actually handed over to the tender mercies of Ukraine’s corrupt judicial processes, the offer was unambiguous. No wonder Bolton bailed.
    On the other hand, kidnapping migrants at the border is an on-going illegal enterprise, as is the practice of people having to be ransomed with monetary payments. Declaring normal human behavior (in this case perambulation) to be a crime is not new (eating, drinking, association, reproduction, sleeping have all been targeted) but it is still despicable.
    Are these echoes of slave days or is it just how authoritarians behave?

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  4. Iowa Results Are Still a Mess [Click] According to NYT, there are obvious errors in “more than 100” precincts’ data. I take that to mean definitely less than 200 precincts out of nearly 1700, surely not enough to make any difference in the results. It is interesting to note the changes in first and second round numbers; Bernie, Buttigieg and Warren all gained supporters in the second round. The method of calculating State Delegate Equivalents from the raw vote totals seems to put a huge emphasis on relatively small leads in votes; primary elections, although influenced by the Iowa results, should not be so unbalanced. I think.

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    Replies
    1. DNC Chair calls for a recanvass in Iowa

      https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/06/politics/iowa-caucus-results/index.html

      For some reason, my first thought was that the DNC didn’t like Bernie doing so well and Biden not.

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    2. The most serious errors seem to be at least 15 precincts where one candidate had the highest final alignment but another got more SDE. This is clearly an error, but there's no easy way to tell which number is correct.

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    3. Listener, as a seasoned quiz taker, I can attest that your first, gut reaction is usually right.

      Also, for what it's worth, I agree with you.

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    4. I’m guessing, Bill, that the final alignment is the correct number, since the SDE is supposed to be derived from that.

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    5. But if it's a typographical error, just writing the number down wrong, it could equally well be in either column.

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    6. Perhaps. But not likely 15 times.

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  5. Iowa Turnout Actually Wasn’t As Bad as Reported
    February 6, 2020 By Taegan Goddard

    John Couvillon: “We can now say that Democratic turnout was the second highest ever, as it just exceeded the 2016 numbers. With 3% more to count.”

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  6. Nevada precinct chairs were trained more than a week ago on that state's app, from the same company. This is a first-hand report from someone I know well. (Note: Nevada will not actually be using the app.)

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  7. Replies
    1. Yes, thanks for asking. I'm just out here ranting and raving....my usual.

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    2. Rant and Rave is the new Cheer.

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  8. Federal judge overturns the convictions of four volunteers who left food and water for migrants in the desert

    https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/06/us/arizona-aid-volunteers-reverse-convictions-trnd/index.html

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    Replies
    1. Hey, great! And the legal reasoning is the best part of it.

      Delete
  9. Vulnerable House Democrats Crushing GOP In Fundraising
    February 6, 2020 By Taegan Goddard

    “House Democrats are clobbering their Republican challengers in the fundraising race, dramatically reducing the GOP’s chances of winning back the majority,” Politico reports.

    “The roughly four dozen most endangered House Democratic incumbents raised a collective $28.5 million in the last three months of 2019, a staggering total that is nearly twice the sum of all of their Republican challengers combined.”

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  10. An Unsettling New Theory: There Is No Swing Voter [Click] “Rachel Bitecofer’s radical new theory predicted the midterms spot-on. So who’s going to win 2020?” From politico.com, so one should discount the breathlessness. If memory serves me well, Nate Silver made the same observation eight years ago. Nevertheless, well worth reading IMO. [Full disclosure: I agree with her.]

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  11. From the NYT:

    How are ‘satellite’ votes being measured in Iowa? Good question.

    The winner of the Iowa Democratic caucuses might come down to one not-so-simple question: How many state delegate equivalents does a satellite caucus get?
    Widespread use of satellite caucuses is a new feature of the 2020 race. The Iowa Democratic Party, responding to calls to make the process more accessible, allowed people to apply to hold them wherever there were groups of Democrats who wished to participate but otherwise couldn’t, such as at universities, hospitals, out-of-state military installations or overseas. It was a mystery then who might stand to benefit.
    It’s now clear that Senator Bernie Sanders has benefited. In the final preference vote in satellite caucuses, he defeated Pete Buttigieg by a staggering margin of 47 to 7 percent.
    But what is not clear is how many state delegates that’s worth. Party documents lay out conflicting ways to award delegates, and the contest is so close that the small difference matters a lot. And since this was the first time the Iowa Democratic Party released Iowa satellite caucus results with tabulated vote tallies, it was not even known until Wednesday night that it could be unclear.

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  12. We are tending three grands this evening. Fun ride...car with flashers on side of road, freezing rain happening, some guy driving up the middle of the two sides, slowing indiscriminately, another apparently parked in the road. One ambulance, four tow trucks and two plows. It was a little boy’s dream drive! Ha! We’ll be heading home a little before midnight. Good thing the freezing rain is taking a break. We’re expecting 8-12” of snow tomorrow.

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    1. Made it home safely. Everything up here is coated in ice, though, and the windshield kept icing up despite having the heat on it full blast. Nice to be home.

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  13. It would seem we are not cynical or paranoid. A lot of other people see anti-Sanders bias in the DNC's actions, as per this article from Common Dreams:

    'Beyond Absurd': DNC Chair Tom Perez Demands 'Recanvass' of Iowa Caucus Before Results Fully Reported - Click

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  14. <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/06/sanders-25-million-january-haul-more-any-other-democrat-raised-any-full-quarter-2019</a>Sanders' $25 Million January Haul More Than Any Other Democrat Raised in Any Full Quarter of 2019</a> - Click

    WOOT!

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  15. Pete Buttigieg keeps narrow lead in Iowa caucuses with 100% of precincts reporting
    (Still 26.2 to 26.1)
    https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/06/politics/iowa-caucus-results/index.html

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  16. Y'know, Buttigieg really got a leg-up from Bernie, Warren and Klobuchar having to sit in the Senate for two weeks.

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