Europe Travelblog  -

+ 1 - 0 | § ¶If programming languages were religions...

 If programming languages were religions... is funny.  And surprisingly accurate.

+ 2 - 0 | § ¶Matthew is home now

We brought Matthew home from the hospital this morning - everything is going well.  He's spent the afternoon sleeping, nursing, and trying not to be smothered with love by his big brother.

I'm posting here one of our favorite pictures from the hospital and a couple videos.  The picture is one of many at http://matthewfinney.shutterfly.com/, and the videos are from my YouTube channel.

 

+ 2 - 0 | § ¶Third Debate: McCain did better, but not well enough

McCain is really far behind.  FiveThirtyEight gives Obama a 95.1% chance of winning on November 4 and 270towin gives Obama over a 99.5% chance of winning if the election were held right now.  That's a huge deficit, and this was McCain's last chance to make a big splash.

Unfortunately for him, tonight was just not enough.

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+ 2 - 0 | § ¶Hello, Matthew Walter Finney!

After 23 hours of natural labor, Matthew Walter Finney was born at 2:23 on the morning of October 14, 2008.  He is completely healthy and is looking great.  He was 9 lb 1 oz in weight and 20.5 inches long.  Jenny is healthy, too (though sore and tired).

He joins his big brother, Douglas, in being born at the same hospital, though his entry is much less traumatic.  We're very excited to be able to room in with Matthew for a couple of days and to get to know him and teach him how to nurse.

Jenny was very, very impressive.  We came to the hospital after her water broke, and Matthew was born 23 hours later.  In order to be able to have the best chance possible to breastfeed successfully, Jenny decided not to have help with inducing, an epidural, or any other painkillers.  I have never been more impressed with anyone than I was of her last night.

I have uploaded pictures of Matthew to http://matthewfinney.shutterfly.com/.

+ 0 - 2 | § ¶Travel-Related Visual Representation of the Candidates

My train-obsessed two-year-old son likes Sarah Palin best of these.  I think he'll grow out of it.

+ 0 - 2 | § ¶Second Debate: It was Boring; Advantage Obama Again

It was just not a very interesting debate.  It seemed that all of the answers were just excerpts from the stump speeches, and little was different from last week.  The Town Hall format was supposed to make a difference in how the candidates answered questions, but (except for the effective moment with McCain shaking the hand of the Chief Petty Officer) it didn't really make a difference.  The rules were so confining and the crowd was so obediently polite that the format didn't open things up at all.  Heck, both candidates whining about the rules (to which they agreed!) will probably be the main point of ridicule on SNL.

Both candidates played it safe.  For Obama, that's ok because he's currently very far ahead (FiveThirtyEight gives him a 89.2% chance of winning on November 4 and 270towin gives him a 99.1% lead at this moment).  For McCain, though, this debate was just not enough.  Barring some huge unexpected situation, this debate and next week's debate are likely McCain's last chances to change people's minds.  I just don't see that McCain did anything to change the race.

Perhaps McCain's problem is that he has used up his chances to shake things up.  He's already rolled the dice at least four times in the last few weeks: the surprising "Celebrity" ads; canceling the first day of the RNC; the shocking Sarah Palin choice; and the silly "suspension" stunt).  Some of these worked for him (Celebrity, RNC, Palin at first) and some flopped (Palin once she was interviewed and the "suspension").  He needed a game changer in this debate, but maybe his bag of tricks has simply run out.

And even if he finds another trick, chances are that it wouldn't be successful.  Looking at the four gambles he took, the first was very successful at improving his numbers compared to Obama, but each successive gamble was less successful than its predecessor.  It could be just coincidence (or an artifact of my bias), but I think we might be seeing diminishing returns as each gamble makes him look less Presidential.

McCain both needed a gamble tonight and would likely have been hurt by a gamble tonight.  Not a good place for him to be.

+ 2 - 0 | § ¶VP Debate: Biden wins

Sarah Palin did better than expected; at least she didn't swallow her own tongue or something like that.  However, in order to be able to do that, she had to literally and explicitly ignore questions for which she wasn't prepared.  I think that's why we didn't get a moment like the Couric interviews gave us; with Couric, Palin couldn't avoid the questions for which she was unprepared.  Here, she could just say "I don't care what you want me to talk about, I'm going to reiterate my talking points about energy."

While this meant she didn't completely embarrass herself, it didn't hide her overall unreadiness for the job.  There were many questions in which I noticed the golden moment when she transitioned from "I don't know how to answer Gwen... how do I get to a talking point" to "I'm on my script; now I can look at the camera."  She wasn't really answering questions - she was working from a script. 

Also, her refusal to answer the question about whether she thought gays couples should have equal legal rights as straight couples was painfully awkward.  The look of disgust on her face in that section as she talked about how she "tolerates" gays told a lot more about what she thinks than her words said.

Biden did much better, in my opinion.  He didn't have any major gaffes, and he was able to avoid the pitfall of appearing to condescend to his younger female rival.  His early zing about the Bridge to Nowhere was well received in the left-leaning young crowd with which I saw the debate.  His late fusillade against the McCain as a "Maverick" was strong - too bad he waited so long to deploy it.

I think the moment that has the greatest potential to be Biden's either strength or undoing was when he got emotional talking about his son almost dying from the car crash that killed his wife and daughter.  The moment was very powerful for me as a counter to the idea that only a "hockey mom" understands real people, but how will it play?  The Conventional Wisdom is that a similar moment saved Hillary in New Hampshire, but also that a moment of tears killed Muskie's campaign in 1972.

In my eyes, the debate was a win for Biden - he answered the questions, and he answered them well.  He was also able to take a lot of shots at McCain that Palin couldn't deflect.

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+ 2 - 0 | § ¶First Debate: It's a Tie; Advantage Obama

Right now, McCain is behind. With the Palin pick being increasingly seen as a mistake and the “suspension” being seen largely as a political stunt, McCain needed a big win to change the momentum. He’s currently at risk of being seen as preferring “Maverickness” to stability.

For Obama, the big goal he had was to appear presidential and knowledgeable. The concerns about his inexperience and “otherness” are still strong, so he needed to show that he was intelligent, ready, serious, and presidential.

I thought both looked largely ready to be President. Even if Obama got under McCain’s skin a bit more, neither had a home run and neither had a major blunder. That plays much better for Obama - he needed just to show that he was in the same ballpark of competence on foreign policy as McCain, and he did it. McCain needed to show that he’s more competent and not erratic. He succeeded on the second, but not on the first.

Overall, though, we'll have to wait until tonight's SNL parody to see how this debate will be remembered...

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