No subject
Mon Feb 25 12:38:45 MST 2008
---------- Forwarded message ----------
http://www.ontheissues.org/International/Barack_Obama_Immigration.htm
has his official immigration positions, some good, some bad.
I couldn't find a transcript of the standard Obama speech on immigration,
but
I was very impressed when I saw him on TV yesterday with the way he tried
to persuade the audience to support legalization of the undocumented by
focusing on the fact that so many have lived here for so long and are
bringing
up US citizen children. To the next question on gays, he drew an interesting
parallel between homophobia and xenophobia - that, like racism, it is all
part
of divide and rule.
On the first article below, people who watch cop shows know a big difference
between British and US shows. In the UK, it seems any police interrogation
is
always recorded; the beginning and end of each questioning session is
always pointed out. Not so in the US. I still remember the notorious Central
Park jogger-rape case where innocent minority teens were convicted,
primarily based on their videotaped confessions; there was no record of the
night-long questioning that preceded the confessions. With this background,
it is nice to read that Illinois has led the way in changing police
procedures at
least for murder cases, and that Obama played a significant role in it.
The two articles before the Michelle Obama profile make clear the most
important aspect of the Obama phenomenon - the willingness of thousands
of people to travel great distances and/or spend lots of time working for
him.
The articles sound as if Obama may win big. But the polls are very close.
One problem pollsters and the media don't talk about is sampling bias. When
a pollster picks 800 or even 5,000 people to ask whom they will vote for,
the
sample has to be representative of the people who actually vote. The
pollsters use past patterns (what % was black, what % working class, etc) to
generate a representative sample, but if the demographics change, the
sample is not reliable, especially when there is a big difference among the
demographic groups. [Perhaps I am wrong and this is not a problem if the
pollsters talk to a much larger number representative of the registered
voters
and use the ones who say they are going to vote. It seems the methodology
is not consistent:
http://polipundit.com/index.php?p=4176 has lots of details.
On a lighter note, here is a note from my son: "As I have mentioned to you
guys before, I have a fondness for Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle,
with Kal Penn, partly because it deals with ethnic issues in a very
inclusive
way -- bringing together all ethnic minorities as brown people. The sequel,
Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, due out this year, is what
it sounds like, which is another plus point. Penn (actually Kalpen Modi) is
also campaigning for Obama, and is teaching at Penn (coincidence?) this
semester. Sounds like a good guy. A progressive Gujarati named Modi."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kal_Penn
http://youtube.com/results?search_query=%22kal+penn%22+obama&search
_type=
brings up a bunch of videos of Kal Penn campaigning for Obama.
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