What gorilla?

Via Arts & Letters Daily, there’s a story called “Did you see the gorilla?” about how the human brain processes and filters information. The question arises from a video where a bunch of teenagers are passing around basketballs and the viewer is asked to count how many times the ball is passed:

Working with Christopher Chabris at Harvard University, Simons came up with another demonstration that has now become a classic, based on a videotape of a handful of people playing basketball. They played the tape to subjects and asked them to count the passes made by one of the teams.

Around half failed to spot a woman dressed in a gorilla suit who walked slowly across the scene for nine seconds, even though this hairy interloper had passed between the players and stopped to face the camera and thump her chest.

However, if people were simply asked to view the tape, they noticed the gorilla easily. The effect is so striking that some of them refused to accept they were looking at the same tape and thought that it was a different version of the video, one edited to include the ape.

I just happened to see this particular video while watching 20/20 or some other such news show. The reporter was purposely vague about the topic of the report and played the video with the instruction to count the number of passes by the white team while ignoring those by the black team.

After it was done, I turned to my wife who was also watching and said: “Did you see that gorilla?”

She looked at me as if I’d gone insane.

When they revealed the “secret” and showed the video again, she insisted it was a different video.

True story.

Interesting…Kerry snubs Richardson at DLC meeting? The American Spectator Prowler is there.

I started writing something in defense of Rumsfeld, then erased it. I think this Instapundit post (and its links) encapsulates my opinion.

Welcome to Boomtown, USA

Huge jobs report today:

WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) - U.S. job growth continued at a rapid pace in April. The economy created 288,000 new jobs and the unemployment rate fell to 5.6 percent, the Labor Department estimated Friday. Economists surveyed by CBS MarketWatch expected 172,000 new jobs and a jobless rate of 5.7 percent. March's payroll gains were revised higher from 308,000 to 337,000.

Meanwhile, at Kerry headquarters, Bob Shrum mutters a near-silent "Damn."

Update: It looks like the liberals at Air America are trying to boost unemployment numbers all on their own….heh-heh.

In the Economist, a very good analysis of a critical swing state: Welcome to Ohio – the heart of the election battle

Extra: Here’s a heartwarming story of President Bush comforting a teen in Ohio.

The official jobs report will be out tomorrow, but this is a good sign: Jobless claims fall sharply

And Bush will win California! - Here comes the counter-intuition

Sure as the sun rises in the east, the blogosphere churns out attention-grabbers to insist that the conventional wisdom is wrong and, whatever the proposition, the exact opposite is true.

Thus, today we see the esteemed Andrew Sullivan succumb to the “Kerry landslide” meme, with arched eyebrow, murmuring “It could happen!” Suddenly, everything you knew (or thought you knew!) is wrong. Or not.

A little history: sixteen years ago, in May 1988, a dour, unlikable, Massachusetts politician was beating George Bush in the polls by double digits. Here’s how ex-president Richard Nixon perceived the future (from a Sept. 2000 Newsmax story):

In May 1988 when Vice President George Bush trailed Gov. Michael Dukakis by 16 points in the polls, Richard Nixon told me, "Bush will win – third term Reagan – but he will lose in 1992; the economy will beat him."

Three years later, in 1991, the day after Desert Storm ended, I asked Nixon whether he still kept to his prediction that the now-President Bush would lose the next year. After all, I pointed out, his approval ratings were close to 90 percent. Nixon repeated his prophecy: "Bush will lose – the economy."

Thus, for Bush Senior, the military issue could not help him. By the same coin, the military issue will not hurt Dubya in November. Between mounting casualties and the prisoner scandal, April was probably the worst month for the Iraq coalition since the war began. Yet the latest RCP average for the election indicate that President Bush is steady and holding a 3% lead over Kerry. (Thus, he’s in a significantly better position six months before the election than his father was when he won in 1988). In fact, there’s a strong argument that Bush’s support can only go up - it’s the economy stupid. From “Economy, incumbency favor Bush”, here’s the estimation of Yale economist Ray Fair who has fine-tuned an equation to determine the popular vote of presidential elections:

Over the past 10 elections, the model has accomplished that task [estimating the popular vote] within 2.6 percentage points on average, and in the past two elections the formula has been accurate to within about 1.2 percentage points.

Based on Fair's relatively conservative economic forecast — a 2.4 percent GDP growth rate — Bush is likely to win 58 percent of the 2004 popular vote not including any third-party votes — a landslide over whoever wins the Democratic nomination.

Just last week, Ray Fair updated his prediction based on recent economic data:

The main message that the equation has been making from the beginning is thus not changed, namely that President Bush is predicted to win by a sizable margin.

By midsummer, with the economy gaining steam and troops heading back from Iraq after June 30th, things are going to start looking more desperate for John Kerry. He will need to somehow convince Americans to invite him into their living rooms for four years. Once again, there seems to be very little chance of that happening – from “Kerry’s Conundrum” on Reason:

To a large degree—and we might as well admit it, to a disturbingly large degree—the battle for the White House may well come down to a personality contest. And that's a contest Kerry will lose, probably badly. Despite the hatred he inspires among the shrinking rolls of the American left and some traditional Democrats, Bush is generally seen as a decent, get-along guy. Not so Kerry.

And lest you think I’m cocooning myself with conservative-leaning arguments, here’s the Village Voice and The Nation, both wondering just what the hell Kerry stands for.

In sum, the evidence so far suggests a future a galaxy away from the ABB-fueled pipe dream of a Kerry landslide.

The bad vibes continue – Boston has set up a bureaucratic maze for groups who want to protest at the Democratic Convention in July. Even the ACLU is annoyed: “Convention protests must meet new rules.”

My favorite "Friends" episode

Without a doubt, it's "The One with all the Resolutions." For New Years, the gang makes up resolutions and Chandler swears off sarcasm. Then, Ross shows up wearing...leather pants:

Chandler: (notices something) Ross is wearing leather pants! Does nobody else see that Ross is wearing leather pants? (Pause, no one speaks.) Someone comment on the pants!

Chandler cracks under the pressure.

Close second: the one where Jennifer Aniston wears a cheerleading outfit. Sweeeeeet.

My Blogs for Bush post on Teresa Heinz Kerry's tax returns and why we'll never see the full details of her charitable contributions, especially those to the Tides Foundation.

Drift away – Robert Samuelson on the widening gulf between America and Europe: “The truth is that Europe is too weak to lead and too proud to follow."

Slate’s Jacob Weisberg on John Kerry’s new TV ads: “In other words, these ads are masterpieces of indirection. They paint an almost entirely fictitious portrait of Kerry without saying anything that is explicitly untrue.”

Iran *hearts* America - You know the old saw about when somebody says: “Don’t think about elephants!” all you can think about is elephants? Apparently, every time the mullahs in Iran say that America is the Great Satan, Iranians don blue jeans and queue up “Baywatch.” Nick Kristof explains in “Those Friendly Iranians.”

Dems short on money, look to use – surprise! – public tax revenues

From the Boston Globe: “Democrat gathering is facing cash woes”

With 83 days left before the Democratic National Convention, local organizers remain $4.6 million short of fulfilling their fund-raising commitment and have brought in only about $650,000 in new cash donations in the past month.

But if the Democrats can’t raise the cash, the city of Boston will be forced to foot the bill:

Boston 2004, the convention host committee, must raise $39.5 million in cash and in-kind contributions under the terms of its contract with the Democratic National Convention Committee, and any gap would have to be made up by public entities, including the city of Boston.

The unions are freaking out and Boston’s Mayor Tom Menino has swore that he will not use public funds for the Democratic Convention; but at the same time, he’s begging Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney (Republican) to spend state funds for the Dems convention. “Ha, ha! Good one, Tom,” responded Romney.

Still, Governor Mitt Romney has rebuffed Menino's efforts to get the state to pitch in, saying the city should be responsible for paying for an event Menino helped lure. Councilor at Large Maura Hennigan, a frequent Menino critic, said she and the unions would keep a close eye on any city resources Menino tries to direct to the convention, since city taxpayers have been promised that their money won't be used for the event.

I’ve always asserted the Democrats are addicted to spending other people’s money. The Democratic Convention will be a perfect demonstration of this theory.

Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest: The American Spectator has more on how Democrats perceive every legitimate criticism of John Kerry’s record on national security as an attack on his patriotism – “Kerry’s Vietnam Quagmire.”

Wizbang’s got the Photoshopping bug. Funny.

Clarification - Expat Yank makes the following comment about my post directly below:

I think it might be too optimistic, really, to believe that Rall might be harboring such second thoughts, quietly within. Rall is dead certain he is right. He apparently believes "Bush is evil".

So do I and I don't think Rall has any regrets about what he said. Much of O'Reilly's harangue against Rall noted that many papers are not running the strip and I thought that - maybe - Rall was wondering if his income source was in jeopardy. After all, you should always look out for #1, right? Otherwise you're a sap and an idiot.

The beginning of the end, Ted? As a follow-up to Andrew Sullivan’s comments on the Ted Rall firestorm, I have to note that the no-talent scribbler was on “The O’Reilly Factor” tonight. As one might expect, he was unrepentant. However, at the conclusion of the interview, O’Reilly said something to the effect that Rall should be ashamed of himself and that was the final word. And, despite his self-righteous grandstanding, at these words Rall visibly swallowed hard and the look on his face said: “What have I done?” It was great.

Extra: Ryne McClaren has much more on the hero, Pat Tillman.

Um…it’s not what they say, but the way they say it

Fred Barnes in the Weekly Standard examines the Bush “smear machine” (hat tip to PoliPundit)

A STAPLE OF DEMOCRATIC RHETORIC these days is the charge that a "Republican attack machine" is smearing John Kerry. Is it really true that Republicans are impugning Kerry's military service in Vietnam and questioning his patriotism? Seeking an answer, my colleague at Fox News, Morton Kondracke, asked the Democratic National Committee to supply evidence of Republican mudslinging. Send me the worst of the smears by the Republican National Committee or President Bush's reelection campaign, Kondracke said.

What the DNC produced didn't come close to substantiating the charge of smears about Kerry's military record or patriotism. The Democratic committee couldn't cite anyone from the RNC or the Bush campaign--or the White House for that matter--who had criticized Kerry for his service in Vietnam or raised doubts about his patriotism. For the most part, what the DNC called smears were attacks on Kerry's antiwar activity after he left the Navy.
. . . . .
Even when Bush campaign leaders insist they have never questioned Kerry's military service, they get attacked for doing just that. On Fox News Sunday, Bush campaign chairman Marc Racicot said neither he nor other campaign officials had ever criticized Kerry for his Vietnam service, nor would they. The response of Jean Shaheen, a chair for the Kerry campaign, was that Republicans have questioned Kerry's "courage" and that this was unconscionable. She cited no examples.

Meanwhile, here’s a snapshot from Senator Splunge’s positive campaign:

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) dueled with President Bush over taxes and the economy yesterday and then, in an offhand comment to factory workers in Chicago, called the Republicans "the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen," triggering an angry denunciation from Bush's campaign.

John Kerry: he didn’t run a smear campaign, except when he did.

Real life and satire take a step closer

With regard to this news: in the Simpsons episode “Bart on the Road,” Bart and his gang head to Knoxville, Tennessee where Martin purchases a talking Al Gore doll. When Martin pulls the string, Gore says: “You are hearing me talk.”

Well, Air America part 2 is going to be 30% more exciting than that, you can be sure!