Sunday, November 29, 2020

Scrutinous, like The Ancient of Days


 Age is froward, uneasy, scrutinous,
Hard to be pleas'd, and parsimonious.

-- John Denham

A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him . . . the judgment was set, and the books were opened.

-- Daniel 7:10

Monday, November 16, 2020

This stormy night


 Let them sleep, let them sleep on,
'Till this stormy night be gone,
And th' eternal morrow dawn;
Then the curtains will be drawn;
And they waken with that light,
Whose day shall never sleep in night.

-- Richard Crashaw

Saturday, November 7, 2020

Paul in Romans 3: Let God be found true, though every man be found a liar

 This whole thing is priceless, but this is perhaps the most telling part:

Stephens-Davidowitz analyzed data from the General Society Survey which is one of the authoritative sources for information on the behavior of Americans. Extrapolating data from that survey, men said they use 1.6 billion condoms every year while women claimed to use 1.1 billion. If 2.7 billion condoms every year sounds like a big number that’s because it is. Unfortunately, the actual number of condoms sold is just 600 million per year.

The upshot is that people exaggerate a lot, and in large numbers ("Man, I have a lot of sex! Look at all these condoms I use! Yeah, I practice safe sex!"), which may help explain why the presidential race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is as close as it is.

The polls clearly demonstrated exaggerated support for Joe Biden and exaggerated distaste for Donald Trump, except for a couple of firms' product which showed a tight race in the final days of the campaign.

Rasmussen Reports, for example, in its daily poll conducted only in the last week before the election, found either Trump or Biden ahead nationally, flip-flopping from day to day but only to +1 or +2. The final Rasmussen poll had Biden +1, whereas the final national average of polls calculated by Real Clear Politics had Biden +7.2. 

The provisional outcome Biden +2.9 is more consistent with the narrower polling spread from the final week than with the final "lying" national average of Biden +7.2: Biden/Harris 50.6% (253 Electoral College) vs. Trump/Pence 47.7% (214 EC).

On the other hand, Biden's average predicted support of 51.2% was nearly dead on, overshooting by only 0.6 points. But Trump's predicted support of 44% undershot by 3.7 points (47.7%).

Exaggerated support for Biden was the lie which dominated the predicted polling spread, and exaggerated lack of support for Trump was the lie which dominated the predicted share of the vote.

So there were two "lies".

For whatever reasons it was more fashionable to express support for Biden than for Trump. That so-called "shy Trump supporter" phenomenon much talked about in the final days of the campaign appears to be confirmed and on display. More people appear to have lied when they said they supported Biden than when they said they supported Trump. A fair number of Americans who actually supported Trump may have lied and said they supported Biden.

Or . . . 

maybe it wasn't exactly a lie and they just changed their minds.

Or maybe they just didn't vote. I mean, c'mon, in Michigan there was a huge turnout but nearly 2 million people who still could have voted didn't. What about that? Could be a lot of Biden supporters not voting in the end, right?

Or maybe the pollsters tampered with the polling and lied about it to promote Biden! A lot of these polls are in fact overweighted AWFL anyway (affluent, white, female, liberal), so arguably some of them overstate support for Biden. 

Or maybe someone is tampering with the voting results and the results saying Biden won by +2.9 are a lie! Maybe Biden really did win by more.

Or maybe he actually lost! What about that?! Software glitches. Ballots in ditches. Military ballots in dumpsters. Antifa faggots beating up Trumpsters.

How will we ever know for certain?!

I don't think we will. Somebody's lying about something, and only God knows who, what, when, where and why.

At least I hope so. And I do mean that. I honestly do.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Because the Bible tells me so.



Tuesday, November 3, 2020

If they say the moon is blue . . .

O church men are wily foxes 
More crafty than jugglers' boxes . . .
If they say the moon is blue 
We must believe that it is true 
Admitting their interpretation. 

-- William Roy, Jerome Barlow, Rede Me and be Nott Wrothe, for I Saye No Thinge But Trothe, 1528