Welcome to Daily Contentions... Born in February 2003, DC is a daily-updated weblog covering a wide variety of issues, contemporary and timeless-- always with a unique perspective and open attitude.
It was his best one in 3 years. He held a better spirit and displayed more confidence than he has in a long time. My guess is that he feels buoyed by the success of the surge strategy in Iraq and by the fact that he has only 1 more year left in the toughest job on earth: the presidency of the United States.
In fact, I'd say that the overall mood of the chamber tonight was jovial. Perhaps due to the less contentious and assertive nature of Bush's speech, both sides seemed to concur in their applause and standing ovations more than usual.
Substantively, I wasn't surprised by anything in the speech. Indicative of the relative success of our efforts in Iraq, the President first focused his address on the economy. He pushed Congress to make the tax cuts permanent and to remove a tax bias that discourages people from getting health insurance apart from their employment. He also urged Congress to renew No Child Left Behind.
He spent the latter part of his speech discussing the surge and discussing a strategy of "return on success" where troops will begin to come home, beginning with numbers equal to the surge. I find this remark to be disingenuous, as our military leaders have clearly stated that the current troop drawdown plans are a result of necessity (to keep from breaking the military).
President Bush spoke clearly about defeating insurgents in Iraq, yet only the Republicans gave him a standing ovation for the remark. That mystifies me. Do the Democrats not want victory? Let me say this: if Iraq continues to improve, the Democrats better swallow their pride really quickly, or else their intransigence on Iraq will look foolish rather than brave or prudent.
Check out the previous post for my analysis of the Democratic horserace, and check out my October 25 analysis of where the Republican contenders stood then.
I said that the Republican race was a three-way contest, but I said it was between Giuliani, Romney, and Thompson. I drew this conclusion before the so-called "Huckaboom" where Huckabee shot up in the polls. Thompson never improved his position and never aggressively campaigned, finally dropping out this week.
I also erroneously wrote-off John McCain. He had dropped significantly in all the polls and did not appear to be gaining any ground back at the time. What a difference a couple months make! This just reinforces the notion that polls are near meaningless that early on. Voters simply hadn't made up their minds in significant numbers that many weeks before the contests.
So now I'd conclude that it's a 4-way race between Giuliani, Romney, Huckabee, and McCain. The latter three have all won primaries/caucuses so far, with Giuliani showing no early strength at all.
Florida
Rudy's strategy has been to ignore the early small states and to focus on Florida and the large Super Tuesday states. For a long time he had a solid lead in Florida, but that lead has now evaporated and a win there is looking less and less likely for him. Florida is truly tight at this point, with the polls basically showing a statistical tie.
Super Tuesday states
Rudy has strength in some big states such as New York and New Jersey, but his support in California has been completely erased. In other states, support seems to be pretty evenly split between Rudy, Romney, and McCain.
On October 25 last year I wrote an analysis of where the horseraces stood for the Democrat and Republican presidential nominee contenders. About the Democrats, I wrote that Obama had to win in Iowa to start out strong and that if he did win there he could build momentum early on. This turned out to be true, but I, as well as the current polling, overstated Hillary's lead in states like New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida. It won't be a walk in the park for Hillary like the data suggested at the time.
South Carolina & Florida
Hillary pulled out a win in New Hampshire, but her 20-point lead in October had completely evaporated by the primary date. Likewise, her double-digit lead is gone in South Carolina and she actually is behind there. However, in Florida she is still up 20 points and Obama would appear to be out of time to catch her, with its primary coming Tuesday the 29th.
Super Tuesday states
Looking at the Super Tuesday states, Hillary still appears to be in the driver's seat. She leads by 20 in New York and by 12 in California (though her lead is shrinking there, making it a key contest), while Obama is leading by 25% in Illinois. However, Hillary has the lead in the latest polls in every other Super Tuesday state, except Idaho.
Here were my 2007 predictions (italics) followed by analysis of how I fared... 1. The Nintendo Wii will outsell the PlayStation 3.
- CORRECT. Though the PS2 outsold both systems, I think. 2. The Chicago Bears will win the Super Bowl.
- WRONG. The Colts won, so I can't be too unhappy on this one.
3. Justice Stevens will retire from the Supreme Court.
- WRONG. He's obviously waiting for a Democratic president. If we don't get one, he'll stay on until he passes away.
4. The Indiana Pacers will barely make the NBA playoffs but lose in the first round.
- WRONG. We were even worse than I thought we'd be. This year is looking no better. New coach, same old problems. The Simons need to look at management.
5. At this date in 2007, more U.S. troops will be in Iraq than are there currently, and we'll be discussing a pullout in terms of a cautious victory for our objectives there.
- CORRECT. The surge has widely be considered a success thus far, and most of the candidates are talking about drawing down the troop numbers in varying degrees.
6. A Japanese auto company will make a play to buyout Ford but will be rebuffed. This will spark a national discussion on how to make the American auto manufacturers more competitive.
- WRONG. Toyota doesn't need to make such a bold move. They're overtaking their competition by growing on their own. They're now the number 2 brand in America after GM. 7. Fatah will regain control after the next Palestinian elections.
- UNCLEAR. Fatah controls the West Bank but Hamas controls the Gaza Strip. 8. Fidel Catro will die.
- WRONG. Though I'm going to renew this prediction for 2008.
9. Osama Bin Laden will be captured or killed.
- WRONG. But then again, he may already be dead. He looked odd in that latest video, with his mustache colored black.
10. Apple Computer will release an iPhone (but perhaps under some other name) in addition to their already announced television set-top box, and will split their stock 2-for-1 after it continues to rise.
- Half-right/half-wrong. I made more than one prediction here. Apple didn't split their stock.
*bonus: Juan Pablo Montoya will win the Nascar Nextel Cup.
- WRONG. He did win a Busch race.
...
Conclusion: I got 3 right, 7 wrong, and 1 was unclear. Not too good, but the predictions were pretty bold :-) ... Stay tuned for my 2008 predictions.
So I recently completed Coach Tony Dungy's book Quiet Strength: the Principles, Practices, & Priorities of a Winning Life. I am not the type who likes "motivation" style books, but I am the type that likes books about football, so I was unsure what to expect from Dungy's book, especially with that title. Nevertheless, I found it to be pleasantly thought-provoking and informative.
The book is much less about leadership or motivation than it is about priorities in life. Dungy's strong Christian faith comes alive in the book, but I never got the sense that he was self-promoting or that he was anything other than humble.
Dungy's steps the reader through his own challenges in life, from his early years as a highschool, college, and professional football players, to his years coaching in the NFL. He stressed the importance of family and of having goals in life other than football. Incidentally, he argues, having a strong non-football side to his life helped him be a better and more successful player and coach.
If anyone doubts the necessity for football players and coaches of having the correct life priorities, they should check out these frightening stats that Dungy quotes towards the book's end:
• 65% of NFL players leave the game with permanent injury
• 25% of NFL players report financial difficulties within the first year of retirement
• 50% of failed NFL marriages occur in the first year of the player's retirement
• 78% of NFL players are unemployed, bankrupt, or divorced within 2 years of retirement
• The suicide rate for retired NFL players is six-times greater than the national average
Now it's rare that I truly become disgusted at something a talking head says on TV or the radio. I disagree with much that is said out there, but I don't think there are that many actual bigots left out there. Perhaps I'm naieve.
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough lit into Gibson on his morning show, and I echo his sentiments exactly.
Hopefully people will exert enough pressure on Gibson's advertisers to get him kicked off the air.
Well, I didn't go anywhere, but my posting has been obviously infrequent.
I plan on posting with more quantity and regularity than I did over the past few months. Ultimately, I think I want to retool Daily Contentions to make it more focused. Ideas?
If the latest reports are accurate, Blu-Ray has essentially won the next-gen DVD format war against rival HD-DVD.
First, Warner Brothers announced that they are switching from distributing movies in both formats to just releasing titles in BD. Then, and even more damning to HDDVD, Paramount is said to be ready to switch from exclusively releasing in HDDVD to exclusive releases in BD. That would leave only NBC Universal as the remaining studio in support of HDDVD.
Also, Target is supposedly only going to carry BD.
This format war didn't last long, and for good reason. The various players knew that if the war lasted too long, they'd all lose to downloadable video content.
