Washington’s Bookie

Nowadays, the key to popularity in the media is to make strong, incendiary statements which generate raving support from one side and are either dismissed or viciously countered by the other side.  This is most true on the internet, where opinions seem to change even faster than the news and are supported by any number of different sources.  By being carefully discerning, one can read political commentary the reinforces all their previously held beliefs without subjecting themselves to any differing opinions.

This is especially true in the blogosphere.  Sites like HuffingtonPost.com, FreeRepublic.com, and NewsBusters.org thrive on loads of selectively biased contributors and readers to increase their web traffic.  Everyone is surrounded by those who share the same opinions and neither side is interested in reading what the other side has written.  As a result, political discourse in this country is at its most intense and its most immature.

Enter RealClearPolitics.com and, my personal favorite, FiveThirtyEight.com.  RCP is the behemoth in indepedent politics.  Its primary focus is on poll aggregation, thus giving a quantitative assessment of the most current American opinions.  It also provides its own content and links to posts from a variety of different political blogs.

FiveThirtyEight.com (the name comes from the number of eleectoral votes in Washington) also focuses on aggregate polling, but it strips away all the fat.  The site was founded in March 2008 by Nate Silver, a sabermetrician-turned-political-analyst.  Silver uses his statistical expertise culled from his experience as a baseball statistician and applies it to the political sphere.  Based on current polling data, he runs thousands of simulations to determine the probabilities of various outcomes.  In the recent presidential election, for example, Silver posted figures for the likelihood of Obama being elected, the Democrats winning a super-majority in the Senate, Obama being able to win the election if he lost key swing states, etc.

Silver, along with his blog partner Sean Quinn, regularly contributes posts outlining his methodology and keeps the political commentary to a minimum.  This approach mirrors PECOTA, a statistical algorithm developed by Silver that assigns an aggregate value to baseball players based on their stats.  While others might describe a player as having a great arm, a good eye at the plate, and an intrinsic leadership ability, Silver just sees the numbers.  Likewise, while others may talk about a candidate’s charisma and pedigree, Silver talks numbers.  If you’re in any way interested in quantitative analysis, FiveThirtyEight.com is a must-read site.

Auto-turn on, Auto-Tune in, auto-drop out

What the hell is up with Ye’s obsession with Auto-Tune?  I just heard “Robocop”, a track off of Mr. West’s upcoming 808’s & Heartbreak.  Like the official singles “Love Lockdown” and “Heartless” that preceded it, the vocals are piped through Auto-Tune and the beat is layed down with TR-808.  Apparently the whole album is like this.  Kanye has said that he wanted “tribal drums” and not “typical hip-hop beats” on this album.  I’ve got news for him: he made his career with typical hip-hop beats.  He’s a typical hip-hop producer.  He doesn’t have the wherewithal to pull this off.  I’ve been increasingly annoyed with his growing ego, but I seem to be mostly alone in that respect.  He’s established enough of a fan base that 808’s will end up going platinum in no time.

I’ve been a fan of Kanye since he came to prominence.  I loved his first two albums and was proud to have a prominent hip-hop ambassador from Chicago.  But I was disappointed in Graduation and I expect 808’s to be worse.  Graduation’s biggest hit should have just been credited to Daft Punk.  In a few short years, West has already managed to burn himself out.  Maybe if he focused a little less on building a brand around his name (and wasting time guesting on Ellen) and more time in the studio, he wouldn’t be in this position.  He’s soon to be overshadowed.  Hopefully Lupe decides to reneg on his plan to retire after lupEND.

At least Herbie Hancock is supposed to be coming in to do some production work on “Robocop”.  He might be able to pull something off.  After all, he basically invented the break beat.