The MetroPCS ads

A friend on Twitter alerted me to some ads that aired during a recent Superbowl and after, hawking MetroPCS' cellular services. These ads feature two South Asian/Indian-Americans, talking with very recognizable accents and using common Western stereotypes - cows, cobras and snake charmers. The ad campaign provoked a major backlash - a Google search for "MetroPCS ads racist" turns up ~29,000 hits, including calls to boycott MetroPCS. The campaign seems to have helped sales, though MetroPCS' Youtube channel no longer features the ads.

I watched the ads, and I must say - I was not offended by them. There are definitely some caricatures I would rather avoid - especially snake charmers and cobras. But maybe I am not offended as many others are, because:

1. I have known Indians who talk like the two characters, though without the cow and snake charmer references. Perhaps that's because I am a first-generation immigrant to the US - FOB! Second- or third-generation Indian-Americans are less likely to find these heavily-accented caricatures even remotely familiar. (I speak English with a distinct accent, though not as pronounced.)

2. Many of the aforementioned Indians-with-a-thick-accent were also very smart - and the two characters in the MetroPCS ads are shown offering useful ("smart") advice to the poor, frustrated cellphone user. This is a "good" stereotype, is there is ever such a thing.

There are other ads that caricature Indians as lazy and incompetent (a la "Sambo") - in particular, a Discover Card ad featuring a guy (who looks White!) with an Indian accent and calling himself "Peggy." These ads definitely make me uncomfortable, and I will probably give Discover a call over this, if not cancel my account altogether.

But the MetroPCS ads? Naah, not worth wasting my time over.

Excerpts from the Manning-Lamo chat logs

Marking some excerpts from the Wired Manning-Lamo chat logs (emphases mine):

1. About dedicated file servers assigned to Pfc Manning by Wikileaks/Assange:

(02:49:25 PM) Manning: it was uploaded
(02:50:04 PM) Lamo: uploaded where? how would i transmit something if i had similarly damning data
(02:51:49 PM) Manning: uhm… preferably openssl the file with aes-256… then use sftp at prearranged drop ip addresses
(02:52:08 PM) Manning: keeping the key separate… and uploading via a different means
(02:52:31 PM) Lamo: so i myself would be SOL w/o a way to prearrange
(02:54:33 PM) Manning: not necessarily… the HTTPS submission should suffice legally… though i’d use tor on top of it…
(02:54:43 PM) Manning: but you’re data is going to be watched
(02:54:44 PM) Manning: *your
(02:54:49 PM) Manning: by someone, more than likely
(02:54:53 PM) Lamo: submission where?
(02:55:07 PM) Manning: wl.org submission system
(02:55:23 PM) Lamo: in the massive queue?
(02:55:54 PM) Manning: lol, yeah, it IS pretty massive…
(02:55:56 PM) Manning: buried
(02:56:04 PM) Manning: i see what you mean
(02:56:35 PM) Manning: long term sources do get preference… i can see where the “unfairness” factor comes in
(02:56:53 PM) Lamo: how does that preference work?
(02:57:47 PM) Manning: veracity… the material is easy to verify…
(02:58:27 PM) Manning: because they know a little bit more about the source than a purely anonymous one
(02:59:04 PM) Manning: and confirmation publicly from earlier material, would make them more likely to publish… i guess…
(02:59:16 PM) Manning: im not saying they do… but i can see how that might develop
(03:00:18 PM) Manning: if two of the largest public relations “coups” have come from a single source… for instance
(03:02:03 PM) Manning: you yeah… purely *submitting* material is more likely to get overlooked without contacting them by other means and saying hey, check your submissions for x…

2. Assange using encrypted chat/perhaps proactively contacting Pfc Manning:

(8:01:30 AM) Lamo: Does Assange use AIM or other messaging services? I’d like to chat with him one of these days about opsec. My only credentials beyond intrusion are that the FBI never got my data or found me, before my negotiated surrender, but that’s something.
(8:01:53 AM) Lamo: And my data was never recovered.
(8:02:07 AM) Manning: no he does not use AIM
(8:02:37 AM) Lamo: How would I get ahold of him?
(8:02:59 AM) Manning: he would come to you
(8:03:26 AM) Lamo: I’ve never failed to get ahold of someone.
(8:03:29 AM) Manning: he does use OTR though… but discusses nothing OPSEC
(8:03:42 AM) Lamo: I cornered Ashcroft IRL, in the end.
(8:04:19 AM) Manning: he *might* use the ccc.de jabber server… but you didn’t hear that from me

So anyway...

DADT about to pass, DREAM not

Much of what I intended to say in this post has already been written by Greg Sargent. It's a good read, but I shall press on, regardless:

1. Yes, pressure from the left, including Lt Dan Choi's heroic/dramatic efforts, helped bring about this day. But we must not forget the important sequence of events that lead to this *vote*.

2. DADT could only be repealed with the help of moderate Republicans - and Senators Snowe (R-ME) and Brown (R-MA) had placed the condition that the Bush tax cuts would have to be extended in FULL, before any vote on DADT. Much as Senator Kyl (R-AZ) may deny it, he had also imposed the same condition on ratification of START. (Unfortunately, DREAM just does not seem to have been part of this discussion, because even some Democrats were opposed to it.)

3. President Obama seemed more interested in getting START dealt with, and so made a (some say shitty) taxcut deal with Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell. I have written about the advantages of, and need for, this deal earlier.

4. Even though the omnibus budget was crafted with bipartisan effort, Majority Leader Harry Reid found Republican support slipping away, apparently over the inclusion of $8 billion in earmarks out of a $1.1 trillion bill.

5. In a deft maneuver, Senator Reid chucked the omnibus bill, and filed for cloture on DREAM and DADT repeal while the Senate was talking START. I am not sure the White House was happy about this, as Senators Bob Corker and Lindsey Graham accused Reid of "poisoning the well" and hinted that START may not pass.

6. And finally today, Democrat Senators Kay Hagan, Jon Tester, Max Baucus, Mark Pryor, Ben Nelson and Joe Manchin blocked the DREAM of young immigrant kids even as Republicans Lisa Murkowski, Bob Bennett and Dick Lugar voted for it.

Luckily, however, DADT got 63 votes for cloture, clearing the way for final repeal. (Thanks to Republicans Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, George Voinovich, Scott Brown, and surprisingly, Mark Kirk (who voted against repeal while in the House.)

So to sum: GOP moderates used their leverage over DADT repeal to ensure a temporary extension of all Bush tax cuts. President Obama took a lot of heat from the Left for making this deal. Senator Reid deftly pushed DADT ahead of START.

Without the much-maligned taxcut deal and Senator Reid's adroitness, we would not be repealing DADT today. I hope "progressives" who are more concerned with taxes than with equality for the LGBT community, and excoriate President Obama for making that deal, learn from this episode.

p.s. Maybe the tea party is indeed all about fiscal issues. If teabagging Republicans had not pulled away from the omnibus budget over earmarks, we would not be repealing DADT today!

What I would like to hear Democrats say

Apropos the President Obama/GOP tax cut deal that was passed today by the US Senate, Senator Mark Udall (D-CO) writes:

I voted against extending tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires because I believed it was fiscally irresponsible and would unnecessarily add to our nation's huge debt.

This is the Democratic position that even President Obama ran on, and pretty standard for Democrats.

However, this reasoning rarely mentions the fact that extending the Bush taxcuts for the middle-class - which Senator Udall voted for - would also increase the national debt that he claims to be so concerned about. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says that extending the Bush taxcuts for the middle class and a permanent fix to the AMT will cost $3 trillion over 10 years - and extending the taxcuts for those making over $250,000/year will add $700 billion to that over the next decade.

If Senator Udall and other Democrats really want to claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility, here is what I would like to hear them say:

"By extending the middle-class taxcuts and fixing the AMT for two years, we will add $463 billion to the deficit. But that is necessary, because we are in a recession, and we want to get as much money into the hands of the American people as we can, so that they can spend the money, increase demand, grow the economy, and lead us out of the recession.

We need the payroll taxcuts to provide an additional stimulus to working Americans. But because we need to ensure the future of Social Security, we will pay for this temporary reduction in payroll taxes by, yes, further borrowing. Again, this is temporary for two years, with the objective of increasing consumer demand to grow us out of this recession.

We also need to extend unemployment benefits for Americans who are out of a job through no fault of their own, and are actively looking for work, so that they are not left without food or a roof over their heads (and it will come back into the economy as they spend the money). And this cause is worth borrowing $56 billion for.

The wealthiest Americans do not need the extra Bush taxcuts, as even Warren Buffet admits. In particular, wealthy Americans who are concerned about the debt should be happy to let the rates go back to that under the Clinton era, so that we do not add to the national debt."

I am sure Senator Udall's speech-writers can do a better job, but I would like him to be honest about the real costs.

Finally - my own reasoning for supporting this tax cut deal, over and above the additional, second stimulus - is the chance at passing the DREAM Act, repeal of Don't Ask/Don't Tell, and ratification of new START, as moderate Republicans like Susan Collins, Scott Brown, and Olympia Snowe have imposed the condition of extension of the Bush tax cuts as a precursor to these three important pieces of legislation. Next year, Republicans will control the House, and they will likely pass such a taxcut deal (or worse, from the Democrats' point of view), that the President will be hard-pressed to veto (as any stimulus will help the economy.) But we will have fewer votes in the Senate and far fewer in the House to pass those three important pieces of legislation, effectively dooming at least DADT repeal and DREAM. If giving the richest Americans $150 billion (Bush tax cuts + estate tax) helps us achieve passage of these three critical items, it will be well worth it.

Using probabilities to predict election results

The recent mid-term elections, especially the Senate results for Colorado and Nevada, made me wonder about the efficacy of likely-voter screens that pollsters normally use. Rather than discarding all "not-likely" voters, could one assign probabilities to different sub-groups formed based on likelihood-of-voting?
Thanks to Mark Blumenthal, I now know that the CBS/New York Times poll uses probabilities instead of a "likely voter" screen. Here is Mark Blumenthal's write-up on the method and its results for Presidential elections till 2004. How did the poll do in 2008?
First, all the polls (from the lovely charts at the erstwhile Pollster.com, now part of HuffPo):


Second, the CBS/Times polls:


Much more consistent than some other polls, including Rasmussen and USA Today/Gallup, for sure. You can click on any of the points to see the raw trend instead of the Pollster.com-generated trend line. The final result, of course, was Obama 52.9%, McCain 45.7% (Wiki). While the "all polls" trendlines finally converge to the actual results, the CBS/Times poll suggests the race was relatively consistent throughout the fall - especially the CBS/Times-specific trendline.

Here is a description of Registration-Based Sampling, which uses voter registration history to contact only those voters with a history of voting, rather than a self-reported history provided by randomly-contacted voters (Random Digit Dialing).

(Much thanks to Mark Blumenthal for the links: Follow him on Twitter, and on the new Huffington Post/Pollster website. Any errors in data interpretation are purely my fault.)

Cautiously optimistic about Colorado Senate & Michael Bennet

Currently (0146 Wednesday Nov 3), per MSNBC, Senator Michael Bennet and challenger Ken Buck are separated by a few thousand votes. Nate Silver and Dave Weigel appear to think Denver, Boulder and Arapahoe counties have not reported a large fraction of their results, so Senator Bennet's a shoo-in. While I am obviously a Bennet partisan (having volunteered long hours, including 12+ hours today), I believe the race is much, much tighter, though I would bet that Senator Bennet wins.

Here are the gory details:

1. Boulder County estimated total turnout at 119k, out of 164k "active" voters; as of writing, 86459 votes have been counted, including 228 polling-day-votes. Senator Bennet leads 66.5-29.2. If the County estimate is correct, that means an additional 12k vote gain for Senator Bennet.

2. Denver County has 273,922 "active" voters. In the last General/Governor mid-term, 2006 (PDF), "active turnout" was 58.56%. If that remains constant (got a text from Hickenlooper that turnout was low!), that means a total vote of 160,408; so far, 149k votes have been counted, and Bennet leads 71-24.7. So there's an additional 5k vote gain for Bennet.

At the other extreme, in 2008 the active turnout was 89% - that means another 95k votes are still out there, and Bennet easily wins. I somehow doubt this high turnout was the case (see Hick's text from earlier.)

UPDATE (Wed 0800): As of 0415 Mountain, Denver County's FINAL unofficial tally is 174k votes in Denver, with Bennet winning 71.2-24.4. So that's a lead of 81,450 votes in Denver County, compared to 69,060 when I wrote this post last night. So an additional 12k vote gain rather than an additional 5k gain, thanks to 5% higher turnout than in 2006 - 63.6% in the Senate race.

3. Arapahoe County appears to have ALL its vote counted, with a turnout of 164k out of 273k "active" voters, despite what the NYT says ("11% reporting").

UPDATE (Wed 2000): Denver Post says that as of this morning, 30k votes were still out; as of 5 PM, the County reports 180k votes tallied, with Bennet up 49-45.7. So even if another 15k votes are out there, Bennet will still win!

4. Weld and El Paso counties appear to be almost all done, as do most of the rural Colorado counties - ASSUMING the afore-mentioned NYT report is correct. Still, with the current totals including 170k votes from El Paso county (Colorado Springs!), I doubt there are many more votes there.

UPDATE: Weld County, Ken Buck's home, do appear to have all their ballots counted. El Paso, OTOH, has a sucky website.

UPDATE (0830 Wed): Per the NYT, El Paso county is 100% in, and Ken Buck gained (I think) another 3k votes. SENATOR MICHAEL BENNET IS AHEAD BY ALMOST 7500 VOTES, BOULDER STILL COUNTING!

Add up 1 & 2, we get (at a minimum) about a 17k additional vote gain for Senator Bennet from Denver and Boulder - a potential victory margin of 10k votes for the incumbent Democrat. (UPDATED/CORRECTED: This is BIGGER THAN the 0.5% margin of the highest vote-getter, or 3,900 votes - NOT the vote-TOTAL - that triggers a recount.)

As I said, cautiously optimistic.

FINAL UPDATE (Sat AM): With 97% precincts reporting, Michael Bennet has won by 15k votes - thanks to an increased turnout in Denver county.

Why I support Michael Bennet

The Colorado Senate race between Michael Bennet and Ken Buck is one of the closest races in the November 2010 mid-term election, and could determine if the GOP takes control of the Senate. More importantly, it will determine who will be Colorado's junior Senator for the next six years.

The case against Republican Ken Buck is very clear. Ken Buck is socially very conservative, opposing abortions even in cases of rape and incest; he apparently lacks any understanding whatsoever of date rape; he thinks homosexuality is mostly a choice, against modern scientific knowledge; and he supports continuing Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT). His main goal as a Senator appears to be to act as a road-block against President Obama's agenda (think climate change and comprehensive immigration reform), and he also promises to repeal the healthcare reforms passed recently, in their entirety. Overall, someone who will prevent any progress in the future, and will roll back as many of the legislative successes achieved by President Obama and the Democrats in the past two years as possible.

But more important than voting against someone is getting to vote for someone. And I am proud to state that I am unequivocally for Senator Michael Bennet. My reasons are as follows:

1. Senator Bennet believes in using the power of government for good (stimulating the economy, regulating insurance companies and Wall Street, the Lilly Ledbetter Act, the Matthew Shepard Act) and not in (ab)using it to control our personal lives, for example DADT (fun videos here!) or denying women abortion rights.

- In fact, seems to me that Senator Bennet is a civil libertarian on this (and other) issues: "I will work hard to defend the rights of my girls to govern their own reproductive health from government intrusion." (link)

2. Senator Bennet seeks to find solutions to problems and works with Democrats and Republicans alike; for example, the Pay It Back Act to pay down the Federal deficit with repaid TARP funds (supported by Republican Senators Bob Corker and Johnny Isakson, and Democrats Mark Udall and Jon Tester, among others.)

3. Some liberals/progressives may disagree, but Senator Bennet supported sending out $250 checks to seniors who did not receive a COLA increase in their SS pay, only if it was paid for from left over stimulus funds.

(Why I think this is a reasonable approach: There was little to no inflation, so there should be no COLA. So to me, the only rationale for the $250 check is as a form of stimulus, ergo, it can be paid out of ARRA.)

4. Democrats and other folks frustrated with a seeming lack of progress since January 2009 should remember that Republicans time and again mounted what was effectively a filibuster. Democrats might have had almost-60 Senators; that's close, but no cigar. Senators Kennedy and Byrd were often sick; Senator Franken was not officially elected till mid-2009. So Democrats had to seek compromises with "moderate" Republicans. We saw how the negotiations with GOP Senators Snowe, Collins and Specter reduced the size of the stimulus bill (ARRA); fruitless talks with Senators Grassley, Enzi and Snowe stalled healthcare reform; and for all the GOP's bluff-and-bluster about supporting small businesses, Republican Senators blocked a bill easing lending to small businesses for months, till two retiring GOP Senators helped break the filibuster. And yet, Democrats seem unwilling to do away with the filibuster, likely out of fear that if they are reduced to minority status in the future, they will not be able to block Republican bills.

As far as I can tell, the best plan to reform the filibuster has been proposed by Senator Michael Bennet, which preserves the filibuster, but does not allow a permanent block. Read Congress Matters expert David Waldman (KagroX on Dailykos and Twitter) on the filibuster; this is what Waldman says about Senator Bennet's solution:

As part of his Senate rules reform proposal, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) proposes making the motion to proceed non-debatable while the Senate is in legislative session. And when I last wrote about it, I didn't know that his proposal for ending secret holds was in fact based on doing that. It's a smart proposal that would do for bills in legislative session what I described as being the case for nominations in executive session. That is, it knocks down one procedural hurdle (the ability to filibuster the motion to proceed to consideration of a bill) and leaves just the one hurdle -- the ability to filibuster the bill itself.

That last is perhaps the wonkiest, but also the most important reason I support Senator Michael Bennet - a level-headed, (reasonably) bipartisan approach to solving problems.

Video update: Here's Senator Bennet testifying before the Senate Rules Committee on filibuster reform: