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Month: November 2008
Yes We Can
In the middle of a million parties,
television pundits who tell the story,
in a fine hour, after too many dark ones have passed,
Rose a single man to claim his destiny and glory.
[tweetmeme=”decisionstats”]
�
His young shoulders narrowed ,
Aware of the profoundness of this time,
He tentatively summons his God-gifted oratory,
As a million people wait and chime.
�
Yes We Can,
We are glad to know,
Yes We always did,
countless times before.
Thanks again,
they want to shout.
To the solitary man, who
alone on top is crouched.
�
We almost lost hope,�
times become so bad.
Till you reminded us,
of the power we had.
The man pauses , in
the middle of the speech,
Looks around ,all about,
The people he reached.
�
A million times , he may�have
achieved now the dream ,
Of parents, natural and ethereal,
Its �the start , he says,of rebuilding as a team.
Yes We can,�Yes We Will.
Together we broke it,
Together we rebuild.
Artwork-
The Plot to Kill Obama
The Plot to Kill Obama :Updated 28 August
Note- This is a continuous article since Feb 2008 ,collecting all data points on plots against Mr Barack Obama. The Media sources are authentic, the scenario and what if analysis is fictional, and readers are expected to use OBJECTIVITY rather than passion to draw their conclusions.
Barack Obama’s Assasination would pave the way for either McCain or Hillary Clinton to the White House. Neither of them are expected to seriously damage corporate interests , they wont be clamping down on outsourcing American Jobs, they are less likely to cut rebates for wealthy, and less likely to avoid lobbyists from the gun and health pharma lobby. They are less likely to expedite the end of Iraq war, and the tens of billions spent every month that go from tax payers to major corporations is less likely to be threatened by Obama out of the way. So a few people would definitely make serious money if Barack Hussein Obama goes back to his Kenyan family graveyard.
COUNTERPOINT– Also if Obama gets elected , gets in a cowboyish Missile crisis
,loses a bay of Pigs due to morals ,appoints a brother as an attorney general , who is not charged or questioned before an actress died, but assumes a high moral ground (rather than political ambition) and goes out to investigate Mafia men who may be critical allies in a new cold war,he may end up in a Harvey Dent state funeral with people self justifying the extreme use of force.The last famous political dynasty (which won a very close election, and had a non mainstream religion called Catholism were the Kennedys.
All three Kennedy brothers had close escapes with death in the 1960’s , Ted had two (one in a plane crash which gave him a back injury) and the car crash on the bridge.The Other two brothers didnt quite make it.
THINK….What would likely happen if someone killed Obama.
The question is – is there a credible plot to kill Obama?
As per Feb’s NY times –
From the NYT Story DALLAS — There is a hushed worry on the minds of many supporters of Senator Barack Obama, echoing in conversations from state to state, rally to rally: Will he be safe?
Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, raised concerns in a letter in January to officials who oversee the Secret Service. While Mr. Obama was already receiving protection, Mr. Thompson said that the intense interest in the election prompted him to make sure that Mr. Obama and the other candidates were offered adequate security.
This means that there is a security threat perceived already.
As per Huffington Post- a recent Obama rally at Dallas had police complain about a security breach, when in order to speed up the queues forming they waved metal detection and frisking for people. And this at a Texas rally , where concealed weapons laws are the most liberal.http://www.star-telegram.com/667/story/486413.html
This means that hectic electioneering and Obama’s popularity , his strengths could be his fatal illness.
Obama seeks to take JFK’s legacy. We hope the corporate interests and interests controlling today’s Washington allow him the chance to do so. Except for the end of course.
Hopefully 2008 wont be like 1968
Update – July 3 2008- An officer guarding Obama’s Motorcade was injured in a collision when a van struck him.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/03/officer-injured-guarding_n_110696.html
On a fast ride Wednesday from the U.S. Air Force Academy to a luxury hotel where Obama was staying and holding a fundraiser, Orvin suffered minor injuries after a van crashed into his motorcycle, which was blocking traffic for the entourage.
Colorado Springs police Sgt. Scott Wisler said the driver of a van was cited for rear-ending the officer.
Updated –
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/obamas-plane-diverted/
Updated An airplane chartered by the Obama campaign for a flight from Midway Airport in Chicago to Charlotte, N.C., made a “precautionary” landing in St. Louis instead on Monday morning, because of a mechanical problem that interfered with the pilots’ ability to control the plane’s pitch, according to Midwest Airlines, the operator.
Updated It was bad enough that Hillary thought assassinations happened in June. But John McCain who was furious that the press might endanger his son serving in Iraq by their coverage (which obeyed him while not doing the same for Prince Charles’s son Harry in Afghanistan)…well war hero John (who knows how to win wars…err who won Vietnam ?) just told all of Arabia that Obama is in Iraq on the weekend and so could you please get ready . Here is the report –http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080718/pl_nm/usa_politics_mccain_obama_dc_2
Updated 27 August – Joe Biden as President , was the inadvertent error while introducing him to a rally.
Updated 28 August –
News article in BBC (not covered by Major US Newspapers ) on arrests of three men arrested with high power rifles ,using drugs ,and threatening to kill Obama. Police charges them only with drug and arms charges.
Updated -29 August
As per the attorney the chief characteristic was the meth……..not the big list..
U.S. Attorney Troy Eid (EYED) describes the men as “meth heads” who weren’t capable of such an attack.
The investigation was triggered after police in the Denver suburb of Aurora stopped a truck that was swerving erratically early Sunday. Police say they found two high-powered rifles, two wigs, camouflage clothing, a bulletproof vest and two walkie-talkies in the truck. They say they also found three IDs in other people’s names and what they believe to be methamphetamine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/us/politics/28plot.html
Latest NYTimes article
Arrests in Plan to Kill Obama and Black Schoolchildren
WASHINGTON — Two young men who are believers in “white power” have been arrested and charged in Tennessee in what federal officials described as a plan to assassinate Senator Barack Obama and kill black children at a school.
Associated Press
Daniel Cowart of Bells, Tenn., was one of two men charged in what officials called a white supremacist assassination plot.
Federal officials said that both of the men who were arrested — Paul Schlesselman, 18, of West Helena, Ark., and Daniel Cowart, 20, of Bells, Tenn. — told interrogators that they had talked of assassinating Mr. Obama. Lawyers for the men could not be reached.
The two men “planned to drive their vehicle as fast as they could toward Obama shooting at him from the windows,” according to an affidavit filed in federal court in Jackson, Tenn., by an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Mr. Obama has no plans to be in Tennessee, and the affidavit does not make clear whether the men had picked a place for an attack.
The assassination was to be the culmination of a “killing spree” that would also single out children at an unnamed, predominately black school, federal officials said. The men talked of “killing 88 people and beheading 14 African-Americans,” according to the affidavit.
The two men each had “very strong views” about Aryan white power and “skinhead” ideology, the federal officials said, and the numbers 88 and 14 have special significance in the white power movement. The number 88 is shorthand for “Heil, Hitler” — H is the eighth letter in the alphabet —and 14 signifies a 14-word mantra among white supremacists: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
Editorial Disclaimer – This is based on prior events and hypothesizes a fictional what if scenario. Any co relation is coincidental. The sources and written past events quoted are actual. Keep abusive comments to the minimum, and you DO have the right to articulate passionaltely your fears and misgivings . Read privacy policy before submitting false name comments .The post gets almost 2-3 visitors per week from search -engines with the key words “kill obama”.
How Websites and Social Networks are becoming one
Online Game : Travian
Another addictive and nice game played online with thousands of players is Travian . You can register at www.travian.com . If you like strategy games of the kind of Rome , Age of Empires, this will be suit you . If you have a kid whom you want to divert from violent video games- this one is just right too.Recommended highly.
Gmail Labs
Another reason to start using Gmail- Gmail Labs
Note the following features-
- Customizable News in single line above the inbox
- Calendar View in left column
- Google Docs in left Column
- Custom Colors for labels (Gmail equivalent of Folders)
- Labels in right columns
- Chat in right column
Overall a much more customer friendly , and neatly designed interface.
Review – R for SAS and SPSS Users
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REVIEW
Introduction- Even though R is a very powerful tool and is free, people with SAS and SPSS background have trouble adapting to R language. That is because all data objects in SAS, SPSS are in fixed rectangular layout, and the programmer just needs to write a series of pre given functions to give results. In R the flexibility of functions, and the sheer diversity of it can confuse and confound the SAS and SPSS programmer wanting to learn it. Note that most SAS and SPSS programmers are corporate users, thus they pay for licenses only by just signing the approved email, and they have a paucity of time.
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The technical review-
The book is lucid, exhaustive and lists down all reasons for and against R in an objective scientific manner. It goes in great detail, has ready datasets and offers the earlier reference sheet from its websites (http://RforSASandSPSSusers.com). At 75 Â $ it is not expensive considering the cost of other textbooks in this domain. Having both SAS and SPSS can be a distraction as many SPSS users actually use its click and point interface rather than write raw syntax- perhaps those screenshots should be included.
 It thus gives you the side effect of teaching you twice the languages you wanted to learn, but that’s a good thing. Of course you can choose to ignore the second language if you don’t want to learn it.Maybe this book can be split into R for SAS users and R for SPSS users separately (unless Muenchen is trying an agenda of unifying the whole analytics world – a common theme in November 2008 in the USA 😉 )
The book is very easy to understand, providing a step by step way of learning R thoroughly. In addition it uses screenshots extensively to make the point. However this sometimes slows the pace down of the book as it resorts to oversimplification for an advanced SAS users . It does have a good reference guide for people who just need R for some functions like graphics to be used in combination with WPS or Base SAS. You can simply pick and choose.
However it would have been great if there was a CD version.Perhaps it would be in the next edition.
An additional point is that it tries to briefly explain advanced statistical functions (or SAS/STAT equivalents). Some more depth in this section especially to the very popular logistic and linear regression techniques would have helped.(I.e a Chapter on how to build, validate and test a scoring risk model using R).
However you can use the existing chapters to get started on the modeling and iteratively come to its solutions. Some more coverage of Graphical User Interface would have helped, even though that that would have helped many people to simply go to the easy way of using click and get results of the RCmdr and Rattle GUI.
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Overall- a great textbook, you would need to spend an hour a day for as much as three weeks to master the book and once you do it would be worth it.
I highly recommend this book for both technical and business users, and for libraries as a reference guide. Both corporate and academic users would relate to the readability of the book and Amazon is also launching a kindle version soon.
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The business case review-
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In these troubled economic times, if you have to choose between cutting down your software costs or your supervisor having to choose all his software AND employee costs, would you take the time and 50 $ to learn two additional analytics platforms. Because that is what this book by Muenchen does, it can teach SAS to R programmers, and SPSS to both. It’s almost a triple pack combo.
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Muenchen spent two years creating a textbook and off the shelf manual for all three languages. Given the fact that the Base SAS language is also supported by WPS ( a software that costs only 600 dollars a year and reads/writes SAS codes and datasets), this book deals with both SAS and WPS languages
Wait a minute ! That’s what all advertisers say…but this is an honest review.(Gandhian Economics-If price of everything was demand and supply, then price of honesty would be infinite- because the supply is so low and the demand so high.)
Summary-
Buying this book for yourself or a friend could thus save your organizations a lot of money, give you additional skills on your resume and give you bragging rights at the cooler for knowing three languages (SAS, SPSS and R) – all for the price of $ 75 .
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DECISION STATS 