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From Andrew Sullivan


Yes, this obviously was a "divine assessment". They didn't even attempt to disguise the fraud. Which, to me, tells me they panicked. This graph is a red flag to Iran and the world.


In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 07:57:59 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The first results of an entirely hand count (expected to take at least 24 hours) were announced by the Ahmadinejad camp within one hour of polling stations officially closing - even as some remained open to accommodate long queues.

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 08:08:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Interesting comments by Parviz
by det on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 08:39:09 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Yes.  And, really, this isn't a "western media" thing.  The western media immediately went along with the Interior Ministry's stated result.  It's the blogosphere, working off on-the-ground reports from regular Iranians, along with reports by some reporters like Christiane Amanpour, that's kept this story alive in the western media.

Unless by "western media" we mean Andrew Sullivan and the Washington Note blog.

Look at CNN: Almost no coverage.  Then look at Daily Kos: Non-stop coverage.  Regardless of the actual result, it's absolutely embarrassing, and b is right to get chewed out.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin

by Drew J Jones (myfriends@thisispancakes.com) on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 09:02:10 AM EST
[ Parent ]
It seems the "western media" thing comes from Bernard of Moon of Alabama.

The brainless should not be in banking. — Willem Buiter
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 09:15:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Bernhard. (= "b")
by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 09:49:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Yeah. Mind you, if I was running a news org the story would be "truth hidden under giant steaming pile of propaganda".
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 10:03:47 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Oh, no doubt about it.  I'm just saying that the only powerful figures in The West(TM) who seem to not accept Ammadinnerjacket's reelection are the Canadian Foreign Minister and the Obama administration.  The press here has completely bought the idea that the Iranian wingers have won in a landslide.

Which should shock no one.  The neocons made quite clear they were rooting for Shithead, and their dogs in the press went to fetch as soon as the stick was thrown.

Obviously folks like Olbermann and Maddow view it with suspicion, but they're of course not an accurate representation of the media.

Even supposedly respectable news orgs like the Gaurniad, the Indie and the Beeb have eaten up Khamenei's bullshit.

I think Bernard at MoA is, by any reasonable viewer's eye, completely full of shit.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin

by Drew J Jones (myfriends@thisispancakes.com) on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 10:29:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I can't tell who's full of shit on this one: who's neutral?
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 10:54:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]
is certainly worth a read.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 01:06:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]
That's another thing, and it didn't occur to me on election night: No way did they hand count all of these ballots in so short a time period.  I don't care how many beancounters you've got, you can't count tens of millions of ballots in a matter of two hours by hand.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
by Drew J Jones (myfriends@thisispancakes.com) on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 08:57:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Actually, counting ballots is very highly parallelisable, so that's actually not all that hard, with the proper organizations. What's really hard is counting ballots that have not yet been cast.

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 08:59:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]
It depends on how many precincts you have. Spain counts its ballots very quickly because working at the polls is like jury duty and so the number of voters per table is low and  it is possible to count the ballots at each table rather quickly.

The brainless should not be in banking. — Willem Buiter
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 09:01:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]
True, but my understanding is that the Interior Ministry's own estimate was that it would take 24 hours.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
by Drew J Jones (myfriends@thisispancakes.com) on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 09:04:09 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Because the Iranian count is centralised, apparently.

The brainless should not be in banking. — Willem Buiter
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 09:14:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]
That is what I read too...

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 10:42:10 AM EST
[ Parent ]
In a Danish election, ballots are normally counted no more than three hours after polling stations close, if everything goes off without a hitch. Of course, it almost never does, but the margins of error are rarely enough to shift more than one or two seats - certainly not anything on the order of more than one percentage point.

Ballots are usually recounted centrally on the following day (if the margin between any two seats is below a certain number of votes, which it almost invariably is when you do d'Hondt for the next best thing to three hundred seats...).

- Jake

If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 03:36:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]
That graph doesn't tell you anything.  You could set it up in any election anywhere.

I believe Nate or one of the other stats gurus of the blogosphere debunked it last night using the 2008 American election (releasing results in six waves, alphabetically).

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin

by Drew J Jones (myfriends@thisispancakes.com) on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 08:55:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]
That would be this
by det on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 10:37:45 AM EST
[ Parent ]
See my chart in a parallel comment.

The brainless should not be in banking. — Willem Buiter
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 01:50:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The debunking has been debated, because while it would make sense to get very close estimates if you got random samples added up at different times, in this case they brought in data from very differet nregions in lumps (and there are, or should have been, significant regional variations in the voting)

And there are th screen captures discussed here

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 12:55:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]
But what was plotted were not the lumps, but the cumulative totals. You cannot run a linear regression on the cumulative totals, but only on the lumps...

The brainless should not be in banking. — Willem Buiter
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 01:06:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]
If you plot the lumps, you get this:

Which is much more noisy than the cumulative totals.

It is well known you cannot apply linear regression to a time series, which is what this is, but only to the successive differences (the "lumps").

The brainless should not be in banking. — Willem Buiter

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 01:42:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]
What's the null hypothesis here? How likely is the observed R2 value?

Beware of statistical tests without an explicit hypothesis or model.


The brainless should not be in banking. — Willem Buiter

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Jun 14th, 2009 at 01:49:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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