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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Occupy Wall Street will join labor groups for a day of protests on Tuesday to mark International Workers Day and to try to breathe fresh life into the movement that sparked a wave of nationwide protests against economic injustice eight months ago.

Scheduled actions ranged from a “pop-up encampment” in a New York City park to a promise to “occupy” San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.

A text message alert broadcast late Monday from an Occupy Wall Street address said: “All civilians stand by for GENERAL STRIKE at 08:00. No Work, School, or Shopping. All out in the streets!”

Activities were set to kick off early in New York at Bryant Park in midtown, where protesters plan to set up an encampment emblematic of the movement’s early days in lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park near the Wall Street financial district.

But McAfee Product Key, as a light morning rain fell on the city, the park was largely empty, populated by a handful of police officers and half a dozen maintenance workers in yellow rain slickers who were emptying trash cans. About a dozen people milled about at a pair of coffee kiosks at the corner of 42nd Street and 6th Avenue, just outside the park.

Across the street, the new Bank of America tower was encircled by steel crowd control barricades and police were stationed at each the building’s entrances. The building is one of six bank locations protesters planned to target Tuesday.

Later, activists planned to join organized labor for a march starting at Union Square. Some in New York have vowed to disrupt commuter traffic, but Occupy said it would not take part.

In California, Occupy Oakland has called for protesters to “occupy” the Golden Gate Bridge in a show of solidarity with bridge workers engaged in a contract dispute over wages and benefits.

Police in New York declined to say if any unusual security precautions were planned, but the city’s financial community was making preparations. At the Deutsche Bank building in lower Manhattan, the atrium used for much of the winter as an Occupy meeting spot will be closed to the public on May 1.

TARGET: US FINANCIAL POLICIES

Inspired by the pro-democracy Arab Spring, the Wall Street protesters last year targeted U.S. financial policies they blamed for the yawning income gap between rich and poor – between what they called the 1 percent and the 99 percent.

“We have to show the 1 percent what democracy looks like,” said Joycelyn Gill-Campbell, an outreach coordinator with Domestic Workers United. “The domestic workers take care of their children, their homes, and they’re treated like less than human beings.”

Scott Sommer, the New York Area Regional Director of United Auto Workers, called May Day a “historic moment” that brought together labor, immigrant and student groups, as well as Occupy Wall Street, under the common banner of pushing for an “agenda of economic fairness.”

“This isn’t a sprint, this is a marathon Server 2003 Key,” he said.

Still Office Stand-Alone Programs, it was unclear whether the event will spell Occupy’s resurgence after winter hiatus.

In New York, the Occupy movement lost significant momentum in November when a pre-dawn sweep broke up the encampment at Zuccotti Park. Occupy protests in Oakland, California, in January led to police firing tear gas into crowds of protesters and more than 200 people were arrested.

Since last fall, when scores of demonstrators set up a vigil in lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park and Occupy boasted it had $500,000 in the bank, donations have slowed to a point where Occupy was left in a cash crunch earlier this year.

In recent weeks, small groups of New York protesters have taken to camping out in different locations, including across the street from the New York Stock Exchange.

(Additional reporting By Dan Burns and Jennifer Marostica; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

U.S. World Money Related Quotes and News Company Price Related News

HAMPDEN, Maine — Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. President Gerry Chasse briefed Hampden town councilors about possible future consolidation plans that could involve locating the company’s headquarters in Hampden.

Bangor Hydro currently has about 250 employees working at six different locations in Bangor and Veazie, according to company officials, and currently owns a piece of land in Hampden.

“We would like to eventually bring everyone all together under one roof,” Chasse told councilors Monday night.

Chasse said with the lease on one of the company’s main buildings set to expire in 2019, Bangor Hydro administrators are meeting to propose ideas to incorporate into an expansion plan over the coming weeks.

One possible option involves building a central headquarters on a tract of land Bangor Hydro already owns near the U.S. Postal Service’s Eastern Maine Distributions and Processing Center in Hampden.

“It is something that’s on the horizon for us and we would like to have a recommendation by the end of the summer,” Chasse told the six councilors present.

Councilor and Mayor Janet Hughes was unable to attend Monday’s council meeting, so Councilor Andre Cushing served as mayor in her stead.

Chasse also talked about alternative heating and energy sources that his business is using and promoting, and possible options regarding Bangor Hydro’s current contract with the Penobscot Energy Recovery Corp., which runs through 2018.

“We’re operating today under extreme, out-of-market terms with a contract signed a number of years ago replica watches,” said Chasse.

The company intends to start a discussion with PERC about how to alleviate some of those excess costs.

Chasse also pointed out that the heating and lighting systems that will be utilized at the new Hampden Academy, which is to open this fall, will cost about a quarter of what the existing Hampden Academy pays for heating. He said the new school’s system will eventually “pay for itself five to seven times over.”

Also Monday, the council:

• Approved the purchase of a new $72 replica watches,113 dump and plow truck. The truck is a 2012 Ford F-550 truck from Whited Ford replica watches, which submitted the lowest of four bids.

• Approved two $200 donations to local school clubs to compete in international competitions. The donations were to help defray travel expenses for the Destination Imagination teams from Reeds Brook Middle School and George B. Weatherbee School, which both won state competitions to qualify to compete in the DI Globals May 22-27 in Knoxville, Tenn. Expenses are estimated at $665 per student.

• Voted to accept the meeting schedule recommended by Town Manager Susan Lessard for coming town budget negotiations. The deadline for the town to complete its budget is the third week in June.

CORRECTION:

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Bangor Hydro currently has employees working in Hampden. Bangor Hydro’s six current locations are in Bangor and Veazie.

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Bangor Hydro is currently in talks with Penobscot Energy Recovery Corp. Bangor Hydro intends to start a discussion with PERC about how to alleviate excess costs.

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Hampden approved the purchase of a new dump and plow truck for more than $720,000. The truck will cost $72,113.

OSLO (Reuters) – The Norwegian on trial for killing 77 people in a bomb and gun rampage railed at psychiatrists who diagnosed him as psychotic, saying on Wednesday their report contained “evil Machine Tubes, fictional inventions”.

“The person described in that report is not me,” he said on the eighth day of his trial on terrorism and murder charges.

“If I had just read it Tattoo Machines Suppliers, I would say that person belongs in a madhouse.”

Anders Behring Breivik, 33, admits killing eight people with a car bomb at government offices in Oslo, then gunning down 69 people, mostly teenagers, at an island summer camp of the ruling Labour Party, in what he has described as a counter-attack against multiculturalism.

He has pleaded not guilty, claiming “emergency rights” to defend Norway and Europe against waves of Muslim immigration that he blames on left-leaning “traitors”.

He said last week he had hoped to kill hundreds and to decapitate a former prime minister and film the act, a plan he said was inspired by al Qaeda.

Two court-appointed psychiatric teams have examined Breivik and come to opposite conclusions about his mental health, and the five-judge trial panel will ultimately decide.

He insisted on Wednesday he was of sound mind.

“These are not just misunderstandings – they are evil, fictional inventions to support their assumptions Tattoo Supplies,” he said of a 240-page report by experts Torgeir Husby and Synne Soerheim.

EXPERTS “SHAKEN”

He said the two had been “emotionally shaken” by his acts and decided at the outset to call him insane. In a written comment to the court he said they might have been pressured by Norway’s government to keep his ideology from getting out.

Their report, diagnosing Breivik as a paranoid schizophrenic suffering from psychosis, was contradicted earlier this month by a second team of experts. Psychiatrist Agnar Aspaas said he and a colleague had found “no evidence” of psychosis.

The two psychiatric teams were arrayed in front of Breivik as he spoke, and quizzed him gently. He accused Soerheim of trying to “trick” him with a question but said he now doubted that she was part of a systematic attempt to discredit him.

“I think that you couldn’t comprehend that a normal person could do something like that,” he said. “You think that a person who does something like that… must be sick.”

The psychiatrists have refused to speak with reporters during the trial. Breivik’s lawyers have said their priority is to gain a sanity ruling.

“If I had been a bearded jihadist, there wouldn’t have been any psychiatrists whatsoever,” Breivik said on Monday.

If judged sane he could get 21 years in prison with possible extensions. Otherwise he is likely to be sentenced to indefinite psychiatric detention – a fate he has called “worse than death”.

Breivik repeated on Wednesday that he had been part of a secretive “Knights Templar” sect that shares his views, a claim Husby and Soerheim called “a bizarre, grandiose delusion” in their report.

“The background for the killings are his paranoid psychotic delusions that he is a participant in a civil war where he is responsible for deciding who lives and dies,” their report said.

“His mission is to save the entire western world’s culture and genes.”

Breivik complained they had taken his statements about militant nationalist doctrine and tactics out of context to make him seem “absurd and unintelligent”.

The more recent report, concluding Breivik was not psychotic, has not been made public. Earlier this week a review commission asked the authors to substantiate whether Breivik had adjusted his behavior to try to fool them.

Thousands plan to gather in Oslo on Thursday to sing a children’s song calling for fraternity and peace, as a protest against Breivik. He once called the song Marxist brainwashing.

(Editing by Andrew Roche)

World Norway

Ben Bolch of the L.A. Times recently wrote in an article entitled “Win or lose, they want the ball at game’s end,” that the top NBA closers — including Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul, Dirk Nowitzki and Carmelo Anthony — have no fear of failure in the final seconds.

What’s up with that?

In a sentence: The final moments are the place where neurochemistry, phylogeny and hyper focus meet.

Neurochemistry

Adrenaline (= Power) Tattoo Gun Needles, Testosterone (= Aggression), Dopamine (= Pleasure)

Most extreme athletes are adrenaline junkies. Why? Because an adrenaline rush when focused makes you feel not just powerful, but superhuman. Two things trigger adrenaline, either “fight or flight.” What causes Bryant, Paul, Nowitzki and Anthony to be great is that their inherent testosterone/highly competitive/aggressive nature always causes them to choose “fight” and then focuses that adrenaline rush to be able to execute at an amazing level. And after they have, the dopamine surge of pleasure that follows is close to ecstasy.

Adrenaline plus testosterone (causing them to focus and fight vs. run and flee) together are the body’s natural Adderral which is what enables people with A.D.D. to become calm, centered and focused. As you may know many of the best athletes have A.D.D. which is not truly about an attention deficit Tattoo Machine For Sale, but is really about not paying attention to things they don’t want to such as understanding and being prudent about finances and listening with undivided attention to their spouses and children.

Phylogeny

Think of your brain as being composed of three brains (referred to as Triune Brain). The oldest is your lower/reptilian/fight or flight brain which is 245 million years old; the next oldest is your middle/mammalian/emotional brain which is 65 million years old; and the relative newcomer is your upper/human/thinking brain which is about 200,000 years old.

The more impulsive, unfocused and scattered (a.k.a. scatterbrain) a person is, the more loosely configured are each of these three brains to each other and the more poorly they work together in unison. In fact under stress they almost seem to function separately in such people who may explain how chaotic these people seem to act. Think of such people as a rickety old pick up truck that feels like it will fall apart at any moment.

Hyperfocus

On the other hand, the more tightly these three brains are configured and aligned to each other aimed towards a singular purpose, the more focused, centered, determined and formidable these people are. Think of such people as a Turbo Porsche that grabs and almost controls the road no matter how it bends and curves.

An analogy to better understand this is to think of how young military recruits enter basic training. They may be filled with “piss and vinegar,” but their focus and minds are often all over the place. However Tattoo Supplies sale, then they are broken down and built back up into a force that can defeat and kill a fearsome enemy. To do that, their thinking upper brains, feeling middle brains and acting lower brains become almost arc welded to each other and the result is a warrior.

The problem for soldiers and many extreme athletes (are you listening O.J.?) is that without a life or death or high stakes situation, all that adrenaline/testosterone/dopamine has nowhere to go and nowhere to blow. Without a war or a game with everything on the line, there isn’t sufficient at stake to trigger that adrenaline rush which them enrolls the testosterone to generate dopamine pleasure.

This may explain why so many extreme athletes and power players (Are you listening Tiger, Bill Clinton, John Edwards?) do outrageous things outside of their sport or job. Why? Because the thrill of an adrenaline rush is often exceeded by the agony of an adrenaline crash. And when you do things that are dangerous, forbidden, risky and even foolish, that triggers an outpouring of adrenaline and another rush, which offsets the listless, irritable feelings these people have when coming off an adrenaline induced dopamine high.

But put them in overtime and it is a sight to behold (that triggers a dopamine surge in viewers which may explain why we keep watching replays of those moments).

Greg Gumbel once asked hockey’s greatest player, Wayne Gretzky, “What is it like to be in overtime of the deciding game of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, knowing that there are 10 seconds left and that the puck will be passed to you?”

Wayne flashed that huge, delighted (and no doubt dopamine filled) grin and responded: “I live the whole season for that moment.”

People watch from the balcony of a building as the space shuttle Enterprise, riding on the back of the NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, cruises over the Hudson river,  Friday, April 27, 2012 in New York. Enterprise is eventually going to make its new home in New York City at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.  (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

New York – An unusual flying object has landed at New York’s Kennedy Airport.

It’s the space shuttle Enterprise. Before arriving Friday morning, it zoomed around New York City’s airspace Buy White Herve leger, riding on top of a modified jumbo jet.

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The shuttle prototype was brought from Washington.

The heralded event included low-altitude flyovers over landmarks including the Statue of Liberty and the Intrepid on Manhattan’s west side.

It’s eventually going to make its new home in New York City at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.

It won’t move into its new home until June. It’s scheduled to be open to the public in mid-July.

In the meantime Discount DKNY Clothing, the Enterprise will remain at Kennedy.

Sarah Palin

“One thing we can all agree on, though, is how much we respect and want to protect the freedom of the press and we have that in common Tattoo Supplies, so at the end of the day, I think as long as we’re protecting that and not abusing the right—we have to be writing truth—then we’ll get along just fine tonight.”

“I want to make a toast to all at this press event who agree with Thomas Jefferson, who said that our liberty depends on the freedom of the press. So I want to lift a glass to those who defend that freedom. Our finest, the men and women in uniform who defend that freedom, our Constitution, and our exceptional way of life in America.”

—Speaking at the Time 100 gala, New York City, May 4, 2010

For more Tattoo Supplies, see “The Complete Palinisms” or buy the book  Palinisms: The Accidental Wit and Wisdom of Sarah Palin. Like Palinisms on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

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A gardener tends the grounds at Chehel Sotun, Isfahan

The name of the small, pretty town nestled at the foot of snowy mountains rang a bell, but my garden-scholar friends and I were in full and happy tourist mode. Past a shady traffic circle where a man was selling watermelons from the back of his pickup, we came to our goal, the oldest plane tree in Iran. The impressive, well-watered specimen stood in front of the imposing entryway to the remains of a mosque from 1317, a 40-foot-high gateway decorated with an intricate tile design of turquoise and cobalt. The familiar blue on blue, which we’d seen in mosques in Kerman, Shiraz, Yazd, and Isfahan, seemed a worship of water. Now we had come on the 12th day to Natanz, a green town blessed by melting snow.

Later that day, after tea and date cookies by the roadside, we passed Iran’s main nuclear facility just outside town, the primary target in plans for U.S. airstrikes—and the reason the name Natanz had rung a bell. Guard towers and barbed wire surrounded the place, though the work goes on 70 feet underground, and of course satellite pictures give much more detail than we could see from the road. Police cars patrolled the highway, and we were told not to take photos. The same snowmelt that waters the elderly plane tree is used there for cooling.

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“You’re going there for pleasure?” friends had asked incredulously, when I’d said I was going to spend most of April in Iran. In the United States Discount Herve Leger gown, particularly in circles of power, Iran is rarely mentioned without high emotion. Likewise in the public stance of Iranian rulers Cheap Christian Audigier Clothes, America is the source of all things toxic and threatening. The Islamic Republic holds power by way of the revolutionary myth centered on confrontation with the United States. And many Americans still hold an image of angry young Muslims burning American flags in the streets.

I wanted to go there with consciously lowered emotions, simply to see what it felt like Christian Audigier Clothing sale, so I signed up for a tour advertised in the British glossy magazine Gardens Illustrated, led by Penelope Hobhouse, author of Gardens of Persia. Why visit the gardens of Iran? The word paradise comes from the ancient Persian word for an enclosed garden Discount Christian Audigier Clothes, and the art of landscaping is one of Iran’s gifts to the world. You see what are essentially Persian gardens at the Alhambra in Spain, at the Taj Mahal, and in Beverly Hills.

Bagh-i Fin garden, Kashan

The first surprise is that Iran is beautiful, though you have to be willing to see the charm in contrast. Much of the country looks like the high rocky desert of West Texas. On the bus from Kerman to Yazd, I kept thinking how familiar the scrubby sages and desert poppies would look to George W. Bush. Where there is water, the contrast is astounding—electric-green fields of alfalfa; bright blossoming orchards of pomegranate, almond, pistachio, apricot, and peach trees; hillsides covered with hundreds of fig trees leafing out Christian Audigier Clothing sale, fruit just starting, the size of a baby’s fingernail.

The second surprise is that many people really like Americans. Locals would cross the street, smiling, and ask, “Are you American?” If I sat down outside a mosque or museum, young people would come up to talk about culture and life in the States. They all had satellite dishes. “Sure, they’re illegal,” they’d say, “but everyone on my street has one.” One young bearded man told me he particularly enjoyed The Simpsons but was baffled by Fox News. Students gave me their e-mail addresses—Yahoo and Hotmail—wondering if I would help with their English homework. “Can you tell me what American writers to read?” asked one youth.

Late one afternoon in Isfahan, I was approached by a college student named Elam, who said her professor wanted her to practice her English. She launched immediately into a complaint about her parents being overly protective and warning her about her excessively Western appearance. Elam had obvious, though artfully applied, eye makeup and a tailored black coat that showed her slim waist. She hoped, she said, to get away and to do graduate work in the United States: “If I keep my grades up, the U.S. school will pay my tuition, and then I can get a job teaching.” I told her that might be difficult.

“I’m only a freshman,” she said. “In four years everything will be different.”

Schoolgirls in Kashan

This year, 58 percent of the freshman classes in Iranian universities are women, said our Iranian tour guide, Ali Sadrnia. Elam was one of the 70 percent of Iran’s 70 million population under the age of 30. In the 1980s the ruling religious leaders encouraged large families; now the mosques hand out condoms. This is a generation with no direct memory of the Shah, the U.S. hostages, or America as the Great Satan. They cruise the Internet with ease; when the advisory “Access Denied” pops up, they figure out a way to use a proxy. It’s a very hard time to be an authoritarian theocracy.

At the flower-bedecked tomb in Shiraz of the medieval poet Saadi, one of my fellow travelers, Michael from Norfolk, England, complained about a haranguing voice coming over loudspeakers. “It’s a garden; it’s supposed to be serene,” he said to Ali. The voice turned out to be Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He was not far away, making his first visit as president to Shiraz.

“Keep a low profile Replica Herve Leger gown,” Ali joked, “or you will all get nice new gray suits.”

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1959 Ferrari 250 GT LWB Tour de France (chassis #1321) – Click above for high-res image gallery
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With this year’s enduro at Le Mans in the books Replica Chloe Dresses, when better to break the news of a past winner going up for grabs? The racer in question is a 1959 Ferrari 250 GT LWB Tour de France – class winner and third overall at the ‘59 24 Hours of Le Mans and winner of the 1000km of Nurburgring the same year.

The pristine example still sports its original race-winning red-and-orange livery bearing the number 11. Since 1959 Replica DKNY Clothes, it’s only changed hands a few times, and has been held by the same owner for decades.

Following a showcase on the Del Monte Golf Course Cheap Herve leger strapless, its first public showing since the early ’90s Chanel Dresses sale, chassis number 1321 will cross Mecum’s auction block at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Resort & Spa on August 13-14 during the Pebble Beach concours weekend Buy Karen Millen Dresses, which is already shaping up to be one for the books. Details are in the press release after the jump.

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Also in Slate, Christopher Hitchens explains why he can’t stand Hillary Clinton, and Timothy Noah argues that she’s not the “experience” candidate.

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton has a fair point about Barack Obama. He should be vetted more thoroughly than he has been so far during the primary process. He has not gotten the scrutiny she has. But every time she opens her mouth to make this point, a brass band starts playing, an 18-wheeler backfires, and the water heater explodes. This might create sympathy for Clinton—except that her campaign is causing the ruckus.

The latest distraction comes from Robert Johnson Cheap DKNY Clothes, the founder of BET, who introduced Clinton on Sunday in South Carolina. In an attempt to defend the Clintons’ record on race relations in a state where half of the primary electorate is African-American, Johnson appeared to try to take political advantage of the drug use Obama admitted in his book Dreams of My Father. The Clintons, he said, “have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues since Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood—and I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in the book.”

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When asked to explain what he was talking about, the Clinton campaign—which has already lost a top official when he resigned over raising Obama’s drug use—issued a statement saying Johnson was simply referring to Obama’s days as a community organizer. This made perfect sense, of course Discount Missoni Dresses, because Obama’s efforts organizing African-Americans in poor neighborhoods has nothing at all to do with his involvement with black concerns—the contrast Johnson was drawing. In other words, the cover story was gibberish. In some faith traditions Buy BCBG Dresses, it would make Johnson a target for a thunderbolt. That the Clinton team passed it along was embarrassing. The only upside was that it deflected attention from another Johnson insult: his reference to Obama as a “guy who says Buy Hale Bob Dresses, ‘I want to be a reasonable, likable Sidney Poitier in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.’ ”

Johnson is right that the Clintons have a record of caring about the African-American community, but when you wrap your point in such boobery, it’s impossible to find. Clinton may have found her voice in the New Hampshire primary, but she’s still got the clanging surrogates of the establishment old order who are speaking for her in harmful ways. This is a pattern of side dramas in the Clinton orbit—from the earlier fracas in New Hampshire over Obama’s drug use to the accusations about gender-based piling-on  after Hillary’s poor performance in the late-October debate in Philadelphia. Even when Clinton has a legitimate point, the exaggerations and evasions, amplified by those trying to help her, obscure it beyond all recognition. They also feed into bad Clinton memories, and the attendant noise suggests the clanging will continue if she gets elected, too.

The Clinton team complains that the press ratchets up the volume. She gets more attention than Obama. There’s merit to this claim, but she has a tougher road to walk in part because of her eight years in the Clinton White House, from which she also benefits so much. Reporters were conditioned during the parsing and drama of the first Clinton era to look for the parsing and the drama. If Clinton deserves credit for her White House accomplishments—and she does—she is also stuck with shouldering the negative consequences of those years.

Bill Clinton is part of Hillary’s problem at the moment. It was completely fair, in his famous fairy-tale tirade, for Bill to question why Obama never produced a moment of excellence in the Senate to match the extraordinary political judgment he showed five years ago when he spoke against the Iraq war—which, after all, Obama is running on. While making that reasonable point, though, Bill massaged the facts about the original war resolution that Hillary voted for. And he went overboard in claiming that it is the Obama campaign that has truly gone negative and that it had been “blistering” him personally for months. The Obama team isn’t as saintly as Obama claims, but it’s not the wrecking machine of Clinton’s imagination. It’s also hard for him to be the one raising questions about Obama’s record on Iraq, when he has created distracting side shows about his own record on the war.

The South Carolina primary has now gotten very ugly, and the question of race threatens to spoil the Democratic nomination altogether. Clinton is on the defensive Cheap Emilio Pucci Dresses, particularly because of the criticism from Rep. James Clyburn Cheap Christian Audigier Clothes, the influential South Carolina representative, and Al Gore’s former campaign manager, Donna Brazile, neither of whom is affiliated with the Obama campaign. Barack Obama’s campaign has sought to stoke African-American resentment by circulating among blacks these negative reactions to Clinton’s remarks. She might be able to point that out in order to at least bring the fight to a truce, which would allow a more reasonable assessment of her recent remarks about Martin Luther King. That would not only improve her chances in South Carolina but also keep her ultimate potential victory from being tainted by the charge that she won by making Barack Obama’s race the central issue of the contest (a real worry among Obama allies). Either way, she’s got some talking to do. But she’s got to do something about Robert Johnson first, or else no one is going to hear her.

Should Obama be getting nervous?

With the election just two weeks away, some polls show the gap closing between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama. That fits with the conventional wisdom that presidential elections tend to tighten up in the days before an election. Is end-game narrowing in the polls a real phenomenon?

Yes. In 10 of the 15 presidential elections from 1944- 2000 Replica Rolex Watches for sale, the candidate who was leading in the polls on Labor Day saw his margin shrink by the time of the final poll. (This includes Thomas Dewey, who managed to lose to Harry Truman in 1948 despite never trailing in the polls.) If you average together all 15 of those contests, the Labor Day spread was cut in half by Election Day—although the early leader won the popular vote in every case except Dewey-Truman. In other words, while last-minute poll tightening is far from death and taxes, it is a real phenomenon.

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Researchers offer differing explanations for why this might happen.  While some point to buyer’s remorse or cold feet, there is no statistical evidence to support these claims. Others point to the decreasing margins, as well as a reduced variation among end-game polls, to suggest that voters are drifting back toward their initial biases and preferences. In this model, voters are more likely to think independently in August than in November. If a candidate makes a newsworthy gaffe in August Replica Anonimo Watches sale, a large number of uncommitted or weakly committed voters move to his opponent, resulting in a surge in the polls. But months of appeals from the candidates to underlying voter allegiances has a real effect: When a voter’s inner Democrat or Republican is awakened, they come home to their party’s candidate. So the same gaffe in November would sway substantially fewer voters than it did before Fake Patek Philippe Watches, and tightening poll margins reflect the number of committed partisans on either side.

Another theory attributes poll tightening to simple mathematics. Let’s say that 10 percent of each candidate’s supporters decided to switch sides in the final weeks of the campaign. That same percentage would reflect a larger exodus from the candidate who started with more voters—leading to a tightening of the race. Similarly, if undecided voters broke evenly in the final days Where to buy Replica Fendi Watches, they’d add proportionally more support to the losing candidate—and again the poll margin would narrow.  But few observers believe this can account for all of the observed tightening.

A related phenomenon is that the final poll, on average, overstates the actual margin of victory. From 1944-2000, the final polls predicted a margin 2.2 percent larger than the eventual outcome in the national vote. Given the short period between the final poll and the election Replica Breitling Watches for sale, this is not likely the result of changing voter preferences. Rather, many believe that voters hesitate to declare their support for a losing candidate to a pollster, a tendency known as the “spiral of silence.”

Got a question about today’s news? Ask the Explainer.

Explainer thanks Robert S. Erikson of Columbia University, Scott Keeter of the Pew Research Center Replica Jacob & Co Watches for sale, and Christopher Wlezien of Temple University.