And I guess that it is official now, we’re off and running with the ANES 2010-2013. The grant is about $10M over 4 years, and we’ve got the following big pieces of new science/data collection in the works:

• a nationally-representative, pre-election/post-election (2012), face-to-face interview of approximately 2,000 adult citizens (aka the ANES “time series”, and by far the most expensive and scientifically complex thing we will do).
• a nationally-representative, Internet companion survey to the face-to-face study; we will field a large amount of content from the face-to-face survey in self-complete mode (via Internet); it is vital that we start to generate a good knowledge base on how long-standing “core” ANES instrumentation ports to web interviewing.
• a series of 5 or 6 “stand-alone”, relatively short (20-25min), cross-sectional studies (administered via Internet to nationally representative samples) that will field between April 2010 and summer 2012. Obvious target field dates are the 2010 midterms and the 2012 primary season.

We will be using the Online Commons as a mechanism for soliciting/discussing proposals about content. We also have a large and distinguished Board of Advisors. Formal announcements and details about both of these are imminent, and will appear on the project web site.

After 3 or 4 votes on non-unanimous roll calls, I have an ideal point estimate for Brown (R-MA). No surprise, he is the most moderate Republican, although the 95% credible interval is wide given the small number of votes cast thus far.

See the daily update graph here.

A snippet:

A nice piece by Mediawatch host Jonathan Holmes on the job of an EP at a news/current-affairs TV show. Jo Puccini was a researcher/producer for my wife Janet Gibson back in the day (Today Tonight, Witness). Now Jo is off to Lateline. Hooray.

From our dear friend Jean-Pierre Khoury in Sydney (of Robert Burton Design in Woollahra).
And also available in SF. And at Kitchenworks.com.

DIN used as the typeface on some “minimalist” movie posters. Cute. Via Gruber, via curved white

Labor has eased to 1.28 (Coalition 3.55) at Centrebet (implied probabiity of Labor winning is .73). Labor was briefly at 1.14 (Coalition 5.15, probabiity .82) on Dec 2 2009 at the height of the Coalition leadership fracas.

Labor was last at 1.28 on September 8, 2009. See the graph of Centrebet prices I update daily (thumbnail below).

For the record, Centrebet had Labor at 1.29 on the morning of the 2007 election (Coalition 3.65, probability .74). This reflected some late movement back to the Coalition after the last Newspoll had the race tightening (Labor was at 1.21 at Centrebet on Friday morning, Nov 23, 2007).

That is, we’re beginning this election year (and, some might say, the 2010 election campaign) right where Labor was at the 2007 election.

Power out in Palo Alto this morning. Radio says small plane crash took power lines in East Palo. Houses on fire.

I’m betting the plane had just departed KPAO in the fog and hit the high tension lines that cross the bay just north of the airport. In which case the outage could be widespread and longlasting.

Traffic lights on in Palo.

I attended St Pat’s 1974-82. My senior class was just 19 guys. Each of my two brothers went to St Pat’s, as did two of my uncles. My grandfather helped found the school. In short, my family has a long history with the place, and the surrounding suburbs: we love visiting Shorncliffe and looking in on SPC whenever we’re back in Brisbane. And so the news of the last day or so re the death of Elliot Fletcher is just gut wrenching.

It is difficult to describe the emotion, but seeing St Pat’s on news web sites — with the police vans in the news footage, the quotes from parents and former students — it has literally been heart-breaking. It is surreal to reconcile this tragedy with my (for the most part, very happy) memories of the place, or to know that my next visit to Shorncliffe won’t be the same. Every visit to an Australian news web site has been a kick in the guts these past few days.

From the SMH:

Mother Natalie Smoothy, whose son attends the Catholic college, verbalised what was etched on every parent’s face.

“How did this happen in a little, quiet, beautiful part of the world?” she said.

Absolutely.

I used to have a photo of my senior class lying around somewhere on my server. I hope I haven’t lost it. In lieu, here is my “baggy green” from the 1st XI side (1982). Certa bonum certamen.

The ABC’s online political correspondent Emma Rodgers reports on goings-on from the Coalition party room:

Mr Abbott’s comments were met with a hearty “here here” from many MPs in the room.

No. I’m sure what was said was “hear, hear”.

As Wiki notes:

It is often incorrectly spelled “here here”, especially on websites and IM.

Amazon just alerted me to a new publication, Bayesian Methods in Cosmology. “Far out”.