IMO, it's better for each year to *only* make comparisons with the party that ultimately wins the presidency. Was the ultimate electee properly predicted by his party?

Here's what I mean, using 1984 as an example. In this year, there was no way in hell anyone but Reagan would ultimately win -- it was a complete blowout. The Democrats had to pick *some* candidate in Iowa and New Hampshire, but it wasn't really important who it was since he would ultimately be crushed. So did it matter that Iowans liked Gary Hart over the ulimate nominee Mondale? No, not really. Using this point for prediction analysis distorts the reliability of the estimator -- each state will need to come up with one Democrat & one Republican, one of which will ultimately lose.

What is more interesting is when something like 1992 happens... In this case, Iowan Democrats went with Tsongas, but ultimately Clinton won the party nomination and the election. The party won, but Iowans came up with the wrong nominee. The same thing happened in 2000 with Republicans in NH when they went with McCain yet GWB won both the party nomination and the Presidency. In both of these examples, the respective state missed soundly.

BTW, in the titles for the tables, "Republication"is used instead of "Republican".

@a2-
Snakes aren't known for their intellects, either.

Yeah, anybody who has been to biz school can tell you this promotion is all about selling soup. Fortunately, there are plenty of guilt-filled consumers out there to fall for it.

Looks to me like they have a "racing stripe". Yech.

@Karl-
Great input from somebody with first hand information! Any time governments start screwing with markets to favor one energy source over another (via either subsidies or taxes), imbalances occur. A lot of the problems you mention occur when less efficient (economically as well as thermodynamically) sources of energy are favored in government tinkering.

Too bad the article ignores them and only presents the rosy side of everything going on in Denmark. Such sided reporting is also typical of journals like Scientific American (which is why I gave up on it). It's very difficult to find anyone who treats energy issues fairly and writes about both "sides of the coin" without an agenda.

As far as the varied bio-fuel options go, a couple of comments:
1. Brazil does NOT produce cellulosic ethanol. They get their booze fuel from sugar fermentation/distillation, the old fashioned way. It can be economic IF oil prices are high AND you have the climate to grow LOTS of sugarcane AND you have really cheap labor. The U.S. doesn't have any of those things, so get off that kick. FWIW, we prop up our own sugar industry via tariffs on imported sugar or it would totally crumble.
2. Growing corn for fuel is a foolish way to establish energy independence -- it's wasteful, inefficient and only happens in the US because the corn lobby (farmers & agribusiness giants like ADM) back it with well-paid politicians.
3. Cellulosic ethanol (switchgrass and the like) *may* have potential, but the enzymnes needed to produce it in volume aren't there yet. Further research is underway, so stay tuned. If this is a smart way to do it, the free market will develop it. Gov't please stay out of the way.
4. A lot of people talk about using those corn husks in ethanol production instead of just plowing them under as is done now. They have apparently never known a corn farmer... If you don't plow them under, you will deplete the soil very rapidly and will need to rely on a lot more synthetic fertilizers and other amendments.
5. Bio-diesel sources like rapeseed oil *may* be a good solution. The diesel combustion cycle has significantly higher thermal efficiency than the Otto (gasoline) cycle to start with. But again, government just needs to stay out of the way -- stop taxing, subsidizing, financing research, &c. Free of government intervention, smart scientific entrepreneurs will come up with the optimum fuel AT THE OPTIMIUM TIME. The oil supply will not run out overnight -- as supplies restrict and demand increases, other fuel sources become more and more economically viable on their own. Gov'ts tinkering with the natural order only ensures that we waste time working on stupid things and propping up bad ideas.

It's long been pretty common to put phony eggs in with hens to encourage them to start laying. This trick is an old one, and it's easy to find at antique sales such wooden "eggs" that are well over 100 years old. I didn't know it would work with golf balls, too, but chickens are't known for their intellect.

@blairmacdonald14 writes:
"Firstly European emission standards as usually more stringent than North American ones"

Ugh... That is ridiculous! Quote real standards and compare current Euro III/IV standards to Tier II US Federal standards. The test standards are roughly comparable, but the drive cycles are different (the US cycle is more difficult in fact) so it is difficult to make apples:apples comparisons. California and Northeast States (which mirror CA) LEV II (which incorporate ULEV and SULEV levels as well) are tougher than the toughest current Euro standards, especially in regad to smog-causing NOx. Note also that the US standards include a very high load sub-test (US-06) which is more demanding than the high load portion of the Euro test (the EUDC).

Q-
You are so dated! You can't call it ebonics anymore!

It is now the "dialect of African American Vernacular English", which is of course, a much more scholarly designation. If it sounds better, it must be better, right?

It keeps changing names every couple of years in an effort to give it some legitimacy: "Black English", "Black English Vernacular", or in my day just "Jive".

Word.

So I'm like, "How did you like miss your being like pregnant? Are you like an idiot?"

like, like, like, like....

@KickItKitsune-
Check this out: There are (at least) 2 Vancouvers! One is in Canada and one is in the US! How crazy is that! I'm told there are also 2 Georgias (at least), 2 Londons, 2 Moscows, 2 Syracuses, 2 Uticas, &c. I've been unable to verify all those of course, but wouldn't it be crazy if there were all these parallel worlds?

You'd think they would at least drive to Mississippi or Louisiana to score a free trailer from Uncle Sugar.

Oh my goodness, what idiot would be amazed that people have a 50% chance of dying within half the year?

Just goes to show you how ignorant and mathematically incompetent folk are today. No wonder so many con artists take up scamming people for a living -- there are a lot of fools out there...

Just name your son Aiden, Brayden, Caiden, Jayden, one of their endless spelling variants, or anything that rhymes with those and you are all set for the kid to be like all the others in his school. Yawn.

I hate new-fangled names... Name your kid after a British monarch and be done with it.

Looks more like a nasty tumor to me. The little bristles sticking out really enhance the appeal as well.

Nowadays, kids are taught that grammar isn't very important, as long as they are "creative". Spelling is optional as well. Why constrain oneself to teh rules of othography? With writers like Cormac McCarthy earning the accolades they do, it's no wonder...