Tyler Cowen dubs the paradox of choice — the idea that people become unhappy when given too many choices — “one of the most overrated and incorrectly cited results in the social sciences.”  He cites Tim Harford’s recent piece in FT describing research on the subject:

Is more choice better? Ten years ago the answer seemed obvious: Yes. Now the conventional wisdom is the opposite: lots of choice makes people less likely to choose anything, and less happy when they do choose.

The most famous supporting evidence is an experiment conducted by two psychologists, Mark Lepper and Sheena Iyengar. They set up a jam-tasting stall in a posh supermarket in California. Sometimes they offered six varieties of jam, at other times 24; jam tasters were then offered a voucher to buy jam at a discount.

The bigger display attracted more customers but very few of them actually bought jam. The display that offered less choice made many more sales – in fact, only 3 per cent of jam tasters at the 24-flavour stand used their discount voucher, versus 30 per cent at the six-flavour stand. This is an astonishingly strong effect – and utterly counter to mainstream economic theory.

[...]

But a more fundamental objection to the “choice is bad” thesis is that the psychological effect may not actually exist at all. It is hard to find much evidence that retailers are ferociously simplifying their offerings in an effort to boost sales. Starbucks boasts about its “87,000 drink combinations”; supermarkets are packed with options. This suggests that “choice demotivates” is not a universal human truth, but an effect that emerges under special circumstances.

Benjamin Scheibehenne, a psychologist at the University of Basel, was thinking along these lines when he decided (with Peter Todd and, later, Rainer Greifeneder) to design a range of experiments to figure out when choice demotivates, and when it does not.

But a curious thing happened almost immediately. They began by trying to replicate some classic experiments – such as the jam study, and a similar one with luxury chocolates. They couldn’t find any sign of the “choice is bad” effect. Neither the original Lepper-Iyengar experiments nor the new study appears to be at fault: the results are just different and we don’t know why.

When I saw that question at Kevin Drum’s place, the likely answer struck me as rather obvious.  Apparently, Kevin though so, too, since he came up with the same answer:

Perhaps the paradox of choice used to be true in simpler times, but the internet and the rest of modern life have taught us to revel in choice, rather than being intimidated by it.  In a related vein, maybe it’s a generational thing.  Maybe choice dazzles me more than it does a 20-something who grew up with 87 cell phone plans, 300 cable channels, and 1,000 Facebook friends.

Even aside from technology, we’re used to more choices.  Yes, we’ve gone from 3 TV channels to hundreds but also from 3 or 4 car manufacturers to a dozen, an almost infinite variety of coffees, ethnic restaurants, and many other things over the course of the past few years.

Kevin’s also right, I think, that our familiarity with the product in question matters.  It’s a bit of a chore to chose between seventeen brands of strawberry jam, for instance, but not all that complicated.  On the other hand, choosing a cell phone and accompanying plan — and being obligated for two years to live with that choice or pay heavy penalties — can be rather intimidating.

It also occurs to me that the original experiment may just demonstrate that people aren’t interested enough in jam to spend a lot of time comparison shopping.  So, unless they’ve run out and really need some more, they may bypass a giant display whereas choosing between, say, strawberry, grape, and cherry and then between Smuckers, Polander, and store brand makes impulse purchases more inviting.

Photo: Country Living

A self-professed gun nut named Caleb:

Saturday leaving my office, I was the subject of an attempted mugging by a member of the Indianapolis Choir Boy School of Good Men Who are Only Down on Their Luck.  As I was leaving my office, said altar boy came around the corner of my building to the left into the side parking lot, and as I turned to face him noticed the knife in his right hand.  The Chaplain’s Assistant demanded that we engage in an abbreviated barter process, wherein I would provide my wallet and car keys in exchange for not getting shanktified, which to him probably seemed like a reasonable exchange.

I politely demurred by hurling a cup of hot Starbucks at him while fishing my Beretta Jetfire out of the stupid pocket holster it was riding in.  After taking a face full of Columbia’s most popular legal export and confronted with a counter offer of bullets to his previous barter exchange concept, the young gentlemen decided that discretion was the better part of valor and made all due haste in a westerly direction.  For my part, I locked myself in my office, called 911 and waited for the cops to arrive to take my report.

Via Glenn Reynolds, who marvels, “Coffee — is there anything it can’t do?”

Of course, to paraphrase the old saying, you’ll get more with hot coffee and a gun than with hot coffee alone.

Yesterday, Radley Balko passed on the story of Eric Williamson, the Springfield, Virginia man who has been charged with indecent exposure for being naked in his own house.    According to Williamson’s version of events, he was making coffee at 5:30 in the morning when a woman and her 7-year-old cut across his yard and spied him through a window and called the cops.

Radley joked, “Fairfax police say Williamson wanted to be seen naked. Which I guess means Williamson’s front yard is a pretty popular spot at 5:30 in the morning.”

Via AllahPundit, here’s the Fox News report, with Williamson expressing his surprise and outrage over the arrest:

Well, now it seems that the facts are in dispute.

The woman told police it was 8:40 a.m. when she was walking her son to school along a path between houses. She said they first spotted Williamson naked in an open door in the car port of his home.

She also told police that Williamson then walked across the house to a large window, facing the way she was walking.

If it’s 8:40 in the morning — it’s light out in these parts by 7 — and he’s in front of an open door, his claim to being in the privacy of his own home minding his business is seriously damaged.  And if he saw the mother and boy and then ran in front of a large window to further expose himself to them, he’s almost certainly committed a crime.

Radley, who wrote a new post updating the story, disagrees:

Given that she was apparently on his property (that part of the story hasn’t yet been disputed), and he was in his home the entire time, I’m not sure his exact position in his own home matters, unless he was otherwise in plain view of someone using the public sidewalk. Even then, it seems more like tacky behavior than behavior that should be criminal. And you’d think the guy would get a warning before you arrest him for nudity in his own house.

He admits this is all rather peculiar:

The guy does seem strange. A roommate says he was acting oddly, walking around all morning wearing nothing but a construction hat. But again, strange behavior needn’t be a crime punishable by a year in jail (if the roommate had reported unwanted nudity, that might be a different matter). Seems like a sensible policy would be that once you walk into someone’s yard and look inside their home, you can’t claim to be victimized by what you might see.

If you’re in your own house but standing naked in  an open door visible to the public — the path between these houses is apparently a common walkway used by neighborhood kids going to school — your expectation of privacy is seriously diminished.  Ditto standing naked in front of an uncovered window at 8:40 in the morning.

Williamson wasn’t, say, emerging naked from bed and walking down to start the coffee in the interior of his home.  If someone happened to catch a shadowy glimpse under such circumstances, I’d completely agree with Radley’s view of the situation.   For that matter, if he was standing naked in his carport doorway at 5:30 in the morning to smoke a cigarette and some earlybird neighbors walked by, the most I’d expect would be for police to issue him a friendly warning.  But, if the accuser’s version of events is accurate — and I’m inclined to believe it was given the reaction of the roommates — then Williamson was willfully committing indecent exposure to small children.   That’s not, in my judgment, worth a year in jail on first offense.  But it’s not innocent behavior, either.

As an aside, I’m rather amused at the caption on the WTOP photo.  What has his growing up in Hawaii to do with anything?  Do they have different customs there on nudity?  Or is he actually a Kenyan citizen whose citizenship is in question?  If so, perhaps he’ll be deported.

Retro Comedy offers a collection of “The 15 Creepiest Vintage Ads Of All Time.”  I’m not sure if this one is creepy but it is rather bizarre:

I’m not even sure how this poor woman was supposed to “store test” the coffee.  Even nowadays, when one can easily buy loose, whole bean coffee — rather than coffee pre-ground and put into sealed cans — I’m not sure how to test for freshness.

via @JonHenke

Steve Rubel points to what I hope is a trend.

Interesting discussion overnight between my friends Robert Scoble and MIke Arrington over whether Robert’s personal brand diminished because of his love for Friendfeed. How refreshing and retro that this conversation is actually taking place via blogs instead of just on Twitter and Friendfeed, where I am sure it is also happening.

Basically, TechCrunch’s Arrington thinks Scoble is wasting his time spending the equivalent of a full-time job participating in social networks, mostly FriendFeed and Twitter, and that he’s doing both himself and his readers a disservice by doing that instead of writing longer form pieces on his blog.   Scoble does the pros and cons and mostly agrees.

I’ve spent time on both Twitter and FriendFeed, find them both mildy interesting and potentially good sources of information, but still don’t truly “get” the fascination with them.  To the extent they’re useful to me, it’s mostly in the same way that, say, InstaPundit is:  as a place to find interesting links to longer form writing. But, frankly, the signal to noise ratio is better when Glenn Reynolds is picking the links.

People like Rubel, Arrington, and Scoble are interesting and worth following even if, like me, you’re not a full-blown techie.   But even they aren’t interesting in the mundane level.  Indeed, no matter how fascinating you are, I just don’t care what you’re having for dinner, what song just came up on your iPod rotation, or the fact that you’re about to enjoy a cup of coffee.  Really.

Tom Smith has a message for those taking glee at the recent setbacks at Starbucks:

[R]emember what coffee was like before Starbucks.  Some of you (though I doubt it, with the readership of this blog) may have cut your teeth on micro-roasted craft coffee shipped straight from Kona or that African critter’s butt to your grinding burr in Seattle.  But most of us drank the usual American swill to be found in law firm coffee rooms and frat house kitchens.  Akk.  Dreadful stuff and I know because I drank enough of it.  “I just made it” meant it had been sitting there getting foul for less than an hour.  “It’s OK” meant you could drink and not die immediately.  I grew up in a house where my Mom drank 20 cups of coffee a day, not one of them not worth forgetting until, you guessed it, Starbucks came along and taught people about coffee the way everybody discovered wine in the 1970s.  So yes, Starbucks is not as good as Peet’s. Well, excuse me while I play the grand piano.  No it isn’t.  But the point is, it’s not Maxwell House.

Indeed.

Some gas stations are secretly charging credit card users more, ABC News reports. (Video here.)

Many Americans have taken up a new hobby — hunting for the gas station with the lowest prices. But the hunt has gotten exponentially harder as the price of oil has skyrocketed and the posted price may not even be advertised, especially if the consumer wants to pay with a credit card.

To combat the hefty fees that card companies are charging gas stations, many owners have passed the costs on to the consumer by charging more per gallon if the payment is made with plastic instead of cash. The card giant Visa, for instance, typically charges a 2 percent fee for each credit card transaction to the station owner. If the price of a gallon of gas is $4.11, that translates to about 8 cents a gallon, which is then passed on to the consumer who pays with a credit card. But sometimes, as ABC’s New York affiliate found, some gas stations take the opportunity to charge even more exorbitant increases — as much as 50 cents per gallon.

But increased profit from credit card customers is not the only reason to raise prices for those who pay with plastic. As more people use cash to save at the pump, they are forced to come inside the store to pay, which creates another opportunity for the gas station owner. “Because while you’re in there, you’re going to also pick up a coffee, a soda, maybe even a sandwich,” Mount said.

Those of us who were buying gas twenty years ago recall this practice, although it was almost always posted in big signs by the pumps. It was also widely outlawed, prompting some station owners to offer a “cash discount” rather than the illegal “credit card surcharge.”

Indeed, many stations are doing that again. It’s a practice that makes sense, really, given the skyrocketing price of gas and the low margins at the station level. With most of us now swiping our cards and never entering the mini-mart to pay, station owners are getting squeezed.

But hidden fees? Let alone 50 cents a gallon?! That’s certainly criminal.

via l0ckergn0me

George Carlin, a comedian known for his combination of raunchy language and intellectual humor, died of heart failure last evening. He was 71.

Carlin was an interesting guy, combining brilliant observational humor with political activism. Like too many comics in the HBO era, though, it often seemed that he was vulgar and outrageous simply because he could rather than because it served his art. It’s one thing to point to the absurdity of seven words that we all know being taboo in adult settings; it’s quite another to use them constantly simply for their shock value.

Dean Goodman, Reuters, “Edgy comic George Carlin dies in L.A., aged 71″

Known for his edgy, provocative material developed over 50 years, the bald, bearded Carlin achieved status as an anti-Establishment icon in the 1970s with stand-up bits full of drug references and a routine called “Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television.” A regulatory battle over a radio broadcast of the routine ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court. In the 1978 case, Federal Communications Commission vs. Pacifica Foundation, the top U.S. court ruled that the words cited in Carlin’s routine were indecent, and that the government’s broadcast regulator could ban them from being aired at times when children might be listening.

The Grammy-winning Carlin remained an active presence on the comedy circuit. Carlin was scheduled to receive the John F. Kennedy Center’s prestigious Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in November and his publicist said Carlin performed in Las Vegas this month.

His comedic sensibility revolved around a central theme: humanity is a cursed, doomed species. “I don’t have any beliefs or allegiances. I don’t believe in this country, I don’t believe in religion, or a god, and I don’t believe in all these man-made institutional ideas,” he told Reuters in a 2001 interview. Carlin told Playboy in 2005 that he looked forward to an afterlife where he could watch the decline of civilization on a “heavenly CNN.” “The world is a big theater-in-the round as far as I’m concerned, and I’d love to watch it spin itself into oblivion,” he said. “Tune in and watch the human adventure.”

Keith St. Clair, AP, “Carlin, counterculture comedians’ dean, dies at 71″

Carlin’s jokes constantly breached the accepted boundaries of comedy and language, particularly with his routine on the “Seven Words” — all of which are taboo on broadcast TV and radio to this day. When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested on charges of disturbing the peace, freed on $150 bail and exonerated when a Wisconsin judge dismissed the case, saying it was indecent but citing free speech and the lack of any disturbance. When the words were later played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a 1978 Supreme Court ruling upholding the government’s authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language during hours when children might be listening. “So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I’m perversely kind of proud of,” he told The Associated Press earlier this year.

Despite his reputation as unapologetically irreverent, Carlin was a television staple through the decades, serving as host of the “Saturday Night Live” debut in 1975 — noting on his Web site that he was “loaded on cocaine all week long” — and appearing some 130 times on “The Tonight Show.” He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a couple of TV shows and appeared in several movies, from his own comedy specials to “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” in 1989 — a testament to his range from cerebral satire and cultural commentary to downright silliness (and sometimes hitting all points in one stroke).

“Why do they lock gas station bathrooms?” he once mused. “Are they afraid someone will clean them?”

His longtime comedic partner Jack Burns says that Carlin was “fairly conservative,” both politically and stylistically, until he saw Lenny Bruce perform in the early 1960s.

“It was an epiphany for George. The comedy we were doing at the time wasn’t exactly groundbreaking, and George knew then that he wanted to go in a different direction.” That direction would make Carlin as much a social commentator and philosopher as comedian, a position he would relish through the years.

“The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things — bad language and whatever — it’s all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition,” Carlin told the AP in a 2004 interview. “There’s an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. … It’s reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have.”

Martin Weil, WaPo, “Comedian George Carlin Dies in Los Angeles at 71″

The New York-born performer, who also was an Air Force veteran, once summed up his approach:”I think it is the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.”

Carlin’s entertainment career began in 1956 at a radio station in Shreveport, La. while he was in the service.

Mel Watkins, NYT, “George Carlin, Splenetic Comedian, Dies at 71″

Mr. Carlin began his standup comedy act in the late 1950s and made his first television solo guest appearance on “The Merv Griffin Show” in 1965. At that time, he was primarily known for his clever wordplay and reminiscences of his Irish working-class upbringing in New York.

But from the outset there were indications of an anti-establishment edge to his comedy. Initially, it surfaced in the witty patter of a host of offbeat characters like the wacky sportscaster Biff Barf and the hippy-dippy weatherman Al Sleet. “The weather was dominated by a large Canadian low, which is not to be confused with a Mexican high. Tonight’s forecast . . . dark, continued mostly dark tonight turning to widely scattered light in the morning.”

[...]

In 1970, Mr. Carlin discarded his suit, tie, and clean-cut image as well as the relatively conventional material that had catapulted him to the top. Mr. Carlin reinvented himself, emerging with a beard, long hair, jeans and a routine that, according to one critic, was steeped in “drugs and bawdy language.” There was an immediate backlash. The Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas terminated his three-year contract, and, months later, he was advised to leave town when an angry mob threatened him at the Lake Geneva Playboy Club. Afterward, he temporarily abandoned the nightclub circuit and began appearing at coffee houses, folk clubs and colleges where he found a younger, hipper audience that was more attuned to both his new image and his material.

[...]

By the mid-’70s, like his comic predecessor Lenny Bruce and the fast-rising Richard Pryor, Mr. Carlin had emerged as a cultural renegade. In addition to his irreverent jests about religion and politics, he openly talked about the use of drugs, including acid and peyote, and said that he kicked cocaine not for moral or legal reasons but after he found “far more pain in the deal than pleasure.” But the edgier, more biting comedy he developed during this period, along with his candid admission of drug use, cemented his reputation as the “comic voice of the counterculture.”

Reactions from the blogosphere:

• Sean Hackbarth: “Carlin was entertaining enough, although I wasn’t a real fan. If I caught one of his acts while surfing HBO I’d watch a few minutes and laugh. He certainly found unique ways of looking at the world. He’ll be missed.”

• BNP: “What a loss for all of us. Carlin was more than a comedian: he was a brilliant critic in all sorts of realms.”

• Allie: “I’m going to miss George tremendously — rest in peace funny man.”

• Liza Sabater: “An amazingly simple legacy of free speech, civil disobedience, philosophy of language and culture criticism all wrapped up in the guise of stand up comedy.”

• Jill C.: “We’re living in a world of hypocrites, idiots, thieves, and morons — and now we don’t even have George Carlin to poke fun at them any more.”

• Kevin Aylward: “Carlin … mined comedy from the absurdity of words and fighting censorship.”

• Ann Althouse: “There are decades-old routines that spring to mind immediately as the most brilliant comic riffs I’ve ever heard…”

Memeorandum will doubtless have many more reax once people wake up to the news.

While much has been made of Barack Obama’s problems with white working class voters, especially in Appalachia, a more problematic trend may be signs of trouble with Jewish voters, a strong if relatively small part of the Democratic base.

Today’s NYT features Jodi Kantor’s story, “Many Florida Jews Express Doubts on Obama.”

On Thursday, Mr. Obama will court Jewish voters with an appearance at a synagogue in Boca Raton, Fla. A longtime Democratic constituency with a consistently high turnout rate, Jews are important to his general election hopes, particularly in New York, which he expects to win; in California and New Jersey, which he must keep out of Republican hands; and, most crucially, here in Florida, where Jews make up around 5 percent of voters. This is the most haunted state on the electoral college map for Democrats, the one they lost by hundreds of votes and a Supreme Court decision in 2000, and again in 2004.

“The fate of the world for the next four years,” mused Rabbi Ruvi New as his Sunday morning Kabbalah & Coffee class dispersed in East Boca Raton. “It’s all going to boil down to a few old Jews in Century Village,” he added, referring to a nearby retirement community.

Jews, of course, are just one of the many constituencies Mr. Obama must persuade: Latinos, women, working-class whites and independents are vital as well. Thanks in part to enthusiasm from younger Jews, he won 45 percent of the Jewish vote in the primaries (not counting the disputed ones in Florida and Michigan), a respectable showing against a New York senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton. But in recent presidential elections, Jews have drifted somewhat to the right. Because Mr. Obama is relatively new on the national stage, his résumé of Senate votes in support of Israel is short, as is his list of high-profile visits to synagogues and delis. So far, his overtures to Jews have been limited; aside from a few speeches and interviews, he has left most of it to surrogates.

And, frankly, a lot of bizarre rumors linger.

Because of a dispute over moving the date of the state’s primary, Mr. Obama and the other Democratic candidates did not campaign in Florida. In his absence, novel and exotic rumors about Mr. Obama have flourished. Among many older Jews, and some younger ones, as well, he has become a conduit for Jewish anxiety about Israel, Iran, anti-Semitism and race.

Mr. Obama is Arab, Jack Stern’s friends told him in Aventura. (He’s not.)

He is a part of Chicago’s large Palestinian community, suspects Mindy Chotiner of Delray. (Wrong again.)

Mr. Wright is the godfather of Mr. Obama’s children, asserted Violet Darling in Boca Raton. (No, he’s not.)

Al Qaeda is backing him, said Helena Lefkowicz of Fort Lauderdale (Incorrect.)

Michelle Obama has proven so hostile and argumentative that the campaign is keeping her silent, said Joyce Rozen of Pompano Beach. (Mrs. Obama campaigns frequently, drawing crowds in her own right.)

Mr. Obama might fill his administration with followers of Louis Farrakhan, worried Sherry Ziegler. (Extremely unlikely, given his denunciation of Mr. Farrakhan.)

How widespread these beliefs are is hard to measure. But it goes well beyond that.

But the resistance toward Mr. Obama appears to be rooted in something more than factual misperception; even those with an accurate understanding of Mr. Obama share the hesitations. In dozens of interviews, South Florida Jews questioned his commitment to Israel — even some who knew he earns high marks from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which lobbies the United States government on behalf of Israel.

“You watch George Bush for a day, and you know where he stands,” said Rabbi Jonathan Berkun of the Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center.

Many here suspect Mr. Obama of being too cozy with Palestinians, while others accuse him of having Muslim ties, even though they know that his father was born Muslim and became an atheist, and that Mr. Obama embraced Christianity as a young man. In Judaism, religion is a fixed identity across generations.

“His father was a Muslim and you can’t take that out of him,” said Ms. Chotiner, 51, who said she would still vote for Mr. Obama, out of Democratic loyalty. “Do I have very strong reservations? Yes, I do,” she said.

Several interviewees said they had reservations about Mr. Obama’s stated willingness to negotiate with Iran — whose nuclear ambitions and Holocaust-denying president trigger even starker fears among Jews than intifada uprisings and suicide bombings. American Jews are by no means uniformly opposed to negotiations with Iran, the leaders of several Jewish groups said, but there is no consensus, and everyone fears that the wrong choice could lead to calamity. Israelis fear Iran “could be the first suicide nation, a nation that would destroy itself to destroy the Jewish nation,” Mr. [Alan] Dershowitz said.

While most of this report is anecdotal, there are some data supporting the trend. The latest Rasmussen poll in Florida shows McCain beating Obama 50-40. More interestingly, “Just 57% of Florida Democrats say they will vote for Obama while 27% plan to vote for McCain. The two candidates are essentially even among unaffiliated voters.” To be sure, part of this is a function of Hillary Clinton supporters who haven’t accepted that Obama will be the nominee yet, combined with some bitterness over how the DNC has treated the state. Regardless, Obama has to view this with some concern.

Dave Schuler, Alex Knapp, Dodd Harris and I talked about this phenomenon in passing on last night’s edition of OTB Radio, mostly inspired by a RealClearPolitics piece by former NYC mayor Ed Koch, a liberal Democrat who backed President Bush in 2004 “saying at the time that I did not agree with him on a single domestic issue, but I did believe he was the only one running who appreciated the threat of Islamic terrorism to American values and Western civilization and was prepared to wage a war to defend those values.” Despite Bush’s horrendous approval ratings, Koch argues history will vindicate him precisely because of his stance on terrorism and, in particular, his staunch support of Israel.

I’m dubious of Koch’s claims on a variety of fronts. But there is likely a strong contingent of “Ed Koch Democrats” out there who vote with a keen eye toward America’s policy toward Israel. That both baffles and concerns me but it’s a reality.

Today’s Democratic primaries in Kentucky and Oregon provide something akin to a rematch of the recent Indiana-North Carolina pairing. Hillary Clinton should easily win Kentucky, where Barack Obama hasn’t even bothered to campaign, and Obama should take Oregon.

The Polls

The latest RealClearPolitics average has Clinton up a whopping 29 points in Kentucky and Obama up a comfortable 12 in Oregon. A strange thing, though, about Oregon: the polls are all over the place.

ARG, which has it as a 5 point race — and a 4 percent margin of error — has done well predicting margins and turnout in recent contests. Their internals:

Barack Obama leads Hillary Clinton 57% to 39% among men (48% of likely Democratic primary voters). Among women, Clinton leads 51% to 44%.

Obama leads 51% to 44% among white voters (88% of likely Democratic primary voters). Clinton leads 50% to 46% among Hispanic voters (6% of likely Democratic primary voters).

Obama leads 55% to 38% among voters age 18 to 49 (49% of likely Democratic primary voters) and Clinton leads 52% to 45% among voters age 50 and older.

Clinton and Obama are tied at 49% each among voters saying they have returned their ballots (58% of likely Democratic primary voters) and Obama leads 52% to 40% among voters saying they will definitely return their ballots by May 20th.

20% of likely Democratic primary voters say they would never vote for Hillary Clinton in the primary and 22% of likely Democratic primary voters say they would never vote for Barack Obama in the primary.

Prediction

Clinton will win Kentucky by even more than the 29 point average margin. Call it 73-26.

Oregon will be interesting. Obama is ahead in every single poll but his demographics are slightly softer. I’d still guess he’ll take it by something like 10 points. Call it 55-45.

Impact

If things go more-or-less according to script, Obama will be the night’s winner. He’ll almost certainly go over the 50 percent mark in pledged delegates, further enhancing the perception that he’s the presumptive nominee. (Clinton, meanwhile, claims to have passed 300 Electoral Votes and thus won, easily. Someone forgot to tell her that the Electoral College is for the general election, not the primaries.)

The only way it gets interesting is if Clinton wins Oregon. While highly unlikely, it’s not out of the realm of possibility. There are two polls which have her within the margin of error and she’s leading among the more reliable older voters. If she somehow pulls it off, she’ll get some buzz and strengthen her argument to the superdelegates that she’s the stronger candidate.

But she has to win. Even coming very, very close won’t be enough.

UPDATE (Dodd): Hillary Clinton should easily win Kentucky, where Barack Obama hasn’t even bothered to campaign….

I keep hearing this and I presume it’s because that’s the pre-match spin Obama’s campaign’s been putting out to diminish the significance of his expected loss here. But it’s patently false. Obama himself was here in Louisville last week for a standing room only rally (10,000 got in, hundreds more were turned away). He has an office here in what used to be the county Democrat Party HQ (and before that was my favourite coffee shop – that corner’s really gone downhill). His campaign is definitely canvassing heavily. And, even though I don’t watch that much television, I’ve been seeing quite a lot of his TV ads for the last 2-3 weeks (by contrast, I have not seen a single one for Hillary!).

Tyler Cowen and Alex Massie, an economist and a Scotsman, might seem to be odd sources for advice on American country music but they’ve both written interesting posts on the topic. Neither grew up with the tradition but they found religion and are now offering recommendations for those looking to wade in.

Cowen suggests, Hank Sr., The Byrds, Sweetheart of the Rodeo, and The Flying Burrito Brothers for starters and suggests moving on to the Louvin Brothers, Tragic Songs of Life, Dolly Parton, Dock Boggs, Patsy Cline, and, of course, Johnny Cash. He also likes Ryan Adams. Meanwhile, he finds that, “George Jones and Bob Willis and Merle Haggard are all in my view somewhat overrated.”

Massie agrees with that finding and seconds Cowen’s other recommendations and adds several names to the list, including Emmy Lou Harris, Waylon Jennings, and Townes van Zandt.

First things, first: Jones and Haggard are overrated in the same sense as the Beatles and “Star Wars.” They’re archetypes of the genre but others have copied them so much that it’s easy to come to the party late and wonder what the big deal is.

I must confess, though, that I’ve never gotten into Bob Wills (although I’m led to believe he’s still the king). He popularized Texas Swing and had a huge influence on later artists who I like much better. But, frankly, I don’t like the high pitched, whiny voices that were popular in old-timey hillbilly music. For the same reason, I prefer Hank Jr to Hank Sr and the successors of Bill Monroe to the Father of Bluegrass.

As to the artist lists Cowen and Massie compile, I’d say they make for a good sampling of the genre, although perhaps an overbroad definition. Which is fine, really. Country radio nowadays includes Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, the Eagles, and several acts that were pure rock and roll in their day. Still, were I trying to introduce someone raised on other types of music to country, I would probably hold off on some of these choices.

Steve Earle famously proclaimed that, ”Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world and I’ll stand on Bob Dylan’s coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that.” (To which Van Zandt retorted, “I’ve met Bob Dylan and his bodyguards, and I don’t think Steve could get anywhere near his coffee table.”) While that might be hyperbolic, it’s certainly the case that Townes wrote some great songs and influenced a whole generation of musicians. He was not, however, a great singer and he can be an acquired taste. “Flying Shoes” and “Dead Flowers” are classics, though, and could certainly be included in an introductory mix tape.

Speaking of Steve Earle, I’d definitely include him on the list. While some critics hate his singing style, he’s more friendly on the ears than Van Zandt and his Southern rock influence will help smooth the transition. (Although, oddly, his version of “Way Down in the Hole,” the theme song for The Wire, was the worst of the five. His acting on the series is much better. Go figure.)

Robert Earl Keene belongs on the list. Like his Aggie neighbor, Lyle Lovett, he never got a lot of play on country radio. His ironic lyrics, upbeat tune, and musical skill will appeal to those predisposed to dismiss “hick music.” I’d especially recommend “The Road Goes On Forever,” “Dreadful Selfish Crime,” and “I’m Comin’ Home.”

As to the ladies, while it’s hard to go wrong with Parton or Harris, I’m not sure Alison Krauss isn’t a better starting point. Her vocals are even better and she’s a virtuoso fiddle player backed by a band of incredible musicians. That she’s a Midwesterner might make the introduction easier, too.

I’m sure I’m missing some obvious choices.

UPDATE: Like, duh, Willie Nelson. And, as Massie noted in an email exchange, Dwight Yoakam.

The latest kerfuffle in the 2008 campaign is the shocking revelation that Hillary Clinton hasn’t pumped her own gas in years.

And here I thought that, when the Secret Service pulled up to the pump, she got out and filled ‘er up. And probably washed the windows and checked the oil. And the tire pressure. I mean, sure, that might compromise her security a little bit. And get her hands dirty. But that’s what all the Washington pols do, right?

That she can’t figure out the coffee machine is a little more amusing. Then again, I don’t drink much gas station cappuccino these days, either. And, honestly, there is enough variety in how drink dispensers work that it sometimes takes me a couple of minutes how to figure out how work a new one, too.

Hard though it may be to believe, a lot of NFL owners are actually strapped for cash — and are looking at their current deal with the players as the cause:

Sometimes financial well-being simply doesn’t compute. In a resort hotel where coffee costs over $6, many an NFL owner was kind of crying last week about money. Basically, they don’t like the current disbursement of league revenue, which amounts to around 60 percent of everything to the players.

To a seasoned listener of this league, it is a foregone conclusion that this November these owners will opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement, one they approved 30-2 just before former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue retired. The vote to disapprove the current deal may be the same! …

[T]here seems to be some concerns among many owners, especially those who own and control their own stadiums, that the individual club profit margin has slipped precipitously…. Some of these owners are earning less than their best player….

Markets like Jacksonville, Buffalo, Carolina, New Orleans, San Diego and San Francisco are being squeezed…. Right now, the current CBA doesn’t make any sense to the owners and they sound ready for a serious fight.

Gene Upshaw apparently thinks a year with no salary cap in 2010 would be a boon for players. Would the owners go back to the 80’s with lockouts and/or scabs in 2011? Could be. Or it could just be posturing for negotiating purposes.

The rule of thumb for American politics in the media appears to be classifying politicians as being on the “beer-track” or “wine-track”, or, in the alternative Hillary Clinton formation, “Starbucks vs. Dunkin’ Donuts”. In other words, if you prefer wine over beer or Starbucks over Dunkin’ Donuts, then you are an “elitist”, and if not, you’re just a “regular person.”

The problem with this formulation is that with the myriad of consumer choices to be made these days, this seems to be a simplisitic formula by which to judge elitism, doesn’t it? For one thing, if you get coffee at Starbucks, are you more of an elitist than someone who gets a latte at Dunkin’ Donuts?

Here are some other issues:

I prefer beer to wine, generally, but I prefer wine to what passes for “beer” to most Americans–the flavorless pilsners that go by Budweiser, Coors, etc. Is that elitist or not?

I prefer gin martinis to vodka martinis. Is that non-elitist, or does choosing between martinis automatically make one elitist to begin with?

I like smoking cigars, but not only do my firefighter and military buddies enjoy them, but my country club golfer friends do, too. So is cigar smoking elitist, or a regular joe thing?

I prefer prime rib to filet mignon–which I’m pretty sure makes me not an elitist. Still, how close a call is that? Is the non-elitist choice there “burger”?

I prefer local family pizza joints to Pizza Hut. On the one hand, preferring local to chains seems to put you in the elitist camp. On the other hand, family joints tend to be more working class places. So does that mean non-elitist? It’s a tough call.

I can barely break 100 when I bowl, which I’m pretty sure makes me elitist, given the outcry over Obama’s abysmal 37. On the other hand, my Wii bowling average is about 180. So does that make me non-elitist?

Really, somebody needs to put out some sort of guide for this so that reporters can keep it on hand. And let me know if I’m an elitist, too, wouldja?

Paul Adams asks, “Could a Coffee Maker Be Worth $11,000?”

The short answer is No, at least at the household level, barring the return of Carteresque inflation. But the machine in question, the Clover 1s, isn’t aimed at consumers but rather coffee shops. And it sounds pretty spiffy:

It brews coffee like a French press, but it’s more dramatic to watch and much more precise. Unlike lesser methods of making coffee, which are no more reliable than their users and can’t be counted on to produce the same cup twice, the Clover is equipped with a “PID algorithm” for regulating temperature and “programmable workflow modes” to help micromanage the brewing process. Latourell enumerates six variables that contribute to the taste of brewed coffee—choice of bean, grind, “dose” of coffee, brewing time, temperature, and amount of water. The first three, for better or worse, are in the hands of the barista (”Call me when you get a better grinder!” Latourell half-teases the Grumpy staff)—but the Clover can precisely regulate the last three.

The result, apparently, is some pretty good coffee. More importantly, it’s a different idea of coffee.

By creating this rigorous laboratorylike brewing environment, it encourages cafes to explore the nuances of different beans, where and how they’re grown and dried and sorted and roasted. And the attention to nuance gets passed along to the customers: Grumpy’s clientele can choose from a coffee menu listing several brews, including the Cruz del Sur, “punchy and bright with pear and green apple,” and the San José El Yalú, “complex and crisp with butterscotch, grape, chocolate and plum.”

The aspirational comparison of coffee to wine is obvious, and the passionate young Clover virtuosos at Cafe Grumpy indeed remind me of wine enthusiasts; they’re seriously invested in their work, nothing like the sullen soy-foamers at Starbucks or even at other independent coffee shops I frequent. On the cafe’s blog, barista Ed describes his recent visit to coffee farms in Panama.

For now, Latourell admits that wine may be “50 years ahead of coffee” technologically. “We’re just starting to scratch the surface of what can be done with coffee, how we understand it.” But that’s changing fast. The world of winemaking is wracked by a tension between the old, individualistic ways, in which each wine tastes distinctively of its origin, and the new methods that produce best-selling wines in a uniform “global” style divorced from regional characteristics. The story of coffee is the reverse—until recently, coffees were blended and branded to suit a homogenous popular taste, and only now is there a rising interest in the expression of varietal and regional differences.

At this price, with its need to sell cups of Joe at $10-$15, it all seems a little silly. Then again, I can remember when the idea of paying $10 a pound for coffee beans that one had to actually grind (when name brand coffees already ground could be had for $1 a pound) was absurd.