back to article Sarah Palin's words get data mined

Business Intelligence (BI) is about extracting information from data. The name implies that it is only applicable to business information, but that’s misleading. Given the right techniques, information can be found in the most unexpected places - even in the speeches of vice-presidential candidates. Sarah Palin’s meteoric rise …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Laugh ?

    It's going to be tragic.

    The world's media, with the likes of the BBC and Time Magazine, are leading people to believe Barack Obama will win. Even the US media, while making fun on Palin and McCain, are leading people to believe Obama will win.

    People in the US are conservative. Don't believe the polls, call it Bradley Effect or whatever, the sad truth is that Obama will lose. The country is controlled by a rich minority - bosses who'll say things like "you know if you vote for Obama, Democratic policies will mean layoffs..."

    People are scared. They will vote conservatively.

    The world will be shocked, we in the UK may be lighting fireworks to celebrate the thwarting of a gunpowder plot on 5 November, in the US they will be in shock at the prospect of McCain / Palin leadership for the next 4 years.

  2. Sceptical Bastard
    Alert

    Despair and die!

    Stock up on tinned food and bottled water!! Run for the bomb shelters!

    This woman is NOT very clever. An object of fun and ridicule maybe ... but smart enough to have her finger on the red button, no fucking way!

    As for being a MILF, only if the 'F' stands for 'forget'.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Email analysis

    I did something similar with my email inbox to characterise the language used by various people. I thought I hit a bug when my boss's profile seemed to consist entirely of very common words e.g. "we need", "we must", "we should".

    Actually it was right - management have a habit of giving instructions in this way. Some translations....

    "We need to .." = "You need to ..."

    "We must ..." = "You must...."

    "We should..." = "You should..."

    See the pattern?

    Having learned this I now have a great system for routing emails to junk folders.

  4. Anton Ivanov

    Very weak approach

    When analysing this type of data, using word frequencies gives very little information and requires a hellish amount of data to produce something reliable. However, there are other approaches which can provide an extremely valuable insight onto such small data-sets. Personally, instead of BI I would have used Bayesian stats. They tend to work much better on such small datasets and they show some really unexpected insights when applied over increasing interword distances. They can also be applied in a form where you can see the actual evolution of the content and what was fine-tuned and changed from one interview to another.

  5. michael

    "For reasons that are too technical to go into here"

    I take it that "here" is this context is 3 rd stool along at the bar of the reg local

  6. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

    BI is the modern phrenology

    How about Palin's astrological chart. What does numerology have to say about people called Sarah Palin? Got a sample of her handwriting? How about some graphology or for some professional pseudoscience, use a lie detector.

    I am sure any of these methods would have made a funnier article - better still, use them all on ten year old material about George Bush, and compare the results to what we found out the hard way.

    If you want to know the future, I recommend interpreting the howls of dogs. Dogs do not charge that much and they know as much about the future as most stock analysts.

  7. Pete Silver badge

    So what was Regan's score?

    What would be more illuminating would be to see how all the candidates compare to past presidents. Then we might be able to say which have been the most successful strategies in the past. All that would remain then would be to teach them to a parrot, and the rest of the world could breathe a sigh of relief: save in the knowledge that no more bad things would happen so long as the newly elected president didn't run out of bird-food.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    With this level of political impartiality...

    Have you considered a job at the BBC?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    That Friday feeling

    Love the disclaimer at the end about applying it to V.Central, how is that rod feeling in your back ;)

    I have a project manager this could be particularly useful for, just need to develop it to work in real time with voice recognition and I can call him on his bullshit there and then.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Palin

    PS. I still haven't worked out what the hell a hockey mom is or what kind of life style, or personal attributes it's supposed to represent.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Blears/Palin

    Palin's twang she developed whilst governor of Alaska is a mechanism, heck, call it a trick to manipulate votes, to convince the public she is just a commoner, a peasant, one of them, rather than some rich kid that wouldn't have a clue what values the commoners/ordinary man has.

    Haven't you noticed how Hazel Blears bleats on about her Salford working class ( presumably council estate roots). In fact I came from a council estate but I don't friggin well bleat on about it in every interview.

    Same manipulating principle, I'm one of you.

    Listen Ms. Blears, go back to Salford and f*** ng stay there if you love it that much.

    I spent ten years in Manchester and whilst there are one or two good areas of Salford, it's generally a s**t hole and if you come from the rough parts I wouldn't be proud of it.

    As for Palin getting into power? God f**ng help us all, the entire world that is. She couldn't even get a university degree without dropping out of numerous colleges (presumably because it was too tough for her), heck, look at Samantha Fox, even she has a degree from the Open University, if you're prepared to study a bit each week for long enough (typically 5 years for OU), then any sad useless f**ker can get a degree in some useless subject.

    Doesn't mean to say you're particularly bright or hard working.

    Palin is dangerous.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Sometimes...

    I'd like to apply Discworld logic. Phrenology is the skill of reading the bumps on someones head to learn something about their personality and behaviour. Logically, a change to those bumps should lead to a change in the person.

    So, we just need a few minutes with Sarah Palin and a baseball bat...

    @AC1 - I have a horrible feeling you are right. I'm really not sure whether John McCain on his own would be better or worse than Bush, but if Palin makes VP, we're doomed. I'm just hoping you're wrong about the media hype.

    Black helicopters, because all the ACs saying things like this are in the firing line if she wins. Our only hope is that she can't find EastMidlandsShireIstan on the map...

  13. Tim Croydon

    If you torture data sufficiently...

    ... it will tell you almost anything.

    Attributed to, I believe, Fred Menger.

    TC

  14. Martin

    It was bugging me....

    But now I know where I've seen Ms. Palin before.

    She's the "Universal Optician's Spectacles Model" isn't she?

    Look at any specs ad - there she is.

  15. ian

    Bemused

    I think it odd that Palin identifies herself as a bitch (a female dog) when she claims to be a pitbull. Given the pitbull's reputation, is she a bitch on wheels?

    Has no one in the republican party considered this?

  16. Ken Hagan Gold badge
    Paris Hilton

    Re: With this level of political impartiality...

    I'd expect to find a disclaimer within the article itself. Oh, hang on, there was one. Several in fact. Lighten up. It's Friday, most of El Reg's readership aren't voting next week and those that are will be voting for Paris anyway.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.

    He chased the rouged rascal round the ragged rock.

    We have our Eliza Palin, now who can play Mr Higgins?

  18. Hig Hurtenflurst
    Paris Hilton

    URL better than article?

    Thought I was missing something!

  19. Pierre

    Don't mind me...

    ... I'll just sit here and wait for Matt's Bry(lli)ant* flaming response...

    *Yes, I'm being ironical.

  20. StillNoCouch
    Thumb Down

    That's BI ?

    Counting words is hardly Business Intelligence.

    ( 6 )

  21. FreeTard

    Bush is dense, and he got back in.

    I don't believe for a second that Obama will win, I agree with AC.

  22. Duncan Jeffery

    O'bama

    Has anyone doen some analysis on Obama's utterings to detect if he is actuially saying anything meaningful, or if it just a complete synthesis of warm-fuzzy-buzzy-electoral words ?

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    @Paul Bristow

    Why the down thumb? I suppose it will come as a shock to your naivety but at no time has any media outlet been impartial. You must have a fundamental misunderstanding as to where "news" comes from and how that news is disseminated.

    That's why an intelligent person checks attribution and provenance. In this respect I think El Reg have, again, done a damn fine job.

  24. Steen Hive
    Thumb Up

    @Paul Bristow

    How does illuminating a dangerous, borderline-psychotic numbskull impact political impartiality?

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Fuck marketeers.

    Which twit decided that a visual tool which does more or less the same as grep / sort / uniq and the unix CLI have been doing for years decided to call it BI ?

    Is this related to the sexual preference of said marketeers?

    I'll go crawl back under my rock where I manage to avoid most marketing at least until el reg runs stories on whatever acronyms are in fashion.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    hmm, same crap... way to stand out el reg! *not

    Is it a requirement now to get a journalism degree you have to be so obnoxiously, liberally, blinded and one sided in your personal opinions that the scant chance your reader base *might* think differently than you is completely out of the question?

    This is the same scenario over and over again. Ever heard the old tiresome statement that "conservatives are close-minded?" I have to laugh when liberal nut jobs tell me they are "open-minded." Technically, if you were "open-minded," as you speak, you would see that my conservative opinion is as valuable as anyone else's and be fighting to the death so I had the right to express it. Furthermore, anyone that told me I was wrong would be reprimanded by an army of liberals screaming with arms flailing, "HE'S RIGHT, HE CAN'T HELP IT, HE WAS BORN CONSERVATIVE! ITS GENETIC! ITS NOT HIS FAULT!" But the whole lie of liberalism is some are 'more equal than others' (depending if you agree with them or not) hence liberalism nothing but a self-defeating empty promise.

    The good news is, it seems I can get the same droning, ill-informed, close minded opinions on the register now too. Guess there won't be any need to check this site for "news" anymore.

  27. paul

    @AC

    Yep GOP will win again - all those electronic voting machine vote voted for bush in 2004. (30% of the whole vote)

    Lots of controversy last time and the time before that.....

    Hopefully the feds will get it right this time.

  28. cybersaur
    Go

    Palin / McCain will lose

    Presidential wanna-be Palin is an empty-headed nitwit. She is clueless on national and international issues.

    With regard to all the conservative comments here about how Palin / McCain are winning, but the so-called "liberal" media is concealing it, that's just a small taste of the inane, mindless crap right wingers spew on this side of the pond all the time. Do you see what we in that States have to put up with?

    I'm a political junkie and I look at polling numbers many times throughout the day. I can tell you with certainty that Obama will not only win, he will trounce Palin / McCain. You see, American right wingers have no connection to reality. They do not appreciate what we liberals like to call "facts" and "science". Because their candidates are shown to be far behind in electoral votes isn't because they're losing, but, according to the reality denying nutters, it's because of some grand "liberal" media conspiracy.

    How certain am I that Obama will win on November 4th? I'd bet my beloved C=64 on it!

    GO icon for Change We Can Believe In!

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    RE: hmm, same crap...

    If you consider the etymology of the word "Conservative" you will notice it comes from "Conserve", i.e. to keep the same. So, conservatives are almost by definition close-minded. They want to maintain the status quo (I got mine, the rest of the world can sod off).

    Having the right to express an opinion is not the same as BEING right. Opinions are supposed to be based on facts. When the facts are ignored, the opinion can be wrong. If the facts change, the opinion should too. Conservatives ^H^H^H^H^H^H Republicans are always complaining that so-called liberals are wishy-washy, wafflers, or flip-floppers. What that means is they are open-minded enough to reconsider their position if new evidence arises. "Sticking to your guns", even when proven wrong, on religious or ideological grounds isn't admirable, it's just plain stupid.

    I would much rather have a president who is big enough to admit when he was wrong and change course, than one who "stays the course" even though it is leading into a quagmire. Stern resolve in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary is not a positive characteristic.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ Paul

    "Hopefully the feds will get it right this time." Nope they wont. Bush and his cronies have already proven more than once they can buy an election in one way or another. And McCain being the republican yes man he is will go along with what ever they want to do. The only hope is that the sheer number of votes will be to large to be ignored. Thus providing the kind of intense spot light on the vote that bush and co. don't want. There by negating their chances of pulling the same stunt for the third election in a row.

  31. Steen Hive
    Coat

    @The "open-minded", conservative AC

    Ever notice that when a so-called "conservative" Septic opens their filthy orifice there's always a bit about "fighting to the death" with someone - anyone - somewhere submerged in the spittle-flecked, incoherent shite?

  32. Drak

    a flash game of Palin as president

    Just click around the office, this pretty well describes the oval office if McCain corks in office:

    http://palinaspresident.us/

  33. V.Srikrishnan

    Hockey Mom??

    I am from India and we have our own unique antics by the vote grubbers.

    However, as asked by another person earlier: what/who is a hockey mom?

    if a hockey mom is the stereotype of an ordinary person, it would be dangerous to place that person in a position to potentially control the worlds most potent army.

    after all, we call a specialist to do his job, why a potential President identifies himself with a "joe the plumber" to gather votes defies logic.

  34. Drak
    Thumb Up

    palin's greatest hit youtube video

    you could never believe she would say this stuff till you see it yourself

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrzXLYA_e6E

  35. Drak

    but theres more

    miss alaska 1984 swimsuit competition

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSdFIDygFwM&feature=related

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    @Email analysis

    Hell you should see my system....

    If i get one stupid email at work I create a rule that permanently moves any mail from that person into the deleted items folder....

    And my boss still doesnt know why I dont get emails from him or any upper management.

    Anon cause well.....no need to give out my secret :P

  37. Mike Morgan
    Unhappy

    People in the US are conservative.

    No we are not! We are bigoted, intolerant, uneducated, rednecks, and most of us seem to be proud of it. Can I move to your country?

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    to those thinking the election is over

    I don't know why people think the election is over. Last time I checked, only the Electorial College votes count and only 2 states change a "faithless elector's" vote if it doesnt match their pledge. So pretty much in all but, 2 states a Electorial College voter can vote for whomever they want without any regard for how the general public they are supposed to represent voted. A person running for office can lose the popular vote but, still win the election. So how is this election over?

  39. Michael
    Stop

    @ cybersaur

    >>>Presidential wanna-be Palin is an empty-headed nitwit. She is clueless on national and international issues.

    Because clearly, anyone who disagrees with the liberal agenda must be stupid.

    >>>but the so-called "liberal" media is concealing it,

    So-called? Have you not been paying attention, or are you just so biased yourself, that you fail to recognize the fact that media coverage of the candidates is completely skewed...

    >>>that's just a small taste of the inane, mindless crap right wingers spew on this side of the pond all the time. Do you see what we in that States have to put up with?

    People who stereotype conservatives? I know, it's tragic.

    >>>I'm a political junkie and I look at polling numbers many times throughout the day. I can tell you with certainty that Obama will not only win, he will trounce Palin / McCain.

    Assuming the people who responded to the polls did so honestly, and assuming that the poll sample is representative of the population, neither of which is likely to be the case...

    >>>You see, American right wingers have no connection to reality. They do not appreciate what we liberals like to call "facts" and "science".

    Says the person stereotyping all conservatives... Where are the facts there?

    >>>How certain am I that Obama will win on November 4th? I'd bet my beloved C=64 on it!

    I'll be glad to take it off your hands if Obama loses. Notice that I say if. Why is that? Because unlike you, I DO have a sense of reality. Though I don't support the man, I accept the possibility that he may win.

    As a parting shot, I return to a comment I've made more than once. What's the difference between a Conservative and a Liberal? A Conservative wants to convince the opposition. A Liberal wants to silence it. Go on and vote for Obama and watch as your liberties dissolve. Watch as you rely on the government for everything. Watch as the US becomes eerily similar to Germany in Hitler's early years... I weep for this country if they elect Mr. Marx^H^H^H^HObama...

  40. Jon
    Thumb Up

    RE: RE: hmm, same crap...

    Not sure which dictionary you are using, but I last time I checked "conserve" means , "To use wisely." "Keeping the same" would be a "preservist." Of course, as you said, Liberals are allowed to change whatever facts they want to and flip flop back and forth in order to stroke their fragile egos. God forbid you be wrong, you're liberal buddies might make fun of you for taking responsibility for your actions. Speaking of, since when to liberals admit they're wrong? They don't, they just say, "this is what I believe is right now... at this point in time."

    But yes, you do manage to crap of a true fact: A core facet of conservatism is to stick to you know what's right in the face of opposition. Everyone has different opinions, it's a conservative thinker's personal responsibility to sort out those that are merely trying to personally profit unjustly at other's expense, and those who truly have good intentions and seek to better everyone. It's a conservatives responsibility to preserve human rights, willfully help others, and oppose "fads" and swim against the current occasionally.

    So all in all, when bridge jumping becomes the new fad on CNN (we're getting very close lately), you can count me out. I'll stick to my guns with my redneck, Yankee, cowboys while your posse of popped collar pink polo shirt protestors tell me 'it's a new century and my beliefs are outdated.' The whole way you fall feel free to scream I'm close-minded, stubborn and I won't survive unless I buy into what you are currently yabbering about.

    Oh a wishy-washy, waffling flip-flopper is how you describe a person that, "won't take responsibility for their actions, likes to blame others for mistakes, irresponsible, immature, and unreliable."

  41. Chris G

    McCain & Obama

    I dislike equally, if the decider was to be based on who is the running mate I would have to go for the democrat simply because Sideshow Sarah is clearly not White House material. Why the hell she was chosen as a running mate is beyond me,are the Republicans so short of females for the housewives vote or so dependant on them that Sarah Palin is their only possible choice?

    At least Palin's opposite number appears to be batting with a full team, Sideshow Sarah doesn't look as though she can even find the bat.

    It doesn't matter whether you data mine or just think her eyes are too close together she shouldn't get a vote unless you are willing to contemplate WW III because her sister got mugged in a foreign country.

    The most surprising thing about her? She's not blond!

  42. Martin Usher
    Paris Hilton

    Palin's a TV newscaster

    She's very good with working from a teleprompter. She was -- according to her campaign people -- woefully underprepared for this pick and it showed even after several weeks of intense preparation. Her most notable gaffes haven't been reported overseas because they probably don't mean much -- she appears to be almost completely ignorant of our Constitution, our Bill of Rights and the roles of various parts of the Federal government. Even in Alaska she didn't really get the idea, sending her husband to meetings because she was "too busy" and the like.

    I'm cautiously optimistic that we can dodge this one. There are better GoP candidates out there but none were prepared to step up for this election cycle.

    Paris seems to have more understanding of issues and policies and a much more effective TV presence. Maybe she should consider a career in politics?

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sarah Palin Get's Dirty Mind

    Possibly more interesting if one could find the IT angle - on reflection though - associating Business Intelligence (or any other sort of inelegance) to Ms. Palin is about as close to an oxymoron as one could get - kudos to the software for not having a hissy fit and turning blue !

  44. Sceptical Bastard

    @ Drak

    Thanks for the first link (greatest gaffes) - recommended viewing and confirms my gloomiest expectations...

    The scary thing is that Dubya was even more inarticulate, gaffe-prone and seemingly ignorant of world affairs before he was elected - and we ended up with eight years of him. So Palin's self-evident ignorance and belligerance are not necessarily deterrents to a McCain win.

    As for Drak's second link (slut in swimsuit), I feel suddenly queasy...

  45. Frumious Bandersnatch
    Happy

    @Sometimes...

    I believe the word you're looking for is "retro-phrenology" or just plain "reverse phrenology".

    ObInsult: Of course you'd say that...you have the brainpan of a stagecoach tilter!

  46. Jim Oase

    Being partial is expensive ....

    The halls of "news organizations" ring with partial information these days. Being partial is like the housing boom that fuel our current economic down turn, works great until the fuel runs out. In the economic boom the fuel was money to loan and low level criteria to get it. In the political arena partial information works until reality doesn't match the partial information for an increasing number of society.

    We can improve anything to the degree we can measure it. In society we measure by looking at the pro's and con's of issues. "News Organizations" are tasked with the difficult task of providing impartial information for masses of society to measure. Skipping steps and going directly to measured information reduces society to a more singular brain and a more sheep like society. Works good until too many sheep are being compromised.

    Lowering the bar didn't work for the housing boom. Lowering the bar, welfare, has never worked for increasing our efforts to support ourselves. Increasing taxes to increase entitlements has never improved societies cash flow. Doing for other who are not also doing for themselves has never worked.

    Growth is the result of actions fueled by innovations and persistence.

  47. Jim
    Thumb Down

    RE: RE: RE: hmm, same crap...

    Back to school with you.

    Do you really think that

    "Of course, as you said, Liberals are allowed to change whatever facts they want to..."

    has anything like the same meaning as

    "If the facts change, the opinion should too."

    F

  48. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    RE:Hockey Mom?? By V.Srikrishnan

    Thank you, V.Srikrishnan. We, here in North America, Canada is my home, have taken the idea that "All men (people) are created equal under God." to be "All men (people) are created equal". This is, of course, an untrue, but popular, and politically correct, misrepresentation that can be interpreted as Joe the plumber is just as qualified to be the president of a country as a Harvard, you name a top university.

    Now, people will argue that they know a plumber with two university degrees who could do the job or plumber with no other education who could and there doubtlessly are those people out there. The difference being is that those who have furthered their education have shown an ability to learn/understand complex concepts and develop problem solving skills to match these issues. One hopes

    As to the hockey mom question. That is a mother, who takes her children to participate is sporting events and is that loud overbearing person who can be heard all over the stadium. Very annoying, overly protective, and as you pointed out not necessarily a stereotype a rational/thinking population would want to vote for.

    Paris, because she is every bit as smart a Palin.

  49. James Anderson
    Flame

    Liberal vs. Conservative

    Oh dear US political terms.

    Conservative == white, pro big business, ant- abortion anti contracception anti-what have you got. Economically free market is king as long as its american companies raking in the profits.

    Liberal == mixed race, pro big bisiness, pro-abortioin, pro contraception pro- what have you got. Economicaly protectionist unless amercian companies are losing out.

    If you take out the racial bias and the propensity for interfering in peoples private lives they are pretty much the same.

    However it should be stated that consevative ideaoligy is resposible for thousands of deaths in Africa because of its anti contraceptive stance has neutered any realistic attempt to comat aids.

  50. Winkypop Silver badge
    Alert

    Palin believes in the death-cult

    Check out her Church in Alaska, they WANT the end of the world to come NOW.

    As VP and maybe as POTUS, she might just press THE button!

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/us/politics/25faith.html?_r=1&bl&ex=1225166400&en=96e7a637508715b5&ei=5087&source=cmailer&oref=slogin

  51. Cortland Richmond

    And even el Reg hasn't noticed

    That the letters in "Sarah Palin" can be rearranged to read

    "Sharia Plan"

  52. Fluffykins Silver badge

    Fake

    Glasses

    Twang

    Sincerity

  53. Michael Dunn
    Coat

    Conserve?

    And here was I thinking the "conserve" meant somethinmg made from raspberries.

    Mine's the one with a jar of jam in the pocket.

  54. FreeTard
    Thumb Up

    @"Sharia Plan"

    Brilliant. Especially since the 'repubs' let their supporters "accuse" Obama of being an Islamist.

    I'll never understand how this type of electioneering is allowed under US law. or is it?

    If not, then why is no-one ever prosecuted post election? For such a litigous nation, you'd think someone would want to question this in the courts (and make a few bucks).

    Oh and please stop using liberal as a bad word, coz it's not anywhere else in the world...

  55. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    (Lipstick on Pit-) Bull (shit) Interrogations

    And in other news, if you randomly shuffle the words on Sarah Palin's interview prompt cards you get all the published works of William Shakespear.

  56. Anonymous Coward
    IT Angle

    To be fair, you should compare her words to Obama

    Based upon real world experience, Obama having only 1.5 years of experience as a Senator and Palin having experience as a mayor of a town and the governor of a State, you should compare them. Biden, has much more experience than both Obama and Palin so the comparison is not fair. To be fair, do a comparison between McCain and Obama now. McCain has much more experience than any of the others mentioned.

    To attack Palin on the experience question is insane, since she's only trying to be VP. Obama is trying to be President. How's that make sense?

    IT? That's quite a stretch...

  57. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Maybe it's not science, but probably it is

    Word usage is very revealing - in unexpected ways. Simply counting words isn't statistically sound. Bayesian techniques work better, but doing the statistics properly is really quite tricky.

    Fortunately, none of this really matters because our brains are already wired to do this sort of thing without writing even a single line of code. How else do we infer meaning and emotion on other people's utterances that computers cannot yet pick up?

    So just listen to the words and you'll detect the fake ones. That's easy. The main problem is detecting the sincere ones. Read the word frequency counts and you'll see what your brain is already telling you. It is science. Not precise, but good enough to confirm what you already knew. Its real value lies in making you think objectively instead of just letting the words wash over you. Objective thinking is the last thing a politician wants you to do to their speech. That's why science works and politicians hate it.

    The penguin - cos you can't understand them!

  58. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Stick to Computers, El Reg!

    Your biased pieces are more worthy of latter-day, "Journalists".

  59. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    @To be fair, you should compare her words to Obama

    "IT? That's quite a stretch..."

    The article was about computer based analysis (mining) of comments made... these comments have drifted as a result of the use of the following sentence in the article "But hey, it does allow us to, you know, have a laugh an’ all, so we say, what the heck" and the first comment on here pointing out it's going to be no laughing matter :(

    The comparison of Palin and Obama is valid because, statistically, it's likely that McCain will die during his term and Palin will become President. Matt Damon has brought this to the attention of US voters (he's brighter than people may think).

    Don't believe the Polls, Obama will lose - it'll be like Hamilton in Formula one but there will be no Glock on slicks I'm afraid.

    November 5 - the world will be in shock...

    x-x

    Remember, remember the 5th of November,

    of equality, democracy - NOT,

    The world will remember,

    America's blunder,

    and forgive them? We shall not!

    x-x

    Guy Fawkes would be better than McCain... he had a lot of military experience as well.

    My coat - poems not my specialty ! 5th of November because the counting is going to take a lot of time...

  60. Scott
    Coat

    twits

    Being a "yankee" in the Deep South, I get the accent. I also get the, "when ya all leavin? now the rest of "all ya all (read the World) is chiming in with the same homily? All I can say is it's not contagious, it's genetic.

    my coat please..........

  61. Inachu

    She was the worst pick for VP ever!

    I have never seen a VP as bubble headed as her.

  62. kain preacher

    Obama will lose -.

    Really Damn I guess the election results were wrong .

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