Nate Silver on his FiveThirtyEight blog:

My argument, rather, is this: we’ve about reached the point where if Mr. Romney wins, it can only be because the polls have been biased against him. Almost all of the chance that Mr. Romney has in the FiveThirtyEight forecast, about 16 percent to win the Electoral College, reflects this possibility.

Silver got in a bit of a dustup this week over an ill-conceived wager against MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. Today’s post feels like a striking blow, a devastating vindication of his science.

Though he never calls out Scarborough by name, he does end on this blustery note (emphasis mine):

If the state polls are right, then Mr. Obama will win the Electoral College. If you can’t acknowledge that after a day when Mr. Obama leads 19 out of 20 swing-state polls, then you should abandon the pretense that your goal is to inform rather than entertain the public.

Translation: if I’m wrong my science is a hoax; if I’m right you’re an asshole.

Jason Kottke, who handed over the reigns of his kottke.org to Aaron Cohen while he waited for power to return at his home in NYC, reappeared on his site today to announce he is suspending posts for now.

I say “still dire” because I think the perception among people not in the NY/NJ area is one of “oh, the storm has passed, the flooding is subsiding, and everything is getting back to normal”. But that’s not what I’m hearing.

My sister and her family in North Jersey lost power and PSEG’s best guess as to when it will resume is next Friday night. They’re all fine, spending the weekend with my parents in the relatively unscathed Philadelphia area and figuring out their next move on Monday, but I cannot imagine what it must be like for those who have lost power without the means or local network to keep them afloat.

Roughly two-thirds of the gas stations in the state are closed, mainly because they don’t have power. Every day the power is out is a day this disaster is poised to spiral out of control.

Jason’s post hits exactly the right tone.

Things are getting worse (or certainly have the potential to get worse), not better, especially for those without the resources to care about which cool restaurants are open or how much an iPhone car service is gouging its customers or which Midtown office they’re gonna work on their startup from.

John Leland recounts a 1996 tumble by Bob Dole from the perspective of the photographers who witnessed it:

One caught the candidate, saving him from possible injury, while another caught the brunt of the falling banister, fracturing several bones in his foot. And one got the shot that captured the essence of a campaign that was starting to fall flat for a 73-year-old candidate whose age was already turning into a campaign issue.

Great story. And there’s also this:

It was the first year that campaign photographers used digital cameras, which meant they could transmit pictures to the East Coast in time for the next day’s newspaper.

“If I’d been shooting film, those pictures would’ve been 12 hours later, and maybe never seen the light of day,” Mr. Wilking said.

Amazing.

Amy Davidson for The New Yorker:

Treating Sandy as an event separate not only from politics generally but from the politics of this particular campaign would be a profound mistake.

I know, it feels ghoulish to talk politics in Sandy’s wake, but we don’t really have a choice. The fact is that our nation’s preparedness for disaster, including preventative measures like stemming global warming, comes down to who is in charge in Washington. A storm like Sandy helps bring all of that into sharp focus.

McKay Coppins, reporting for BuzzFeed, on Mitt Romney’s storm relief event:

As supporters lined up to greet the candidate, a young volunteer in a Romney/Ryan T-shirt stood near the tables, his hands cupped around his mouth, shouting, “You need a donation to get in line!”

Empty-handed supporters pled for entrance, with one woman asking, “What if we dropped off our donations up front?”

The volunteer gestured toward a pile of groceries conveniently stacked near the candidate. “Just grab something,” he said.

The Romney camp bought $5,000 of non-perishables at a Wal-Mart, not merely for donating to victims of Sandy, but first for setting up a photo op of the Republican candidate accepting the canned goods as part of the relief.

I wish I could say this is a new low for the GOP’s ticket, but there has been so much slime-ballery this year this latest dip-shit move has some steep competition.

Yesterday morning I walked our dog, Krull, at around 7am. The air in Austin was crisp, the sky was cloudless. Just before the sun came up, I could see the stars clearly, with Orion hovering just overhead. It was eerie; I knew Hurricane Sandy was about to barrel into the region I called home my entire life, and the weather here couldn’t possibly be any more beautiful.

I miss New York; I miss Philly. This storm has magnified that feeling.

I am starting to understand the people who, every time there is a major weather event, you see on the news refusing to leave their homes. It’s home, after all. I can’t imagine what it must be like to watch your house, your life, ravaged from afar.

New York City, where I lived for six years, most of my adult life, still feels like home, and it is crushing to see the photos coming out this morning.

Last summer, when Irene blew into Manhattan, I was lucky enough live on some of the highest ground in the city and have the means to prepare for a disaster. But not everyone is so lucky today. Whole communities need help rebuilding, not just homes but infrastructure. There is no question: hard times are ahead for the east coast.

If you can, please give your time, your attention or your money to whatever cause you feel most comfortable with. Here are two links to get you started:

• American Red Cross
• NECHAMA: Jewish Response to Disaster

My pal Rafi at Heeb also has a nice overview of local organizations that need assistance.

However you are weathering this storm, please stay safe and check in on your friends and family. I’m sure they have a story to tell.

UPDATE: Gothamist has posted a comprehensive list of ways to help victims of Hurricane Sandy.

Kyle Buchanan for Vulture (emphasis mine):

So, Disney bought Lucasfilm today. Significant! But here is the really, really crazy thing: In the release announcing the acquisition, buried in the sixth paragraph, comes this huge announcement: “[New Lucasfilm president Kathleen] Kennedy will serve as executive producer on new Star Wars feature films, with George Lucas serving as creative consultant. Star Wars Episode 7 is targeted for release in 2015, with more feature films expected to continue the Star Wars saga and grow the franchise well into the future.”

Before we all lose our minds I offer this wisdom: why the fuck not?

My thanks again to The New York Film Academy for sponsoring the candler blog this past week.

Are filmmakers and photographers breeds apart? Not necessarily. Some notable photographers have made films (Larry Clark, William Eggleston, William Klein, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Man Ray). In the 1990s, celebrity photographer Herb Ritts (Richard Gere, Julia Roberts, and Dalai Lama) won two MTV Video Awards for videos he directed for recording artists Janet Jackson and Chris Isaac, in addition to a large body of work in television advertising.

The New York Film Academy Photography School, offering a one-year program at its New York and Los Angeles campuses and a Master of Fine Arts at its LA film school campus, is a distinct program. The one-year program requires no photography experience, although many students have prior training. They learn basic technical, aesthetic and business skills required of professional photographers. Masters candidates study higher-level methodologies such as photochemical processing, specialized optics, printing processes and advanced digital techniques.

What’s the connection to filmmaking? After the technical aspects of still photography are mastered, some photographers just want their subjects to move. It doesn’t hurt to have trained in the sphere of actors, filmmakers, producers and screenwriters. That’s what happens to students at these NYFA campuses.

Dave Itzkoff at the NYT Arts Beat blog:

Faulkner Literary Rights, the company that controls works by that Nobel Prize-winning author of “The Sound and the Fury” and “As I Lay Dying,” has filed a lawsuit over [Woody] Allen’s 2011 film “Midnight in Paris” and what it says is that movie’s unauthorized use of a line from Faulkner’s book “Requiem for a Nun.”

No word yet on how this will effect Allen’s love letter to the American south, Vicky Cristina Yoknapatawpha.

Peter Cohen at The Loop:

Pocket, the popular “save for later” service already available for iOS and other mobile platforms and the Web, now has its own official Mac client.

Turns out it’s just a rewrapped version of Read Later. I use Read Later with Instapaper, and it will continue to work, but development is kaput.

As much as I love reading on my iPad and iPhone, I spend most of my day in front of a Mac. I really want an Instapaper app with custom fonts and page syncing, now more than ever. Ball’s in your court, I guess, Marco.