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April 21, 2012

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Sir Charles

testing, testing.

Linkmeister

RE: Keystone

I'd only say that I'll defer to the Nebraskans who worry about the Oglalla aquifer on which they depend for water.

nancy

I'm dealing with a family emergency long distance with no way to fix it and am reminded of the adage, once a parent...

Situation -- Coachella Music Festival, 90K strong I believe, 102º at the moment. 1200 miles away. My kid was slipped PCP onto a joint without his knowledge by his campsite mate . Middle of night phone call from ER tent. Sitting pulse 160. In fear of his life.

In process of being helped to care, loss of all ID -- wallet, cell, shuttle pass, and camelback backpack which supplied water. And now must make last minute return home arrangements since campsite mate and presumed friend is banished forever. Personally I'd like to strangle said friend if not have him arrested. Conversation: "Mom, have I been friends with a sociopath and just didn't know it?"

Will be back later to discuss motherhood. Ann Romney would have had this problem solved by now I'm sure.

kathy a.

oh, nancy. how awful. hope he is OK.

Sir Charles

linkmeister,

The United States has tens of thousands of miles of oil and gas pipelines. The XL opponents are trying to make this seem like an exotic and dangerous change in energy distribution and I believe that it is largely a red herring -- it's just a bigger pipeline that most -- the true aim is to discourage the development of the tar sands oil. And I am of the view that there is no way that Canada is going to not exploit this resource -- if need be they will pipe it to the Pacific and ship it to Asia, but it will be sold on the world market.

I am going to add the pipeline map to my post.

nancy,

I'm so sorry to hear your travails. Once a parent indeed.

I have always had an aversion to festivals -- too big and anarchic for my tastes.

Prup (aka Jim Benton)

I agree with jkathy, of course. And while having him arrested or strangling him would have unwonted consequences, there are a few advantages to social newtowrking sites, and this is one. That's a story that needs to be gotten out to thse who know the 'friend.'

(Btw, I hadn['t heard of people even being afraid of PCP-spaked joints dfor almost thirty years, and didn't know that was still ever being done. And giving anyone any sort of psycho-chemical unknowingly has always been a prime sin for any drug user. And, btw, tell the kid to smoke pipes rather than joints. Not only will he have less likelihood of something like this, but it is a lot less wasteful.)

I can only send my best wishes to your son -- this is the only situation where I regret my atheism, praying at least looks like you are doing something -- but he's already had one pretty big stroke of luck -- he's a winner in the 'parent sweepstakes' so maybe his luck will continue.

kathy a.

small silver lining from the far side of some adult parenting adventures -- you know things are headed in the right direction when they start figuring out their so-called friends are assholes.

nancy

thanks all. lots. he says he's OK, and radiohead is tonight. but this situation could get uglier. his computer, left behind at said friend's parents' home will need shipping. the train was the mode of transportation to CA. not very confrontational am i, so not looking forward to that conversation. "gee, your kid poisoned mine, without his knowledge or consent, and then left him stranded with no 'visible means of support'." which is how the doc-on-duty was dealing with him.

prup. i like your idea. and good to hear from you.

kathy a.

go for it, nancy. their kid might have a different story, surprise surprise, but your kid got to go to the ER tent AND get stranded without his computer, ID, or a means of transportation.

Sir Charles

nancy,

I somehow knew Thom Yorke had his hand in this. :-)

I am so sorry that you're going through this. I can imagine the sense of helplessness. I fear how badly I might react to this sort of thing.

And like Jim I'm kind of blown away by the whole PCP thing -- that seems so 1980 to me. (You also got him out of his lurking phase for a moment.)

Ah, and the Red Sox just lost 15-9 after being up 9-0. A legendary loss.

(You did ring

beckya57

I'm going to ignore Sir C's Radiohead slam.

Sorry about your son. Hard way to learn that some people, including ones that claim to be friends, can't be trusted, but that is an important life lesson. Glad he's ok. Stuff like that reminds me of why I was too chicken to ever become a parent.

Sir C, the M's lost recently after being up 7-1, which is almost as bad. And no M fan will ever forget the famous game in Cleveland in 2001 that they lost after being up 11-0. I think the final score was 15-14, or something like that.

Sir Charles

becky,

The Radiohead thing was just hanging there like one of the offerings from a Red Sox reliever.

I assume that this is something that happens to all teams, but we Red Sox fans have a self-absorbed sense of our own suffering. And there is something extra painful about losing in this fashion to the Yankees -- especially in Fenway -- on its hundredth birthday.

nancy

Becky -- Sir C don't get Thom. He wrong. :^)

Crissa

I thought the biggest reason against the Keystone pipline was that the operator has one of the worst records for operating a pipeline safely?

And that map probably includes the huge number of built and decommissioned pipelines... Not one running hot corrosive tar under pressure, the one of the hardest things to keep in a pipe and nearly impossible to remove once it has leaked.

Crissa

Why would someone waste a dose of something on someone who didn't want to partake? That's just... Anyhow, that sort of behavior would get them quickly banished from any circle of friends I know of. This year some guy was harassing the fan-con that I volunteer for with this behavior and it took a bit but he was tracked down and ejected into the arms of waiting police.

Seems to me most of the stories of this are probably just ghost-stories, but there's always a kernal of truth to them.

beckya57

Thanks for the support, nancy. ;-)

Sir C, at least your Bosox didn't get perfect-gamed today, unlike my M's. That's just about the ultimate humiliation. And it happened here at Safeco, in front of the hometown fans, no less.

Phil Perspective

Sir Charles:
We aren't going to be getting that tar sands oil anyway. It will end up on the world market, just the same as if it was shipped to the west Canadian coast. Also, too, you are okay with the Koch Brothers getting richer off this? Because they are one of the main beneficiaries of the American part of the pipeline. And as someone else said, I hope there are few few spills/leaks of the pipeline(since it will be built one way or another, sadly).

kathy a.

nancy, did you mean the campsite mate was banished from the festival? if so, that's a nice start.

crossing fingers the ID etc. will turn up in lost and found or something. that would at least help a little.

Prup (aka Jim Benton)

Don't know how much unlurking I'll be doing. In ordinary years I'm not fond of the 'horserace' but this year, with the Republicans running The Horse With the Dreamy Eyes there isn't even much of a race. Romney continues to show how to run a campaign that will alienate everyone. Even his own supporters and surrogates are almost laughing at him, and the number of Republicans who have talked about 'waiting until 2016' certainly shows how likely they think it is that he will win.

And the "Etch-a-Sketch" comment was probably the final capper. (If his spokesman had said this before Super Tuesday, we'd be talking about the Santorum nomination as a certainty.)

The question remains whether it will be Johnson-Goldwater or Nixon-McGovern. I have to say there are just enough states Romney has a chance of winning -- presuming there is no serious 3rd Party of the right -- to make it Goldwater. I can't see him losing ID, WV, UT, WY, ND, he'll probably get one (but not more) of SC, AL and Mississippi, and Montana and KY may be toss-ups, but that's the most he can win. I can't even see him winning TX.

More tomorrow, but I'm tireder than I thought. But I wanted to discuss the Iowa gay-bullying suicide and hope that will get worked in tomorrow as well.

Sir Charles

becky,

The perfect game figured into my nightmare too. They cut away from the Sox-Yankees game to show the last inning of the White Sox-M's game with the Red Sox leading 9-0. When they cut back it was 9-5 with two on and the Yanks immediately hit a three run homer -- you knew it was all over.

Crissa,

Those are all either oil or natural gas pipelines. I don't know to what extent there are inactive lines listed on the map. I do know that pipe lines are all over the place and that they are transporting content under pressure as a routine day to day part of our energy needs.

Phil,

The Koch Brothers are already obscenely rich -- I'm not really worried about the pipeline making them richer. I am in favor, however, of several thousand union pipefitters getting this work -- work that is desperately needed at the moment.

I understand that the oil is going to end up on the world market. It seems to me that the pipeline's opponents are the ones pretending that if it is not built that they are somehow stopping this from happening.

Jim,

I think you are wildly optimistic. Romney is going to win virtually every state that McCain won -- with the possible exceptions of Missouri and Arizona if Obama has an incredibly good night. I think he is also likely to remove Indiana from the Obama column as well. North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, and Ohio also remain in doubt.

By my calculations, Romney starts the election with 180 electoral votes firmly sewed up -- he will crush Obama in Texas, by the way. At least a ten point margin. You are omitting states like Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee, all of which Romney will carry by between 15 and 20 points.

I like Obama's chances, but I would be happy if he replicates his 2008 performance. I think the odds are that it will be slightly closer.

big bad wolf

i concur. romney will crush obama in texas. unpleasant if you are in the ground here (preposition choice intentional), but true. i blame radiohead.

Joe S

Sir C, Obama could come within 7-8 points in Texas if he has an incredible night. Montana is also a possibility as well as Missouri and Arizona. Obama got 47.5% of the vote in Montana in 2008 to McCain's 49.5%. It was much closer than Arizona.

Sir Charles

Joe,

I am guessing that Obama's share of the white vote in places like Montana -- virtually the only vote -- is going to fade a bit. Where I am assuming that Arizona was not as close in 2008 as it might have been because it was McCain's home state and that the Hispanic vote is going to turn out in force because the many insults heaped upon them by the GOP. It may be a bit of a lift in this election, but I am pretty optimistic that within the next couple of elections Arizona will be a place that the Dems can win.

beckya57

Wow, Radiohead's having a real bad day around here.

I agree with Sir C, as usual; I think Obama will win unless Europe collapses and takes our economy down with them, which is still unfortunately a real possibility (they've been even stupider over there with the austerity insanity than we have been). I do think it will be closer than 2008, though. Romney is indeed an awful candidate, but the GOP tribe will rally around him nonetheless because they're so driven by the desire to unseat the evil Kenyan anti-colonialist socialist Obama. I think that's going to matter much more than Romney's multiple gaffes, which would probably have some effect if the electorate wasn't so polarized. It's going to be the 2 tribes going at it, and the non-aligned low-information swing voters will probably determine the outcome, which is why how the economy is doing will play such a big role.

Sir Charles

becky,

bbw and I have entered into an unholy alliance against the forces of Yorke.

I think you've pretty much summed up the dynamics here and the thing that should give all of us the most pause -- the continued precarious state of Europe. I haven't check on the French election results, but I've got to believe that at some point there is going to be a revolt against austerity -- which there should be -- and I think an abandonment of the Euro by countries like Spain. I am just hoping that they will continue to muddle through -- which seems to be the only strategy -- until the election.

Crissa

Sir C, that doesn't at all face the specific operator's safety record or that the oil they'd be shipping would be the most corrosive, thickest, and consequently hottest and most pressure than any previously shipped.

Most oil deposits in the US until the oil shales and tar sands have been of the higher grades found in the world, so most of our pipelines have shipped much safer, lighter, cooler products. A spill of natural gas or light crude degrades much faster than the stuff they're going to be shipping. And many of our pipelines have only operated a few years at a time - many in the mid-west were retired during the mid to late twentieth century, turned over to telecoms for laying fiber. It's why Williams went from being an oil company to a telecom in the 80s.

Prup (aka Jim Benton)

[Warning, full-scale rant to come, started when becky@2:55 was the most current post.]

This is why I have become mostly a lurker. I see so completely different a picture that only events can show one of us right and one of us delusional. It may very well be me, but I have at least some evidence on my side for my argument that Rmney will not come close to McCain -- and a theory, perhaps totally wrong, which supports my 'he's even going to lose bright red states' argument.

Ironically, the strongest argument I have against my position is the one that Sir Charles and others have repeatedly denied, the "FBP" factor. Obama will lose a fairly large number of voters who voted for him -- after having 'given up on politics' -- to be part of 'electing the first Black President.' These people will, in too many cases, not come back this time -- partially because 'it isn't the same' and partially because there has been no recognition of them from the Obama Administration. (We talk about Republicans being ignorant of middle-class life, but for both parties the classes below the 'middle middle' have become 'invisible men' whatever their racial content. At least the TPers know they are there, know they are angry, and try to reach them -- as insane as their solutions are. We don't even know they are there -- and we think the TP is an upper middle class or astroturfed movement.

But we won't suffer quite as badly as we might. The sub middle-middle can be reached in other ways, and they are even less likely to be touched by Romney's appealing personality. We will have the advantage of a party platform built by delegates still trying to appeal to -- or members of -- the TP. And we titally underestimate the effect of the switch of republican women to Obama and against the Republican party -- each switch takes either two new Republican votes or one reverse switch, a Democrat going for Romney. (Ot two Democrats staying home.)

Has anyone even been watching the same race I have been? Mitt Romney started out with two gigantic advantages. He was the only candidate who appeared moderately sane -- literally -- and he was the only candidate who had a chance to pull any moderates or independents. He should have cinched the nomination early, he should have had the whole party establishment fighting for him, he should have had all the talkers pushing him, explaining to their versions of 'dittoheads' that, however they might find him annoying, he had to be the candidate.

Didn't happen. Benen reported several times how few of the Republican leaders and super-delegates had announced their support -- and it was the lowest since they've been checking.

We have Romney outspendibng Santorum 50 to 1 and not 'crushing' him in Illinois among Republicans -- and we think Romney will crush the President among the state as a whole. We have Romney taking months to eliminate the extremely unlikable Newt and the sanctimonious 'perpetual altar boy' Santorum. (Oh, and by the way, when Santorum stumbled in Florida, your wisdom told you that he was dead, that it was between Romney and Gingrich. Semms like there was only one person who insisted that Santorum would keep going and be the next recipient of the 'anybody, dear god, anybody but Romney' vote.)

Then there are the comments by his own surrogates undercutting Romeny, another thing Benen has reported on repeatedly. The number of Republicans who talk about 'waiting until 2016' to try for the nomination -- a nomination that will only be open if Romney loses. We have cases of off the record Republican strategists saying how they are running a '1996' strategy, conceding the Presidency and concentrating on Congress. His own party knows its not going to be close. But you insist it will.

And everyone is underestimating the religious factor. Hey, guys, the entire center of teh Republican GOTV effort has been centered in the churches since 1980. And a good number of the most conservative and fundamentalist of them really do believe they can't vote for a Mormon for President of this "Christian Nation." Others may viote for him, but there will be none of the enthusiasm that had been there and which started waning badly with McCain. But he was at least a Christian and had Palin.

Which leaves the TP, except it doesn't, because -- and here is where I am 'arguing beyond the strict evidence' -- the Tea Party died this last year. I still see it as a mirror image of the 1970-74 period, where a radically progressive group had arisen, and where the Democratic party tried to placate them and play to them -- without realizing that the movement had peaked and was disippating incredibly rapidly. "People had sobered up and were feeling the hangover, all the while the promoters were trying to turn up the volume."

And, as I keep saying, when the 'rebellious youth' drunken binge ended, the people involved didn't -- as you would have expected -- return to the left wing of the Democratic Party, but became non-Political for years, diving into self-help and 'personal enrichment' and not into anything political. "The Me Decade" it was -- even the music echoed it -- and no one wanted to be reminded of how they had -- oh so recently -- been so concerned with other people, with Vietnamese, and the poor, and the guys who couldn't get deferred, and the victims of racism and economic oppression.

I expect much of the TPers to go the same way. Only with them it will be back to 'praying, not voting' for change and salvation. The slatherring mob of angry troglodytes seeking the blood of the evil monster has dispersed, daylight has come, and they are bacjk being butchers, bakers, clacksmiths, and other 'prfinary villagers' through with monster hunting.

(Not all of them, and this is the scary part. The number of 'young radicals' who went the other way into 'direct action' was minute. Bill Ayres and friends probably totaled less than a hundred, and other groups like the Simbionese thing were latecomers 'hitchhiking on radical arguments' to explain their own criminality. But the TPers -- especially in Appalachia and the Mountain West -- are basically a much more violent group. Many of them will recoil in horror from rel direct action, real violent moves against the oppressive dictatorship, but a lot won't, and I expect some scary violence for a period after the early part of 2013. Hopefully it won't cost too many lives, but these people are not the bumbling idiots that the 'radical bombers' were, much more a danger to themselves than to others. These people are going to have some scary successes before the country and media realizes that 'domestic terrorism' is more dangerous than the wounded and watched Al Qaeda.)

And i haven't even discussed Romney's demonstrable lies -- ironically, every lie forces people to see the truth clearer -- his out-of-touchness, etch-a-sketch, his bank account problems, the dog on the roof -- and how many rednecks have dogs they love -- and his overall clownishness. Again, he has a 'Dukakis in the Tank' moment every news cycle. He starts as the joke that Dukakis and McGovern and Goldwater eventually became, and he keeps getting worse.

The world I am looking at is one where it is as close to certain as any political prediction I've ever made that Romney won't get 100 electoral votes. If I had money I'd back my opinion to any extent necessary, and I will bet 500 books from my library -- your choice -- against five (not expensive) books on my wish list if any one wants to take me up on it.

But you people see a different world, and it is my fault that I can't even understand why you think what you think. But I can't and it's why lurking is, at least as far as the Presidency goes, the wiser position. Other things maybe I'll dive in on, but we'll see.

[end of rant]

Sir Charles

Crissa,

I will have to check out what my pipe line folks think about the notion that this is qualitatively different from other oil pipelines.

Jim,

Basically you are suggesting that all of the polling is completely wrong or that Romney is going to suffer some sort of catastrophic slippage. I think the polls showing Romney up are likely incorrect because of bad samples -- both Gallup and Rasmussen are oversampling Republicans from what I can see. But I don't see any likely collapse. I think that most Republicans will rally around Romney because they want to beat Obama. I think most Dems will rally around Obama and that the minority vote will be better than a lot of people anticipate. So in the end I see things coming down to the small number of swing voters and I think Obama will have more appeal with them -- I am anticipating a 4-6 point margin.

The last candidate who really collapsed in the polls in the middle of a race was Dukakis and I would argue that the polling that gave him a big lead was ephemeral and did not capture the true weakness of Democrats on a national level at that moment.

We have moved into a far more stable party alignment over the last twenty years and especially over the last 12. Tribal loyalties have really solidified in that time and I think electoral change is only going to occur due to demographic change.

Paula B

Nancy, sorry to hear about your son but am so glad he is out of danger. Too bad he's also out of money, identification and trust in so-called friends. There are hard lessons for kids to learn out there, which keep parents on the hook for an obscenely long time. Take care.

Re: Red Sox. pourmecoffee tweeted today:
Yankees v. Red Sox games postponed. Field still too wet from tears.

Paula B

I read that the interest rate on student loans will double soon. True? Throw this into the mix and young people will walk away from Democrats, and everyone else:
Half of young college grads are either jobless or underemployed, analysis of US government data by @AP shows: http://apne.ws/JmdwHq

Sir Charles

Paula,

Re: Red Sox - that is too funny.

We are having a truly monumentally crappy weather moment here right now -- 24 straight hours of heavy rain and temperatures down into the high 40s. Stanley and I are both quite unhappy.

The student loan situation seems to me to be a real political opportunity for Obama. The Republicans seem hell bent on raising rates. I am pretty sure that Obama should be able to either stop this or make it clear who is on which side.

nancy

All. Not sure he's out of danger. Message. Stay away from unknown drugs these days. Parents now ten years older, at least.

kathy a.

oh, nancy. what a nightmare.

KN

Not nice when the comment system eats your carefully composed comment. Until you fix that mass I think I will avoid this blog.

big bad wolf

nancy, i'm sorry to hear this. i hope everything turns out okay.

jim, i think it unlikely that the choice is between right and delusional. of course, i think that not only about the election, but about most things. i may be wrong :) anything can happen, and can be predicted and supported by reasonable arguments. what does happen is usually the more likely. to me, the more likely is that this race is somewhat close based on the economy, voter turnout, voter patterns, and money. if obama rolls, i will not have been delusional this day in april. nor if romeny is close will you have been. we just anticipated different outcomes based on the incomplete knowledge we each had. the language of delusion should be left to those with certainty in faith or theory.

Crissa

I thin Prup has it with the likely voter bit. It's very tough to tell who the likely voters are - and if you use 2010 as a model, Romney comes close or ahead. But of course he does. However, I think he's right that the enthusiasm isn't there to prove 2012 is like 2010... Many Republican primaries have come at or below 2008 numbers in attendance. How are they going to win if they can only bring out that many?

We only lost because 20 million Americans stayed home. Only about half that - or less - was unusual in 2008. I'm not saying it's in the bag, but I don't think it'll be a Republican blow-out, especially if we can get some level of confidence back into left voters.

It bugs me seeing people being stridently vocal against OBama - generally on things he can't do anything about. Often saying he should say things that was in last night's speech. Of course the media doesn't broadcast his every speech, but if you're gonna complain about his rhetoric, you should at least listen to it, ya know?

And I'd love to link you to the articles I've read about spills of the tar-sands crude and the record TransCanada has... Apparently it's worse than BP's work but I don't have any good articles on it; Google just isn't behaving of late. Google seems great if I want to find a comment on an article this week, but an article last month is just pulling teeth.

Sir Charles

KN,

What can I say? I am at the mercy of the caprice of typepad as well.

Crissa,

I think the weakness that the Democrats have typically manifests itself in the off year elections, where turnout slips to around 40% and the electorate is significantly whiter and older. In a presidential race where we get between 55 and 60% of the vote out, the electoral demographics tend to be much more favorable. I think that will prove the case again this time around.

nancy,

Our thoughts are with you.

low-tech cyclist

Nancy - my thoughts and prayers are with you. The college-age son of some friends of ours had some bad experiences with drugs a couple of years back. (Drugs that he took voluntarily, at college, fwiw.) He's finally once again the bright, lively guy that we'd watched grow up, but the road back took well over a year.

SC - my first game at Fenway was this game in the spring of 1977. It completely lived up to my expectations of what a Fenway game should be like - the Red Sox came back from a 10-4 deficit to win 17-12, there were shots galore off and over the Green Monster, and a ball that hit the continuation of the Green Monster behind the wedge of outfield seats in left CF and bounced back onto the field was incorrectly ruled in play (and became a double) rather than being called a HR (per both the ground rules and common sense).

The guy I went to the game with, who'd been to a good number of Red Sox games, was pretty down when the Sox got way behind, and I just kept on saying, "Cheer up, this is Fenway - anything can happen." And it did.

I'm looking forward to taking the kid to a Nats game or two this summer, but Fenway is definitely the sweetest place I know of to watch a baseball game.

low-tech cyclist

Dahlia Lithwick has a piece on the war on the War on Women in Slate. Practically anything written by Lithwick is good, and this is no exception.

The reason why I mention it, though, is that Slate manages to characterize a piece that says things like

Dodging real-world explanations for the state of the economy and high unemployment, conservatives are now attempting a backdoor campaign to chase women out of the workplace and into their proper roles as homemakers. How else to explain increasing moves toward repealing wage-discrimination laws, rollbacks on mandatory parental leave laws, and making it all-but impossible for poor women who work to choose when to bear children?

as "Why There Is Nothing Real About the War on Women" in their "Most Popular On Slate" box.

Dear Slate: I realize you guys live for playing the contrarian card, but pretending one of your writers is saying there isn't a war on women when she's saying quite the opposite isn't contrarian. It's just plain dishonest.

Joe S

Atrios gave Lord Salitan one of his wanker of the decade awards saying that Jacob Weisberg got close. Maybe he should have done a group wanker award for all the lords of Slate. I think one of the reasons I really dislike Yglesias lately is just guilt by association. Slate is so bad some of it wears off on Yglesias and I see him through a more negative light than I otherwise woudl.

Also, Prup, I will take that bet that Romney will get more than 100 electoral votes. Romney will get, at a minimum, 17 Bright red states (TX, OK, WY, ID, AK, ND, SD, KS, most of NE- except for Omaha, UT, LA, AR, AL, MS, SC, TN, KY. He will also probably get WV, MO, IN, AZ, MT, and GA.

Sir Charles

l-t c,

Greatest game I ever saw at Fenway was improbably enough a 0-0 shut out through eight innings in a game against the newly resurgent Oakland A's in 1981. It may have been one of the last truly great performances by Dennis Eckersly as a Sox starter -- a complete game shut out with 12 strike outs. His opponent was Brian Kingman, who threw eight shutout innings before succumbing in the ninth.

It was a Billy Martin coached team with the then-young outfield of Ricky Henderson, Dwayne Murphy and Tony Armas. Martin was in the process of destroying several talented starters by having them pitch a crazy number of complete games at the time, but it worked for him this year. They made the playoffs in a strike-shortened season.

The tension in the park was incredible as the zeros kept going up on the scoreboard. Finally in the ninth, Evans singled, Yasztremski singled, and Jim Rice came up with two on and no out -- talk about a park eager with anticipation -- and just crushed the first pitch over the Monster. I've never seen a ball leave the park faster.

The beauty of the internets is that I could find the box score for this one:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS198105210.shtml

Prup (aka Jim Benton)

Joe: Will have to check my own totals. I realize I left out OK as probable for Romney. Of your list, Obama will win TX, AK (he was almost ahead in 2008 there until Palin was picked), two of AL, SC, MS (okay, that's shaky, he might just win one, but I think the religious factor will throw a surprise. I'll say he gets AL and MS), MO, IN, AZ and GA. KS, TN, and NB (except for Om) are toss-ups.

But since I think Romney will even blow some of the 'sure things' you are on. Just let me know if I will have to put together a list of the library (a horrifying task) or if you'll be abkle to come to Brooklyn and pull the books off the shelfs yourself. I may ask you to skip a couple -- but just ask, not require -- and my wife's library (small) is not included. And volumes containing more than one volume (like Detective Book Club editions, for example) count as the number of individual books.

Of course, since I'll win the bet, I'l have a few books on the wishlist for you. Rules, none can total more than $5 including shipping -- I'm not going to stick you for rarities that cost $100 or such.

As for why I won't be returning to the topic after this, until and unless things change dramatically, I'll simply reply to Sir Charles at 7:58. Yes, Romney will have a catastrophic clippage, or rather a constant slow leak in support. This has been his pattern -- the better people get to know him, the less likely they are to like or support him.

Then throw in the hits he's going to get from the Republican Party Platform, the continual "war on women' that is already killing his support even among religious women, and godknows who he's going to pick for VP, but if he doesn't go for a Palin, he'll lose even more support among Christian republicans.

He has put himself in a position -- he was thee before 'etch-a'Sketch' that just highlighted it -- where he can't go left to get democrats and independents without conservative Republicans staying home, he can't play to them without losing even more support among Dems, Independents and the sane Republicans out there. Any move he makes costs him more votes than he's gained.

And people just don't like the man personally. And that's now, and he keeps on making himself less and less likable.

But what really got to me in Sir Charles' comment was his

We have moved into a far more stable party alignment over the last twenty years and especially over the last 12. Tribal loyalties have really solidified in that time and I think electoral change is only going to occur due to demographic change.

Do facts matter? Of the 50 states, how many have been governed by the same party since Jan 2000? 12, 7 Rep, 5 Dem. (Want to guess the lists? There are a couple of surprises. And, without saying if Florida is on the list, I don't count Crist -- or Spector or Chafee in the Senate -- becoming an Independent as a party change.)

In the Senate, 40 seats have been held by the same incumbent for this time. Taking them, Alaska 2 (Murkowski) and NJ 2 (Lautenberg) out of the equation leaves 58 seats. of those, 21 have been controlled by the same party, 37 have changed parties at least once. (The Ben Campbell switch confuses things, but I count that as a change, as I do Issakson replacing Zell Miller. I don't count -- as I perhaps could -- primary losses followed by the winner being elected -- like Lee in Utah last time.) And three seats have changed twice.

Presidential elections have been more stable, but there has been the anomaly of three consecutive competitive races. (If you count either Eisenhower-Stevenson II or Roosevelt-Dewey as competitive, you still have a sixty year span since there were three straight competitive races, without them, you have to go back to the 19th Century.) And the response -- on both sides -- to Bush v. Gore and 9/11 played a role as well.

This is the sort of sloppiness and 'intuition over facts' that has made it almost impossible for me to discuss politics at all. Now there's no 'false equivalency' here, Republicans lie, make things up, and deny the obvious as a matter of principle, we just tend to get sloppy, or to carried away and work too hard to find 'bigger pictures' we can fit events into. But I hold us to a much higher standard.

(Oh, another example. How many times have each of us heard descriptions of Little Rickey as someone who was 'dumped from office by a historic percentage once the voters got to know him.' The implication is -- and I am reasonably sure I've heard it stated directly -- that Santorum was a one-term Senator. It's become an almost uneradicable meme, but wouldn;t you think somebody, anybody would have checked and found out that Santorum served two terms. He was elected in 1994, won re-election by 6 points (over Ron Klink) in 2000, and only lost to the son of an immensely popular figure -- boh of whom were 'pro-life.')

BBW, all I'll say is that if I am wrong in this, I have no problem admitting that my picture of politics is not just wrong but seriously delusional. I really don't understand 'how the world works' and should -- and will be silenced until i rethink everything I thought I knew.

Joe S

Prup, good enough. I'll buy you five books if you win. The five can total up to $100.00 for cost and $100.00 for shipping. Thanks for clearing that up as I probably can't afford a first printing of the collected works of Shakespeare, etc.

nancy

Combination of extreme heat, sleep deprivation and unintended substance ingestion is a bad one, but it looks as though after a day in the medical tent hooked up to an IV, getting at least the phone back and an overnight fedex of back-up wallet, all might be OK. Festival tents struck. Guys on road.

Moral -- if it looks like a joint, it might not be. And son's friend is exonerated. He honestly didn't know and had acquired the 'joint' innocently and had given it to my kid -- then they each headed off to separate venues. Because friend's phone too went missing, the person who picked it up decided to play unfunny texting games in answer to my son's texts, as he tried to determine what was going on with what was obviously not garden-variety marijuana. Instead some random asshole made the situation worse, posing as my son's friend.

Back in the day, pot just made me sleepy, stupid and hungry. Didn't much care for that. But these days one doesn't know what might be inside that package. Lessons learned all around I assume. Thanks all for your concerns. I can see a movie evening soon, watching "Parenthood" for the umpteenth time.

Oh, and Radiohead was the festival best I hear. ;-)

oddjob

And people just don't like the man personally. And that's now, and he keeps on making himself less and less likable.

No, they don't, but the conservatives who don't want to vote for him sure as hell aren't going to stay home if it means Obama wins a second term.

kathy a.

nancy -- your kid has a backup wallet?

when my wallet was stolen a few times, i would have been lost without friends nearby, until i could get things replaced. it would have been a disaster to lose it out of town. good thing the other kid turned out to be not intentionally culpable. and yay fed-x.

Prup (aka Jim Benton)

"That guy, that South Dakota Senator, okay, he's made a lot of blunders, maybe people think he's a bit of an asshole, but all those liberals who don't want to vote for him sure as hell aren't going to stay home if it means Nixon wins a second term. They hate him." Right?

And Joe, okay, that gives me a little extra leeway. My wish list is Amazon, and I was generally picking books that cost "$0.01 + 3.99 shipping" but I'll feel free to make it up to six dollars total, no more. And if I lose, we'll work out how you'll get the books -- don't mind paying debts, hate shipping stuff. (If you refuse them, I'll be obligated to donate them, of course.)

Anyone else who wants in, it's now 100 books to one. Same rules.

Prup (aka Jim Benton)

Btw, why are so many people complaining about the captcha? I had gotten used to it when Steve Benen was at WaMo, and so far I think I've needed a second try about three times and asked for a refresh once, and never lost a comment. (Watch, just my luck, I'll lose this one.)

The trick is simple. See what is there, andf not what you expect to be there. Almost every time there's one word that is almost familiar, but isn't. (I'd ask about the audio feed, but my sound card seems to have blown.

kathy a.

jim -- are you trying to unload your bookshelves still, by sending 100 to anyone who wins a bet with you? very sneaky.

Sir Charles

Jim,

Presidential elections are a different beast than gubernatorial or senate elections. The electorate is different and the kinds of individual race anomalies that you see -- for instance of Massachusetts electing a series of Republican governors -- in those contests don't typically show up in a state's presidential voting behavior.

The electoral map from 1992 to the present has been pretty stable with only a handful of states typically in play in any race. If you look at the electoral maps from those races 17 states, plus DC, have voted Democratic in every race (6 also voted for Dukakis) and 13 states have voted Republican in every race. Clinton, with his appeal to the Appalachian whites and the benefit of Ross Perot running, won twice in a number of places in which we are no longer competitive -- West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, and once in Georgia, Montana, and Arizona. Since 2000, however, the only states that have switched columns are Florida, Ohio, Iowa, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and the 2008 pick ups for Obama of Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana. And these are pretty much the only toss up states this year as well -- I'd throw Missouri into the mix too.

So I would say that there are really only 10-11 states that are really up for grabs and some of them -- New Mexico and Indiana for instance, may not really be that close.

These are facts, not intuition. And nothing suggests to me that this map will be radically altered at this point. The Pacific and North East and Mid-Atlantic coasts, as well as the Great Lakes States will continue to be dominated by Democrats, the South, the Plains states, and the interior Rocky Mountain states will continue to be dominated by Republicans, and there will be a handful of battle grounds in between.

In order to win, Romney will have to bring Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana back into the fold and then add one more state. I would say Iowa, New Hampshire, Colorado, and Nevada would be the most plausible ones.

This will require pretty much running the table on the swing states, which is why I think Obama will win -- but it is not the most far fetched scenario in the world.

See this map for this scenario.

http://electoralmap.net/2012/myPrediction.php

oddjob

I would be surprised if Romney lost New Hampshire. From what I can tell he is well regarded there, and he has a vacation home there so it isn't as though he's a stranger to New Hampshire.

I also think that if you assume Romney isn't very driven by anything but economic/business management challenges then that would likely mean his temperament would be a good natural fit for New Hampshire's typical political bent (fiscally conservative and otherwise often tolerant).

oddjob

As to the McGovern analogy, I certainly could be wrong, but my impression is that there are proportionately more conservatives now than there were liberals then.

Sir Charles

oddjob,

I think Obama will take New Hampshire although I could be wrong. Gore narrowly lost it, Kerry narrowly won it, and Obama crushed there by 10%.

Had Gore won it in 2000, Florida would have been irrelevant.

Incidentally, a very good case could be made that Nader also cost Gore New Hampshire. He lost to Bush by 7,000 votes while Nader garnered 22,000 or 3.9% of the vote. Bush got 48.1% of the vote in 2000 and 48.9% in 2004.

Self-described conservatives outnumber liberals 2-1 in the country.

Prup (aka Jim Benton)

I give up. "Places we are no longer competitive..."

Meanwhile, of course, while we are shitting in our pants that Romney might get a personality transplant, and that the TP will raise itself from the grave, the Republicans know Romney will lose and are concentrating on Congress -- Congress, you know, that sideshow we occasionally peek in on the elections for, hoping we can come up with more quaint entertainment like we did with Crazy Chrissie and that mad black guy from Florida. We had a lot of fun laughing at him, still are, since he'll be back again, as an incumbent this time. Like Rob Portman, Rand Paul, Paul LePage, Scott Walker, Rob Johnson, Mario Rubio, Pat Toomey, Mike Lee, and the others that we had so much fun finding ridiculous that we never even noticed they had opponents, much less supported them. But we ure gave Crazy Chrissie hell, and the Obtuse Angle, and Palladino, and the Massachussetts Congressional Candidate, the ex-cop who covered up for his partner who loved to strip search young female teens for the crime of driving while nubile. (Which, I guess, is OK now, so why we got so upset about it beats me, SCOTUS says we have to allow it, so the next Tim McVeigh will reveal his secret plans written in lemon juice across his balls.)

And I got so annoyed that I pent time ranting, instead of doing something a lot more important than the egoboost of commenting, giving nancy any type of verbal or better support. That, people not politics, friends, not candidates, is what matters. (And, btw, I have no expectation of losing any bet on this topic. Baseball, maybe, but this one is meant to fill out my Val McDermid, Tobias Wells, or Hal Masur collections.)

Anyway, forgetting that is another reason

I give up.

Lurker lock engaged.

oddjob

The only problem with blaming Gore's loss on Nader is that the margins in the relevant states were so close that you could just as easily say that of any other minor candidate. Yes, Nader had the most press of the minor candidates, but it really was Gore's loss.

Meanwhile, this is a front page story in today's Boston Globe:

New Hampshire could be decisive battleground
Sir Charles

Jim,

I've been saying all along that Arizona is competitive. Where I am saying we are not competitive is the belt of states from West Virginia moving west into Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. These are places where the Democratic share of the vote has been declining significantly at a time when the party has been showing increased strength in other parts of the country. The numbers don't lie on this score -- this is the part of the country where Obama did worse than Kerry who did worse than Gore who did substantially worse than Clinton.

oddjob,

I would say that grabbing 4% of the vote in a race as tight as New Hampshire 2000 is pretty much tilting the scales decisively. These were not people who were going to vote for George W. But they helped elect him nonetheless. I hope they enjoyed his eight year reign of error.

oddjob

And how many other candidates also grabbed 4%?

oddjob

When a major presidential candidate loses an election because a minor candidate collected a typical share of the vote for a minor candidate, that major candidate screwed up.

Sir Charles

oddjob,

None.

Four percent is a whole lot of vote for a third party candidate. You'd have to go back to Perot and Anderson before him to see those kinds of numbers and I am pretty sure that both of those candidacies had a negative impact on Bush and Carter respectively in terms of costing them states that they would have otherwise won.

oddjob

I concede that my assertion is overstated, but in that particular election the vote total was so close in Florida that what I said is in fact true. Had any of the minor candidates not been running the Florida vote would have been different and in a way that would have had a very real effect on the outcome.

That speaks to weaknesses of the major candidates.

(Nationally Nader only collected 2.74% of the vote, not 4%.)

Sir Charles

I was talking about New Hampshire. He pulled 3.9% of the vote, which was quite significant. As you can see, Bush basically had the same numbers in 2000 and 2004. But in 2004 Kerry was able to win the state narrowly in a race in which Nader only got .7% of the vote.

Paula B

Sir C, this one's for you: http://nyti.ms/JE0Nyg

Sir Charles

Paula,

Quite interesting. I had some minor dealings with BLL back in the late nineties and early aughts. They were actually pretty easy to deal with -- I see why. They were making all of this extra money the old fashioned way -- stealing it.

NYC is its own world in terms of construction -- on both the labor and management sides. Things go on there that aren't really the norm anywhere else.

nancy

Still reeling festival-attending son in, with matters to attend to -- ticket and 35 hours in an Amtrak coach seat on the Coastal Starlighter, then Empire Builder home-- the west coast -- it is abeeg.

However, thought I'd recommend the wonderful Elizabeth Drew as part of the above election year discussion, yet to be concluded.

Prup -- Since the lurker lock is on, you might enjoy checking in with Self-Styled Siren's film festival retrospective of Hitchcock's Rope here. I seem to remember that we agreed to disagree about Hitchcock. :-)

Also David Seaton, who thinks our eventual political redemption will come with local elections where we can keep a careful hawk's eye on our politicos.

kathy a.

nancy -- well, you know my emergency contingency mom-planning thing kicked in with your woes. and the amtrak, she is the best solution for getting a kid home w/o ID. (unless you wanted to fly there, and drive him personally home via rental car, which rates "rather poke my eyes out with a stick" on my list.)

Paula B

nancy, kathy---this concert thing is bringing back bad, bad memories of some of the worst years of motherhood. Believe me when I say I really feel for you, nancy. Just glad I lived through those transitional years, but barely. They went on and on, while I held my breath. What else can a mother of a semi-full-grown guy do? Eventually, he grew up and I moved away. One of us had to do it.

KN

Sir Charles - apologies for my petulance. It is a little disconcerting, then again after decades of such stuff one should be more wary.

And an apology to all the other commenters here. I do greatly admire this blog and strongly informed by it in some respects through the commentary.

At least this is still the top thread so perhaps someone will see it.

Cheers,

nancy

kathy a. and paula-- Yup. Flying there. Ain't gonna happen. I drive to supermarket, out and about, and not much more. Even then. He's got ID, thanks to Fedex. Minimal street smarts must kick in. Must. And I'm praying for still more street smarts please.

Thanks all. Sign of cross. Parenting 301. Maybe 420. Upper level course.

Meanwhile. I hear the Mariners stink, from the grumpy other side of the male family aisle. While he's grading papers to boot. Ha.

KN -- We always read your late night additions. And appreciate them. Believe me.

Also -- I kind of appreciate the captcha because it makes me hesitate before I post. No doubt a good thing.

KN

What disturbed my usually (I like to think) quiet nature was the fact that despite my best efforts to copy my comment, I was twarted by the comment system. Water over the dam.

What I was commenting on was the Keystone XL pipeline and why the issue is so much greater than the question of a few thousand jobs for pipefitters for a couple of years, if that much.

The #1 reason in my mind why Keystone is a bad idea is that it does nothing and in fact may very well undermine our energy independence. We have a long standing relationship to Canada as allies, facilitating their marketing incredibly dirty oil products into the world market to our own detriment seems not just stupid but seditious.

Tar sands crude is extraordinarily dirty in the context of CO2. So facilitating its further development is counterproductive in that sense, just another example of externalized costs.

But there is yet another argument against the whole undertaking. Environmentally it constitutes a major threat. I do not particullarly subscribe to the claims that it threatens the whole Ogalla aquifer, in fact I find such claims a bit outrageous, but that in no way diminishes the very clear threats that an above or below ground pipeline on the scale of XL pumping pressurized high temperature tars for all intents, poses to the environment. It will have to cross rivers.

I have more problems with this question, particularly with Trans-Canada. And with the fact that their subsidiary provided the EIS for this project. Does that not seem just a trifle incestuous?

So - trying again,

KN

Alas, another proofreading failure, please insert, in the first sentence of paragraph 3 the words - to increase - between the words, "nothing and".

Paula B

Who else could comment on the pipeline with such authority, but KN? Thank you, guy, for being here. You've given us more things about Keystone to worry about, but they're substantive threats and not merely political.
By the way, are you coming back for the election? That vote could mean a lot.

oddjob

We have a long standing relationship to Canada as allies, facilitating their marketing incredibly dirty oil products into the world market to our own detriment seems not just stupid but seditious.

KN, I have no strong opinion either way on this matter, but I have a question.

If the Canadians are going to mine this tarry mess regardless of whether we participate or no, then what difference could is possibly make if we refuse to be involved?

oddjob

("... could it possibly make...")

nancy

Oddjob -- In order for the Canadians to 'mine this tarry mess,' our involvement is practically a necessity because the massive machinery needed and being assembled on site is moving trans-ocean from South Korea and then across US shipping lanes (Columbia River to port of Lewiston, Idaho), then on US highways which must effectively be shut down as the oversize containers move through Idaho and Montana, on into Alberta. The disruption has been agreed to by in-the-pocket state politicians over sustained protests of those affected along the way. My understanding is that the closure of narrower transportation routes, which left residents along the way without even emergency services during movement, has caused a re-route that will actually move these behemoths on I-90 at some point.

By the way, the prescient protection of the Puget Sound from oil tanker traffic for all time, left through the legislations of Warren Magnuson, is playing a role in how events are unfolding.

Sir Charles

KN,

Thanks for your insights.

I remain convinced that Canada is going to exploit this resource and that if need be they will build their own pipeline to the Pacific and ship it to Asian markets.

Crissa

Nader gets kicked for it because he's the one who took a party that had true third-party status and killed it with 'the parties are the same'. And then took away the Greens' convention like a spoiled child.

If he truly meant what he said, he'd not take money from Republicans to stay in the race. Which he did.

Crissa

PS, you can totally fly without ID. I lost mine in NYC and had to fly home. There's a twenty-questions and someone they call to verify instead. It can take quite some time, tho, I was lucky as the line wasn't long, but they'll put everyone else through before setting someone to get your identity.

KN

Oddjob @ 09:12

Well obviously, they would have to develop an outlet for this rather dubious product, over their own borders using their own resources, either to the BC coast or the St. Lawrence seaway. That would cost them a bundle. Much cheaper to do another bait and switch such as was done with the greatest achievment of Sarah Palin in handing $500 million to transcanada to dance around actually building a pipeline for which they had no customers. Pretty nice scam. It is also predictable that if XL was implemented the Kochs would shut down all of their midwest refineries and concentrate on Texas for export products. How exactly is that in the best interests of the markets affected?

KN

Paula B @ 08:55 AM

Thank you for the praise but bear in mind it is just my opinion.

As to whether I will be coming back, it seems that will be settled once and for all within the next few days but is till somewhat up in the air. You might think of it as rather like hang gliding at nightfall.

KN

I tried to reply to SC but again my comment got eaten.

KN

Then my computer died. SC - if canada wants to ship around their tar sands crude through the interior ranges to Vancouver or east is of no real importance to me in this sense, they are a soverign nation and can do as they choose with their own country. I would not encourage it, but it is not up to me in any way. Short of a global consensus to act collectively to avoid irreparable damage to the long term climate, it does seem pragmatically justifyable to decline to give easy access too world markets at the risk of environmental disasters (look at what happened in the GoM). I have some generalized conceptions on this topic but they are too elaborate to express here.

Sir Charles

KN,

The problem with tackling these international problems like climate change is that everyone has an excuse to not act -- or to act selfishly. I suspect that Canada will not pass up a resource that makes them a kind of Saudi Arabia of the western world as long as oil prices are at a certain level, just as I suspect the Chinese will not worry about burning a dirtier grade of oil if it will facilitate their economic growth.

Paula B

Could there be anything more mean-spirited than this GOP end run? http://cbsn.ws/IJYJnx If it makes its way through the Senate, I hope Obama vetoes it.

KN

You are of course correct SC, everyone has an excuse to go on doing the cheapest, most profitable thing despite the glaringly obvious fact that it is going to cost the poor bastards who inherit our legacy of greed and willful ignorance enormously. But greed and willful ignorance don't give a tinker's damn about the future which they do not expect to have to live through.

Paula B, can't make your link work so what is it about? End runs by republicans are about as unusual as dandelions.

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