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September 20, 2012

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Bill H

"I am starting to enjoy this election far more than I ever thought possible."

And what will you say if the September jobs report shows, perhaps, a mere 10,000 jobs created and 450,000 new unemployment applications per week? What will you say if three or four embassies in the Middle East are stormed and burned? What will you say if Bahrain erupts into civil war and we are forced to assist the Saudi princes in quelling it? Or if we don't and Saudi Arabia imposes an oil embargo? Keep enjoying your certainty of victory right up to the moment you read the headlines about Dewey winning the election.

kathy a.

hi, bill. sir charles said clearly that he does not want to get complacent, and that the polls are a bit baffling. this election is not over.

i'm sure we all dearly hope that there are no disasters -- not just because of the election, either. the slow growth of jobs is a real concern, both nationally, and for many of us in our own families. (my daughter has been looking for 9 months, for example. every job gets 100 applications.)

the unquiet developments in the middle east are enormously concerning. we do not need more incidents, or another war. personally, i feel that romney's response to the assasinations in libya (and the war-mongering of his chickenhawk surrogates) demonstrate strongly his unsuitability for office. i do not know how military and foreign service personnel can ever feel he has their back. he has absolutely no gift for diplomacy, and lacks the knowledge and thoughtfulness needed to negotiate the complex tensions in the region. he has no apparent interest in the sacrifices of military personnel and their families.

i recall that you served in the navy, so perhaps you might share some of my concerns. my husband also served on a sub (and then overseas with the pacific fleet) during the cold war, and then in the reserve; my father and stepfather served in the army during the korean war, and then in the reserve for decades (yes, both of them); my daughter may join the navy in coming months. i have great respect for the military.

no, i don't agree with everything obama has done. but romney -- he scares me.

Prup (aka Jim Benton)

*Ahem!*

And I am enjoying this eection almost exactly as much as I expected -- okay, it looks like nothing can help the hapless Kerrey, and Tim Kaine might be stupid enough to lose to George Allen -- though I doubt it. And maybe we'd have won a dozen or so more Congressional seats if we'd fought harder for them, though we'll still win a majority.

(And okay, I forgot to figure in Texas when I made my bet, so I will win my point but maybe not my bet -- if I'd said 125 EV it would be a cinch.)

You'll be seeing the 'Cascade Reaxtion' as backers, supporters, and down-ballot candidates flee the ever more toxic Romney -- hell, they've been showing their contempt for him throughout the campaign so far, his surrogates undercutting him and Christie's 'Acceptance Speech for 2016' and 'oh, yes, there's a guy named Romney running this year, you really should vote for him' at the convention.

But after the Libya comments, which followed the 'Mitt the Twit' tour (the funniest political tour since Cohn chased Schine with rolled up magazines), the party was already disgusted with Romney, even FOX was hitting him -- and then comes '47%.' (I'll have to admit, even I didn't think he'd be that stupid -- at least not in one lump.)

By now, I think most Republicans not only don't care if he loses, but probably would prefer it. I think they saw him as a more articulate Harding, presidential-looking, but with no qualifications for the job, who would sit back and take orders. But Harding knew he was in over his head, Romney doesn;t, and I think, after some of his more brilliant ideas, the Republicans are about as afraid of him as we are.

The cascade is on, and there is one more key event, thta could turn things around for Romney -- the debate. (It's the first one that counts, the foreign policy one will be painful unless Riomney has reestablished some credibility.)

Does anyone out there think he's got a chance to do it? Or that he will be fois gras after it -- he'd never be mere 'chopped liver.'

Yes Nate and the polls are confused -- because they don't realize how truly, uniquely awful he's been as a candidate.

More on this later -- but, yeah, I'm back, at least for a while. Some personal and physical pressures were getting to me and I was just going off at anything -- and I didn't want to hear my voice any more than anyone else should have. I didn't even lurk -- I've got two months to catch up on -- but i knew if I did i'd be unable to keep my mouth shut. (I did post a few less personal things, a little politics, tv, religion, and some book reviews of the wonderful public domain stuff for the Kindle -- but even then I abandoned about four out of every five I started.)

Anyway, nap time, and as usual the DVR numbers look bad, but I will try and get a few comments in later.

And, Jayhawk, by now Romney has so hurt ghis credibility even those disasters wouldn't mean people would want to put him in charge -- if anything, they'd be afraid he'd make things worse. Ues, people still hate Obama -- not as many as was being said -- but even they are much less likely to turn to someone that they don't see as any better.

(And I wonder how many hyper-Christians, already worried about a Mormon-Catholic ticket -- suported by a Jewish gambler -- will find the history of wild sex parties that Romney's host has to be a last straw.)

[As usual, this was started much earlier, when Jayhawk's was the last comment.]

low-tech cyclist

Bill, with all due respect, you sound less like a man who wants his friends to guard against overconfidence, than one who hates the fact that circumstances are going in a way that gives rise to the possibility of overconfidence in the first place.

At any rate, the effect of our overconfidence is limited to the scope of our potential actions. As I suggested on another blog this morning, there are positive outlets for enjoyment and overconfidence right now.

There's a possibility that we might not just be able to hang onto the Senate, but might actually be able to pick up a seat or three this year. And I'm backing that hope with money, believe me: if there's any place that's worth 'running up the score,' so to speak, the Senate is it: we live with the results of a Senate election for the next six years.

And let me put it bluntly: the fact that I am enjoying this election adds to my willingness to go to open my wallet for Dem down-ballot candidates in close races. You say it's a bad thing to be enjoying this election before the results are in. I say it's quite the opposite.

And who knows, there may be a realistic chance of our regaining the House, if things keep moving the way they're moving right now. Again, that possibility encourages me to contribute, even though I'd still say it's 3-1 or 4-1 odds against.

In this sense, politics is pretty much like any game: it's a hell of a lot more fun to play when you're winning. Optimism and enjoyment bring more people into the game than the reverse. So pardon me, but I think I'll keep my enjoyment and optimism.

kathy a.

the down-ticket items are hugely important. i thought elizabeth warren did great last night -- have not read any post-mortems today, but she said what needed saying, clearly and rationally, and brown looked like a jerk.

way off topic -- but the SPACE SHUTTLE flew over RIGHT BEHIND MY HOUSE a bit ago, and it was very exciting! !!!!!!

low-tech cyclist

I get the sense that the Gallup and Rasmussen surveys really are going to be shown to be deeply flawed in this cycle and that their methodological weaknesses will have understated the likely Democratic vote in the election.

That's my sense of things too, SC. And once you toss out Gallup and Rasmussen (and some 'mystery pollsters' - e.g. who the hell is Gravis Marketing??), everything seems to be breaking our way right now. I think that the contrast between Obama's and Romney's approach to events in Libya and Cairo last week built on the impressions left by the conventions, and the Romney tape (and Obama's response to it) have built on that, and things are just continuing to build in the right direction.

The polls in Virginia, Wisconsin, and Ohio are looking very solid right now, and while they're not a done deal, Obama's really pretty close to closing the deal in all three states - three states that, when taken together, put him over the top, even without states like Nevada and Colorado and Iowa and Florida where he's ahead, but things are much more up for grabs.

And the good news is very much extending to the Senate races. Polls are giving Tim Kaine a real lead in Virginia, ditto Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts, and Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin. The only recent polls are showing Shelly Berkley running almost even in Nevada, ditto Richard Carmona in Arizona. NV, MA, and AZ would be pickups, as would Indiana if Joe Donnelly can win that one. So we've got 4 good pickup opportunities, and really only 1 seat we currently hold that we might as well write off (Nebraska, where I'm not sure how I'd feel if insufferable prig Bob Kerrey won anyway).

low-tech cyclist

The bad thing is that even if the election goes well and Obama pulls off a victory of the same magnitude in 2008, the Dems keep the Senate -- and it includes stalwarts like Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin -- and make gains in the House, I think there is zero chance of any moderation among conservatives. The bad results are all going to be laid at the feet of Mitt Romney, who will achieve a special pariah status within his party that will be somewhere beyond that achieved by the likes of Michael Dukakis or George W. Bush. As a result, I think Republicans will continue to double down on extreme right wing ideology for at least several more election cycles -- especially if they get rewarded again in the off years in 2014.

I don't see any chance that the GOP is going to get less extreme anytime this decade.

Krugman, who's been down on the economy so long I've forgotten when he was last upbeat about things, believes things are going to get a lot better over the next few years:

Between debt repayment, defaults, and — since recovery began in mid-2009 — rising income, the US has made a lot of progress in deleveraging. Add in the fact that we’ve worked off the excess construction from the Bush years, and there’s a pretty good case that the stage has been set for a much stronger recovery over the next few years.
In which case 2014 is very, very unlikely to look like 2010.

Not to mention, the Affordable Care Act will be fully implemented in January 2014. By November 2014, the reality of that will have had a chance to sink in. The Democratic Party will have a very strong argument to make that what they're doing is working. Meanwhile, the crazies on the right will continue to look like crazies, and I don't think they'll be rewarded for that in 2014.

jeanne marie

Let's hope the Democrats continue to grow that backbone. I believe they are the ones who lost it for us in 2010. They were cowardly (and stupid) to run away from Obama and cede ground to the tea party and other crazies.

The convention keeps me hopeful. It looked as if we have a strong dug out ready to fight for a more progressive direction for the country.

kathy a.

it was pretty interesting to see brown trying to sell himself as "the second most bipartisan member of the senate" (whatever that means; he said it a few times), and peddling away from association with romney + the GOP. which, as warren pointed out, was a way of avoiding talking about unattractive specifics of his voting record.

i don't know that the GOP can keep up the "do nothing but oppose obama" strategy. it was a craven, thoughtless, and destructive strategy, not reflecting well on anybody's care for country or critical thinking skills.

oddjob

Polls are giving Tim Kaine a real lead in Virginia, ditto Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts

The only thing I worry about regarding polling for the Mass. senate race is the possibility of a Wilder effect. More often than not in statewide races in Massachusetts women stuggle rather a lot.

oddjob

whatever that means; he said it a few times

I can't cite a source, but I've seen a metric (probably in the Boston Globe) indicating his Senate voting record shows he votes against the majority of his party more than almost any other Senator. Of course, that doesn't mean he hasn't voted with them in ways destuctive to the middle class and that was Warren's point.

She can be preachy, but at the same time I really like the way she can swiftly, bluntly cut through the bull and target your attention on what someone does when they're trying to hide behind a fog of words. The Senate needs much more of that than it possesses.

Brown routinely avoids drawing attention to the fact that he's a member of the Republican Party. His ads almost never mention the word "Republican".

kathy a.

oddjob -- i'm not saying warren has it in the bag. just that she is obviously the better candidate, unruffled with his nonsense. if mass. wants a kickass senator who knows her stuff, it isn't him. if mass. wants a reasonably presentable frat boy, he's the one.

nancy

O/T I find this-- Obama's Dreadful Education Agenda , from Diane Ravitch, both dismaying and accurate.

In addition, in my neck of the woods, teachers are not only to teach to the test and be measured against students' test results, but STEM is the new order of the day. G'bye humanities. Arts. Music. Literature. Foreign languages. Philosophy. Writing well, oh well. History and government?

There was a blunt discussion at Corey Robin's site following Michelle Obama's convention speech when she praised teachers who worked without pay to keep a school district from shutting its doors. Yes, laudable. But she skipped over the state of affairs that put public school teachers in that position to begin with. Teaching may be a calling but it's not volunteer work. A paycheck is expected -- would that its currency reflect the priority we say we give education in the 21st Century... blah, blah, blah.

Robin had a follow-up -- "Why Do People Hate Teachers' Unions? Because They Hate Teachers." I don't know that I'd go that far, but the back-of-the-hand to all manner of middle-class dedicated professionals is gettin' real real old.

Oh. And. Go Elizabeth. Teacher.

nancy

Sir C - Link to Limbaugh was an Onion spoof, right?

Those goddamned feminazis. What will they think of next? Or is that "Feminazis" with a cap F? Super-duper-feminazis.

Crissa

Saw the shuttle fly by SF today. Seems like such a little thing to be a once-in-a-lifetime, the transport just flying past, but... That was actually in space. A real life spacecraft.

The city was just filled with people on rooftops and on the edge and hilltops looking out. Traffic was jammed. Unusually so.

Bill H

@Crissa: I saw the shuttle overfly my house when I lived in Tucson some years ago, 1985 or so. It had fueled at Davis Monthan for some reason and departed about half a block away from my house at an altitude of about 150 feet. It was an emotional, and very noisy, moment.

@l-t-c: no I am not "one who hates the fact that circumstances are going in a way that gives rise to the possibility of overconfidence in the first place." The idea of Romney in the White House appalls me.

When I was first in the sales department my boss drummed into me that I should never, even in my own mind, disparage my competition. "It is they," he would say, "who challenge us to produce excellence. If they were mediocre then we could sell garbage. Good competition is our biggest asset"

What I see too much of is Democrats enjoying the lead not in terms of our side having a winning message, but rather in terms of the incompetence of the opponent. We are not enjoying our good candidate so much as we are gloating over the missteps of the other one. The more the other side screws up, the less of a real message is required form our side. It tastes bad to me.

Sir Charles says he is enjoying the election, and his next words are about how Republicans are stepping away from Romney. He goes on to admire how Obama is able to capitalize on Romney's mistakes with counter punches.

When McCain "suspended his campaign to support passage of TARP" there was considerable media talk about the stupidity of that. Did Obama pounce on that and join the mocking of McCain for his misstep? He did not. He stayed with his message of hope and change. In this campaign he pounces of every slip of Romney's tongue, and his supporters do likewise.

This is not the kind of thing that I can enjoy, even when my side is winning. I'll take it, but there is no nobility in it, and no joy.

Beckya57

Jeanmarie--I didn't like how the Dems acted in 2010 either, but the fundamental reality of that election was that the electorate was much older, whiter and richer than in 2008. The dynamics of the electorate favor Dems in presidential elections and the GOP in off-year ones.

Sir Charles

jm and becky,

One of the things that the Dems have to figure out is how to perform better in the off years. We just have a tendency to not be able to get our folks out -- especially minority voters and young people. (2006 was an exception because of how fed up people were with Bush and the Iraq War.)

Bill,

I am certainly not saying that this thing is in the bag. I have enjoyed, however, the discomfort caused to Republicans when they have tried to really push their ideology. Although I take politics seriously, I am not above enjoying the stumblings of those I dislike -- and Romney and Ryan would certainly fall into that category.

Jim,

Welcome back. As you know I have never been quite as sanguine about this election as you, but right now I do feel like things have fallen into place about as well as they possibly could have.

big bad wolf

in the 1990s i saw the shuttle go across texas headed for a night landing in florida. the news reports had said it would pass over, so my wife and i went out to a hill on the edge of town. there were 8 or 10 other people there. the time approached. and passed. we all figured we had missed it; it must be a bright light like the space station. then to the west a huge comet appeared, the shuttle. it drew a line of fire across the sky from west to east, a big broad line of fire and you could see the outline of the shuttle ahead of its trail. a chariot of fire. wow

kathy a.

BBW, it must have been so amazing to see the shuttle headed for a landing! much more dramatic than seeing it riding piggyback on the jet -- but i really loved seeing it anyway. and the path was (unexpectedly) nearly overhead at my house.

it was wonderful that the shuttle did this low-flying tour around northern and southern california, the last flight of any of the shuttles. they made a point of passing landmarks (state capitol; golden gate bridge; LA city hall) and a lot of science centers (chabot; laurence hall of science; exploratorium; monterey bay aquarium; etc.), plus the NASA ames site. we all paid for the shuttle program; this was a chance for us to see one in person.

Crissa

I live on the west coast, always a thousand miles north of the shuttle, so there's never been a shuttle out here ^-^

So this is the closest I'd ever seen, as I'd only watched live launches and landing numerous times on video before.

big bad wolf

i am not one-upping. i wish i had seen it riding piggyback on one of the times it came through texas, and we spent labor day weekend at the johnson space center looking at long-earthbound stuff. i just wanted to share that it is an amazing thing in its own flight.

kathy a.

was an amazing thing, bbw. sniff.

it is a little hard to talk about something as expensive and ambitious as a space program at this moment in time, when things have sunk so low that old and poor and sick people are in serious jeopardy, and some the super-wealthy say the only way is to cut taxes for the super-wealthy.

you know what? the super-wealthy did not build the space program or a great deal of the advances in science, because they don't know how. (some of their companies did, though, profit from pieces that needed doing.) but when their tax rates were a whole lot higher, they absolutely helped fund a lot of cutting edge work. and they should be doing so now -- along with ensuring decent opportunities, food, education, and care for those less fabulously fortunate.

big bad wolf

i am an aerospace child: my dad was an engineer on the apollo program. i can't really say that we should put more money into nasa, but i do think we should not put less. we got some earth applications out of it, but, more, we got aspirations out of it, and we still do out of the ISS and hubble and the mars rovers. it's hard for me not to think that giving our kids something exciting and fascinating to shoot for isn't better than scraping them into law or finance or some other way to nitpick where most of us nitpick or exploit our present.

nancy

What I see too much of is Democrats enjoying the lead not in terms of our side having a winning message, but rather in terms of the incompetence of the opponent. We are not enjoying our good candidate so much as we are gloating over the missteps of the other one. The more the other side screws up, the less of a real message is required form our side. It tastes bad to me.

Bill, I take your point and in past years, pre-Citizens' and before the current House was seated, would have agreed with you. However, the more stumbling and screwing up on the part of Romney and his campaign, the better the chance that those stumbles can yield changes down-ballot. I'll take it. Until the tenor and contempt from the other side forces a purge of its high-handed zealots , we can't and won't have a functional legislative branch. I hope to see some of them at least returned to a well-deserved obscurity.

kathy a.

bbw -- i had no idea about your dad and apollo! how amazingly great. i think you are understating the earth applications; the tech developed for space changed everything, in ways that are not necessarily obvious. but i agree about aspirations.

nancy

bbw and kathy -- Sorry for my bad timing. :( Your exchange happened while I was fiddling around with a comment. Just looked at the Endeavor slide show (71 slides) at sfgate. Wow indeed.

kathy a.

i just love this from krugman: romney as the "confidence fairy."

this casts no aspersions on romney's total heterosexual manhood; it's about his magical economic thinking. but i also love the word "confidence" because (as all of us useless english majors who studied melville know) that is the source of the low-brow term "con man."

yes, i am still holding a grudge about this same guy saying that making a college education available for all who could do the work and wanted to was an "elitist" point of view. one never knows where that broad liberal arts education will turn out to be handy; but i believe something or another always will. and that education opens opportunities -- not so well as having a lot of personal wealth, but well enough. so, there.

kathy a.

and for voter fraud, this is a nice summary. i'm not linking his link to sarah, but it is seriously worth it (in a NSFW, use the earphones if the kids are still awake way).

low-tech cyclist

Bill,

1. I've re-read your initial post in this thread, and whether or not you intended it that way, it still comes across as sour grapes.

2. Well, we don't have good competition this time, do we? But politics is zero-sum, unlike most commercial endeavors. I don't want the people who would ruin this country to run a better campaign because it might force Team Obama to run a better campaign as well. I want Team Obama, and the Dems generally, to run a better campaign to take full advantage of the other side's weakness by winning back the House and picking up a couple of Senate seats, net.

In politics, unlike commerce, the smell of your rival's blood on the water is a good thing.

3. There's a matrix used by political consultants: how our candidate is going to define himself, how we're going to define the other guy, and how they're going to try to do the same two operations from their perspective.

Obama has the advantage of having five years in the limelight, and nearly four in the Presidency, that defines himself. Like it or not, one of the keys to this campaign was to define Mitt before Mitt defined himself. Team Obama's been wonderfully successful with this, and they've been able to use recent events in a way that built on what they'd already done in this regard.

It may taste bad to you, but screw that. The most important thing in the world this year was to keep Mitt Romney out of the White House. How we did it wasn't even of secondary importance; it was down in the white noise.

But Obama's doing this in a way that I think does highlight our side's positive messages. And I think that's been part of why it hasn't just been Obama looking good, but also several Senate races breaking in the right direction lately. But we really only have the luxury of caring about the Senate because the Presidential race is no longer a cliffhanger.

So I say to Team Obama: stomp on Mitt, stomp on Mitt, and then stomp on Mitt some more. Then cut out his heart and stomp on it! (Metaphorically speaking, of course. I want him to live a long time, to relive his defeat over and over again, as he rides his car elevator up and down, up and down.)

4. In this campaign he pounces of every slip of Romney's tongue, and his supporters do likewise.

This is not the kind of thing that I can enjoy, even when my side is winning. I'll take it, but there is no nobility in it, and no joy.

This is not the time for nobility. This is the time for winning. There will be plenty of time to be noble on and after November 7. End of story.

oddjob

you could see the outline of the shuttle ahead of its trail. a chariot of fire. wow

How cool!!

I have two shuttle experiences, both from launches. Without intending to I saw the boosters flame out immediately after Challenger exploded in January 1986, and then while I was grad. school in the early 90's one of the shuttles launched in an atypical direction, north-northeast roughly along the East Coast. I don't remember the time of year but it was during one of the milder months. I was parked in a parking lot near Rutgers U. at dusk (with plenty of light still around) and saw its contrail as it approached from the south and passed northwards, a little east of the New Jersey coast line.

oddjob

Having once wanted to be an astronomer I've always found much of what NASA does to be seriously inspiring. I'm not as big a fan of manned space efforts as of unmanned because I think the information we learn from unmanned exploration is usually much more per dollar spent, but it's all good (when things go as they're supposed to). I was eleven or twelve years old and on vacation at the beach when I first learned about NASA's proposed Voyager interplanetary satellites. I thought it was so clever that they were going to use the gravitational attraction of the big planets to slingshoot those satellites onto their next destinations.

All these decades later and they're still sending back information, now from very close to the boundary of the last vestiges of the sun's influence on space!

(By the way, just as an aside how many of you realize that your cell phones, especially if they're smart phones, probably have more memory storage, and likely processing power as well, than did the computers on board the Apollo program's Lunar Surface Modules? They landed on the moon in machines with less ability to compute than you have in your pocket right now.)

oddjob

In politics, unlike commerce, the smell of your rival's blood on the water is a good thing.

In the right context, but it can also lead to overconfidence and that's a bad thing.

kathy a.

omg, oddjob. challenger.

oddjob

Yup.

I didn't even know I was looking at a national catastrophe until about 10 minutes later when my mom got to the development where she was going to look at houses. (At the time my dad was working at a new job near Palm Beach and since it appeared as though he was going to stay they had started house hunting. It was January, the slow season at the rhododendron nursery in Pennsylvania where I was working so I was visiting my parents on vacation, as well as possibly considering moving myself.)

Once I realized what I'd seen I felt nauseous and belatedly understood why some cars had pulled to the shoulder on the interstate as we had driven north to the development and the drivers in some cases had gotten out of their cars to look at the sky to the south.

oddjob

I also remember that in the Palm Beach area (a few hours north of Cape Canaveral IIRC) the evening before there had been a frost warning for that night broadcast on the local news. From what I gathered it wasn't unheard of there to have a winter with a frost, but it only happened maybe one to three times a decade.

oddjob

That was also where I learned that eating a grapefruit fresh off the tree was an entirely different taste experience from eating one from the grocery store. Previously I had come to believe that I just didn't like grapefruits. Wrong!

kathy a.

i was sitting around court that day, waiting as usual for my turn in the cattle call [a lot of check-ins about cases]. when i went out to the hall, someone had dragged a TV out there. everyone had been so excited about a teacher going to space; and it was so wrenching to see the footage, and know something had gone badly wrong.

being a cattle call in a less-formal courtroom, i went up to the bench between cases and told the judge. he blinked a few times, double-checked that the teacher was on board, and then just went on. i don't know what else he could have done, but think he appreciated hearing about it. the rest of the docket moved very swiftly.

oddjob

By the time I craned my neck around to look out the back window I could see the boosters going off in crazy directions and a second or two later flaming out, but I knew the boosters separated from everything else and so having never watched a space shuttle launch in person before I just assumed I was watching what usually happened after the boosters had separated. I was stunned to hear the sales rep. at the development say to us, "Did you know the space shuttle just blew up?"

Bill H

@l-t-c: "I've re-read your initial post in this thread, and whether or not you intended it that way, it still comes across as sour grapes."

So... What? I'm a liar when I wrote at length why that was not my intention and explained what I was trying to say. So much for polite discourse here.

"It may taste bad to you, but screw that. The most important thing in the world this year was to keep Mitt Romney out of the White House. How we did it wasn't even of secondary importance; it was down in the white noise."

Well the easiest way to do that, since you say it does not matter how we do it, would be to just shoot Romney in the head. Save a lot of money on these useless elections, and since we place no importance on things like honor or principle, why not save the time? I would find such a thing very distasteful, but "screw that."

low-tech cyclist

So... What? I'm a liar when I wrote at length why that was not my intention and explained what I was trying to say.

Well the easiest way to do that, since you say it does not matter how we do it, would be to just shoot Romney in the head. Save a lot of money on these useless elections, and since we place no importance on things like honor or principle, why not save the time?

Let's just put it this way: you come across as one of those Democrats Who Hate Democrats, who claims to be (and as far as I know really is) on the left side of the political spectrum, but for whatever reason is looking for any excuse to find fault with his fellow libruls.

A comment like that last one is the perfect illustration. I'm surprised you couldn't find something better than an extreme exaggeration/extrapolation as a basis for this latest slam, but WTF, your first comment in this thread wasn't really that much more sophisticated.

Bill H

"Let's just put it this way: you come across as one of those Democrats Who Hate Democrats, who claims to be (and as far as I know really is) on the left side of the political spectrum, but for whatever reason is looking for any excuse to find fault with his fellow libruls."
I have no doubt that you decry the Republican's voter disenfrancisement, and their lies about Social Security, but their claim is that "the only thing that matters is to get our man in the White house and how we do that doesn't matter."

And anyone who does not fully agree with you is a "Democrat Who Hate Democrats" or "is looking for any excuse to find fault with his fellow libruls." That is not only not polite discourse, it is the lunatic ravings of a madman. Don't bother to reply because I don't prolong discussions with people who are so fanatically wrapped up in a cause that they have abandonded reason.

And your final paragraph descends into outright rudeness, which is the mark of someone who knows that he has lost the argument. I'm not the one who started the name calling here.

kathy a.

it bothers me a great deal when people start saying things like "shoot him in the head," even sarcastically. there are plenty of ways to make an argument without resorting to coarse, violent, and hateful imagery -- which you should know perfectly well does not reflect the sentiments of anyone here.

big bad wolf

not news, but an indication of an issue breaking through. it turns out that in amusing ourselves and having virtual arguments, we waste lots of energy

beckya57

I think we all can agree that what we want is to promote progressive ideas and see movement on those, so the top 0.01% don't get to continue their project of turning the US into Latin America North. The first step is to see that Obama gets re-elected. We know that if Romney is elected the ACA is toast and that more right-wing judicial appointments (potentially including the SC) will get made; those reasons alone are enough to make Obama's re-election absolutely critical. The next step is to keep the Senate with the Dems and at least make inroads into the House. The dystopian nightmare is Romney+50 senators+the House, because then we'll see a big chunk of the Ryan Roadmap implemented via reconciliation, probably very quickly. So let's just keep ourselves focused on those goals.

oddjob

we waste lots of energy

This isn't something I think much about, but on the other hand even as just a layman who uses basic computers I've read before that the centers where one finds the servers and routers keeping the internet up and running are buildings requiring considerable air conditioning systems. That's a symptom of waste when you realize the reason for the need is the heat generated by those machines and the electricity powering them.

I think if I were an engineer finding ways to resolve this would be intriguing to me.

oddjob

The dystopian nightmare is Romney+50 senators+the House, because then we'll see a big chunk of the Ryan Roadmap implemented via reconciliation, probably very quickly. So let's just keep ourselves focused on those goals.

Amen.

low-tech cyclist

I'm not the one who started the name calling here.

Yeah, you just equated my position with justifying political assassination. I concur that that wasn't name calling, but that's not a distinction you'd want to defend.

And anyone who does not fully agree with you is a "Democrat Who Hate Democrats" or "is looking for any excuse to find fault with his fellow libruls." That is not only not polite discourse, it is the lunatic ravings of a madman.

"That is not only not polite discourse," it's also not remotely true.

But look: let's revisit that opening post of yours.

And what will you say if the September jobs report shows, perhaps, a mere 10,000 jobs created and 450,000 new unemployment applications per week? What will you say if three or four embassies in the Middle East are stormed and burned? What will you say if Bahrain erupts into civil war and we are forced to assist the Saudi princes in quelling it? Or if we don't and Saudi Arabia imposes an oil embargo? Keep enjoying your certainty of victory right up to the moment you read the headlines about Dewey winning the election.
Each of these is more plausible than "what if space aliens land in Lafayette Park," but some of them only barely so. And there's not a goddamned thing we can do about them ahead of time anyway, no matter what our confidence level.

So throwing this pile of possibilities at SC because he says he's enjoying the campaign is doing nothing more than crapping in his Cheerios simply because his enjoyment annoys you.

I don't know what you're so pissed at the world about, but I would recommend a therapist.

And your final paragraph descends into outright rudeness

Well, let's revisit that:

A comment like that last one is the perfect illustration. I'm surprised you couldn't find something better than an extreme exaggeration/extrapolation as a basis for this latest slam, but WTF, your first comment in this thread wasn't really that much more sophisticated.

Yes, I pointed out that you used an extreme exaggeration as the basis for a slam. Dear me, is that rude? Oh my.

And yes, I pointed out that your initial comment, the one chock full of extremely improbable events that might somehow overtake us if we get overconfident, "wasn't really that much more sophisticated." Again, dear me. I probably should have described it in terms involving bodily waste. My apologies.

Don't bother to reply

Too late, of course. But if I should ever re-start my own blog, would you mind if I borrow "the lunatic ravings of a madman" as a subtitle/description? I kinda like it.

kathy a.

the antidote to everything bad. no, it is not political. you need sound, and dancing shoes.

kathy a.

but it is a good demonstration of international relations. and if that's not enough happy medicine, , try this.

i think the debates need to feature a dance-off.

Joe S

Bill H, Would you mind if I recommended "The Lunatic Ravings of a Madman" to any of my friends and colleagues who want to start a Punk/Hardcore/Heavy Metal Band ? One of my friends already took my favored suggestion "Altamount Security" for his band. And nobody's taken me up on "Drunk on Beer" for a band name. But "The Lunatic Ravings of a Madman" iss really good. It could even be somewhat Goth- it has a certain over the top dramatic flair.

low-tech cyclist

Had a fun time deciding which Senate candidates to give to, to round out my Senate contributions. Bill, I hope you will forgive me for enjoying this. But again, I get a lot more eager to throw money at our candidates when I'm enjoying the situation. I know this isn't noble of me, but as Malcolm Reynolds would say, "Guess I'm just a good man....well, I'm all right."

kathy a.

well, i think "the lunatic ravings of a madman" sounds more like the title of a literary novel. it's really too long for a band name.

nancy

"Altamont Security" :)

kathy -- Thanks for the time out...which did need a tissue alert. Dance just kinda does that to me. Even goofy dancing I guess.

And Bill, at your blog -- we're the "Democratic 'Tea Party'" over here? Really?

joel hanes


The shuttle was supposed to be a stopgap.

NASA was working on a real spaceship, something capable of escape velocity, not just LEO, but there were problems and Congress kept futzing with the budget. So NASA came up with the Shuttle, with its strap-ons and the huge external fuel tank, a collection of existing technologies, as a kludge to get us through the few years until the real spaceship should be ready.

And then, since we had the Shuttle, Congress in its infinite wisdom starved the development of NASA's real spaceship right out of existence. And so the Shuttle program lived far beyond the intended lifetime, and hardly any remember that it was originally intended to provide LEO access for just a few years, until we had something vastly better.

big bad wolf

oddjob, i hope that you are right that there are some engineers out there interested in addressing this problem. like you, i was awed by what nasa did, and am more awed now that i know how primitive the computing power was. but that makes me wonder if we have ignored what one would think of as engineering challenges because we have such great (if amazing on an intellectual level) toys. we wseem less involved with real life (and i would say figuring out how to use gravitional fields counts as real life) and too involved with virtual life (look what i can make this chip do). again, amusing ourselves to death, by planetary roasting, seems what we are all about. and it is our death, the planet will be fine. i imagine those icecaps are a burden to carry. :)

joe, wonderful band names.

kathy, i think it works as a band name, but it does seem as if it could be the last pynchon novel.

nancy

“I like people, I just don’t have to see them all the time.” Love it. Neil Young. The NYT interview.

oddjob

hardly any remember that it was originally intended to provide LEO access for just a few years, until we had something vastly better

I remember, now that you mention it.

oddjob

it is our death, the planet will be fine

I have no worries about the continued existence of life on Earth (until such time as the sun grows too large and hot); it's human civilization and humanity I worry about.

low-tech cyclist

joel - maybe that was NASA's intent, but it seems to me that that was a bit optimistic, given the times. We'd cancelled Apollos 18, 19, and 20 in the early 1970s, even though it saved us very little money by doing so - we'd already sunk all the upfront costs.

There was little appetite at the time for expensive new manned space programs. We'd beaten the Russians to the moon, which was 90% of the reason to go there when we did, and having done so, there really wasn't a good answer to 'now what - and why?' Most Americans felt like we'd done the moon, and Mars was too far off and way too expensive. NASA was lucky to get the shuttle.

Manned spaceflight really needs a strong justification for doing it at all. It's incredibly costly compared to unmanned missions, because the environment of space (vacuum, cosmic radiation, etc.) is much more hostile to people than to machines so we need a crew compartment that isn't going to leak air and is well protected against cosmic rays, and because of all the extra stuff (food, drink, and oxygen, just for starters) a manned mission has to lug up to keep us going while we're in space. And lifting all that extra crap out of Earth's gravity well takes a lot of extra boost.

If we junked manned space flight altogether for a couple of decades, the money saved would pay for a hundred missions like Curiosity. And that, IMHO, is the way we should go.

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