Top Headline Comments 10-28-10
— Gabriel Malor

Remember?

Tik tok, friends. TIK. TOK.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:24 AM | Comments (84)
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Financial Briefing: A fistful of T-Bills
— Monty

The recipe for the decline and fall of the American republic: most people who receive government benefits will not willingly give them up, or even allow them to be reduced. They've been told that these benefits are a right so often by the so-called "progressives" that they've come to believe it, and any attempt to reduce their benefits amounts, in their eyes, to a civil-rights violation. This is what the welfare state leads to -- an entire class of dependents who insist upon receiving the sweat of your brow not as charity or payment for services rendered, but as a birthright not to be denied them. Class warfare (between public-sector workers and taxpayers) and generational warfare (between the recipients of Medicare and Social Security and those who must fund it) is the only possible outcome if things do not change soon. And I don't mean that in rhetorical or symbolic terms; I mean in actual, bloody, street-fighting terms. It's the culture of grievance, of victimhood, of moral equivalence playing out in real time. As I wrote in an essay a while back, look at what's happening in England and France right now. That is our future -- only more violent -- if we don't change our ways.

And while I'm on the topic of entitlement-reform....

Veronique de Rugy on the farcical "Deficit Panel": if you're not going to reform Medicare or Social Security, you might as well do nothing, because nothing else really matters. Pull quote:

I wish more pundits, lawmakers, and advisers would remember the following: Reality isnÂ’t negotiable. In this case, it means that no matter how appealing raising tax revenue to address the current crisis sounds, it wonÂ’t work.

Let's just say it again for the benefit of our benighted comrades on the left side of the aisle -- reality isn't negotiable. You'd think the so-called "reality-based community" would know that.

Which leads me to....

American politicians take note: promising a program of austerity is one thing; getting your people to agree to it is something else entirely. Exhibit A: Greece. Exhibit B: Portugal. Exhibit C: England. It's kind of hard to get citizens to buy into brutal reductions in their standard of living just to make sure that foreign bondholders don't have to take a haircut.

more...

Posted by: Monty at 03:16 AM | Comments (112)
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Kid's Got Some Nerd Chops
— Ace

It's sort of an awww thing because he's kind of, you know, cluelessly goofy. more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:39 PM | Comments (80)
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Overnight Open Thread
— Maetenloch

Welcome to tonight's semi-half-assed hump day ONT.

So Where Do You Fall Politically?

Well OkCupid has a political test that's supposed to map where you fall on the plane of political thought. And yeah I know these kind of tests are simplistic, biased, and tend to collapse a lot of distinctions and well bla bla bla BLA. But I still find them entertaining anyway.

So here's my result. Now I wouldn't call myself a 'social liberal' but I am more of a libertarian than a SocialCon. It would have been interesting if they had added a 3rd axis measuring how much government action is desired.

You can take the test for yourself here. And if you enjoy these, there are more here, here, and here. more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:45 PM | Comments (1054)
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World Series Thread
— Ace

Hopefully not too much has been missed.

Posted by: Ace at 05:35 PM | Comments (65)
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The LA Times: 'The GOP is Racist Because Dems Vote Against Their Candidates'
— Geoff

The LA Times struggles to manufacture some Republican racism:

If election night goes his way, as many expect it will, Tim Scott of South Carolina will become a figure Washington has not seen in nearly a decade: a black Republican in Congress.
...
"The Republican Party — it's amazing — as much as they have said that they want to be an inclusive party, they've really largely been exclusive," said Dewey Clayton, a professor of political science at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.

"Yes, it is wonderful they have an African American running in South Carolina and some other races around the country," Clayton said. "Does that make a huge breakthrough? I don't know."

But the last time I checked, it's the racist Democrats who don't elect black Republican candidates to Congress. Any racism on the part of the GOP would be expressed in the primaries wouldn't it? So how racist were the GOP primaries?

Not very.

Thirteen of the record 33 black candidates seeking Republican nominations for Congress won in their states' GOP primaries. But they did so with very little support from African-American voters, who have cast their ballots for Democrats by overwhelming margins since the early 1970s.

Yeah. 40% of black GOP candidates succeeded in capturing their nominations. And it was largely white GOP voters who supported them. I would say that this year's primaries show that racism was absolutely not a factor for the GOP.*

And if only one of those 13 nominees is elected, as the LA Times predicts, it'll be pretty clear where the real problem with racism lies.

*2010 is just one year, so it could be argued that this many nominees is a fluke. Except:

“In 1994 and 2000, there were 24 black G.O.P. nominees,” said Donna Brazile, a Democratic political strategist who ran Al Gore’s presidential campaign and who is black. “And you didn’t see many of them win their elections.”

Yup, you sure didn't.

Posted by: Geoff at 04:39 PM | Comments (212)
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Jay Cost: As a Prognosticator, My Outer Bruce Banner Tries To Keep My Inner Incredible Hulk In Check, But I'm Being Belted By Gamma Rays, Baby
— Ace

The other day, on Twitter, I asked Jay Cost about his latest prediction, something like 62 seats, up from something like 55.

T or F, @jaycost : When predicting, you (and other analysts) feel much more comfortable getting it wrong on the low side than high side.

Real Q @jaycost If you have a choice between guessing low or guessing high, by same deviation, it feels safer to be on low side, right?

I ask, @jaycost , because ppl like Charlie Cook keep making projections before immediately saying “but it’ll be much higher.”

I was asking because, as I've said, it's my belief that people have a psychological bias in favor of expecting stasis, or expecting the average; when people guess what their situation will be five years from now, they will usually predict "about the same, just a little bit better." They will tend not to predict they've either come down with a terminal illness or have made $50 million.

Even when they should be predicting one of those things. Like, um, that's why idiots like me continue smoking, you know? I don't have lung cancer now; I "predict" I won't have it in five years. Despite the fact I'm actually at some high risk of just that.

The prognosticators keep making their "official" predictions, but then adding in But it could be higher. Well, of course-- if this is your best guess as to the average number of seats that could be gained under these conditions, it could be higher, it could be lower. We know that implicitly.

So why do you keep stressing It could be higher? Not "It could be lower." But specifically, It could be higher.

My belief is that these guys have a gut belief they are low-balling it but are more comfortable with a less dramatic prediction. But they actually don't believe their predictions. They want credit for both their less dramatic, lowball prediction, but also that asterisked It could be higher semi-prediction.

This isn't about partisan bias but basic psychology. People don't like saying crazy things even when the evidence is in favor of those crazy things. (Things like "Gee, Obama really has no accomplishments or history, does he? And there's not really strong evidence he's particularly smart, either." If only more people had been willing to trust their gut on that "crazy" notion.)

Charlie Cook, by the way, just did this exact thing yesterday. His prediction is for 48-60 seats gained, but he wants you to know, it could be higher.

Karl noted the questions and wrote a post about it, and about his own guesses as to the size of the wave.

And Jay Cost has now written a column on this very point (you're welcome).

Right now, the Gallup traditional model is showing the Democrats at 41% of the vote, and gives the Republicans an advantage of 14 points. That would point to a final result along the lines of 57-43. ItÂ’s hard for Hulk to say how many seats that would yield, but it would be way more than 60. Hulk notes that the Democrats have not sustained a share of the generic vote in the RealClearPolitics average higher than 43% since the early spring. With the amazingly unpopular Nancy Pelosi as the face of the party, congressional job approval now limited to legislative aides, and more voters than ever suggesting that their own member doesnÂ’t deserve reelection, just how much higher than 43% should we really expect that final number to go?

The circumstantial evidence in favor of this? As Jim GeraghtyÂ’s Obi Wan noted yesterday, itÂ’s all around us. We simply have gotten used to it. Ohio is all but gone for the Democrats, including the swingiest of swing districts in Columbus. Michigan is a lost cause. So is liberal icon Russ Feingold in Wisconsin. Pennsylvania looks like it will go maybe +4-6 for Toomey and Corbett. All of these places voted for Obama, and all of them are basically gone. Weak Republican candidates in Colorado and Nevada keep those races tight, but otherwise the toss-ups are: California, Illinois, West Virginia, and Washington. The last Republican presidential candidate to win all four of these? Ronald Reagan in 1984.

...

My innate sense of caution induces me to side with Bruce Banner, at least for now. At this point, my honest guess is a popular vote victory of 8-9 points with a 60-seat gain in the House, just as I wrote last week. That being said, I have moments when I start hearing the voice of the Hulk. Yesterday, after Battleground found the "most likely voters" going Republican by +12, Rasmussen by +9, and the Gallup traditional by +14, the Hulk was talking really loudly to me. Next Monday around 5 PM, Gallup will release its final generic ballot numbers. If those numbers are in line with the numbers from this week, I am going to start turning very, very green!

On the other hand, early voting is not really evidence of a super-wave, but more like a Republicans just doing better than in the last several cycles. A good GOP year, but not a historic one.

I've sort of retreated back from the Hulk halfway to David Banner, you know, that stage where he wears green contact lenses but otherwise it's still Courtship of Eddie's Father guy. I do think that, alas, too many conservative-tilting voters are still going to sit this out and leave an awful lot on the table.

As Geraghty indicates today, we may be looking at either Scenario 2 or more likely Scenario 3, but unless people really take a stand and Fire these fuckers' asses, hardcore, and leave everything on the field, we're not going to see Scenario 4.

Scenario 4 is all conservative-tilting voters engaged and turning out the vote. I don't think we're all doing that. Some of us are, of course. Others, though, are leaving it... to others, and to chance.

It's not going to happen that way. If the most super-enthusiastic ideological voters -- blog readers and commenters -- aren't all giving it their all, there's no way a squishy, barely-reads-the-news conservative-tilting couch potato is going to make the effort to cast a vote.

Posted by: Ace at 01:11 PM | Comments (518)
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Naturalized Pakistani Arrested For Plan To Blow Up DC Metro Stations; NPR Takes Opportunity To Re-Fire Juan Williams
— Ace

Those damn Tea Partiers.

You know what this reminds me of? 1930s Germany.

Federal law enforcement authorities are investigating a nascent plot to carry out a series of terrorist bombings at stations in the Washington Metro system, according to intelligence and law enforcement sources.

The investigation is focused on a naturalized U.S. citizen, originally from Pakistan, who became the target of an undercover sting operation, the sources said. An administration official said the man drew the attention of law enforcement officials by seeking to obtain unspecified materials. The planned attack was not imminent, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the matter remains under investigation.

The man, Farooque Ahmed, 34, of Ashburn, Va., is believed to have conceived of the plot and planned to carry it out on his own, and it is not known how far he proceeded in his preparations.

Oh, and he's a self-starting Jihadi:

Unlike other U.S. citizens implicated in recent terrorism plots, Ahmed does not appear to have received overseas training from al-Qaeda or any of its affiliates, the sources said.

Yup. Nothing to fear at all from people identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims.

Posted by: Ace at 12:33 PM | Comments (221)
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Judge Rules Linda Mazurski Cannot Hand Out Printed Write-In Lists Within 200 Feet Of Polling Booths
— Ace

Princess Lisa thought the rules about electioneering didn't apply to her.

Not only does the judgeÂ’s ruling not allow poll workers to hand out a list of names of write-in candidates, it also prevents poll workers from verbally providing the names.

“The actions of the Division are in a clear violation of an Alaska administrative regulation,” wrote Pfiffner. “The court hereby grants a temporary restraining order enjoining the Division for allowing election workers and polling place workers to post write-in candidate names, to provide a list of write-in candidate names to voters, or to provide verbally the names of write-in candidates to voters at any place within 200 feet of a polling place for the November 2010 general election.”

By the way, no one tried this before -- getting election officials to hand out lists. Probably because it's illegal.

Princess Lisa thought she was special though.

Here's a funny animal picture that doesn't mean anything at all. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:11 AM | Comments (265)
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Ace: This Poll Showing Bielat Within MoE of Frank Gives Me "Robot-Boners"
Sean Bielat: Hey, You Can't Do This; We've Actually Met. It's Creepy.
Ace: Sexy-Creepy You Mean!
— Ace

I believe it.

Allah wanted to know why I thought that Boston Globe poll was wrong.

First, Charlie Cook said a few weeks ago that most media polls are horrible -- they pay doodly-squat for them, and get a commensurate level of work. He said 50% of media polls are simply bad polls, not even worth looking at, another 25% are merely mediocre, and only 25%, from respected polling firms, are worth a damn.

He also said he'd trust an internal poll -- done by a company he knows and respects -- over most media polls.

The problem isn't that these polls are cooked; it's that they're cherry-picked for publication. That is, if Bielat has polls showing him down 10, 8, and 3, which one do you think gets leaked?

(FYI, though, the sense I get is that Bielat's polls have him either at -5 or -3.)

That said, as far as actual professionalism of the poll itself, Cook says that internal polls are often superior media and academic polls.

I also noted, responding to Allah, that Bielat signs are all over the area in MA-4, with very few Frank signs at all. And that people we were calling seemed pretty receptive to putting Frank out of office.

Sure, we were calling a conservative-ish town (Taunton), but it's not the most conservative place in that district.

The minute these people hear that they have a credible candidate, a Marine and engineer, who builds robots to protect our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, they'll go for him. It's just a question of letting people know. And getting out the vote.

And ads like this: more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:45 AM | Comments (90)
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