Spoiler alert: The Giants will find new and inventive ways to disappoint me in the second half of a season. more...

Posted by: JohnE. at 05:39 PM | Comments (53)
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A preview of an Obama-Romney race.

I think a couple of them are unfair (supporting the idea of "stimulus" isn't the same as supporting Obama's stimulus, hiring a lawn company isn't hiring illegals, saying TARP should end isn't same as flipping on your original support and his auto bailout stance was more nuanced).

Of course since Democrats did the ad they left out the big one...his flipping on the nature of Social Security.

Republicans are well versed in Romney's various flips and flops. This video is a good indication of how Democrats would introduce Mitt to the wider electorate. It isn't pretty, is it?

Video via Ben Domenech of The Transom.

BTW- I'm not fond of spreading Democratic propaganda about Republicans but...a lot of the case for Mitt has come down to "he's electable". Maybe, maybe not but don't think the Democrats and Obama are going to roll over because folks like Jen Rubin swoon over Mitt because he's supposedly the only grown up Republican in the race.

Posted by: DrewM at 03:21 PM | Comments (318)
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Yeah, I wasn't posting this, but now he's issued a statement which all but confesses an affair, so:

Mr. Cain has been informed today that your television station plans to broadcast a story this evening in which a female will make an accusation that she engaged in a 13-year long physical relationship with Mr. Cain. This is not an accusation of harassment in the workplace – this is not an accusation of an assault - which are subject matters of legitimate inquiry to a political candidate.

Rather, this appears to be an accusation of private, alleged consensual conduct between adults - a subject matter which is not a proper subject of inquiry by the media or the public. No individual, whether a private citizen, a candidate for public office or a public official, should be questioned about his or her private sexual life. The public's right to know and the media's right to report has boundaries and most certainly those boundaries end outside of one's bedroom door.

Mr. Cain has alerted his wife to this new accusation and discussed it with her. He has no obligation to discuss these types of accusations publicly with the media and he will not do so even if his principled position is viewed unfavorably by members of the media.

It is interesting, and possibly even laudable, the I-won't-lie position.

Of course, the woman herself is talking on the news and likely has proof (email, etc.) of the relationship, so lying is probably not really even an option.

So it's really not laudable. It's just standard, now that I think about it.

Thanks to JohnE for that statement.

Whoops! Sorry, double-posted Drew.

Dang.

Posted by: Ace at 01:49 PM | Comments (421)
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I was kind of expecting a sweater with a deer on it, but by gum, this earful of Planned Parenthood talking points is far more original!

“The holidays are upon us! Going home or getting together with relatives for the holidays is always a stressful time, but if your family members are the type who regularly protest outside the local Planned Parenthood, you know that this holiday is going to be a doozy,” the New York City affiliate of Planned Parenthood explains on its website. “Luckily, we have some tips for surviving those awkward conversations”

The abortion provider offers supporters “8 Easy Steps for Discussing Reproductive Health and Justice at the Holiday Table.” The online cheat-sheet includes such advice as “Avoid bumper speak talk” to steer away from anger-inducing slogans, and “Remember the big picture” to keep the conversation on common goals such as the need for health care. It also advises readers to “Know your facts, but keep the conversation more global.”

“It’s good to clarify misinformation—for example, the misconception that emergency contraception ends a pregnancy—but staying there can cause a fight. Instead, try to clarify, and then transition back to the underlying value of why you believe what you do,” the tip sheet explains.

That last Fun Science Fact is based on a bit of technicality -- as I understand it, they're saying that the emergency contraception prevents implantation of a fertilized egg on the uterine wall, which is what they call a "pregnancy."

Actually they're not saying that. They don't really explain their position. I'm guessing that's the way their argument would go, if they made it.

I have a feeling that a plurality of people arguing against abortion would define it at fertilization.

So, that's kind of dishonest. If you know how your opponent is defining a pregnancy differently from you, and you claim a "pregnancy" doesn't occur, knowing he's actually defining "life" from the moment of conception and you're just sort of hoping he misses the fact you're pulling a bait-and-switch over the terms of debate, well, maybe you'll shut him up, but dishonestly.

Merry Christmas, here's that empty semantic argument you wanted, straight from Santa's Workshop! Ho Ho Ho!

Another suggested response is about the issue of sex education.

Question: I think sex ed should be left to the parents.

Suggested Response. I totally agree that parents should be the main educators of their children when it comes to sex.

Wait, one guy says sex ed should be left to parents, and the suggested response is "I totally agree that parents should be the main educators about sex..."

Hey, I totally agree with the exact opposite position you just stated, but I said "I totally agree" in the beginning, so that's a Positive sort of thing and now you should agree back with me!

It's all this sort of third-grad debate tactics, either manipulative or just dishonest.

Suggested for use with family and friends. At Christmas dinner.

Posted by: Ace at 01:42 PM | Comments (104)
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This is more obligatory than anything at this point.

An Atlanta businesswoman is breaking her silence, claiming she has been involved in a 13-year-long affair with Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, FOX 5 senior I-Team reporter Dale Russell sat down with Ginger White, who had an amazing story to tell.

“It was pretty simple,” White said. “It wasn't complicated. I was aware that he was married. And I was also aware I was involved in a very inappropriate situation, relationship.”

At least it's not an allegation of harassment.

Hopefully this won't interfere with Cain's campaign swing through Iowa New Hampshire South Carolina Ohio ahead off its all important June primary.

BTW- If you had "Newt Gingrich will benefit most from reporting of alleged sexual misconduct and an extramarital affair", wow and good for you. I for one did not see that coming.

Added: Coblogger John E. sends on Team Cain's response. It's....not good.

"Mr. Cain has been informed today that your television station plans to broadcast a story this evening in which a female will make an accusation that she engaged in a 13-year long physical relationship with Mr. Cain. This is not an accusation of harassment in the workplace – this is not an accusation of an assault - which are subject matters of legitimate inquiry to a political candidate.

Rather, this appears to be an accusation of private, alleged consensual conduct between adults - a subject matter which is not a proper subject of inquiry by the media or the public. No individual, whether a private citizen, a candidate for public office or a public official, should be questioned about his or her private sexual life. The public's right to know and the media's right to report has boundaries and most certainly those boundaries end outside of one's bedroom door.

Mr. Cain has alerted his wife to this new accusation and discussed it with her. He has no obligation to discuss these types of accusations publicly with the media and he will not do so even if his principled position is viewed unfavorably by members of the media."

I'm pretty sure taking the Bill Clinton "zone of privacy" approach isn't a winning formula in the GOP primary.

Posted by: DrewM at 01:18 PM | Comments (178)
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It's all kind of made up. I don't really care that this new bullshit "projection" is more moderate than the last bullshit "modeling session."

New research takes some of the most dire global warming projections off the table. A study published last week in the journal Science concludes that the more extreme climate change scenarios, which involve temperature increases of up to 10°F are implausible. Instead, the study finds, we are likely in the midst of a more manageable, but still potentially dangerous, shift in the planet’s climate.

But now this new "science" -- this new concoction of computer models and gestimated variables for things we do not understand and therefore cannot model at all, like cosmic rays and clouds and such -- this time you've got it all buttoned up and squared away, right?

In fact, this studyÂ’s projections still warm the planet to the highest levels in human history.

Right, right, I forgot that part where you successfully calculated the global mean temperature for the last 40,000 years. Oh right, after discarding the Medieval Warm Period and, if I'm not mistaken, an earlier, even warmer sauna period in human history.

You know what they did for this study?

Previous studies had been assuming -- assuming -- a very sensitive earth. An emo earth. An earth whose weather-moods change quickly and goth-ishly based on CO2.

But if the earth gets very hot when a little more CO2 is added, it should also be sensitive the other way, and get quite cold when CO2 fractions fall.

So, if the earth is really going to get this warm based on CO2 going up, it should have gotten quite cold in the past, when CO2 fell. Enough to freeze all the oceans on the earth, it turns out, based on their "models."

Since these researchers bothered to actually check that against the record -- duh, there is no record of literally the entire world ocean freezing over, so the earth must not be that sensitive, either way, to carbon dioxide level changes.

Can you believe the models we've been hearing about for fifteen fucking years didn't have this minor level of real-world reality check?

They just always turn the knobs on these models up to highest conceivable sensitivity to get the scare factor they want.

And then they call it science.

Posted by: Ace at 11:24 AM | Comments (348)
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Dave Wiegel's been explaining his wonderfully complex mind to me on Twitter.

Here's what I've determined:

Thomas Edsall can write, in the NYT, that Obama will "explicitly" "abandon" the "working class white" vote. That is the main point of the article, that the Democrats, though founded on the Working Class White vote, and though struggling for 30 or 40 years to get it back, is finally just giving up on this vote, and will attempt to construct majorities in the future without it -- going for minorities, the young, "secularists," and affluent whites.

That's the whole point of the article. I quoted it earlier. There is nothing in the article which is not about that.

Anyway, because the NYT likes to hide Democratic losses from its Democratic readership, and finds talk of losing white votes icky, they gave the article the vaporous, soporific headline "The Future of the Obama Coalition."

FoxNews saw the same article, noticed that the New York Times had given the article a deliberately non-informative headline, and so wrote about it themselves with an actually informative headline: "NYT: Obama Campaign To Abandon White Working Class."

Anyway, because of this: racist.

It's amazing to me that Edsall can say something, and not be racist (and nor the NYT be racist), but Fox can say the same thing -- quoting Edsall and the NYT -- and they're racist.

But that's how I'm told it works.

Posted by: Ace at 10:46 AM | Comments (161)
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Jewish Lightning Strikes Twice?

Less than two weeks after a mysterious explosion destroyed an Iranian missile base near Tehran, the Islamic Republic's official news agency FARS reported Tuesday that a loud blast was heard in the city of Isfahan at 2:40 pm local time, but later removed the report.

According to the initial report, search and rescue teams called to the scene confirmed the blast, but reported no injuries.

Iran's uranium enrichment plant is located just outside Isfahan – one of Iran's largest cities.

The report also stated that a security official confirmed that the explosion had occurred, but refused to give further details.

...

In a curious turn of events, shortly after the initial report was published, the item was removed from the news agency's website, which is affiliated with the country's Revolutionary Guard.

Hours later, deputy governor of Isfahan province told Iran's Mehr news agency that there was no report of a major explosion in the province.

Supposedly the explosion was large enough to be heard through the whole city.

And yet now, it didn't happen at all.

This blog caught a screencap of the FARS report, before it was disappeared, including a picture of thick black smoke plume. Ignore the picture; a commenter at Elder of Ziyon says that's just a stock photo they run with explosion stories.

Completely Unvetted... And this is just some guy yammering on YouTube, but he's claiming his sources in Iran say that three explosions have hit Iran, at three different missile Shahab-3 and Shahab-4 missile bases. (Those are what they would hit Israel with.)

Posted by: Ace at 09:03 AM | Comments (267)
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So, they did an Anchorman parody ad.

Before you say "Oh it's not bad," subtract, in your mind, the Dance To The Music song and the super-stacked brunette at the end.

What's left? An SNL intro-credit sequence with boring people.

By the Way: A year and a half ago, when Joe and Mika's radio show was cancelled -- yes, cancelled -- they claimed the show was just being retooled or something, and would come back, soon, in an "expanded format" or something.

When does this new format start?

It's a pretty funny clip, with Scarborough speaking darkly of other people on the radio -- those who've been there a long time -- being "scared" of Joe and Mika, because they know, and I quote, "Their world is about to end."

This, on the day they say goodbye because they're being cancelled.

Maybe I should give him credit for trying to pull a Reggie Dunlop.

Posted by: Ace at 08:41 AM | Comments (79)
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Our listless, hapless, distracted, depressed president might be looking for a soft bit of canvas to flop on.

There are only two ways to look at the Obama re-election campaign right now: Either the upstart candidate who stunned the world when he defeated the Clinton machine to capture the Democratic nomination three years ago has lost every bit of that massive mojo, or the bruised and battered president, after three years in office, just doesnÂ’t want another spin in the Oval Office.

How else to explain the nonstop missteps, the stammering and stuttering campaign, not to mention the brazen attacks on American voters, who, he has said, have “fallen behind,” lost their “ambition and imagination,” gotten “lazy” and “a bit soft” - this is a guy seeking the support of America?!

Curl has a good point about Obama's future, if he won:

He knows that over the next four years, with automatic budget cuts set to take effect and the American peopleÂ’s rising ire over the profligate spending in Washington, heÂ’s going to have no money to redistribute to the masses.

So, why bother? ItÂ’s going to get worse before it gets better. Who needs it? Why preside over a government that, instead of giving everything to everybody free, takes it all away, cuts so deeply that nearly every American will be affected? Especially if you think Americans are lazy, lack ambition - theyÂ’ll never rise to the challenge, so why not just bail?

That's an interesting point -- Obama likes playing the redistributionist hero. He's unhappy because he can't play that role now.

Would he be able to play that role in 2013 and 2014, if he won?

There is a big reason Obama would like to hang on: Vindication. Just as he thought the recovery would be automatic in 2009, freeing him up to pursue whatever political agenda he liked, trusting that the Recovery Fairy would sprinkle some expansion pixie dust on America and fix everything, I think he still believes that it's coming. Just a little delayed. And it will be a big recovery, because of his policies, not despite them.

So he could be imagining that if he can just get through this brief, half-decade-long rough patch, the days where he gets to play Liberal Hero again are just around the corner.

Would he be able to spend like gangbusters? Not as much, but the Republicans couldn't do much to stop him when he was unpopular; if the economy recovered, and he was back to being on the news everyday to talk about how awesome he is, they'd be able to restrain him even less.

So I don't know about this claim. Interesting, but I can see him genuinely holding out hope that his big ObamaRecovery is just lost in the mail, but will get here any day now.

Posted by: Ace at 07:32 AM | Comments (205)
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