Sunday Morning Open Thread
— andy

Happy Veterans' Day to all who served. Thank you.

Posted by: andy at 04:00 AM | Comments (427)
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ONT - Game Over Edition. [krakatoa]
— Open Blogger

(Your regular Saturday host is trying to get in good with the new owners of Star Wars. Took his kids. Says it's a vacation. I think he intends to trade them for a re-release of IV with Han shooting first.)

So. That happened.

I'm not going to pretend to have some sort of deep insight into all the things that added up to another Obama term. Frankly, I think the best answer is probably a little bit of "all of the above".

Bottom line though? We are not the country we thought we were. As has been pointed out by pointier heads than mine, we lost the cultural battle for the electorate long ago, and have made little noticeable improvement on that front since 1984.

more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:12 PM | Comments (1289)
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Saturday Afternoon Insta Story Free Association Word Jam
— rdbrewer

Here are the rules from the original Saturday Afternoon Experimental Insta-Story:

Anyone can add to the story. But you can only add three words at a time. Any meta comment or any other comment that is not part of the story must be set apart in square brackets. [Like this.]

Let's have this one be a mystery. In space. With phasers and big boobs. And a princess. A gold ring. A wolf. And a shrubbery. I'll start it off:

Once upon a...

Remember: Meta-talk [in brackets].

So, here we go: Once upon a . . .

Posted by: rdbrewer at 12:36 PM | Comments (2222)
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New GOP Strategy: Fold Like a Cheap Pup Tent In a Hurricane
— andy

The polls weren't even closed on the west coast, it seems, before GOP pols and pundits were falling all over themselves saying we needed to moderate our positions on a whole host of issues if we ever wanted to win another presidential election. Ever!

Now, I think this is pure crap. We haven't exactly had the most articulate messengers for the last couple of cycles, and the other side has done a great job of defining our positions for us. But forget what I think.

Say for a minute you agreed with the idea that we need to rewrite the platform to draw 270 electoral votes. Which one would you drop first?

And which one is an absolute dealbreaker for you?

I tried to keep the lists short. If you have another one in either category, mention it in the comments.

And for this purpose, I'm presuming Obamacare as a standalone issue is a done deal. It now would fall with entitlement reform and the like under "Taxes and spending".

Posted by: andy at 11:00 AM | Comments (837)
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FBI Agents "Outraged" That Compromised CIA Director Was Left In Place For Months, To Avoid Political Problems
— Ace

Impeachment is a matter of time.

I realize that will be unsuccessful, as far as removal from office. But at some point you have to make the point.

Still, the White House, with concurrence by the FBI and Justice Department [go figure on that-- ace], held off on asking for PetraeusÂ’ resignation until after the election. His resignation occurred three days after the election, avoiding the possibility that ObamaÂ’s ill-fated appointment of Petraeus could become an issue in the election.

FBI agents on the case were aware that such a decision had been made to hold off on forcing him out until after the election and were outraged.

“The decision was made to delay the resignation apparently to avoid potential embarrassment to the president before the election,” an FBI source says. “To leave him in such a sensitive position where he was vulnerable to potential blackmail for months compromised our security and is inexcusable.”

Posted by: Ace at 10:00 AM | Comments (328)
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College Gameday
— Dave in Texas

Happy Saturday morons. Thanksgiving is sneaking up on us.

Christmas music, too soon?

Here's today's top ten action, all times EST:

Alabama (1) vs. Texas A&M (15), 3:#0pm
Kansas St. (2) vs. TCU, 7pm
Oregon (3) and California, 10:30am
Notre Dame (4) vs. Boston College, 8pm
Georgia (5) and Auburn, 7pm
Florida (6) vs. Louisiana Lafayette, 12:21pm (twelve twenty-one?)
LSU (7) vs. Mississippi State (21), 7pm
South Carolina ( and Arkansas, noon
Louisville (9) vs. Syracuse, noon

and Florida State (10) beat Virginia Tech 28-22 on Thursday

Crouching tiger, hidden elbow.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:57 AM | Comments (314)
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Happy Birthday United States Marine Corps
— Dave in Texas

237 years. Established by the Continental Congress on Nov 10, 1775 during the American Revolution. Here's a link to a pretty cool timeline, lots of photos and history.

No better friend, no worse enemy. Semper fi.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:36 AM | Comments (274)
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Saturday Morning Open Thread: Orca Edition
— andy

There's a lot of activity going on behind the scenes with John E.'s digging into the failed Project Orca election-day system used by Team Romney. I had a link in the sidebar encouraging blog readers to sign up to help with this project, and if I'd known what a cluster it was I surely wouldn't have. My apologies if you wasted your time on it.

But we're going to get to the bottom of this. And by the time we're done the responsible parties, specifically Rich Beeson, Dan Centinello and Zac Moffatt, will join the Steve Schmidts and John Weavers of the world on the DO NOT SUPPORT ANYONE WHO WOULD HIRE THIS PERSON! roster of GOP campaign consultants.

Jon Huntsman can tell you about that one. You remember him, don't you?

Ben Howe has a brutal takedown over at RedState. He seems right on the mark.

More to come ...

[Update] GnuBreed would appreciate your voting in his poll: What should us Moron/Ettes do as a result of this election?

What should us Moron/Ettes do as a result of this election?
	Nothing much. The GOP just needs a few minor tweaks and some better candidates.
	Sweet Meteor of Death (SMOD, or withdraw from politics if you prefer a less dramatic version)
	Let It Burn, or actively assist the Dems in passing everything they want.
	Government shutdown -- Ask the House to refuse to up the national debt limit.
	Go galt -- Come on, you know you want to.
	Cloward Piven -- Sign up for every benefit you can.
	Form a New Party
pollcode.com free polls

Posted by: andy at 03:04 AM | Comments (582)
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ONT: Advent Of Winter Fatness
— LauraW

Well, we in the New England have had an abrupt end to an unbelievably long run of great weather. Our Spring actually started in Spring for a change, our Summer was one of the most weather-perfect in long years of memory, and this Autumn was superb leaf-peeping for weeks.

But just a few days ago we had our first Nor'easter. Something funny happens when the temperature dips and the mornings get clear and crisp. And then this funny thing intensifies when the first snows arrive.

What happens is, all the fat cells in our bodies send urgent messages of 'Want' to the Blubber Cortex of the brain. The Blubber Cortex then activates the Cake Gland, which is located in your elbow, and is responsible for lubricating and strengthening all the joints that help you bring a fork to your mouth.

And food just looks really good, all the time.

In order to get my mind off food, I took a bunch of dramatic weather-photos of puffy clouds today. Here's one.

Note the seagull off in the distance, and the low grey sky.

More cloud pictures below the fold. more...

Posted by: LauraW at 05:48 PM | Comments (887)
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Team Romney: Actually Project ORCA Was Pretty Darn Successful
— JohnE.

I am trying to ascertain just what level of self-delusion is required to make claims like this. My suspicion is that it involves padded rooms and needles. Let's take these one at a time.

But the Romney campaign is denying that there was any “massive failure” of Orca, although the campaign acknowledges the system was down for up to 90 minutes in the morning. Other than that one long outage, they say the system worked, albeit with minor glitches. Ultimately, the campaign had voting data from 91 percent of counties, said Romney digital director Zac Moffat

Okay, first I want to call attention to the deliberate use of weasel words here. They "had voting data from 91 percent of counties". For starters, notice he didn't say precincts. So, if a county has 30 precincts and 1 precinct reports data, then that counts as one of those "91% percent of counties". Second, notice he says they "reported data". That could mean someone entered in a couple voters at 9AM, then left for the day when the system crashed. The point of the project was to provide accurate real-time evolving data so lightning-fast evaluations could be made with regards to shifting campaign resources. Does that sound like that happened here? And spare me the "minor glitches" nonsense, Zac. There were widespread reported problems throughout the day before the entire system came crashing down. These are not "minor glitches"; this was a systematic and organizational failure that brought the entire GOTV effort of a United States Presidential campaign to a screeching halt.

Orca “has no relation to the outcome,” a Romney aide says.

If ORCA had no relation to outcome, then tell me, what the hell was the point of the project? Huge campaign resources were were committed to this project, both in dollars and time by donors and volunteers, and you're going to shrug your shoulders and claim it wasn't all that big a deal after all? This is insulting to everyone who took time out of their schedule or skimmed money from their ever-shrinking paycheck to put their trust in this operation.

“We achieved in a large part what we set out to do in the swing states in terms of our electorate."

Zac, you lost. And apparently, this came as a complete shock to everyone involved in the campaign. This is what you set out to achieve?

The reality is the President did what he said he was going to do. The Obama campaign said that they were going to increase turnout from 2008, and they were able to do that. And that had nothing to do with a reporting system on Election Day.

This is where the bridge to reality collapses under the weight of its own arrogance and incompetence. For the love of God man, Barack Obama banked roughly SIX MILLION LESS VOTES THAN 2008.

Please, if anyone at the RNC is listening, do not let these guys near a major political campaign ever again.

[Update]: BenK informs me that Allegheny County has 1,300 precincts. Tell me more about these fantastical stories of percentage of counties reporting.

Posted by: JohnE. at 04:56 PM | Comments (383)
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