Afternoon friends. Zakn Here at the helm.

I'm writing this while Steam is downloading The Walking Dead Episode 4, and while avoiding FTL. I swear that game is meant to extract my tears......Yet again I have made it to the final battle only to have my ummm stuff pushed in. I do really like the game, and do encourage you to Buy it from them or on Steam. RexHarrisonsHat sends me daggers on Twitter about this. Apparently I've cost him a weekend. Yea, it's that addictive.
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Posted by: Gang of Gaming Morons! at 09:00 AM | Comments (41)
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I think Dave In Texas is still at the AoSHQDD strategy meeting, so this afternoon's NFL Thread won't be up to his usual high standards.

When he comes to, maybe he'll stop by and say 'hi'.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 08:30 AM | Comments (204)
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Meh. I've Seen Worse

Good morning morons and moronettes and welcome to the stale, funny-smelling, dubious-looking, too-long-in-the-back-of-the-refrigerator, yet maybe still tasty Sunday Morning Book Thread.

Odds & Ends From Last Week

In last week's book thread, which was a fun thread, I made a couple of egregious errors that I think deserve a revisit.

First, I said this:

There are two kinds of men in this world, poker players and chess players. Bush, according to those who knew him during his college years, was an excellent poker player and he won like crazy. Now, on the other hand, I can't imagine RN sitting down at the table with the boys for an evening of Texas Hold 'Em. But I think he'd have been a frightfully good chess player.

This howler prompted responses from at least half a dozen morons who informed me that no, actually, Richard Nixon played quite a lot of poker when he was in the Navy, and in fact did so well at it that he financed the down payment on a house with his winnings. So there. I obviously need to hire a fact-checker. I wonder if Mary Mapes still needs work?

I think my point about men being either chess players or poker players still stands, though. Me, I'm a chess player. Don't like poker, never have. I'd make a lousy president, or for that matter, a lousy CEO or other big-time decision-maker. I think the environment in which executives have to live and move and have their being can be more successfully negotiated by poker players.

And then later, I observed that the last American President to write a serious policy book was Jimmy Carter. But moron commenter Sawbuck refuted that:

Check out "A World Transformed" by George H.W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft about the diplomatic issues and opportunities with the collapse of the Soviet Union. A pretty good read

You can check out the Kindle edition here. It actually looks like it would be worth checking out.

Oh, and I almost forgot Grant's Memoirs. I didn't list every book by every president in last week's thread, but it seems I left off an important one. Leaving this one off the list last week was a colossal mistake. I did not know this, but apparently Grant's Memoirs are one of the best damn ass-kicking memoirs in the history of memoirs. Or ass-kickery. Seriously, if you only read the memoirs of only one president, Ulysses S. Grant's are the ones you want to read. And the Kindle edition is only 99 cents, so even cheap bastards like me have no excuse. And I haven't checked, but Project Gutenberg probably has it for free.

What I'm Reading

I've just finished Chicken Every Sunday: My Life With Mother's Boarders a few days ago. It's a reminiscence written in the 1940s about the funny, unique, and even crazy people whom the author's mother took in as boarders for extra income in Tuscon, Arizona around the turn of the (20th) century. It's in turns touching and hilarious, and I especially enjoyed it as a "slice of life" glimpse into the early days of Tucson, back when it was in the process of growing from a smallish town into a large, bustling city. [Update: I have been advised in the comments that Tucson is not, in fact, a 'large bustling city', but rather, a dump. I deeply regret this error.] A very fun read. I would like to read more books of this type, that tell of earlier times in America.

Boarding houses. Do they even have boarding houses any more?

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:50 AM | Comments (127)
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Imagine content here.

George McGovern died yesterday.

h/t Vic

Sandra Fluke campaign stop in Reno draws ten people.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:00 AM | Comments (370)
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Hey there is some celestial action going on tonight as the Meteor Shower Created By Halley's Comet Peaks Tonight. I think of it as an emissary of SMOD.

The Orionid meteor shower will reach its zenith overnight from Saturday to Sunday (Oct. 20-21) as Earth plows through debris shed by HalleyÂ’s Comet on its path around the sun. The most impressive display should come a few hours before dawn Sunday, when our planet hits the densest patch of HalleyÂ’s detritus.

Posted by: CDR M at 05:50 PM | Comments (947)
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Obama 49, Romney 48.

They push the idea that Obama has the whip-hand because he has more already-cast votes. Well, that's nice, but the poll also surveys such voters. All in all, it's still 49-48.

In addition, CAC has pointed out that the percentage of voters claiming to have already voted in polls is almost double the percentage who actually have voted.

The RCP average is down to 2.1.

BTW: An erroneous report from Sam Stein is making the rounds, but his update essentially says "Nevermind."

His report originally said that Romney was moving 60 staffers into Pennsylvania, and looks to add more, which is huge, enormous news.

It is now corrected to say that Romney already has 60 staffers in PA, and hopes to add more. Which isn't news at all-- it's just the campaign saying how many people they have there now, and have had there for months. Plus, an intention to move more there, but of course they intend that. I'm sure they hope to close down their VA, NC, and FL offices and move people into Obama-leaning states. Whether they will or not is the question.

So, as nice as this one is, it's not true.

Posted by: Ace at 03:51 PM | Comments (547)
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In case you missed it yesterday, here it is in all its glory. I'm not sure why they aired it on a Friday night at 10pm.

h/t Wheatie

Posted by: Open Blogger at 02:34 PM | Comments (153)
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Well...since the horde is requesting more goodies in addition to the postive (R) poll trending in the swings, I picked up the red courtesy phone as soon as I could and am here ready to jump into action. For when the collective horde orders, we deliver and put it on our tab...not yours. That's just how it works around here. It's a unique business plan, you order, we serve and we absorb all the incidentals as it were. So after much painstaking consideration in trying to strike the perfect confectioner's balance of sugar and salt in order to blend a fitting pari passu morsel that goes with strong (R) polling...I have found it and plucked it off the low hanging branch (apologies up front for the mixed metaphor) and now it's ready to be served.

Oh, how I hope you will like it. It is so tasty and I know, just know you are going to like it. For you aren't Mad-dogs and Englishmen, fooling around in the mid-day sun. [No, for we are morons who appreciate prose by Noel Coward, cheap vodka, fine cigars and firm feeling women] So here it is, a custom made and fit post just for you... oh, how excited I am to let you know that yes, yes, it is so very true that...... more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 01:51 PM | Comments (216)
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Had to be escorted from the theater

I love the way Andrew Breitbart is giving them hell, even from the grave.

As the election gets closer, and the inevitability of Obama's defeat looms larger, I wonder how many more of these progressive meltdowns we will start seeing?

MSNBC on election night should be epic.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 01:33 PM | Comments (67)
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Long meandering thought from me:

First North Carolina, now Florida. While I've been saying they've been gone for a while, the eighth straight poll giving Romney a lead makes it pretty irrefutable. The President will not publicly concede it, because it would look terrible. But Romney is enjoying a close but consistent lead now.

The next two most Romney-loving states, Virginia and Colorado, may start dropping in line soon. Rasmussen gave us another R+ poll in the Old Dominion, and PPP could only get O+1 in their most recent paid poll released Wednesday. Not to mention the Kimball Poll and Gravis release earlier in the week. (Sorry this post is train-of-thought).

Ohio of course is the big beast. Until pollsters start showing a more realistic D/R/I, we will keep getting results like the new Fox poll giving Obama a 46-43 lead while bleeding independents to Romney by twenty-four points which of course totally jives totally. Romney has quietly picked off other states and closed the gap in a plethora of light-blue ones in the two weeks since the first debate, now rising to 261 electoral votes on RCP's latest chart- 9 short of beating the President (gaining the aforementioned Virginia and New Hampshire today).

Wisconsin and Ohio are trading places with smaller margins for the President back and forth. If it remains a tight race it would not shock me to see both go to the winner with a margin of a half-point or less between them.

I need to repeat something I've said in posts, in the comments, and on twitter: this is not about Romney hitting 270- it is about Obama keeping 270. In the polling averages, he is. In my projection, he isn't. But the difference between RCP and AOSHQDD is now just 18 EVs (Ohio). The President has lost North Carolina, Indiana, Nebraska's 2nd, Florida, and is watching Virginia slip away, Colorado by a slight margin as well, and now New Hampshire. His "firewall" states are now reduced to Nevada, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Ohio- states he still leads in on averages, but wherein Romney has made serious gains. A collapse in the first two, he is an ex-President. Wisconsin? One-termer. Ohio? Hello, President Romney. There are a lot of fires the President must continuously put out now. Some, he's stayed on top of...while he was still making Romney fight for Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and the weak two (CO/NH). Now that the race is going to shift into these new battlegrounds, there is little room for error for the President. If he starts to slip in any of the following routes: Wisconsin Ohio Nevada-Iowa Michigan, he is done. The map has shrunk for him and now things get interesting. Now is the time for boldness, and looks like Romney-Ryan is starting that up, upping ad buys in Boston (targeting New Hampshire perhaps to keep it as a weak pickup/strengthin Romney's new margin there), Michigan, and sending Ryan to Western Pennsylvania.

There could still be a 'game changer' at this point back into the President's favor, but the debates don't look like it, as PPP and even Marist's whack polling have shown no bounce for him (and in the case of Rasmussen's report about tomorrow, a negative one). What I stressed with Drew in that shoddy podcast was this: look at all the polls, look for the trends, check the crosstabs. All three are leaning Romney, it is up to us to keep them going that way.

Update:

Posted by: CAC at 11:21 AM | Comments (533)
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