October Project, November atmosphere…
What’s on the agenda for the day?
Archives for 2014
Open Thread: Thanks A Bunch, Stoners!
It would be nice to think this was a cherry-picked, deliberately slanted story, but it’s in the bloody Guardian, yesterday: “With weed off the agenda, Colorado pot cafe patrons lose burning desire to vote“:
There was an outbreak of giggles in America’s first legal marijuana cafe when I asked the question.
“So … is anyone voting today?”
It wasn’t as if no one in the room was interested in politics; for an hour they had been arguing over tax, policing, municipal regulation, the difference between Democrats and Republicans, and what the Founding Fathers intended when they wrote the US constitution.
It was just that the patrons of Club Ned were high up in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains – 8,420ft above sea level, and way above the clouds. And they said they were not going to vote for anything that didn’t involve marijuana.
The owners, Cheryl Fanelli, 47, and her husband David, 57, have dedicated their lives to politics; campaigning for – and sometimes drafting – more relaxed cannabis laws, an effort that reached its climax in Colorado this year when the legalisation of recreational marijuana came into force…
Yet without a cannabis-related measure (or candidate) in the state on the ballot on Tuesday, neither were prepared to drive the 16 miles down the mountain to Boulder to their nearest polling station.
“There should be no politicians,” said Cheryl, who usually votes but sat this one out. “There should be no such thing as a politician.”
David put it less esoterically. “I don’t vote. I’m not into the politics shit.” He held aloft a hash brownie, said “the election won’t affect this”, smiled and plopped it in his mouth….
Cory Gardner and the Tea Party thank you very much, you self-centered douchecanoe.
Honestly, I kept checking to see if I’d accidentally clicked on The Onion.
Long Read — “He’s Glad You Asked: Randall Munro…”
… the Creator of XKCD, Explains Complexity Through Absurdity”, per the NYTimes:
While giving a physics talk for high school students five years ago at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Randall Munroe could tell that his audience was, in his words, “not totally with me.”
He was trying to explain potential energy and power — not complex concepts, but abstruse.
So, in the middle of his three-hour presentation, Mr. Munroe, who is best known as the creator of the Web comic xkcd, switched gears to “Star Wars.”
“I thought about the scene in ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ when Yoda lifts the X-wing out of the swamp,” he said in an interview. “It occurred to me as I was lecturing.”
Instead of abstract definitions (an object lifted upward gains potential energy because it will accelerate if dropped; power is the rate of change in energy), Mr. Munroe asked a question: How much Force power can Yoda output?…
Mr. Munroe has now collected that work, including a version of his Yoda calculations and new material, into a book, “What If?” which has been on the nonfiction best-seller list since it was published in September…
Long Read — “He’s Glad You Asked: Randall Munro…”Post + Comments (5)
Gaming Night
Not much going on on the idiot box and I can’t take another election post-mortem, so we’re playing some X3 and WoT and whatever else, so if you want to join in, email me and I will send you the vent info.
Leading From Behind
A newly published U.S. Army regulation says a service member can be referred to as a “Negro” when describing “black or African American” personnel. The Army confirmed the language is contained in the October 22 “Army Command Policy,” known as regulation AR 600-20. The regulation is periodically updated but the Army could not say how recently the word was added to the document.
In a lengthy section of the document describing “race and ethnic code definitions,” the regulation states under the category “Black or African American” that would include, “A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. Terms such as “Haitian” or “Negro” can be used in addition to “Black” or “African American”.
The Army, along with the rest of the military, collects extensive demographic data on the makeup of the military force for issues such as equal opportunity and ensuring discrimination does not take place.
One Army official familiar with the document said it’s possible the word was added so when forms are filled out, a black or African-American person could “self report” and choose to identify themselves as a Negro. But a military officer specializing in personnel issues for the Defense Department called that “the dumbest thing I have ever heard,” noting the Pentagon does not use the word in any of its extensive collection of demographic data.
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess this will be the fastest an Army regulation has ever been changed.
Wednesday Evening Open Thread: The Long March
6. Year this reminds of most (ironically) is 1986, when Dems retook Senate by beating bunch of GOPers elected in 1980 Reagan wave.
— Billmon (@billmon1) November 5, 2014
12. But if tonight's vote demos are correct, 2010 was as good as it gets for GOP — and probably better than it will get again for long time
— Billmon (@billmon1) November 5, 2014
15. …suppressed black votes whenever/wherever they could — basically threw the kitchen sink at the Dems.
— Billmon (@billmon1) November 5, 2014
16. Koch brothers essentially retooled their entire political/financial machine to fight this year's elections.
— Billmon (@billmon1) November 5, 2014
18. In an on-off year election in which all the normal cyclical political factors (2nd term off year) were pulling in GOP's favor.
— Billmon (@billmon1) November 5, 2014
You can read Billmon’s entire argument at his Twitterfeed, here. (No need to join Twitter.)
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Now to make it so…
Apart from remembering the old proverb This too shall pass — like a kidney stone, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Wednesday Evening Open Thread: The Long MarchPost + Comments (87)
Non-Unified Theory of Electoral Chaos
A theory has been percolating around here to the effect that Democrats in red or purple states who failed to fully embrace President Obama and/or the ACA were idiot DINOs who could have made a better showing by being REAL Democrats and endorsing the Obama administration’s agenda. Here’s why I think it’s bullshit.
Charlie Crist embraced President Obama and sang the praises of the ACA. He lost. Allison Grimes was all “Obama who?” She lost. Grimes in Kentucky may have run a tone-deaf, ham-fisted campaign (I honestly don’t know), but it’s just nuts, in my opinion, to think she would have made a better showing had she embraced Obama. There’s every reason to think she would have lost by an even bigger larger margin.
Here’s the thing: Yesterday’s elections were regional contests on a national map that heavily favored the GOP, and they took place in a time of discontent. So the GOP did the smart thing and nationalized the election. They made it all about Obama, and they won big by trashing the president.
You may not like it. I damn sure don’t like it. But that’s what happened, and people who are saying the Dems in red or purple areas should have just doubled down on support for the administration sound just as loopy as the teaturds who were shrieking that Romney and McCain lost because they weren’t enough like Sarah Palin or Ted Cruz.
We’ll see a very different political landscape in 2016 because there is precisely ZERO chance that the Republicans won’t overreach and make a hash of their control of Congress. They’ve demonstrated repeatedly that they have no intention of governing in good faith, and they aren’t going to magically turn into patriots over the next two years.
And if politics over the next two years follows its usual pattern, the future Democratic nominee, whoever she or he is, would be stupid NOT to embrace the president and run on the accomplishments of the Obama administration, such as the ACA. Does that sound contradictory? It’s not.
In 2016, we’ll be in a presidential election year. It’s no knock on Obama to acknowledge that he’s deeply unpopular in some areas and that Democrats who wanted to win regional campaigns like those decided in yesterday’s election couldn’t afford to be seen as close to the administration.
By the same token, a 2016 nominee who wants to win a national election should tailor her campaign strategy to the unique circumstances of a presidential election year and avoid pissing off Obama’s supporters. It ain’t rocket surgery. And anyone who is peddling one strategy or the other exclusively for every scenario is full of crap, in my opinion.