I learned in 2004 that banging your head against the wall and wailing about "voting against your own interests" only gets you a headache.
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) November 4, 2015
***********
Apart from complaints about the average low-info American voter and/or the site redesign, what’s on the agenda for this particular Hump Day?
Baud
There’s something on the agenda besides complaining?
Bart
Can someone please fix that super-annoying front-page bug where the latest post gets injected in each of the front-page posts?
Also, what is it with the idiotic use of images? Sometimes they become the avatar, sometimes they’re huge, etc.
Why are the tags and/or categories in such a large font that they seem to be part of the text? Surely fixing that should be one change in a template?
Mustang Bobby
Thirty-five years ago today Ronald Reagan won a landslide election. The world has been going to shit ever since.
Anne Laurie
@Bart:
Okkaaayy… That was happening to everyone last night, but it’s no longer happening on my machine (PC, PaleMoon browser). In case anybody who knows what they’re doing looks at this, what browser are you using?
The designers are still working on that, as far as I know. I think the original idea was for each front-pager to have our own ‘avatar’, but that’s not really helpful on a blog like this one, where every FPer covers a range of topics. Also, on a politics-based blog (as opposed to the usual commercial ones) having Zandar’s Weeble avatar heading a serious inquiry into Kentucky politics — or my dog Zevon smiling over a bricolage of stupid stuff Jeb Bush has done recently — is not really a helpful identifier key, is it?
If I get one wish from the designers, it’s going to be moving the categories back to the end of each post. But even if they were feeling indulgent, there’s a few more significant things I’d ask for first… like numbered comments, for instance.
Satby
I’m going to stay as busy as possible all day. I can finally cal the furnace guy to come fix the furnace before the beautiful warm weather we’re enjoying here ends.
Baud
As much as Kentucky sucked, there were some Dem victories in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. This election may have been more about red states red, blue states blue, purple states purple.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Nope, not here.
Satby
Ok last thing on the redesign for today (seriously I’m done), but how the fuck was a new website rolled without the front pagers (at least) getting a test drive?
I must be a better project manager than I gave myself credit for. I have a gift for the obvious.
raven
@Satby: You’re bragging about being a project manager???
OzarkHillbilly
Half of world’s rare antelope population died within weeks
Scientists are struggling to explain the mass die-off of at least 150,000 endangered saiga antelopes in Kazakhstan earlier this year
…
The mass mortality defies understanding of how biological systems normally behave, scientists have said. They believe the deaths occurred too quickly to be attributed to a transmissible disease.
There are no wounds or evident trauma that would point to poaching and no obvious signs of malnutrition. Soil and water samples have not revealed any significant presence of toxins or poisoning by radiation, despite claims by Kazakhstan activists that fuel from Russian rockets could be to blame.
The most likely culprit is a bacteria called pasteurella already living in the throat of the animals, Prof Richard Kock from the Royal Veterinary College at the University of London told the Guardian.
Damn.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: Oooopps.
The most likely culprit is a bacteria called pasteurella already living in the throat of the animals, Prof Richard Kock from the Royal Veterinary College at the University of London told the Guardian.
Although normally dormant, it is likely that an unidentified trigger caused it to change its character and “become nasty”, he said, producing toxins that could attack the antelope’s organ systems and cause death within hours.
Schlemazel
@Anne Laurie:
Still happening on my chromebook
and, as long as we are whining: I miss the links to previous & next threads that were at the bottom and top of the threads.
Remember, computers are here to make your life easier! repeat until you believe it.
Chyron HR
Good morning, here is your daily reminder that the new website works perfectly and if you disagree, it’s because you’re a crank who can’t handle change.
Satby
@raven: That was a joke.
BillinGlendaleCA
Looks like the rest of the country is having a warm spell, turned on the heater here tonight. It’s 43 degrees outside, brrrrr.
ETA: 42.
Mustang Bobby
@Anne Laurie: I got the repetition syndrome on my home PC using Firefox, and now I’m getting at my work PC in both Firefox and I.E.
Steeplejack
@Anne Laurie:
Grr . . . gritting my teeth.
Okay, I have practically put this blog on my back and carried it through the deep night with vitriolic criticism and music videos, so I think it’s time for me to hand off the baton of crabby commenting to someone else and grab some shuteye. The housecat is like “WTF are we doing here?”
Baud
@Schlemazel:
Computers brought us together.
.
.
.
So that’s strike 2 against them.
Satby
Ok, so this is cool
Kay
@Baud:
They recalled all three Koch Bros school board members, so that’s good news:
Americans for Prosperity spent half a million dollars defending them.
geg6
Amazing. We elected three Dems to the PA Supremes and the shit weasel local GOPer state rep attempting to take over my county had his slate go down to ignominy, with the exception of coroner.
A good night here. Feeling sorry for Kentuckians who voted the right way. Sorry their neighbors are idiots.
Steeplejack
@Satby:
Srsly.
And I note that they could have reached out to any number of regular commenters to be—oh, what’s that term?—yeah, beta testers for the site upgrade.
Baud
@Kay:
Nice. It’d one thing to beat the Kochs at the presidential level, but to beat them at the school board level is inspiring.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Kay: Mika tells me that the Kochs are really misunderstood, they really have liberal positions.
Mika is an idiot.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: Agreed.
BTW, from the last thread, George Harrison met his first wife, Patti Boyd, on the set of “A Hard Days Night”. They were married on my 6th birthday.
raven
@Satby: I was fixin to say. . .
Gin & Tonic
That injection of comment text is happening here, Windows 7, Chrome. AL’s latest post is ahead of all other text in every post on the front page.
BillinGlendaleCA
Hey, it’s always wrong, Bill Krsstol.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
That’s factually accurate but irrelevant. It’s not their liberal positions they’re pushing.
Elizabelle
@BillinGlendaleCA: You could not pay me to watch Morning Joe today.
Discovered SyFy channel does Twilight Zone episodes early morning. But not even in the mood for that.
Went to bed sad about Kentucky; woke up still bummed about that. Democrats did well in Fairfax County — yea! And the Dem won the state senate seat from Manassas (that was a Dem retain vote). Fingers crossed Kathleen Murphy keeps her seat in a not-yet called race. She’s wonderful.
Might take the camera for a walk around a local lake. Too beautiful a day to stay sad about elections going to malfeasors.
Got to say, Kentucky is getting no money and no visits from me for a long, long time. Screw ’em. Hard.
Steeplejack
@BillinGlendaleCA:
A Hard Day’s Night really is “the Citizen Kane of jukebox musicals,” as Mnemosyne (I think) mentioned rercently. Need to find out the original source for that.
And I think A Hard Day’s Night is a great musical even without the “jukebox” modifier.
Elizabelle
@BillinGlendaleCA: Mika is paid to be an idiot, although she may be one in real life too. Her poor dad.
“Know your worth.” As a serf. But blonde and buff.
Baud
Given yesterday, I don’t want to put much stock in polls or guess about voter turnout, but here’s something positive to keep an eye on.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Exactly, it’s works not words.
Betty Cracker
@geg6: That is good news!
It’ll be interesting to hear Zandar’s take on what went wrong in Kentucky and also any insights from folks in Houston about why the human rights ordinance was repealed.
I haven’t had time to look at much beyond the NYT front page, but on the Houston question, I saw a photo illustration depicting a wanker with a t-shirt that said “NO Men in Women’s Restrooms.” Kee-rist. I remember that old bugaboo being trotted out to defeat the Equal Rights Amendment when I was a schoolgirl.
raven
@Betty Cracker: Corner Stone saw no reason for the Huston measure.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Betty Cracker:
Look at the Prop. 8 campaign in CA in 2008. From what Keith G was saying yesterday; sounds they sold it the same way.
Baud
In other election news, pot went down big in Ohio. But I learned yesterday that the proposal had many problems, so I don’t know if yesterday’s result means anything.
Satby
@Baud: They’re libertarian, not liberal. Second the Mika is an idiot, but she’s well paid to be that idiot.
Mustang Bobby
@BillinGlendaleCA: A lot of people in Houston seem to have an unhealthy if not infantile obsession in the toilet habits of other people.
Satby
Off to drive the exchange daughters to school. Qunoot saw her very first shooting star last night, so that was wonderful. I was 55 before I saw my first one.
Kay
@Baud:
They got killed but they deserved to lose. It was a ballot referendum to create a monopoly of ten “approved” growers in sites distributed throughout the state and then some weak decriminalization “for the public” measures tacked on, but it was really about dominating any potential market. They spent 20 million dollars and no one knew where it came from- who was behind it. I still don’t know. An Ohio poster said here yesterday “the most cynical referendum I have ever seen” and that’s accurate.
Baud
@Satby:
That is more accurate. There is some overlap on the issues, but they come at it from a libertarian perspective.
Another Holocene Human
@BillinGlendaleCA: Supporting the Met doesn’t make you a liberal.
Another Holocene Human
@Elizabelle: Dem from Manassas? That place used to be so GOP. Muwahahahaha.
Dems seem to be consolidating their gains in VA and PA. Which, note, have larger pops than KY.
Riley's enabler
@Betty Cracker: We were carpet bombed with horrible ads (dramatic music!) Describing in lurid detail how terrible it will be when large hairy scary men can lurk with impunity in girls’ restrooms. Yeah. It was so over-the-top as to be comical but I guess it worked. Dammit. There were competing ads, but nothing so terrifying as the large lurking men waiting for the little girls. I give up.
Major Major Major Major
Chapter 29 of my fish story is up!
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” Gavriel began from the stage in center field, “I suppose you wonder why I gathered you here today.” He had a sip of scotch. “I imagine that the mixed metaphor just then was terrible, you’ll have to forgive me as I’ve been drinking since nine a.m. and did not in fact write a speech or for that matter eat breakfast.
“As you know, there are no more fish. This tragic event will, uh, decimate the population—maybe quite literally—you know, with the dictionary saying—”
Gavriel held his finger to his ear.
“I’ve been informed not to use the dictionary for rhetorical arguments. Fair enough. Anyway, this is awful, so let’s all enjoy ourselves. Cheers!”
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mustang Bobby: They way they sold prop 8 in CA was to scare the crap out of parents.
Baud
@Kay:
Sounds like a dud. If it had passed, however, it would have made for some interesting dormant commerce clause issues, since pot is still illegal at the federal level.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Bevin never led in any of the Kentucky polls either.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Riley’s enabler: Sounds like the same crap they used to push prop 8. A little girl reading a school book with her mom about a princess marrying a princess and wondering if she had to marry a princess. Complete crap.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Hence my disclaimer.
Limda
If you want to be happy, consider that the right wing school board members of the Jeffco Colorado school board–backed by Koch can–have been shown the door: http://www.denverpost.com/election/ci_29066338/jeffco-recall-election-brings-out-voters-dougco-school
Major Major Major Major
@Limda: I grew up around there. That made me very, very happy.
Kay
@Baud:
The truth is it is really hard work and labor intensive to get lower income people out to vote. They have to put a paid organizer in each county or they aren’t going to win off-year elections- they can’t manage it at the state level because it’s impossible to supervise from that level and it has to be supervised or it’s easy not to do the work and say you’re doing the work. These people work “in the field”- they’re out all day. You have to have one person responsible as their direct supervisor, in an office, close to them. County-level organizers don’t make that much- it’s around 30k for 9 or 10 months here so it would be about the same in Kentucky. They have to push campaign money down to the county level. I think they don’t do that because it might mean paying the top level less, or spending less on ads.
Kay
@Limda:
It really is great. Congrats! You-all had the student walk-out, right?
BruceFromOhio
@Kay: That was an easy one to vote down. I’m all for decriminalization, it’s way past time for that, and a new source of revenue for the state would also be welcome. But sheesh, “please legalize my monopoly” was pretty Gaia-damned blatant.
And in welcome news, the men, elves and hobbits came together to rid our local school board of its resident orc, while also keeping its goblin minions at bay. It was close, so the little bastards will probably return in a future ballot. The township did the right thing this time, now if we could just pass a levy to fix the roof on the school. I noted several neighboring townships followed similar paths – existing levies get renewed, while new ones get voted down. It’s like a long, slow death.
Kay
@Baud:
People compared it to gambling, casinos- which were sold exactly the same way- as economic stimulus, but turned into this out of state money machine that doesn’t really benefit the state at all.
amk
the nail eater is now at 4%
Duke of Clay
@Anne Laurie: I’m getting the repetition syndrome with Chrome, Firefox and IE on my laptop and on Safari on my iPad.
Baud
@Kay:
I wish I had an answer. Until someone figures out a winning model, we’ll be groping in the dark.
OzarkHillbilly
Trevor Noah:
Noah noted that without being able to put correspondent Jordan Klepper at the scene, it would have been hard to make fun of the event’s Halloween theme, which included a scarecrow made up to look like Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
“Guys, if you wanted a fake, empty Hillary Clinton, you could’ve just used Carly Fiorina,” he quipped.
Sherparick
@Mustang Bobby: Well, I would actually point to the 1968 election of Nixon who then basically went to work to bring George Wallace’s “southern” (by birth or sentiment) of white tribal affinity voters into the Republican Party united against Blacks, Hippies, and pointy headed intellectuals to advance the agenda of the right-wing millionaires/billionaires.
When people don’t come out to vote, then they should not be surprise that they end being screwed by the folks who represent those who do come out to vote. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/06/21/the_case_of_the_missing_white_voters_revisited_118893-2.html
The polling was terribly inaccurate for this election; either that or the Democrats failed to get their voters out while the Republicans (evangelical churches motivated by Kim Davis issue?) over performed.
White, Christian, privilege, even for white working class people, is both a tangible and psychological benefit which will attract people who identify more strongly on tribal affinity basis than a class basis. Bevan promised to wage the culture war against the Godless, defend coal mining, and to thump the undeserving (e.g. Black) poor. I don’t know if his legislature will let him do the full Scott Walker, Sam Brownback, or Bobby Jindal to his state, but I expect next Spring will be interesting times for Kentuckians.
Lot of hand wringing by media types on MSNBC and concern trolling from Tom Brokaw (who has really aged and I understand is quite ill) and the Republican commentators about how ominous this is for Democrats and Hilary Clinton in 2016, but Kentucky has voted Republican in every Presidential election since 1968 with the exception of 1976 for Jimmy Carter (the last time a significant number of white evangelicals voted Democratic) and Bill Clinton’s two elections where Ross Perot split the white vote. So not so much.
BruceFromOhio
@Kay: A little glimpse into the “who”, there at least two names out there now. The article is pretty vague though.
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s hilarious!
delk
@Betty Cracker: Sickening voter turnout in Houston.
With 95% total 159,266 yes, 99,853 no, out of about 2,000,000 registered voters.
sigh
Major Major Major Major
@delk: Transfolks’ day will come. Maybe not today, but we fought (at least) 19 years for gay marriage, so it won’t be fun or easy.
Still tragic and disgusting though.
debit
I’m really enjoying how the new site layout has every post in every post. If once was good, ten times is better, amirite? That was sarcasm, BTW. Just in case it wasn’t clear.
Kay
@BruceFromOhio:
I don’t know about their “jobs!” argument. Agricultural jobs aren’t so great, nor are retail sales jobs. Maybe they learned a lesson and will run a less blatantly dishonest and bullshit-laden campaign next time, one that isn’t grounded on how much money “everyone” is going to make when we’re really talking about 10 owners making all the money.
beltane
@delk: Voter turnout was sickening in Kentucky as well. We need to come to grips with the fact that most Americans do not vote regularly if at all. This “tuning out” of the electoral process will also make it easier to deny whole groups the right to vote at all. If most people don’t vote, who cares if some people are not allowed to vote? Rights that are not exercised are also not valued.
Randy P
@Another Holocene Human: As I live in southeast PA, that’s my mostly-happy takeaway from this election. Except for my county, where Republicans maintained their 100-year lock on county government, the local results were pretty good for Dems. And even here the margins are getting pretty thin.
We put a Democratic governor, Tom Wolf, in this year and he’s managed to undo a lot of damage from his predecessor.
And next year we have a US Senate race…
PurpleGirl
If you want to see Kittens… Cassie’s Kitten Kastle has its cam back up. The momcat is Cocoa and she has 6 little ones. There are 2 gingers and 4 ‘panthers’. They may be sleeping right now, though.
http://livestream.com/cassieskittenkastle/events/4477322
Nemo_N
Chris Cuomo at CNN energetically asking why is Trump asked to have substance when Obama and Hillary are all about style.
beltane
@Randy P: Dems also picked up 5 seats in the NJ legislature, almost giving them a supermarjority against the malfeasance of Gov. Chrispie. This has become a very divided country with no common ground to be had anywhere.
Iowa Old Lady
So Bevin is going to have KY use the Federal Exchange and a state tweaked version of the Medicaid expansion? IOW, Obamacare?
BruceFromOhio
@Kay: About a month ago we received the campaign mailer: big, slick, glossy, full-color, double-sided, clearly expensive to produce. MrsFromOhio held it up as a wonder to behold, and we both knew there was just no way that this could be good for any one. That was the very first contact we had with the issue, and everything that came after just screamed wrong, wrong, wrong.
With the passage of prop 2, these cats really did themselves in, and rightly so. Not only does it remain to be seen who put up $25 million to back a loser, I’d *love* to know who was charging the consulting fees, he/she/they made out like bandits.
debbie
@Baud:
I think it means something. It means Ohioans are onto the grifters. If you only need to know one thing to know that the amendment was a scam, know that they paraded out a mascot, Buddy the Marijuana Bud:
http://radio.wosu.org/post/pro-pot-mascot-buddy-draws-critics#stream/0
This wasn’t legislation; it was a marketing plan to enrich the investors.
Ohioans fell for the “job-creating” potential of casinos and fracking, but finally, FINALLY, they woke up.
Kay
In other news, if anyone had any doubt that Dave Weigel is a libertarian Republican I think he cemented that notion last night, with his breathless cheerleader coverage of the Bevin campaign.
There’s nothing really wrong with it- people have opinions and he was pretty much showing his cards prior with his Rand Paul love affair, but maybe political pundit pros should lay off Twitter if they want to pretend to remain above the fray.
debbie
@BruceFromOhio:
I got five flyers from Responsible Ohio. They basically mimicked the television ads, which were horrible. “It means I can start my own business or maybe find a job.” “Don’t fall for the poison pill of democracy.” (Issue 2)
I hadn’t yelled at the tv as much as I was since Reagan.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Elizabelle: Murphy is ahead by 191 votes according to the Board of Elections. Fingers crossed that it’s enough.
She advertised heavily on MSNBC, at least when I had it on in the evenings, at least on Cox Cable. More than a few people (e.g. Lowell at http://www.BlueVirginia.us ) think that TV advertising around here is a waste of money (better spent on GOTV, etc.). I don’t know if it helped her – her’s was the only TV ad I noticed.
It’s a shame that the Senate didn’t flip, but not surprising. We’ve got to keep chugging along in spite of that remaining status quo…
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Kay:
People want to believe in reasonable Republicans more than they want to believe in Jesus.
NotMax
@Anne Laurie
It has become like watching an experiment demonstrating entropy unfold in real time.
Kay
@Baud:
People also want to believe there’s a “liberal” media. I think media people themselves want to believe it.
Kay
@debbie:
I heard tons of comparisons to casinos. They were “job and revenue creating engines!” too.
Maybe people should stop believing in easy money?
Baud
@Kay:
Very true.
geg6
@Kay:
I saw on a newscast here in Pittsburgh that one of the people behind it was Nick Lachey (sp?), of 98 Degrees and ex-husband of Jessica Simpson fame. Seriously.
NotMax
@Kay
Ah, but there is.
They meet annually in a disused broom closet in a Holiday Inn just off the Beltway.
worn
@Steeplejack: I think John will be by soon enough to strongly encourage us – via some salty language of course – to download an app by which to fix the doppleposterposter I ssue. You might have to jailbreak your PC to do it, however.
schrodinger's cat
@worn: Its a very Republican response, like blaming the people who point out the flaws, instead of admitting that you may have made a mistake. You can take a Republican out of the party not take the party out of him.
schrodinger's cat
Its sad to see this blog go the ICHC way. I am just hoping that improving the comment system does not mean, making it necessary to have a Faceborg account to comment.
Another Holocene Human
@Randy P: You’ve come a long way from spreading Santorum, baybee…
Another Holocene Human
@beltane: Much like Ukraine, so pray that Putin doesn’t invade.
Bart
@Anne Laurie: Browser is Chrome Version 46.0.2490.80 on Windows 8.
Heliopause
Wow, turns out that cop in Illinois was not only not murdered, he was the world’s biggest asshole.
Please remember the dizzying hagiography that the media fed us about this man at the time of his death.
jnfr
@Kay:
Yep, it was a pretty good election night here in Colorado. In my own city which is also in Jefferson County, an anti-growth group trying to get on the City Council all lost. They were against some density and affordable housing initiatives that now will continue to move ahead.
I love my state.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
In addition to flat out stupidity, I get a whiff of Southern paternalism at play here, protecting women’s honor and such.
A lot of photos I saw were of men carrying signs, wearing message T-shirts, talking in interviews about protecting little girls from “troubled men.”
It’s all pretty sad.
FortGeek
@Baud:
Aren’t there Abuse and Getting-Hit-On-The-Head lessons just along the corridor?
How about a nice argument?
JWR
Not writing to complain about the site redesign, but just to say that I sure hope it gets better soon. (I’m on XP SP3(!), using the latest Firefox.)