NASA says there’s this big black hole creeping over the sun, but not to worry about it:
Do not be alarmed, but a NASA spacecraft just spotted an enormous black ‘hole’ creeping over the surface of the sun.
But although it looks like the sun is either about to fizzle out, or explode, there’s nothing to worry about in the image captured on July 11, the scientists promise.
Coronal holes look terrifying in the images captured by NASA’s sun-observing Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) satellite – but they’re perfectly safe, and normal.
Well, of course they would say that, wouldn’t they?
Open thread!
MattF
Also, Der Trump told a lie. Situation nominal.
Warren Terra
In related news, Donald J Trump is getting ready to name his veep nom.
CONGRATULATIONS!
May be some real fun coming up on the shortwave bands over the next few days. Large sunspots/solar storms cause some very interesting effects.
Technocrat
Global Warming: Solved
Roger Moore
Isn’t the right song for this “King of Pain”?
Patricia Kayden
@MattF: Another lie about minorities, huh? Trump just keeps seeing us Black and Brown people being despicable in ways that are unseen by other folks. Interesting.
Betty Cracker
@Roger Moore: Maybe, but I really hate that fucking song.
Amir Khalid
Well, if a black hole is about to swallow us up, it will be all over before we know what hap
NR
Speaking of the end of all things, Trump is ahead in Florida and Pennsylvania, and tied in Ohio according to Quinnipiac. Hillary spent over $50 million last month and lost ground to Trump in the polls. The last 3 Florida polls have shown Trump in the lead.
Hillary is the worst candidate since McGovern, and for some reason the Democrats were stupid enough to nominate her.
satby
@Amir Khalid: Thank you for that! I LOLed
satby
@NR: your concern is noted.
Amir Khalid
@Warren Terra:
“The next Vice-President of the United States — Ted Nugent!”
(No worse a choice than Noot, I reckon.)
Miss Bianca
@NR: Oh, God, and here I was thinking how pleasant it was that we hadn’t heard your passive-aggressive Eeyorism around the joint for a while, and hoping that that meant you’d disappeared to find more congenial anti-Hillary company somewhere else. Le sigh.
ETA: And I’m pretty sure I’ve heard via other commenters here that the Q poll is always pretty much of an outlier and so…your point?
Anoniminous
If it is a “black hole” creeping over the sun we’re all dead so might as well blow that money on some serious debauchery.
If it is only a sun spot then that’s just part of growing up in a single star solar system.
AnotherBruce
Can we get a time line? I want to throw a yuuuuge party, Hookers and Blow! Party like there’s no tomorrow.
pamelabrown53
@MattF:
Same category of lie as when he said New Jersey Muslims were celebrating 9/11. Didn’t OK. governor, Mary Fallon, recently call Trump a racial healer? Through the looking glass, darkly.
Major Major Major Major
@Anoniminous: It appears that they’re reporting on what’s known as a “coronal hole”, which is a ‘hole’ that appears ‘black’ to the naked eye.
‘hole’ that is ‘black’ = ‘black hole’. Reporting!
Pogonip
@Anoniminous: Party now!
Gin & Tonic
We’re all gonna die!
Anne
@CONGRATULATIONS!: It’s a coronal hole, not a sunspot. Coronal holes aren’t associated with solar storms; in a way, given the open magnetic field structure, they’re the least likely areas to give rise to solar storms (which tend to come out of areas with complicated field geometries). We’ll get more of the fast solar wind but no flares or coronal mass ejections, at least not from that part of the sun. There are some regions closer to the solar equator that might send some interesting stuff our way in the next week or two.
/recoveringSolarPhysicist
Eric U.
I wish the pollsters that always have outliers didn’t always get the headlines.
NASA always says it’s nothing to worry about, but they already have bunkers with 100 years of supplies buried 1 mile underground
schrodinger's cat
It is not a black hole, as in an astronomical object whose gravitational pull traps light.
Just One More Canuck
@NR: Nice thumb on the scale by Quinnipiac, especially in Florida
NR
@Miss Bianca: Hillary spent $57 million last month. Trump spent $4 million. And Hillary lost ground to him.
56% of Americans think she should have been indicted over the email scandal. That’s a deep-seated sentiment that’s not going to go away in the fall.
Shalimar
@Amir Khalid: At least Newt can read and write. Ted Nugent once tried to write his own name with a machine gun and ended up with a Rorschach test.
tinare
@NR: As a Pennsylvanian I don’t buy it. Reagan was the last Republican to win Pennsylvania so I don’t see Trump pulling it off. Hillary will not do worse than Obama did in PA.
dmsilev
@Gin & Tonic: Well, sure, sooner or later we all die.
Except for Dick Cheney, of course. One must be alive in order to die.
NotMax
Three-fer
Sunny
Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
Fat Old Sun
NR
@Just One More Canuck: Oh, are we unskewing polls already? That worked so well for President Romney, after all.
Cacti
@Eric U.:
Horse race, man. Horse race.
The narrative must be served.
Meanwhile, Reuters/Ipsos has Clinton +13 nationally.
Major Major Major Major
It’s fine, it’s fine it’s fine, everything’s fine, it’s fine.
Chyron HR
@NR:
Remember to liveblog your inevitable suicide when she wins.
Amir Khalid
@NR:
It’s been noted again and again that presidential polls taken in July of an election year yield the least reliable results. No sensible person will take July polls seriously. That you take them seriously suggests — well, we both know what that suggests.
Hillary still has pretty much the strongest resume ever held by a presidential candidate in America’s history, and Donald Trump is still a bigoted liar who knows less about policy and governance than the average middle-school kid. That does not guarantee her victory; but she held her own as a campaigner against Bernie, and she and her supporters know better than to take a win for granted.
Shalimar
@NR: Fewer people say they won’t vote for Hillary than a month ago. More people say they won’t vote for Trump than a month ago. It’s July. Stop begging the sky to fall.
Jeffro
NASA’s taking some heat today for supposedly shutting off a live feed from the ISS just as some sort of unidentified object came into Earth’s atmosphere. Everybody stock up on tinfoil futures, quick!
Corner Stone
@NR: I am fervently hoping and praying that this will be the election year where we finally realize that polling is fucked. I thought after the unskewed polls debacle that was Romney’s 2012 campaign we all get could together around the drum circle and just acknowledge that polling is a flawed institution. It simply can not keep up with the changes in our demographics or our modern society.
The media will be horseracing us to death for the next few months but when it’s all said and done I expect HRC to have a near double digit victory in votes, and a blowout in the EC. When that happens can we all please just pass to the left, puff puff give, and get the fact that polling is shit.
Betty Cracker
@NR: How that time machine coming along?
Jeffro
@Amir Khalid:
Is that because many working folks and families are on vacation, which leaves an even older, crankier, lonesomer demographic hanging around the house ready to give pollsters an earful?
Barb2
Seems like the Black Panthers didn’t want Xavier Johnson either. There is general agreement that “something” happened while he was deployed.
Damned it – he should have been tested and given counseling before he was mustered out of the Army.
The Army dumped yet another trouble ex soldier on America. Most of the time nothing happens so the military continues to ignore mental illness .
Idiot Johnson seems to have hitched his hostility onto the Black Lives Matter movement – while probably not understanding the history OF BLM. People will believe what Fox News wants them to believe – and blame people of color for the violence. He’s dead so we will never know if he was hearing voices.
Cacti
For American football fans/legal types…
The Second Circuit issued a one sentence denial of Tom Brady’s request for en banc rehearing of the decision reinstating his suspension.
Ouch.
Shalimar
@Cacti: I was watching MSNBC last night close to 6pm est, and the host and talking heads kept saying over and over again that it was ” a very close race.” This while the host several times casually referred to the Reuters poll for some other point.
Even they know they’re completely full of shit.
Major Major Major Major
@Jeffro: I don’t know that anybody knows, frankly. My guess would be because people are just starting to tune in and their opinions fluctuate surprisingly wildly during that period. It’s also pre-convention, which means that the campaigns and the media haven’t established the ‘official’ narrative yet. Once this is set, most voters hew to it, and make up their opinions within that context. So July might be indicative of “if the election were held today”, but it’s not very helpful for November.
MattF
@Major Major Major Major: Have you checked the radiator?
Miss Bianca
@NR: Yeah,yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhw2 kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
you know, I’d argue the point with you but it’s actually way more entertaining watching my kitten swamp the keyboard trying to get into my popcorn.
Eric U.
@Barb2: I’m sympathetic to the idea that the Army should have taken steps to help this guy, but when I was in that situation I would no doubt have done the same thing. I’m sure it happens hundreds of times a year without anyone ending up dead.
El Caganer
@Amir Khalid: Hell, the Libertarian Party is fielding a more qualified candidate than the Republicans.
Major Major Major Major
@MattF: Eraserhead:me::clown videos:Miss Bianca
Mike in NC
We also have a kitten that’s weirdly attracted to the keyboard, and no popcorn to account for it. He’s just a people-feline.
Redshift
@Corner Stone: Polling aggregates are reasonably useful. Single polls are only useful for clickbait and wishful thinking (both on display by our wishful-thinker-in-chief here.)
The “skewed polls” idiocy was idiocy because the polls were accurate, not because they were crap.
NR
@Amir Khalid: Ask presidents Gore and Kerry what a great resume buys you in a national election.
Mai.naem.mobile
@NR: I till ya what…I listen to Mr Brinks Trucks Bush for advice on presidential candidates….yessireee bob… Brinks Trucks Bush Phd President Candydating
NR
@Shalimar: Source on that?
NR
@Shalimar: National polls mean nothing since we have an electoral college.
If Trump wins Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, that’s the show. He’s president.
hovercraft
@MattF:
The tape is hidden with the 9/11 celebration tape, and also too the Whitey tape.
It’s out there folks, my cousins boyfriends uncles wife’s brother saw it, the do exist.
satby
I’m starting to think the trolls are assigned to comment in shifts. Like an “unhelp” desk.
Punchy
#BlackHoleLivesMatter
Amir Khalid
@NR:
She beat Bernie, and she’s already won over some 85% of his supporters. She’s facing a candidate, Donald Trump, whose own party establishment is horrified that it must nominate him. She’s also a better campaigner than either Al Gore or John Kerry, plus she’s had Obama’s successful campaigns to learn from. So I’m not as nervous as you about her chances.
germy
@satby: Do the night time trolls get paid a second-shift differential?
hovercraft
@Miss Bianca:
If Hillary is losing Florida, then the election is over, with the Latino population and the Northeasterners down there it will be difficult for him to win it. But if the Q poll says she’s losing then we may as well give up and just stick to pet blogging and prepare for the black whole to eat us all.
Emma
@satby: The thing I’ve been noticing lately is that the argumentative type (Bob, Applejinx) have curtailed their appearances while the passive-aggressives (NR, Reggie) have ramped up. Leads me to think that the new strategy is to distract, not engage.
Chyron HR
@NR:
Remember, it’s not “unskewing” when the voices in NR’s head do it!
germy
Wiener Dog official trailer
One dog’s journey…
CONGRATULATIONS!
test. WP eating comments
gogol's wife
I wonder if there’s an NR equivalent on right-wing blogs who keeps banging on about what a crappy candidate Trump is.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Barb2: I interviewed a guy couple years back for a contracting job here in the states, Afghan vet, had been there TEN FUCKING YEARS, took an IED and got RIFed out. 25 years old and 70% hearing loss plus God knows what kind of cerebral trauma. That wasn’t the problem. We were just shooting the shit (I like informal interviews, get people relaxed) and it just started pouring out of him. The last thing I clearly recall him telling me was about the Korean couple whose car window he’d kicked out for parking next to, and maybe scratching, his truck, at which point my brain went “ABORT THIS NOW”. He was going to have to work with others, and he obviously was a danger. Got him somewhat gracefully out of the office. Turned out I couldn’t hire him anyway as we lost the bid to a company who was going to pay all the same people minimum wage. We were going to pay $3/hr above, apparently that’s too much to pay veterans (that was a job requirement) who’ve been blown to bits for their nation. It’s been two years and the whole thing really bothers me still. The guy and the government that won’t hire him at even a no-dignity wage. And that he’s a incompetently-treated time bomb walking around who’s going to kill someone someday soon. Yeah. That bothers me. Always will bother me.
germy
@gogol’s wife: I wonder if we on the left lack the motivation…
CONGRATULATIONS!
telling y’all, Troll-B-Gone. I don’t see ’em, you don’t have to either.
gogol's wife
@germy:
Do you mean, to appear as trolls on right-wing blogs?
germy
@hovercraft: They’re in iCarly’s DVD collection, along with the Best of Planned Parenthood Faces of Death
LAO
Are we talking about crazy people here today? Because if we are — have I got a whopper. Larry Klayman, Esq.. Suing President Obama (and others) on behalf of white people threatened by Black Lives Matter.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Barb2: I interviewed a guy couple years back for a DoD contracting job here in the states, Afghan vet, had been there TEN FUCKING YEARS, took an IED and got RIFed out. 28 years old and 70% hearing loss plus God knows what kind of cerebral trauma. It just started pouring out of him. The last thing I clearly recall him telling me was about the Korean couple whose car window he’d kicked out for parking next to, and maybe scratching, his truck, at which point my brain went “ABORT THIS NOW”. Turned out I couldn’t hire him anyway as we lost the bid to a company who was going to pay all the same people minimum wage. We were going to pay $3/hr above, apparently that’s too much to pay veterans (that was a job requirement) who’ve been blown to bits for their nation. It’s been two years and the whole thing really bothers me still. The guy and the government that won’t hire him at even a no-dignity wage. Yeah. That bothers me. Always will bother me.
There will be more Mr. Johnsons. I weep for both them and us.
germy
@gogol’s wife: Yes. I can’t imagine mustering the energy or twisted inclination to troll a teaparty site.
Maybe others here have more fortitude. Has anyone here tried it?
Gin & Tonic
@Barb2: I went off-grid in the long thread last night, before you revealed yourself as the CEO of the Beatty, NV, Chamber of Commerce. I will make sure to check in with you before I next go there (which, frankly, does not look like it will be any time soon.)
Barb2
@Gin & Tonic:
That’s because you didn’t go to KC’s Outpost in Beatty, right across from Rebels gas Station on Rt 95! What they serve is made right there.
Best food in Town. Local favorite. We stop in Beatty coming home and heading south for the winter.
We get sandwiches to go for lunch the next day. This is the only place we do this.
KC’s Outpost – I’m jealous that you are in Beatty.
Lots of jeep trails in the surrounding BLM land. Also ghost towns. That whole area is an example why the Feds should retain ownership of public lands, not turn it over to the states and ultimately the Koch brothers.
KC’s Outpost.
Shell
And theres nearly five more months to go, dude, so you can stop setting your hair on fire. Ill be interested on what the polls say after the GOP convention
Just One More Canuck
@NR: Jesus Christ, youre an asshole. How is saying that the q-poll’s sample is significantly different than Florida’s actual demographics is “unskewing” the polls
Major Major Major Major
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Second. I don’t use it for very many, but NR is one of them.
NR
@Chyron HR: This may come as a surprise to you, but the electoral college exists. Maybe study up on how it works?
MattF
@LAO: This is the guy who sued his mother, right? I have kind of a soft spot for him. Crazy, but attempts to deal with his craziness in a socially acceptable fashion.
Miss Bianca
@satby: “unhelp desk” – snort/laugh!
@hovercraft: Doomed, we’re DOOOOMED, I tell you…time to clutch kitties and whimper as the Black Hole Sun engulfs us!
Miss Bianca
@LAO: Oh, God, *that* asshole again? How is that he hasn’t been disbarred yet?
Mai.naem.mobile
Luke Russert just quit NBC. Live boy?Dead girl? Hookers and blow? Please please don’t tell me to work for the Hillary campaign.
Gin & Tonic
@Barb2: So you’re not just the CEO of the Chamber of Commerce, you own a restaurant there. Good to know.
I am actually not in Beatty, I am in fucking Las Vegas. I was in Beatty two nights only, and this being summer, with late sunsets and early sunrises, and an hour’s drive from Beatty to Zabriskie Point, trying to maintain a decent photography schedule meant I didn’t sleep much. But I left there on Saturday.
LAO
@MattF: Yes it is. He’s also trying to represent Cliven Bundy in Nevada but Court won’t admit him pro hace. He just filed a writ of mandamus to the 9th Circuit that is crazy.
Mnemosyne
@MattF:
Don’t get too fond of him — he refused to deny that he molested his own kids. At a minimum, he has no idea how to appropriately interact with a child.
germy
@Mai.naem.mobile:
Not sure if his future includes journalism.
Maybe he wants to get into politics. Either as an advisor, spokesman or (gulp!) candidate.
germy
@MattF:
In a court of law.
LAO
@Miss Bianca: NO FUCKING CLUE! (how he hasn’t been disbarred)
Emma
@Mai.naem.mobile: Hey, if nothing else Hillary’s people would make him do a decent day’s work for the first time in his life!
Chyron HR
@NR:
You know, if Trump did win, you would have four to eight years to gloat about it. The fact that you need to do it four months before the election just proves that you don’t really believe you’ll get a chance to afterwards.
laura
@Mai.naem.mobile: Trump Veep? We know he’s got the electoral white board so…..victory!
laura
@Gin & Tonic: take your camera and go the the Neon Museum at night. It’s the best thing in Vegas! Well worth the time and effort.
Cacti
@Emma:
I’d say it’s a good indicator of who were the true believers vs. who are the ratf**kers.
NR
@Chyron HR: Why would I gloat about Trump winning? The man would be a disaster as president.
I love that the response around here whenever anyone points out how terrible a candidate Hillary is is always “Hurr durr you must want Trump to win!” Says a lot.
japa21
NR makes an unproven assumption which is that Sanders would have been a better candidate. In reality, he probably would have been a worse candidate than Clinton and, IMO, would very possibly have lost somewhat easily to Trump.
Despite all the statements about his making the primary race close, in reality it wasn’t. Clinton beat him easily and did it without going negative. If she had wanted to really blow him out, she could have. Trump and the GOP would have no trouble going negative and there is a lot there for them to do so. And remember, they don’t care about the honesty of any claims they make.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@NR:
I’ll help you think this through – if Hillary had just conceded to Bernie, you’d be hearing nothing but wall to wall media discussing his honeymoon in Moscow, his visit to Nicaragua and his kind words about the Sandinistas’ heroic revolution as being as popular there as Ronald Reagan here, the Soviet flag in his office, his highest ever in peace time tax hike proposals in furtherance of the great revolution to come by breaking up the big banks (which he is unable to define or explain how), his desire for the government to control the health care and energy markets, and to provide free college to everyone, all while comparing the US to Venezuela and how it’s all working out there. He’d be polling underwater compared to Trump in every state except Vermont and maybe Massachusetts. Hillary treated with him kid gloves, and so did Karl Rove’s PAC, which ran anti-Hillary ads on his behalf.
Matt McIrvin
@Corner Stone:
The lesson of “Unskewed Polls” was that if you take poll numbers and then add a massive fudge term pulled out of your butt to make them say exactly what you want to hear, you can convince yourself of anything. The flaw there wasn’t in the polls.
Steeplejack (phone)
Okay, somebody help me here. The talk of “Sun” songs has me straining for one I can’t quite remember. Relatively recent song—’90s or ’00s—and I want to say the artist is the [something] Brothers. It’s not “Distant Sun” (Crowded House), but that feels like the right area. Not “Midnight Sun” or “Another Sun.” Anybody?
eric
@NR: i have yet to see the cross tabs to see how minority voting breaks down. For example, in the new McClatchy national poll Hillary’s lead has (in their word) withered to 3. Well, according to the description of the poll in the McClatchy press release, Clinton leads Latinos 52-26, whereas Obama beat Romney 71-27. Always look at the Latino cross tab for every poll in which Trump is leading or gaining.
burnspbesq
@NR:
Quinny is the true Trump University.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@germy: Our own DougJ did it to the point where he became a bona-fide internet legend. Few others have, though. I’ve tried it. They usually just ban anyone with a dissenting opinion. On anything.
Cat48
Betty, didn’t you see that church advert right next to the article? It said there would be a Huuuge Earthquake on July 29th. It’s going to swallow us up & the stars are going to fall out of the sky,
Whatever! We shall see.
Shell
@Steeplejack (phone): House of the Rising Sun.
Corner Stone
@Steeplejack (phone): The Chemical Brothers “Setting Sun” ?
Chyron HR
@NR:
I dunno, why ARE you?
Amir Khalid
Goodness gracious.
MattF
@Corner Stone: I do think there’s a big issue with polling– mainly that the response rate has fallen to less than 10%. This means that individual polls are even less meaningful than you might think, and any useful information from polling has to come from meta-analysis– and the hope that different pollster’s biasses will cancel out. But who knows?
Paul in KY
@Cacti: Cheating Cheatriot Cheater stuffed by the majesty of the law!
MattF
@Amir Khalid: Funny, that.
lethargytartare
@Roger Moore:
that thing’s neither little nor the same old thing as yesterday.
NR
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: The thing I like most about this is that it’s all just speculation on your part with no basis in fact.
Meanwhile, we have polling data showing Hillary doing poorly in swing states after outspending Trump by $50 million, having favorability ratings nearly as bad as Trump, and a solid majority of Americans thinking she should have been indicted.
I think the data carries a little more weight than your fantasies.
Betty Cracker
@eric: That was true in the last batch of Q-pac battleground state polls that had Trump tied with or leading Clinton — it showed Trump outperforming Romney with Latinos. That batch of polls had folks setting their hair on fire too, but it got buried in subsequent polls that told quite a different story.
I don’t think polls by reputable outfits are complete garbage; even this far out, they can provide a useful snapshot, but you’ve got to look at the averages, not a single set. Looks to me like HRC got dinged by all the bad publicity around the email brouhaha and has slipped a bit. I think she’ll recover.
eric
@NR: find me the cross tabs so we can assess your data.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@japa21: Everyone in America is already familiar with how Hillary is History’s Greatest Monster. The effect is already baked in. Very few people in America are familiar with the fact the Nice Grandpaw Bernie published his deep thoughts on how it’s OK for kids to be naked and have sex with each other. Or how he honeymooned in Moscow when were were in an undeclared war with the USSR. Not to mention, some horseshit I was reading here about how Sanders has “made Socialism OK”. Ha. You’re insane if you think that’s the case. If you think anyone who has ever voted GOP thinks that you need rehab and a stay in a mental hospital.
Trump would have won all 50 states against Sanders by the time they were done dismantling his life.
burnspbesq
@Cacti:
Not surprising re Brady. Second Circuit rarely grants rehearing en banc.
Now Brady files his cert petition.
germy
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I like the folks who occasionally fake their way past Lush Rimbaugh’s phone screener and troll him. The last guy who did that taunted him about his fading market share.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Shell:
Too old (by 30 years). Later than 1990.
germy
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Bill O’Reilly’s team would be camped outside of Burlington College.
eric
@Betty Cracker: Any polling company that trumpets a poll where Clinton is doing worse than Obama did with latinos is pumping up demand for future polls. She will NOT do worse than Obama did. Period.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Massive trust fund and/or a book contract for the inevitable “After Medium Russ: Growing Up With The Beltway’s Most Beloved Surrogate Daddy As My Actual Daddy”?
and speaking of unresolved Daddy Issues, who put a quarter in the snivelly troll?
Betty Cracker
@NR: Care to put your money where your mouth is? I’ve got $100 bucks that says Clinton wins. I’ll donate it to the charity of your choice if I’m wrong and Trump wins — if you agree to donate $100 to the charity of my choice if Trump loses. You say Clinton is the worst candidate since McGovern, so this should be an easy decision. We can probably talk Cole into holding our wagers in escrow. Put up or shut up.
burnspbesq
@LAO:
The 12(b)(6) motion writes itself. Unfortunately, the OSC re Rule 11 Sanctions won’t.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Corner Stone:
Sorry, no. Song is not frantic, more a ballad. God, I can hear it like it’s playing on a radio in the other room. I just can’t make out the lyrics to look them up on line. If only my Sherlock memory palace was wired for good sound!
SiubhanDuinne
@Mai.naem.mobile:
That’s very interesting*. I could understand his announcing that he’d be pursuing other interests after the conventions, or after the election or something, but two days? Even poor inept Ronan Farrow had more notice than that.
.
.
*Or not.
japa21
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Exactly what I mean. He would probably have not lost all 50 states, probably only 40.
germy
@Steeplejack (phone): Beck “Sunday Sun” ?
2002
burnspbesq
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Billo would say that Bernie’s walkup music at campaign events was “If I Had a Rocket Launcher,” and 40 million people would believe it.
germy
@SiubhanDuinne: Every time I see Ronan I see a young Frank Sinatra. The same face, the same… combativeness.
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne: Maybe he’s Trump’s VP pick.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy: I did laugh when he tweeted out “Let’s be honest: Isn’t there a good chance we’re all Frank Sinatra’s kid?”
Paul in KY
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Also, some of the free love stuff he wrote about back in 70s.
Eric U.
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I’m really surprised that the republicans didn’t do more for Sanders. The mushy middle of the U.S. electorate is relatively easily swayed. His proposals never got examined by the general public because of our failed media. There would have been headline after headline about tax increases and other things and it would have been a massive republican blowout.
I suppose that had it been more competitive, Clinton would have had to go negative. And I wonder if the media was holding back just in case they could skewer Sanders in the general. Even if they weren’t a mass of republican tools, throwing an election is a dream of many media types
Jim, Foolish Literalist
So did, for all his whining, the media
NR
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I keep hearing this and it keeps being bullshit. If this were true, Hillary’s favorability ratings would not be continuing to get worse week after week.
The fact is that the email scandal did more damage to her than her supporters want to admit.
burnspbesq
Anyone who claims that HRC is the worst campaigner since McGovern clearly was not around in !988.
germy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Like the song “Elvis is Everywhere”
NR
@eric: https://www.qu.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/2016-presidential-swing-state-polls/release-detail?ReleaseID=2365
Miss Bianca
@burnspbesq: Hell, *I’d* believe it.
@germy: “Who built the pyramids?
ELVIS!
Who built Stonehenge?
ELVIS!”
Cat48
I don’t think Hillary’s polls are that bad for someone who received news from FBI last week that she wouldn’t be indicted for email & the media reported it as the worst news she could have possibly received. It was not.
NbcNews has new Battleground polls that show her 9 pts ahead in PA, tied in OH & a few points ahead in Iowa. Those are as crazy as the earlier ones. Who knows what to believe?
germy
@NR: The Email Scandal™
(She did what every other SOS did.)
The Loretta Lynch Scandal™
(Following the recommendation of the FBI)
Paul in KY
@burnspbesq: Unfortunately true.
Omnes Omnibus
@germy: Not Michael J. Fox though.
burnspbesq
Elvis is not everywhere.>
germy
@Omnes Omnibus: At the time the song was written, no not Michael J. Fox.
But now? Sure…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@burnspbesq: sez you
it’s poll day here at Balloon Juice?
SiubhanDuinne
@Miss Bianca:
That would make every bit as much sense as anything else in this election cycle.
Shell
@burnspbesq: Hmmm, Dukakis?
I still have a soft spot for that old SNL skit “Dukakis After Dark.”
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Eric U.:
Don’t even get me started on Jane’s troubles back home with Burlington College, and how easy it would be to conflate tanking that college with how Bernie wants to take your tax money and give it to college administrators to steal too. I mean, the guy had zero media exposure, until the day he did, and then he blew it big time. The only reason the media wanted him to come on their shows was because of his whining about the primary process and his inability to come right out and support Clinton even after it was more than clear that he had lost. He can’t handle any criticism either – he runs away. He’d be a fucking disastrous candidate.
Steeplejack (phone)
@germy:
Nope. This is maddening. Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. I hope one of them will knock something loose.
Uncle Cosmo
@Matt McIrvin: In fact the dirty little no-longer-so-arcane secret is that polling itself isn’t all that fucked* until the “turnout model” is applied. Presuming you can find at least one subpopulation that every candidate is doing very well in (& not necessarily even winning), you can make the results say anything you want them to by cleverly designing & then applying an appropriate turnout model. Rasmussen is the acknowledged master of misleading poll results biased to favor the GOP. His surveys are just this side of unethical & just this side of pushpolling. The only way he gets away with this year in year out is by “refining” his turnout model (IOW, bringing it in line with what anyone not in the tank for the Thugs would recognize as realistic) as Election Day approaches so he’s not all that far off at the end; no one remembers the older results that were nothing but cheerleading for the Thugs.
And this doesn’t even take into consideration the subtle & not-so-subtle ways an unscrupulous pollster like Raz can phrase & arrange the questions to coax pretty much any answers s/he wants out of respondents.
Without a good hard look at the composition of the sample & the actual questionnaire, polls aren’t worth paying attention to.
lethargytartare
@Steeplejack (phone):
Weezer? Island in the Sun
NR
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
You speculate.
Meanwhile, the data shows that Hillary Clinton is a fucking disastrous candidate.
I think Trevor Noah put it really well: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump should be grateful for each other, because they’re the only candidates each other could possibly beat.
Barb2
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I’m a military brat, my dad retired when I was 22. In my opinion based on the world I grew up in, all the retiring Vets should have some sort of counseling. Johnson had some of the warning behavioral markers – he should have had a psychological evaluation. Bare minimum. The woman he harassed in Afghanistan said he needed counseling. People could see that he wasn’t right or normal.
When the men return from deployment they need to be evaluated, these guys have gone through hell and some of them take it out on the kids and wife. I saw so much violence on base from men back from deployment. I saw the bruises on classmates who were savagely beaten. I’ve watched wives being beaten when I was a kid. And that was just the “cold war”.
Of course not all vets are a Timothy McVeigh or Johnson – but why let the Vets navigate a world they might not recognize on their own?
Like the Vet you interviewed – many habe anger issues. He needed counseling. The returning Vietnam Vets recognized that the military was negligent in helping Vets to readjust to civilian life. Some of the Vets were in my grad school counseling classes, preparing to help returning Vets. You should have heard those Vets go on a rant about how the military messed people up and dumped them at the end of their contract with the military. They made me aware of this issue – so I am passing on what they taught me.
People with yellow ribbons on their cars – support the troops. What a lie.
All Vets should have a bare minimum of post service counseling and psych testing. Vets were asked to take longer deployments and many have had rough deployments. POWs? No just coffins.
The idiot GOP are blaming others for Johnson’s rampage while ignoring the military as a contributing factor – probably the GOP would refuse to fund mass counseling of Vets.
Vets as peer counselor would be the ideal way to employ Vets and help Vets readjust to the civilian world. And yes there is a vast different between the military culture and the civilian.
Formerly disgruntled Clinton supporter
@germy: Ha! I haven’t heard that song in years!
Aleta
@Technocrat: funny!
eric
@NR: Bullshit. Name one of the 16 Dwarfs that Hillary could not beat? Cruz? Jeb? Carson? There was no one on the GOP side that would lead her into November.
germy
@Miss Bianca: I remember an old Hunter Thompson article about bizarre headlines he’d been reading. His favorite: “Found On Mars: Statue Of Elvis”
germy
@Barb2:
Agreed. Unless they decide a shooting range is the best place for rehab. I’ve read about dogs and horses being used in therapy. Also job training is important. And if jobs are unavailable, or if the vet is unable to work, a good-sized pension.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@NR:
You are delusional, but we already knew that.
FlyingToaster
@NR: No, the e-mail scandal didn’t. Her flaws have been known for years.
Right now, the polls coming out are the least reliable of the year (per 538, Sam Wang, history, etc.). I suspect the problem is that a LOT of people are not picking up their phones right now, either because of being on vacation or out playing in the evenings. Which will skew your responses: older, whiter, more afraid. Trying to weight polls of 600 responses where 509 are people over the age of 55 is not going to work nearly as well as you’d hope.
National polls are meaningless, unless they’re weighted to Electoral Votes. Which, IIRC, the polls you’re citing don’t. They’re X# of likely voters (as in “voted in the last midterm”), and weighting to even 2012 turnout seems to be hit-n-miss.
Good (as in accurate) polling numbers won’t happen again before Labor Day.
Go complain to the fox, Chicken Little!
Trollhattan
@NR:
“Terrible candidate Hillary” is kicking ass, taking names, doing great, headed for historic win that might include sweeping up the senate. Yup, “terrible.”. On what planet do you dwell?
Trollhattan
@germy:
The Weekly World News (R.I.P.) actually had me looking forward to the supermarket checkout line. “Bigfoot Stole My Wife!” Does it get better than that? It does not.
Trollhattan
@Shell:
The Janet Reno Dance Party was pretty good, too.
Jeffro
@eric: Kaisch, unfortunately.
Brachiator
@Cacti:
National polls and NR’s comments about Quinnipiac polls are equally meaningless.
White male resentment and other factors could become important by election day in battleground states. Or not. That’s why the candidates wage an actual campaign. And as a recent Maddow show indicated, Trump is working the “silent majority must make America safe from anarchists and minorities” angle that worked for Nixon in 1968.
Still, Clinton is looking pretty good when you look at the averages of the better polls over time, but anyone claiming “false horse race” or that anyone definitely has this election in the bag needs to put down the crack pipe.
NR
@eric: Well considering she’s 50-50 at best against Trump, who was by far the most unpopular of the lot, what does that say about how she’d be doing against the others?
NR
@Trollhattan: So losing ground to Trump after outspending him by $50 million is “kicking ass.” Okay. Good to know.
FlyingToaster
@Jeffro: But Kasich — because he’s sane, and because he has no use for the Tea Party — hadn’t a prayer of winning the nomination. I note, his policies aren’t significantly different from the other dwarves, but he didn’t spend all day trying to out-crazy the other guys.
Jeb Bush was the one who was just plain pitiful. Shouldn’t he be out touting office space in some Florida skyscraper?
NR
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I’m not the one who thinks my fantasies outweigh actual data.
FlyingToaster
@NR: Assuming facts not in evidence:
Trump won. He’s not the most unpopular. I’d argue that Jeb Bush was and remains the most unpopular.
Omnes Omnibus
@NR: Trump got the most votes. How is he the most unpopular?
eric
@NR: lol. she is not 50-50. The models all suggest that she is around 70-30 at worst. Yet he was the GOP winner, so we can assume he would do the best against her. Therefore, no one else could beat her if the GOP best is only at 50-50. Unless you admit he is not the best against her, in which case explain who is.
I saw kasich as a proposed answer, but he would never be the favorite against Hillary.
Trollhattan
@NR:
Asked and answered. Now go drink a can of shut-the-fuck-up and leave us alone.
NR
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m talking about with the general electorate.
Omnes Omnibus
@NR: You are bullshitting.
WaterGirl
@Amir Khalid: Thanks for the laugh out loud.
FlyingToaster
@NR: General Electorate as in likely voters, right? That’s where the “skewed poll” Dolchstosslegende comes in.
The “General Electorate” is by far younger, less white, and poorer than the primary electorate. For every party.
So the issue for you is that white guys with a bug up their ass like Bernie better than Hillary, and are 50/50 on Trump versus Clinton. Guess what? Your assumptions are wrong. Sam Wang and Nate Silver where wrong last fall when they made an assumption about the GOP primary electorate, and they had their hats for dinner. They have learned from their mistakes. Will you?
D58826
@LAO: Why Hillary reacts the way she does
on Huffington by way of the New Yorker. Klayman was one of the big names in the 1990’s scandals.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/hillary-clintons-scandal-mistake
burnspbesq
@NR:
Most unpopular among whom? Certainly not actual Republican primary voters.
Your troll-fu is pathetc. Find a new line of work.
NR
@Omnes Omnibus: Are you denying that Trump was the least popular Republican candidate with the general electorate? Because all the polls consistently said he was.
Miss Bianca
@Trollhattan: Favorite WWN headline ever: “CABBAGE PATCH DOLL STRANGLES MOM”.
Iowa Old Lady
Based on previous elections, Trump’s numbers will be highest the week after the R convention.
“Don’t Panic” still count as words of wisdom.
NR
@burnspbesq:
Among voters in general. Seriously, this is not a hard concept to grasp.
Omnes Omnibus
@NR: I am not denying anything. I am just saying that you are bullshitting.
burnspbesq
@Iowa Old Lady:
True, but the other side of that coin still says “Don’t Get Complacent.”
Brachiator
@Corner Stone:
There is nothing wrong with good polling. But there’s the rub: it’s harder for a number of technical and demographic reasons, to get good polling results.
But the larger problem is that dumb and lazy reporters, and too many in the general public, insist on using polling as a kind of geeky fortune telling, a reliable oracle predicting the future, which it ain’t.
I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if Fox News brought back studying animal entrails to provide their election forecasts.
Betty Cracker
@NR: I’ll repeat my offer in case you missed it above: Care to put up or shut up?
burnspbesq
@NR:
The concept you seem not to grasp is “Data are no substitute for thinking.”
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Barb2: They’re keeping some guys in until they’re one tour short of getting retirement and then RIFing them out. It’s fucking unconscionable. Like this young man I interviewed; he’d gone straight from basic to AfPak and only came back to get mustered out. Spent his entire young adulthood, when most people are getting started in their careers and lives, driving around and fixing Humvees. Of course he’s pissed. Thirty years old and having to fight high school grads for jobs. And the brutal thing was, with his rage, he really wasn’t employable. Not safely, not by anyone.
But hey, Saddam tried to kill W’s daddy or some shit like that. And we’ll all be paying for that one, one way or another, for the rest of our lives.
chopper
in all honesty, who actually thinks they’re going to change eeyore’s mind here? everything sucks because clinton is just the worst and he can’t wait to see her lose so he can gloat about it. and of course when she wins instead (because reality) it’ll be because “she got lucky”.
you can’t possibly win with this.
Trollhattan
@Miss Bianca:
ZOMG, that may well be the winner!
NR
@Omnes Omnibus: The data speaks for itself, bud.
Omnes Omnibus
@NR: Sure thing, pal.
dogwood
@NR
At one level polling is about data alone. The raw numbers can give pretty accurate insight into how race, gender, party identification, class etc. will determine results. Nonetheless, modeling the electorate requires making some assumptions that may or may not be accurate. I have no doubt that the raw data that the Romney and Obama campaigns were looking at was practically identical, yet both camps thought they were winning. The Romney campaign simply modeled the electorate inaccurately. if you believe a poll that says Clinton is losing Florida because it’s real data after all, then you must be willing to believe that the percentage of non-white voters will decrease in Nov., despite the fact that the data produced after every presidential election for decades shows that’s never been the case. So make your argument why decades of trends do not apply to 2016.
Trollhattan
@NR:
Data speak for themselves, sparky.
–Mom
You’re trying to figure how much gas is left in the tank by examining worm entrails. Good luck with that. Now go away.
quakerinabasement
We never had to worry about holes in the sun before Obama became president.
Aimai
@Miss Bianca: i have an actual national enquirer page where they pretended to interview my father (picture of him and everything) talking about scientific advances in human/plant hybrids.
My favorite WND headline was “talking skull dances and sings”
Omnes Omnibus
@Aimai: “I am Groot.”
Technocrat
@chopper:
Totally agree. NR came with the tasty bait today.
A bad polling cycle is a bad polling cycle. There are demographic and organizational factors that have to be considered. Fucker (Drumpf) can’t get his party to attend their own convention. My pearls lie, unclutched.
D58826
Ok this sounds nuts even by Texas standards, but I’m not a gun expert. On twitter – the Univ. of Texas regents have voted to eliminate the chambered-round-in-gun ban on campus. Now if I’m reading that right, even the cowboys of old knew to rest the hammer on an empty cylinder to avoid shooting your self in the family jewels..
Jeffro
@D58826:
And he’s about to be a big one today, too: he just sued President Obama for “inciting a race war”
I kid ye not: it’s quite the topic on all the RW airquote “news” sites…”Well there goes his legacy…I hope he’s happy now…” LOL
The mocking, it will be intense…and well-deserved…good job, Larry Klayman!!!
Betty Cracker
@D58826: Well, that’s one way to lay the groundwork for sensible gun control in TX. Eventually, the gun nut gene pool will dry up after they shoot their dicks off.
Jeffro
@D58826:
And he’s about to be a big one today, too: he just sued President Obama for “inciting a race war”
I kid ye not: it’s quite the topic on all the RW airquote “news” sites…”Well there goes his legacy…I hope he’s happy now…” LOL
The mocking, it will be intense…and well-deserved…good job, Larry Klayman!!!
Miss Bianca
@Trollhattan: My favorite detail from the article was this: the doll announcing, as it puts its teeny tiny hands around her neck: “I’m not just a doll, I’m the LORD OF HELL!”
@Aimai: ok, talking skull “sings” I can almost live with. But “dances”? Nah! That’s CRAZY talk!
ETA: Your dad, really? Did they actually call him to set up the fake interview, or did they just swipe his identity? ; )
Brachiator
@Aimai:
Yikes. Wasn’t that a rejected Warner Brothers cartoon?
gwangung
@NR: Actually, you are. You don’t have a clue how to interpret data.You’re not using the cross tabs and you haven’t a glimmer on how to do so.
But you’re amusing to punch around, because you don’t have any idea how deep your ignorance is.
Horatius
@gwangung: it’s called the Dunning-Kreuger effect.
Emma
Hey guys stop stomping on NR for a moment. This is happening today, per TPM:
Now, that’s chutzpah.
Amir Khalid
@D58826:
I always thought that Rule No. 1 in gun safety was “Don’t carry unless you really need to.”
ETA: I call it the Johnny Cash rule
Barb2
@Uncle Cosmo:
We learn in a Sociology class that the very act of polling influences the vote.
By asking who a person is going to for very often stops the thinking process and forces them to choose.
That is really old research I found in a journal back in the 70s.
The questions, order of the questions, tone of voice of person polling and gender of the person polling can also manipulate the vote.
With this election and the huge gender divide – women who plan to vote for Hillary and haven’t told their husbands might not tell a male polling worker, rather answering undecided. That happened in the primaries in NYC. This was described in an article in either Salon or Slate. The writer voted for Hillary, thinking that she would be the only Hillary voter. Turns out her whole neighborhood voted overwhelming for Hillary.
I’m not trusting the polling numbers before both convention have concluded. Trump might get the post convention bump? Who knows. Then Hillary might get a bump. Then the real chaos begins. Lots of Masters Thesis are going to come from this non typical election cycle.
The Thin Black Duke
@D58826: “A self-correcting problem,” said the IT guys.
MattF
@Miss Bianca: My fave supermarket tabloid headline was during the OJ trial: “NICOLE LOOKALIKE TELLS ALL.”
Amir Khalid
@Emma:
i can imagine Judge Curiel being tempted to respond:
“Go tell your client that has nothing to do with this case, so the Mexican judge doesn’t care.”
Emma
@Amir Khalid: One lives in hope. But Curiel is by all accounts, very committed to his job. He’ll play by the rules.
eric
@Amir Khalid: in spanish.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@NR: Shorter everyone: Go fuck yourself.
Bokonon
@NR: Hurr durr! HURR DURRRRRRR!!!!
Dur! Dur!
NR
@gwangung: “Punch around.” You guys are funny. Never change, BJ.
Meanwhile I’ll be out here in the real world where this election is a lot closer than it should be, or needed to be.
Bokonon
@NR: Hey, uh, NR?
HURR DURR!
chopper
why, oh why couldn’t we have nominated the cranky, finger-wagging old socialist who combs his hair with a balloon? i mean that guy was bulletproof
Chyron HR
@NR:
Note the subtle retreat from “Suck it, democraps, Clinton’s gonna lose!” to “W-w-well Clinton’s not going to win by ENOUGH, s-so there.” NR’s so confident in his Bernibrosity!
FlipYrWhig
@chopper: And when there are terrorist attacks and cops getting shot, the public always runs for safety to the disheveled befuddled gruff guy who’d rather be talking about college loans and campaign donations. It’s like clockwork.
NR
@Chyron HR: I have never said Hillary is guaranteed to lose. Trump is a horrible candidate too. Stop making things up.
The fact remains that this isn’t an election, it’s a dumpster fire behind a McDonald’s.
AnneW
@Trollhattan: The WWN headline I remember is “Famed Psychic’s Head Explodes.”
Trollhattan
@AnneW:
Somebody needs to curate WWN headlines. Before they’re lost to us all!
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Anne:
Solar physicist… You sound like a bright girl!
Bill Arnold
Just a late mention of spaceweather.com which is a nice compact news site for things space-weather related and also related things like asteroid encounter tables. The “Current Conditions” box on the left is good for a quick skim. (Solar wind speed: 534.5 km/sec, about 75% faster than normal.)
(Just an interested amateur so will defer to Anne on this.)
J R in WV
@NR:
“Meanwhile we have polling data…”
Who is we, asshole?
I see data that shows that Trump is disliked by people who haven’t even voted for a Democratic candidate in their whole lives!
But “we have polling data…” which is certainly a steaming load of bull manure. A more useful commodity, I must point out, than your run on word spool…
Mo MacArbie
Thread oh so dead, but I must append my favorite WWN headline: AIDS Is Killing the World’s Vampires.