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Dr. C: The Unpleasant Exclusivity in Our Educational System Wolraich: The Grim Possibility Of War With Iran dag Observes the 19th Anniversary of the Low-Speed Chase in LA |
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Admit it, this was on your mind. Remember when Dubya called him Kim Jong Two in a debate? Those were the days.
Newt's surge peaked two weeks ago, with a 15 point lead over Romney. Last week, it was about a ten point lead. This week, it has been pretty stable, but is down to 4-5 points. The remarkably stable aspect of the data is Romney. He was at 22 when Newt peaked at 37. When Newt was 34 he got to 25. Since that blip, he's been between 22-24, and he sits at 24 on a rolling five day average and has for four days.
From that, the better question may not be whether Gingrich will plummet, but whether Romney is capable of rising above the mid to low 20s.
The numbers do have to eventually equal 100. At Newt's peak, he and Romney added to 59 (37-22). Then they did again at 34-25. Today, it's 28-24. The undecided has risen from 13 to 19 in that period, as I wrote almost a week ago. And they're staying undecided.
So if you think Newt won't win, you must think Romney can get into the thirties. If you allocate the undecided 19 percent among Romney and Newt, they both move into the thirties. But since the persistently undecided appear to be Cain or Perry voters who have resisted Romney, who predominantly identify with the Tea Party, and who ran from Cain to Newt and back to undecided, it's unclear why one would think not only that Romney could get some of these voters, but more of them than Newt will get.
The question remains: can 23% Romney get into the thirties? If he can't, the AntiRomney shall rise and rule the field.
By Dave Cook, Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 16, 2011
Stanley Greenberg, a major Democratic pollster, says unhappy and undecided voters make a third-party presidential candidate likely in 2012, introducing uncertainty into the battle to control Congress.
Also see:
A third major party? Most Americans say it's needed
By Susan Page, USA Today, Dec. 13, 2011
[....] In a new USA TODAY/Gallup Swing States Poll, 54% of Americans nationwide and 52% in the nation's top battlegrounds agree that the two major parties "do such a poor job that a third major party is needed."
In the dozen most competitive states, the political group most likely to back the idea of a third party are moderate and liberal Republicans — perhaps because they feel disenfranchised by the clout of a conservative Tea Party movement. Nearly two-thirds back the idea of a third party. Moderates and liberals make up nearly four in 10 Republicans. [....]
Associated Press, Dec. 16, 2011
FORT MEADE, Md. — The U.S. military is making its case for why Army Pfc. Bradley Manning should be court-martialed on charges of endangering national security by stealing and leaking an enormous trove of government secrets.
Manning, 23, was to make his first public appearance Friday at the opening of his pretrial hearing at Fort Meade. [....]
By Tim Arango, New York Times, Dec. 15/16, 2011
BAGHDAD — [.....]
After nearly nine years, about 4,500 American fatalities and $1 trillion, America’s war in Iraq is about to end. Officials marked the finish on Thursday with a modest ceremony at the airport days before the last troops take the southern highway to Kuwait, going out as they came in, to conclude the United States’ most ambitious and bloodiest military campaign since Vietnam.
[....]
Somewhat to my surprise, the Wall Street Journal didn't merely report that "Donald Trump wants a say in who gets the nomination, so he's hosting a presidential debate, holding out the prospect of his endorsement and threatening an independent run" (i.e., behaving like a kingmaker who expects to be honored and courted by the rival candidates); it even quoted candidate Jon Huntsman's remarkably lewd comment about why he's not going to attend the Trump "debate": Huntsman said, "I'm not going to kiss his ring, and I'm not going to kiss any other part of his anatomy."
That vivid and rather gross remark reminded me of how right my extremely cool son Calvin is about the word he wants to see win the American Dialect Society'sWord of the Year contest. I had been talking to Calvin one day about the ghastly crew of obnoxious multi-millionaires who dominate the newspapers, and how they keep threatening to achieve success even in the political arena. Calvin pointed out to me both that we need a new political term for the concept of being ruled by such men, and that there already is such a term. We are living, he observed, in the age of the assholocracy....
...Assholocracy needs more Google hits, though; it's a rare word thus far (105 Ghits as of right now, combining the correct spelling assholocracy and the variant spelling assholeocracy). Rare words don't win. There are several weeks to go before the ADS vote. Those of you with blogs, use the word, visibly and often. Let's get to work and make sure we at least have the appropriate vocabulary items for dealing with the situation should it arise.
Think about the phrase "President Trump". Or even just "presidential candidate hand-picked and endorsed by Trump". Doesn't it chill you to the bone? Canridicule by Doonesbury get rid of him? You'd better be very sure. So get out there and prepare the lexicographical ground. With words, we can win. Without the words, we don't have the concepts: just as the Eskimos have many apposite words for . . . no, never mind that; bad example. Just push the word assholocracywherever you have influence is what I'm saying.
Gingrich’s double-digit plummet is significant. It mirrors the pattern Rasmussen has seen since he began polling Iowa Republicans in August: For five consecutive months, a different candidate has come out on top each time. First it was Representative Bachmann, who won the Iowa GOP’s unscientific, nonbinding straw poll in August. Next was Governor Perry, then Herman Cain, then Gingrich. The latest poll has Romney on top for the first time.
“For all the turmoil, Mitt Romney’s support has actually been pretty consistent,” Rasmussen says. Romney’s lowest number in any Rasmussen poll of Iowa this cycle was 17 percent. His highest is his current total of 23.
As evidence of a failed Obama presidency accumulates, criticism of his administration is mounting from liberal Democrats who have too much moral authority to be ignored.
We found that subjects were not aware of what was to be learned while behavioral data obtained before and after the neurofeedback training showed that subjects' visual performance improved specifically for the target orientation, which was used in the neurofeedback training.
[Tom Whipple] Range Fuels, a cellulosic ethanol company backed by as much as $156 million in US loans and grants from President George W. Bush's administration, is being forced by the government to liquidate its only factory after failing to produce the fuel.
The number of automobiles in China has shot past the 100 million mark. And it is expected to double within the next decade given that some 50 million cars were registered in the country from 2006 to 2010 alone.
The world's airlines are braced for a steeper than expected fall in profitability next year, after their main representative body cut its collective net earnings forecast for the industry in 2012 from $4.9bn to $3.5bn.
Americans have been driving fewer miles every month since March, a decline fueled by factors ranging from the weak economy to high gas prices to aging boomers and teens driving less. It's the first time the nation has seen six consecutive monthly decreases since October of 2008.
By Vincent Bevins, L.A. Times, Dec.12, 2011
REPORTING FROM RIO DE JANEIRO -- Brazil’s huge northern state of Pará is about three times the size of California, home to much of the Amazon rain forest and is the second-largest producer of the nation's most important export, iron ore.
But poverty levels are well above the national average. [....]
In an attempt to address the contradiction, activists pushed forward a bill that would have split Para into three states and, in theory, increased the amount of federal aid to the region [....] But in voting Sunday, the measure was defeated by a 2-1 ratio amid criticisms that creating new states would carry heavy administrative costs.
Even opponents of the bill, however, recognized the predicament, and it’s one that is repeated in parts of Peru, Colombia and elsewhere in South America: the lack of central government representation for states that are resource-rich (be it mining, gas or other commodities) but poverty-stricken. [....]
By Jeremy Herb, The Hill, Dec. 12, 2011
Lawmakers reached an agreement Monday on the $662 billion Defense authorization bill they believe will satisfy White House demands to avoid a veto over the detention of terror suspects. [....]
Associated Press, Dec. 12, 2011
WASHINGTON — The tax plan by GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich would provide big tax breaks to the rich and blow a huge hole in the federal budget deficit, according to an independent study released Monday.
The analysis by the Tax Policy Center says households making more than $1 million a year would see their taxes drop by an average of 62 percent. Overall, federal tax revenues would drop by an estimated $850 billion in 2015, a figure that would dramatically worsen the budget deficit unless it is offset by unprecedented spending cuts, the study said.
“The revenue losses are enormous,” said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center.
Gingrich proposes [....]
By Keith Stuart and Mark Sweney, The Guardian, Dec. 12, 2011
[....] The latest instalment of the video game series Call of Duty has become the fastest-selling entertainment product of all time, hitting $1bn in sales through retailers in just 16 days, [....]
Activision Blizzard, based in California, said yesterday that the latest in its mega-selling franchise, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 had notched up $400m in sales within 24 hours of launching on 8 November.
"Call of Duty as an entertainment franchise has made an indelible mark on popular culture," said Bobby Kotick, the company's CEO. "Call of Duty" is now amongst that rarified group of sustained franchises like Star Wars, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and the National Football League that attract or engage tens of millions of people every year or every new release." [....]
CBC News
Canada is formally withdrawing from the Kyoto accord, Environment Minister Peter Kent said Monday.
The decision to do so will save the government an estimated $14 billion in penalties, Kent said. The Conservative government says it has no choice given the economic situation.
Blaming an "incompetent Liberal government" who signed the accord and then took little action to make the necessary greenhouse gas emission cuts, Kent said he was formalizing what the Conservative government has been saying for weeks.
"Kyoto for Canada is in the past. As such, we are invoking our legal right to formally withdraw," Kent said.
The Kyoto Protocol, which expires next year, committed major industrial economies to reducing their annual CO2 emissions to below 1990 levels, while providing financial supports to developing nations to encourage them to follow suit eventually. Canada ratified the accord in 1997 but was not on track to meet its legally binding targets.
The Conservatives have committed to 17 per cent cuts from 2005 levels by 2020, a much lower threshold to meet than cutting below 1990 emissions levels.
The evening is rainy and quite warm, which is disconcerting since it is almost December. A hundred or so people gather on the east side of what we may safely call Zuccotti Park, for their General Assembly.
Nothing about the park feels like Liberty Plaza anymore. Every inch of the perimeter, for instance, is lined with metal barricades, just inside which stand private security guards, husky and rude, dressed in all black, apart from their yellow vests. A massive Christmas tree has been set up in the park and barricaded off. Besides the few protesters, that’s who’s here. The guards and their barricades.
There’s no kitchen, no library, no medical tent, no media center. There is no drum circle, no sign-painting station, no welcome table on Broadway, no altar around the meditation tree in the northwest corner. There are only about a hundred people, deliberating democratic minutiae, trying to get through a too-big agenda, packed with yesterday’s unattended business.
This would be hard enough to do without the people who keep loudly interrupting the meeting. But every meeting I’ve recently attended—and from what I gather, every recent meeting I have not—has been brought to a grinding halt, the basic ability to debate and consent to proposals crippled by a determined few who will not to let things proceed until their issues are addressed. This is the reason for the backed-up business. The people shouting about their needs over the debate.
"Luxury has been, and continues to be, an integral part of the lives of virtually everyone. According to a new presentation based on Ipsos Mendelsohn survey data from September and October 2011, 94% of affluents (defined as adults living in households with at least $100,000 in annual income) had purchased luxury in at least one of the 15 categories we measured, and 70% intend to buy luxury in at least one category in the coming year. Even among those making less than $100K in annual household income (whose points of view we also measured for this presentation), the pull of luxury is widespread: 92% had made a luxury purchase, and 59% plan to do so in the coming year. Only 15% of Affluents and 8% of non-Affluents tell us they simply aren't interested in luxury.
The world might be less peaceful than we think.
Gingrich also ahead 31-29 in Michigan, a state to which Romney has close ties, having been born in Detroit, and having grown up there, where his father was Governor.
Daily Mail, December 11, 2011
Hundreds of white-bearded, red-suited revellers flooded cities across the world today for the annual SantaCon — a boozy holiday ritual that takes place every year.
The popular pub crawl, which organisers say is 'non-denominational, non-commercial, non-political and non-sensical', took place in cities including New York, San Francisco and London. [....]
PHOTOS AT LINK.
To many, America’s industrial heartland may look like a place mired in the economic past—a place that, outcompeted by manufacturing countries around the world, has too little work to offer its residents. But things look very different to Karen Wright, the CEO of Ariel Corporation in Mount Vernon, Ohio. Wright’s biggest problem isn’t a lack of work; it’s a lack of skilled workers. “We have a very skilled workforce, but they are getting older,” says Wright, who employs 1,200 people at three Ohio factories. “I don’t know where we are going to find replacements.”
This is a simple case of inflation: When you artificially pump up the supply of something (whether it's currency or diplomas), the value drops. The reason why a bachelor's degree on its own no longer conveys intelligence and capability is that the government decided that as many people as possible should have bachelor's degrees.
There's something of a pattern here. The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we'll have more middle class people.
But homeownership and college aren't causes of middle-class status, they're markers for possessing the kinds of traits -- self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. -- that let you enter, and stay in, the middle class.
Subsidizing the markers doesn't produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them. One might as well try to promote basketball skills by distributing expensive sneakers.
Professional basketball players have expensive sneakers, but -- TV commercials notwithstanding -- it's not the shoes that make them good at dunking.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/12/sunday-reflection-higher-ed-bubble-bursting-so-what-comes-next/1969376#ixzz1gAQLr0zu
How Obama's pick to lead the FBI tried to put the brakes on the NSA's surveillance dragnet.
By Marc Ambinder, Foreign Policy, June 18, 2013
[....] Comey, who is said to be President Obama's choice to be the next director of the FBI, has never publicly disclosed exactly what he refused to sanction when he was briefly acting attorney general during Ashcroft's hospital stay, but people briefed on the program who have spoken to Comey say it was the legal rationale giving the NSA quick access to un-sifted telecom and service provider-collected metadata that "drove him bonkers," not the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program. There was just no way, Comey thought, to justify an effort that simply...
'Peace and reconciliation' milestone comes after US drops request for formal rejection of al-Qaida as precondition to talks
By Dan Roberts in Washington and Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul, guardian.co.uk, 18 June 2013
[....] White House officials say they believe the Taliban delegation at the talks represents the movement's leadership, and includes more radical groups such as the Haqqani network. Officials said the US would have a direct role in the talks starting starting this week in Doha, but the substantive negotiations over the future of Afghanistan would then be led by the Afghan government.
"The core of this process is not going to be US-Taliban talks – we can help the process – but the core is going...
According to some well-placed Israeli commentators, the best Israel can hope for is that Assad holds on but only just. That would keep the regime in place, or boxed into its heartland, but sapped of the energy to concern itself with anything other than immediate matters of survival.
In closed-door discussions, analyst Ben Caspit has noted, the Israeli army has put forward its “optimal scenario”: Syria breaking up into three separate states, with Assad confined to an Alawite canton in Damascus and along the coast.
A long war of attrition between Assad and the opposition has additional benefits for Israel following the decision by Hizbullah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to draft thousands of fighters to assist the...
By George Packer, Daily Comment @ newyorker.com, June 18, 2013
The word “HACK” is painted across the main square of Facebook’s campus in letters so large that they can be seen from space. The term has lost its negative connotation in Silicon Valley; freewheeling coding sessions and virtual breaking and entering have become the same thing. The culture of hacking is rebellious, idealistic, and militantly anti-bureaucratic—fitting for an age that glorifies entrepreneurship—and it marks a stark shift from the recent history of scientists in American life. During the heyday of the space program, rocket scientists and computer engineers worked closely with NASA officials. The bureaucrat and the geek were not polar opposites but...
Where else but Maricopa County, ArpaioLand: 'A Maricopa County Superior Court jury on Monday found Michael Turley guilty of knowingly giving a false impression and endangerment steeming from hoax in which he sent his 16-year-old nephew into a street with a fake grenade launcher where he pointed it at oncoming traffic. While Turley, 40, filmed the incident, the 16-year-old draped his body in a sheet and wrapped his head in a scarf. The action was suppose to evoke a stereotype of a Middle Eastern terrorist.' .....
