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Putting on Airs?( 130 )

By Saul DeGraw

Saul learns his class position in the art world.

Culture / First Person

→

One-dollar bill shaped as a shirt Realities of Practice

Reflections on a windfall

Pondering good fortune open to few others.

By gabriel conroy
2 days ago
57 Comments

TV and Movies

Top 10 Films of 2017

A look back at some of the movies that stood out in 2017

By Garrett Stiger
5 days ago
20 Comments
#2017 #best of #movies #top 10

War

The Blitzkrieg Myth

A critical analysis of German grand strategy during the period 1933-1945.

By James A. Chisem
6 days ago
28 Comments
#Blitzkrieg #Eastern Front #Hitler #Second World War #Western Front

War

What The Heck Are We Doing In Syria

Well?

By Ken Deuel
One week ago
116 Comments
#Syria #war

Tech Tuesday: Cain Edition

Not as extensive as Oscar Gordon would provide, but he’s off doing techie things instead of reading about them.

Michael Cain / 1 day ago January 30, 2018 / ( 12 ) / in Culture / #fuel cells #Software #Space

The Evangelicals are Hypocritical and They Don’t Care

The Evangelicals are Hypocrites and In other news Franco is still dead.

Saul DeGraw / 2 days ago January 29, 2018 / ( 74 ) / in Culture

Morning Ed: Politics {2018.01.29.M}

Nationalism, populism, and Moby.

Will Truman / 2 days ago January 29, 2018 / ( 70 ) / in Morning Edition / #politics

Sunday!

Let’s get ready to Royally Rumble

Jaybird / 3 days ago January 28, 2018 / ( 3 ) / in Sunday

Saturday!

Horror Games

But ones that rely upon “order of operations”

Jaybird / 4 days ago January 27, 2018 / ( 1 ) / in Saturday

Linky Friday: Gods and Robots

This week: Robots, Religion, Energy, Science, and Space!

Will Truman / 5 days ago January 26, 2018 / ( 95 ) / in Linky / #energy #Religion #Robots #science #Space

Weekend!

Some weeks you cram 35 hours of work into 40.
Some weeks you cram 60 hours into 55.

Jaybird / 5 days ago January 25, 2018 / ( 19 ) / in Weekend

My Mother and Ursula Le Guin

To my mother and many women like her, Ursela Le Guin was the feminist writer that inspired them.

Roland Dodds / 6 days ago January 25, 2018 / ( 35 ) / in Culture / #fantasy literature #feminism #gender #Ursela Le Guin

SiteDev Update: Comments Going To Moderation

Site undergoing some changes

Will Truman / 6 days ago January 25, 2018 / ( 9 ) / in Developing...

Morning Ed: Mindspace {2018.01.25.Th}

The workings and breakings of the mind.

Will Truman / 6 days ago January 25, 2018 / ( 28 ) / in Morning Edition / #Mindspace

Morning Ed: Media {2018.01.24.W}

What the hell happened to Newsweek?!

Will Truman / 7 days ago January 24, 2018 / ( 116 ) / in Morning Edition / #media
Featured

Institutional Culture Reliably Protects Abusers, Not The Abused

Aly Raisman’s righteous anger at Larry Nassar was deserved. So to was her righteous anger at the system that aided and abetted him. But only one of those is going to get the attention that it deserves.

Sam Wilkinson / 1 week ago January 23, 2018 / ( 69 ) / in Culture / Sports / #Child Abuse #Gymnastics #Larry Nassar #sexual abuse

Morning Ed: Crime (2018.01.23.T}

She didn’t do it. God said.

Will Truman / 1 week ago January 23, 2018 / ( 9 ) / in Morning Edition / #Crime
Featured

When Democrats Go States’ Rights

A look at California’s new anti-anti-immigration law.

Will Truman / 1 week ago January 22, 2018 / ( 350 ) / in American Politics / Law / #California #immigration

Morning Ed: World {2017.01.22.M}

From Africa to Asia to Europe…

Will Truman / 1 week ago January 22, 2018 / ( 22 ) / in Morning Edition / #World

Sunday!

We interrupt this regularly scheduled Sunday post with a magic way to put on a duvet cover

Also, how to fold a fitted sheet

Jaybird / 1 week ago January 21, 2018 / ( 7 ) / in Sunday

Saturday!

Middle Earth: Shadow of War first impressions

(Also, some musings on games that don’t understand their source material)

Jaybird / 2 weeks ago January 20, 2018 / ( 25 ) / in Saturday
Featured

Mutual Respect

Based on a true story that definitely happened. Definitely.

Chris Morgan / 2 weeks ago January 19, 2018 / ( 13 ) / in Culture / Fiction

Linkonomics Friday

It’s all about the money.

Will Truman / 2 weeks ago January 19, 2018 / ( 231 ) / in Linky

Weekend!

Doing stuff in, like, a half dozen tabs while music is playing.

And Chicken Tikka Masala is one of the tabs.

Jaybird / 2 weeks ago January 19, 2018 / ( 28 ) / in Weekend
Featured

Will Uber Bounce Back in 2018?

This year will be a crucial one for the New York-based company.

Kate Harveston / 2 weeks ago January 18, 2018 / ( 68 ) / in Business / Culture / Economics / Science and Technology / Transportation

Morning Ed: Wildlife {2018.01.18.Th}

Frozen amphibians (2), sea creature facts (2), beautiful birds (1), and more!

Will Truman / 2 weeks ago January 18, 2018 / ( 6 ) / in Morning Edition / #nature
Featured

The MacGuffin White House

The fake but accurate legends of intrigue emanating from the Trump Administration

Will Truman / 2 weeks ago January 17, 2018 / ( 155 ) / in Politics / #Trump

Morning Ed: Vice {2018.01.17.W}

“Sin was the big thing, Lord, and Satan was the star.”

Will Truman / 2 weeks ago January 17, 2018 / ( 135 ) / in Morning Edition / #Vice

Neither Holy, Nor Roman

But an Empire, in the same sense that a chihuahua is a dog.

Mike Schilling / January 17, 2018 / ( 48 ) / in History / Mindless Diversions / #holy roman empire #quiz

Tech Tuesday – Ludicrous Lobster vs Jumbo Jellyfish Edition! – 01/16/18

Busy 6 weeks ahead, since a coworker has decided to leave, and I am inheriting his project.

Oscar Gordon / January 16, 2018 / ( 31 ) / in Culture
Featured

The Shipwreck of the S. S. Earnmoor

Finally, with cannibalism!

Richard Hershberger / January 15, 2018 / ( 11 ) / in History / #shipwrecks

Morning Ed: Diversity {2018.01.15.M}

Racist rats, trouble in Texas, and more.

Will Truman / January 15, 2018 / ( 90 ) / in Morning Edition / #diversity
Featured

Dissecting the End of the World

Some musings on the Hawaiian missile attack that wasn’t

Jaybird / January 14, 2018 / ( 59 ) / in War

Sunday!

Nothing Rhymes with Orange, by Adam Rex

Jaybird / January 14, 2018 / ( 4 ) / in Sunday

Saturday!

One of those moments in table-top gaming that has you giggling for weeks

Jaybird / January 13, 2018 / ( 11 ) / in Saturday
Featured

Briefly, On The Making Of Lists

Moira Donegan has acknowledged having created the Shitty Media Men list. She should be lauded for doing so. Her detractors though? They deserve nothing of the sort.

Sam Wilkinson / January 12, 2018 / ( 259 ) / in Culture / #Katie Roiphe #Moira Donegan #Shitty Men In Media

Morning Ed: Politics {2018.01.12.F}

My New Years Resolution was “fewer Politics sections” and I’ve had two and two weeks. So that’s not going well.

Will Truman / January 12, 2018 / ( 94 ) / in Morning Edition / #politics

Weekend!

Getting back on the wall.

Jaybird / January 12, 2018 / ( 16 ) / in Weekend

Morning Ed: Healthcare {2018.01.11.Th}

A look at the ways we are taken care of – and not taken care of – when we are sick.

Will Truman / January 11, 2018 / ( 139 ) / in Culture / #health #Healthcare

Morning Ed: Media {2018.01.10.W}

The news you can use about the news.

Will Truman / January 10, 2018 / ( 27 ) / in Morning Edition / #media
1 2 3 4 … 367 368 369 Next »

Satellites

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State of the Discussion
3 hours ago
to DavidTC
Koz
Comments this threadCommenter Archive
+ 2) Trying to measure incumbents is a bit silly, because often the only difference between an incumbent who loses and one that retires is [. . .]
-

2) Trying to measure incumbents is a bit silly, because often the only difference between an incumbent who loses and one that retires is merely ‘How well a politician can read polls.’

I think we pretty much agree on incumbency. It's more that your prior position (or at least the way I took it) is not tenable. Incumbency is an obstacle and a real advantage for the party trying to maintain hold of a seat. It is not an insurmountable barrier, as the Republicans have shown several times over the last few cycles.

And, I also agree that it's more typical that a Senator could fall out of love with his party or vice versa and retire.

Where I think you're mistaken is in the cultural makeup of the states and the implications for the Senate. Olympia Snowe is a good example. I don't remember her situation that well, but my guess is that she could have won reelection if she wanted to (I think she already did it at least once). In any event, I think there's very few states where it's not really credible to imagine having a Republican Senator (and Maine is not one of them). Whereas there's a decent amount of states that really can't have Demo Senators (and that number is going up).

Really Mark Pryor was the turning point imo. He was basically engineered (and largely thought of himself) as a white D from the South who could weather the cultural storms associated with that due to his long personal history and association with the state. If it couldn't hold for Mark Pryor, it's not going to hold for anybody.

[View in thread] -
The MacGuffin White House
5 hours ago
to Jaybird
Mike Schilling
Comments this threadCommenter Archive

As Douglas Haigs go, his body count is pretty damned low.

Morning Ed: Politics {2018.01.29.M}
5 hours ago
to Koz
DavidTC
Comments this threadCommenter Archive
+ In fact, you saw this in Kansas one or two cycles ago, where a not-particularly-well regarded Republican was mailing in his reelection campaign and got [. . .]
-

In fact, you saw this in Kansas one or two cycles ago, where a not-particularly-well regarded Republican was mailing in his reelection campaign and got it serious trouble for a while. But ultimately, the voters there couldn’t afford to vote for a Democrat.

Did you just use an incumbent winning despite running a bad campaign to talk about how incumbancy is reduced? Heh. Interesting logic there.

There’s a lot of GOP-leaning states, as states, and in contrast to times past I think it’s going to be difficult for them to justify having a Democratic Senator, in ways that is not going to be as severe in the mirror image. Ie, it’s going to be more plausible for a Republican to beat Jeanne Shaheen as opposed to a D to beat Ben Sasse.

Yes, if you pick _those_ states. Heller, OTOH, is is pretty big trouble. Stabenow is in no trouble at all.

The problem with your 'Trump got 30 states, so should have 30 states in the Senate thesis' is two fold:

1) A lot of those 'thirty states' were _barely_ lost by a campaign that screwed up badly thanks to bad polls. There is absolutely no reason that Michigan, for example, would be voting for Republican Senators, even if there were no incumbents. They voted for Trump by 0.5% percent, but they are really about 5 points Democratic.

The total number of states carried by Republicans was 24 under Obama. But I will admit that number seems slightly low now.

So maybe it's now 26 states and Republicans 'should' have a slight majority in the Senate. Or even 27 states. (It's not thirty.) And in some universe where the current voting population of every state was forced to vote forever and ever, all the incumbents would eventually fall out and that number would be exactly correct. But that's not really how that works.

2) Trying to measure incumbents is a bit silly, because often the only difference between an incumbent who loses and one that retires is merely 'How well a politician can read polls.'

Olympia Snowe, for example, was replaced by a Democrat-caucuser and probably would have lost her reelection (The actual Republican in that race got 30%.), except she was smart enough not to run. Same with Nelson, whose state was going in the exact opposite direction. Neither state would put up with the other party anymore, not even with moderates, and those guys knew it. Rockefeller also. They were near the breaking point of incumbency, and when they were replaced, the other party candidate got a huge win. Same with many incumbents who lost elections....Pryor lost by 16 points, Landrieu lost by 12, Bayh and Lincoln by frickin 21 points. That's how strong incumbency is, it can take a lot to snap it.

Now, there have been some weak incumbents who lost barely. Begich lost by 2.2 points....but, interesting point, he had only been in office one term, and he only got in by beating the previous incumbent by 1.2 points. And the exact same story with Udall. And Hagan. In fact, it seems like a lot of the Democratic incumbents who lost in 2014 were Democrats who never should have won those states back in 2006, but somehow did, barely winning the election, and then barely lost the election one term later. And on the Republican party side, Brown did the same, except he hadn't made it a full term yet.

There have been a hell of a lot of single-term Senators recently, who barely squeak in (or are appointed), and then barely get thrown out (Or are smart enough to retire.)

You can think of this as 'reduced incumbency' if you want, but I think it really shows that there's two sorts of incumbency. There's short term incumbency, which, I dunno, maybe that has been reduced some amount. Who can tell? I have absolutely no idea how common a party losing a seat for a single Senate cycle used to be. Someone is going to have to do some analysis on that who isn't me.

But there's also 'several decades' incumbency, which requires a state to get _really far_ from a Senator's party to kick them out. (Or, if they're smart, they retire first.) Like, 15 points towards the other party.

--

So, to bring this back around to what you originally said, and what I think about it:

We will continue to see corrections in very very Republican states that have inexplicably been voting for a Democratic Senator for decade. West Virginia, for a really good example.

We will see some flippy seats flip again in swing states. I rather suspect the direction they are going to be flipping in under Trump is towards Democrats, both because of Trump and just because the Senate election usually counters the president in general.

But we won't see is barely-Republican states throw long-term Democrats out, and we certainly won't see 'voted for Trump but are actually Democratic' states do that. They have to get really really far Republican to do that.

And at this point I feel like I should remind people, again, that Republicans have mysteriously lost 15 points in pretty much every election since the election (Or, sometimes, the nomination.) of Trump.

--

Of course, I suspect your argument is 'Yes, that's probably true, some of those states might be still slightly on the Democratic side of the line for now, or at least at the last election. But they will get and more Republican, and will eventually flip.'.

Which...I suspect I can't stop you from thinking that. But I don't think it's accurate, at all, and I especially think trying to extrapolate from winning a presidential election in 2016 as to how people will be voting in 2024 is...not very reasonable.

--

When I talk about demographics, and when I talk about people aging, I am talking about people who vote a specific way, and in all likelihood, will continue to vote that way in the future. Half of my claim is the basic passage of time and aging and how people eventually die, which I presumable do not need to prove, and the other half is that only a very small amount of people will ever change their voting habits.

You, OTOH, are often just claiming that existing people will start voting _differently_.

Moreover, the only proof you provide is a general sense of your own feelings, and some extremely short-term _very slight_ voting pattern changes that they are swamped by noise, normal stuff that jumps around every election. And then, on top of that, you also assigned all pro-Republican movement to the Republican party, and all anti-Republican movement to Trump, and pretend the pro-Republican trends will continue and the anti-Republican trends will reverse when Trump leaves, which, frankly, is never how politics have ever worked.

I think your assertions require a much higher level of proof than mine, and aren't even slightly convincing.

BTW, I can make exactly the same sort of argument as you, except much better, because, again, I point to the mysterious disappearance of 15 points of Republican votes that literally _just happened_. If we want to start extrapolating from current voting patterns, the Republican party should ceased to exist as an entity around mid-2020.

This is, however, a pretty silly way to try to guess the future, basically just picking two data points and pretending that every single trend will continue exactly in the direction it currently is.

[View in thread] -
The MacGuffin White House
6 hours ago
to Jaybird
Jaybird
Comments this threadCommenter Archive
+ And if you were hoping for a joke that referenced Rubio without referencing Teddy, apparently Kennedy was drooling during his speech. Sort of the opposite of [. . .]
-

And if you were hoping for a joke that referenced Rubio without referencing Teddy, apparently Kennedy was drooling during his speech.

Sort of the opposite of Rubio's problem.

[View in thread] -
Morning Ed: Politics {2018.01.29.M}
6 hours ago
to Koz
DavidTC
Comments this threadCommenter Archive
+ Lieberman? Hey, if you get to invent your hypothetical, I get to invent mine. ;) Although, yes, I guess he was _technically_ caucused with the Democrats (By [. . .]
-

Lieberman?

Hey, if you get to invent your hypothetical, I get to invent mine. ;)

Although, yes, I guess he was _technically_ caucused with the Democrats (By extortion, but, still.), so really doesn't count.

Actually, he doesn't really count anyway, as the Connecticut for Liebermanians (sp?) apparently didn't nominate him again, so he did not run again. (I shall assume he lost their nomination to a better qualified Lieberman. I don't know anything about pro-Lieberman politics, though.)

[View in thread] -
The MacGuffin White House
6 hours ago
Jaybird
Comments this threadCommenter Archive
+ From what I understand, there was a State of the Union speech tonight. And, from what I understand, the Democrats had a Kennedy standing in front [. . .]
-

From what I understand, there was a State of the Union speech tonight.

And, from what I understand, the Democrats had a Kennedy standing in front of a car give the rebuttal.

Hey, if Rubio was there, Kennedy could have driven the car into Rubio's water.

[View in thread] -
Morning Ed: Politics {2018.01.29.M}
7 hours ago
to Oscar Gordon
Mike Schilling
Comments this threadCommenter Archive

Hey, look at that woman in the low-cut blouse and the short skirt sitting on that sexy-looking car!

Putting on Airs?
7 hours ago
to Jason
Mike Schilling
Comments this threadCommenter Archive
+ I've not read it for decades, but I remember thinking that it said everything it had to say after about 75 pages, and it wasn't [. . .]
-

I've not read it for decades, but I remember thinking that it said everything it had to say after about 75 pages, and it wasn't even half done.

Elmer Gantry is even more relevant and a lot of fun to start with, but long after it should be over, it still goes on.

[View in thread] -
Putting on Airs?
View More →

Off the Cuff

"Christmas Eve" by Mike DeCapite

One of those stories where every word is the right one in the right place... — Rufus F. (4)

And did those feet in ancient time walk upon England's mountains green?

So Trump acknowledged Jerusalem as the capital of Israel... — Jaybird (152)

The Deacon’s Masterpiece or, the Wonderful "One-hoss Shay": A Logical Story

This is the poem I try to remember to read every November 1st — Jaybird (1)

Thinking about Obsolete Sins

There are a handful of things that were sins, way back when, that could only exist in the context of their time — Jaybird (74)

A hypothetical...

Thinking about thinking about... — Oscar Gordon (199)

View OTC Archive →

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Only Love

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