I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

What Athena said, & if anyone was mocking me, I wouldn't know it or care...he is a genuinely GOOD human being.

A Mensch....

I like this analysis of Nate Silver's work:

Silver Snake - How one blogger enrages people with truth

<snip>

Though some people argue Silver’s liberal alliance could sway the results, because almost everything points toward an Obama victory, his analysis must be skewed.

“Silver is currently saying that in some scenarios, Obama will win and in some scenarios Romney will win, and the first batch of scenarios outnumber the second batch of scenarios by about 3 to 1,” said Joel Achenbach, also of The Washington Post.

However, Silver’s “FiveThirtyEight” blog leaves a market for someone on the other side. Why not create a conservative-leaning blog that interprets the same polls? People on the other side of the aisle could feel secure hearing information from a source they trust.

A popular definition of insanity, however, is trying the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. If you analyze the same polls, you’re still working with the same numbers.

Silver runs his data analysis based on his work with baseball’s sabermetrics (like the movie “Moneyball”). Silver wrote “Baseball and politics are data-driven,” according to a 2008 Newsweek article before that year’s presidential election. “But a lot of the time, that data might be used badly. In baseball, that may mean looking at a statistic like batting average when things like on-base percentage and slugging percentage are far more correlated with winning ballgames. In politics, that might mean cherry-picking a certain polling result.”

People, essentially, need to calm down and accept what service Silver is providing.

<snip>

http://www.alligator.org/opinion/editorials/article_65dfc496-23cb-11e2-a127-0019bb2963f4.html

"loved that Bloomberg said, thanks but no thanks"  (re: Sandy)

Hee Hee

16 minutes ago:

Michael Bloomberg Endorses Obama For Re-Election

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsed President Barack Obama for re-election on Thursday, Bloomberg TV reported and The Huffington Post confirmed.

The mayor, an Independent, did not endorse a candidate in the 2008 election and hadn't seem poised to do so this time around as well. But he said in an op-ed published on his website, that his eagerness to see action on climate change legislation persuaded him to back a second term for the president. He also explained that while he admired Mitt Romney, there were a number of social issues that gave him pause.

I believe Mitt Romney is a good and decent man, and he would bring valuable business experience to the Oval Office. He understands that America was built on the promise of equal opportunity, not equal results. In the past he has also taken sensible positions on immigration, illegal guns, abortion rights and health care. But he has reversed course on all of them, and is even running against the health-care model he signed into law in Massachusetts.

If the 1994 or 2003 version of Mitt Romney were running for president, I may well have voted for him because, like so many other independents, I have found the past four years to be, in a word, disappointing.

Bloomberg's endorsement was one of the few remaining of any political significance in the presidential race, and it remains to be seen whether it comes too late in the cycle to make a difference. The mayor won't be on the stump for the president, owing to the massive cleanup job he must now oversee in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. But it appears that the storm itself prompted him to offer up his support for the president.

"The devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought to New York City and much of the Northeast – in lost lives, lost homes and lost business – brought the stakes of Tuesday’s presidential election into sharp relief," he said.

His endorsement seems likely to dominate the few remaining media cycles in the presidential race, if only for its unexpectedness. Just a week ago, Bloomberg had been highly critical of both Obama and Romney in an interview with the New York Times.

President Barack Obama said he was honored to have the endorsement. "While we may not agree on every issue, Mayor Bloomberg and I agree on the most important issues of our time -- that the key to a strong economy is investing in the skills and education of our people, that immigration reform is essential to an open and dynamic democracy, and that climate change is a threat to our children's future, and we owe it to them to do something about it," he said in a statement. "Just as importantly, we agree that whether we are Democrats, Republicans, or independents, there is only one way to solve these challenges and move forward as a nation -- together."

Suzie - not trying to convince you about anything, but really really curious.  I see you were grade 3, her2+, so you must have had chemo?  Doesn't the idea of having chemo again, even if just a chance, seem far worse than doing 1 day of prep?  I am so the opposite of you, I guess. I never never never want to go through any of this again and if there is a test out there to forstall that, sign me up! 

suzie - I must have confused you with someone that said they would never do the prep?

Steve's gone off for a weeknd of golf. I am not going to work - too little sleep last night. In fact I should go back to bed now.

Jackie, happy fresh air ;-)  and DO NOT read this linky - it will make you sick, furious, and sad.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/10/31/173269/bishop-orders-priests-to-read.html

I stil remember President Kennedy speaking on his Faith, and remember being so proud of our country.  The above is sickening, really, maybe a good thing notself is busy these days, this would send her 'round-the-bnd'

Man oh man - I've said for years that I'll never have a colonoscopy.  I had a sigmoidoscopy and it was completely and totally clear.  Hubby had a colonoscopy and suffered terribly for almost 2 years afterwards with IBS (that he NEVER had prior to the colonoscopy).  But you ladies are making me nervous.  Maybe I'll have to rethink my position

The last time we went to church was just prior to the 2008 election when the priest started talking about how people should vote.  My husband got so angry we almost got up and left.  I still wish we had.

There you are, Notself!

Agreed. I think I will pass up Sun's link. No need to hear more dirt.

GG - that priest should have been reported to the authorities. Incredible how the church always thinks it is above the law. It can rape boys, preach politics and Joseph Ratzinger, who can kiss my arse, will say nothing. Just don't make love to the man you love without being married. Same with many nutso protestant preachers.

Our Esteemed Pastor ---and many other wonderful people-- are most obviously exempt from my statements.

Hi. just back from the colonoscopy

 The doc doing a biopsy to check the possibility of microscopic colitis but otherwise i have boring ibs and possible lactosr intolerance.  Just love boring. now back in the boring and cold dark house but much better tonight.

Sleep works

GREAT, Alexandria! Boring is GOOD, even in a cold, dark house! Now, I hope you can find a warm, lighted restaurant and celebrate a little!



Athena, I saw that same article too. Smells like a banana republic, doesn't it? Or Stalinist Soviet Union - just suppress any information that doesn't support your worldview. I was reading it to DH, and we talked about what the regressives could possibly hope to achieve by widening the income and wealth disparity in this country. We came to the conclusion that they only care about what happens to them -- not even their children and grandchildren -- just them, with money to eat steak dinners at The Palm and drive Rolls Royces. And DH reminded me, as has so often, that this is the stuff of which revolutions are made. The poor will get so poor that they have nothing left to lose. When you see your children cry from hunger and die from treatable diseases, what do you have left to lose? What do you have left to do? Especially when they are working overtime to disenfranchise the poor.



L

HL: I sometimes fear that we are fighting to preserve democracy.

Conservatives pretend to fight for freedom, but they support all the elements of oppression: disinformation, re-information, re-education, separation.

I strive to see any difference between today's conservative agenda and that of Mussolini's Italy.

Americans don't know what it is like to live in oppression, so they can't recognize that a class of people is trying to take away their freedoms while purporting to fight for them.

Conservatives want to take away a woman's freedom to make decisions about her body, even when it has been violated. But they insist on ramming guns down our throats. They would take away a person's freedom to love someone of the same sex. Conservatives do not believe in the free flow of ideas and knowledge; otherwise they would not try to suppress information or invent lies, or deny scientific fact. They would not deny global warming, Keynesian economics and the truth about Obama's birthplace. Conservatives want to control our schools by forcing people to worship their definition of God. Conservatives want to suppress inquiry by telling children we are all created by God. Conservatives want to disenfranchise the poor and protect the rich by creating and upholding a tax system so regressive that real wages for most everyone have grown little, while the rich have seen their worth multiply by many times. They want to forge a military-industrial-government alliance to rule the country regardless of how many go hungry.

That, my friends, is fascism.

When a government forms an alliance with a wealthy few, protects its corporations and tries to supress information and diversity among its populace, you get totalitarian fascism. We have in the United States a shrinking number of rich, a growing number of poor, a class of corporate welfare kings, some of whom have relied on taxpayer bailout-funded bonuses despite doing their jobs very badly, and a segment of the poor in red states who have no idea just how oppressed they are. None.  

The tragedy is that in Italy and Germany, too many good but naive people never saw it coming. They never believed it could happen. So when it did, they were too blinded to fight.

I know Obama is going to win. But more and more I see this struggle as one for the survival of democratic values and Enlightenment ideals against oppression. The last time the United States had a fight like that, the country gave its all. We helped to defeat the Nazis. I now wonder if we would recognize a new Hilter if we saw one. 

Excellent! The man deserves a big fat bonus!