[Terez]

 amphibian, on 19 October 2012 - 06:39 AM, said:

 Terez, on 19 October 2012 - 04:51 AM, said:

On topic, today Silver tackled the increasingly-bizarre Gallup numbers.

Silver just delivered an enormous body blow to the Gallup methodology right there by noting that pretty much every time Gallup veers from the consensus, it's wrong. Boom. Liver shot.

It's not a knockout blow by any means, but I'd be surprised if there weren't some new math whizzes being hired in the coming weeks over there to go over the models again.

There was an old-school Gallup guy on Chris Hayes, along with Nate Silver, this past weekend:

http://www.nbcnews.c...263362#49406656

That's the first video of four. Anyway, the Gallup guy talks some about how things at Gallup changed when it was bought out a few years ago.

PS—I rewatched, and that bit is in the second half of the second video:

http://www.nbcnews.c...263362#49406798

This post has been edited by Terez: 19 October 2012 - 09:20 AM

[worry]

 Obdigore, on 19 October 2012 - 06:54 AM, said:

Yes I know that easy line, but it is directed much more at the Tea Party Tardies than the normal Republicans, who think a small but strong (how?) government is the way to go. I'm not sure why you don't think nearly any large corporation/government isn't going to lie to its people if it can get away with it. Republicans lie to the people who cant be bothered to investigate for themselves and those people eat it up. It is why the republican party is close to splintering, because the libertarians are breaking off from the crazy-religious who are breaking off from the small but strong government people. As more and more people realize the lies, they get disenfranchised and wish for a different candidate or group of people in power. Meanwhile these same people who have been indoctrinated from birth that socialism=bad come right back and vote against their own interests every four years when money-hungry jackasses cry socialism.

It is why a system without any checks but run by humans never works, because eventually someone with greed will get in a position of power and start abusing it. Constant Vigilence is too hard for most of the citizens of today, they embrace the 'i want mine, fuck everyone else' mentality, which is precisely why they buy into shams like Romney and vote for him.

I am not sure why you're interpreting my beliefs to be anything other than exactly what I said. There is no need to extrapolate a phantom me with various other beliefs in order to make the point you're making, which I don't particularly disagree with.

That said, the thing I was paraphrasing is from PJ O'Rourke and written in the early '90s, predating the Tea Party by almost two decades. It has everything to do with the Newt Gingrich/Grover Norquist neo-cons who arose in the mid-80s -- taking full advantage of the moral and silent majority types -- and weren't driven back into their unholy catacombs until the mid-90s. Of course they had offspring with those majority folks, seeding the world again and again with ever-dumber ideas...and there's a straight line between them and the Bush Admin and the Tea Party. All that is to say, I don't think anything I'm saying is in very sharp contrast with what you're saying, except to say that the "normal Republicans" -- the moderates, if you will -- have been in decline for longer than you suggest. The seemingly sudden last gasps of an extinction do tend to get more attention than the slow decline that preceded them, I suppose.

[Obdigore]

 worrywort, on 19 October 2012 - 10:16 AM, said:

 Obdigore, on 19 October 2012 - 06:54 AM, said:

Yes I know that easy line, but it is directed much more at the Tea Party Tardies than the normal Republicans, who think a small but strong (how?) government is the way to go. I'm not sure why you don't think nearly any large corporation/government isn't going to lie to its people if it can get away with it. Republicans lie to the people who cant be bothered to investigate for themselves and those people eat it up. It is why the republican party is close to splintering, because the libertarians are breaking off from the crazy-religious who are breaking off from the small but strong government people. As more and more people realize the lies, they get disenfranchised and wish for a different candidate or group of people in power. Meanwhile these same people who have been indoctrinated from birth that socialism=bad come right back and vote against their own interests every four years when money-hungry jackasses cry socialism.

It is why a system without any checks but run by humans never works, because eventually someone with greed will get in a position of power and start abusing it. Constant Vigilence is too hard for most of the citizens of today, they embrace the 'i want mine, fuck everyone else' mentality, which is precisely why they buy into shams like Romney and vote for him.

I am not sure why you're interpreting my beliefs to be anything other than exactly what I said. There is no need to extrapolate a phantom me with various other beliefs in order to make the point you're making, which I don't particularly disagree with.

That said, the thing I was paraphrasing is from PJ O'Rourke and written in the early '90s, predating the Tea Party by almost two decades. It has everything to do with the Newt Gingrich/Grover Norquist neo-cons who arose in the mid-80s -- taking full advantage of the moral and silent majority types -- and weren't driven back into their unholy catacombs until the mid-90s. Of course they had offspring with those majority folks, seeding the world again and again with ever-dumber ideas...and there's a straight line between them and the Bush Admin and the Tea Party. All that is to say, I don't think anything I'm saying is in very sharp contrast with what you're saying, except to say that the "normal Republicans" -- the moderates, if you will -- have been in decline for longer than you suggest. The seemingly sudden last gasps of an extinction do tend to get more attention than the slow decline that preceded them, I suppose.

Yea I wasn't really disagreeing with you, just taking a step up onto my soapbox after you gave me the opening with that phrase.

[worry]

Now that's what I like to hear!

[cerveza_fiesta]

RE John Husted, elections guy in Ohio,

How the heck is he getting away with defying the supreme court FFS? It isn't a powerless organization last I checked and if they tell you to do something (or to not do something), aren't you supposed to follow their direction?

I mean, it looks like he's wandering into elections tampering and corruption territory at this point....and I have no idea how that story isn't the leading headline at this point given how ridiculously important Ohio seems to be for both parties. It's not just speculation and insinuation about what he *might* be doing anymore. He's downright trying to fix the election and the fucking supreme court more or less confirmed exactly that.

You know something is fundamentally broken when a guy in government can be so obviously tampering with an election and he doesn't automatically lose his job over it.

This post has been edited by cerveza_fiesta: 19 October 2012 - 12:08 PM

[Obdigore]

 cerveza_fiesta, on 19 October 2012 - 12:06 PM, said:

RE John Husted, elections guy in Ohio,

How the heck is he getting away with defying the supreme court FFS? It isn't a powerless organization last I checked and if they tell you to do something (or to not do something), aren't you supposed to follow their direction?

I mean, it looks like he's wandering into elections tampering and corruption territory at this point....and I have no idea how that story isn't the leading headline at this point given how ridiculously important Ohio seems to be for both parties. It's not just speculation and insinuation about what he *might* be doing anymore. He's downright trying to fix the election and the fucking supreme court more or less confirmed exactly that.

You know something is fundamentally broken when a guy in government can be so obviously tampering with an election and he doesn't automatically lose his job over it.

Because the Ohio Governor is a Republican and if the Federal Government moves in the GOP will claim Obama and the mean ole feds are just taking away (this next part is said with a southern twang) States Rights!

It is a situation that needs to be handled very carefully because children who have never had to endure hardship will push and push until they are slapped down or they break something.

[Vengeance]

 cerveza_fiesta, on 19 October 2012 - 12:06 PM, said:

RE John Husted, elections guy in Ohio,

How the heck is he getting away with defying the supreme court FFS? It isn't a powerless organization last I checked and if they tell you to do something (or to not do something), aren't you supposed to follow their direction?

I mean, it looks like he's wandering into elections tampering and corruption territory at this point....and I have no idea how that story isn't the leading headline at this point given how ridiculously important Ohio seems to be for both parties. It's not just speculation and insinuation about what he *might* be doing anymore. He's downright trying to fix the election and the fucking supreme court more or less confirmed exactly that.

You know something is fundamentally broken when a guy in government can be so obviously tampering with an election and he doesn't automatically lose his job over it.

Last I heard Court had ruled that Ohio had to have early voting

Federal court rules against Ohio SoS

[Obdigore]

 Vengeance, on 19 October 2012 - 12:49 PM, said:

 cerveza_fiesta, on 19 October 2012 - 12:06 PM, said:

RE John Husted, elections guy in Ohio,

How the heck is he getting away with defying the supreme court FFS? It isn't a powerless organization last I checked and if they tell you to do something (or to not do something), aren't you supposed to follow their direction?

I mean, it looks like he's wandering into elections tampering and corruption territory at this point....and I have no idea how that story isn't the leading headline at this point given how ridiculously important Ohio seems to be for both parties. It's not just speculation and insinuation about what he *might* be doing anymore. He's downright trying to fix the election and the fucking supreme court more or less confirmed exactly that.

You know something is fundamentally broken when a guy in government can be so obviously tampering with an election and he doesn't automatically lose his job over it.

Last I heard Court had ruled that Ohio had to have early voting

Federal court rules against Ohio SoS

You are correct, I got mixed up. I thought Husted directed the voting centers to not have extended hours after the Supreme Court refused to hear his 'case'. However, he immediately put the hours back to reasonable for all districts.

http://www.dispatch....ing-appeal.html

[Obdigore]

As an aside, did anyone else notice that Romney named his eldest son after the protagonist in Atlas Shrugged (Dagny Taggart)?

http://en.wikipedia..../Taggart_Romney
http://en.wikipedia....gged_characters

[Terez]

 cerveza_fiesta, on 19 October 2012 - 12:06 PM, said:

RE John Husted, elections guy in Ohio,

How the heck is he getting away with defying the supreme court FFS? It isn't a powerless organization last I checked and if they tell you to do something (or to not do something), aren't you supposed to follow their direction?

I mean, it looks like he's wandering into elections tampering and corruption territory at this point....and I have no idea how that story isn't the leading headline at this point given how ridiculously important Ohio seems to be for both parties. It's not just speculation and insinuation about what he *might* be doing anymore. He's downright trying to fix the election and the fucking supreme court more or less confirmed exactly that.

You know something is fundamentally broken when a guy in government can be so obviously tampering with an election and he doesn't automatically lose his job over it.

I thought you were sick of voter suppression. Reasonable hours....that's somewhat debatable. He set uniform, limited hours. In 2008, it was much simpler: counties set their own hours, and the ones that had the worst problems with lines and thousands of people not getting to vote are the ones that had long hours the weekend before the election, while rural areas with no real poll access problems had limited hours to suit their needs. It would have been the same this year if the Republicans on the election boards hadn't conspired to have early voting only in Republican counties. (Which were mostly the ones that didn't have any issues with lines.)

This post has been edited by Terez: 19 October 2012 - 04:20 PM

[Abyss]

 Obdigore, on 19 October 2012 - 01:17 PM, said:

As an aside, did anyone else notice that Romney named his eldest son after the protagonist in Atlas Shrugged (Dagny Taggart)?

http://en.wikipedia..../Taggart_Romney
http://en.wikipedia....gged_characters

I guess we know who Goodkind will be voting for...

[worry]

For the record, the link I posted came AFTER the SCOTUS ruling and describe Husted's continued efforts to circumvent even them.

[worry]

I don't know whether to post this here or in the Islam thread, but I just wanted to say as a Californian that Darrell Issa is genuinely one of the worst people in the entire government, top to bottom. My congressman Jerry Lewis is among the worst (and should have gone to prison with Duke Cunningham), but luckily he's retiring this year. Issa's young enough to still be around a while if he wants, and his mix of maximum slime, zero conscience, and hefty power make him singularly toxic.


http://thecable.fore...ing_with_the_us

[worry]

Going for the hat trick tonight: the Benghazi incident was likely an unplanned opportunistic assault carried out after word of the Cairo protests/violence:

http://www.latimes.c...0,0,95514.story

[Terez]

Well, there's still the fact that Al Qaeda had publicly called for revenge for the death of Abu Yahya Al-Libi on 9/11, the Al Qaeda #2 who was Libyan (that's what Al-Libi means) and was killed on Obama's orders in June. With the information presented in the article, it still fits. They might not have any evidence to prove that's what it was, but as far as the facts go, it's still quite likely. But no one is talking about that revenge call in the media that I can tell. Maybe conservative media is talking about it. I haven't seen anything about it since Maddow broke it down on 9/13. It's possible the protests in Cairo were staged as a distraction; it's possible the distraction was simply seized upon. But just because there were some hangers-on with the militants doesn't mean it wasn't planned.

[worry]

Well don't let "un/planned" be such a sticking point here. I'm not suggesting they rolled a 20-sided die between each step. Anyone can respond to a public statement, and anybody can call themselves Al Qaeda. The tag has less meaning than flying the flag on your pickup's antenna. Even if it was "revenge", it was seemingly haphazardly (if successfully) carried out by local militants -- this wasn't Inigo Montoya seeking the man who killed his father, it was some thugs with guns storming a small office building with a bit of convenient cover (like a holocaust cloak). Anyway, I'm not disagreeing with your logic, I just think the evidence is stacking up to counter the whole "9/11 Part 2" narrative. Also I think maybe I'll watch The Princess Bride this weekend.

[Terez]

 worrywort, on 20 October 2012 - 06:04 AM, said:

Well don't let "un/planned" be such a sticking point here. I'm not suggesting they rolled a 20-sided die between each step. Anyone can respond to a public statement, and anybody can call themselves Al Qaeda.

That has been the reality of Al Qaeda for a really long time now. Really, since bin Laden went into hiding. They're not centrally organized so much as they have a central messaging machine; they encourage those who embrace their ideology to act unilaterally and plan their own attacks. So I'm not so sure it's a meaningful distinction. 9/11 was, after all, a group of dudes with box-cutters who weren't even smart enough to pretend to be interested in how to take off or land in flying school.

This post has been edited by Terez: 20 October 2012 - 06:27 AM

[worry]

The distinction is preventability. You can gather information about an actual plot passed around a legitimate network for months on end (and indeed we had the info about 9/11, more or less); it's harder to do this with a small, face-to-face, word-of-mouth enclave that doesn't qualify as a network in even broad terms. It's the difference between the Sikh temple shooting and 9/11, basically.

[Terez]

 worrywort, on 20 October 2012 - 07:07 AM, said:

The distinction is preventability.

I was talking about in terms of the White House spin; preventability (and the nature of the new Al Qaeda) is an aspect that doesn't change based on the reporting. It is what it is. In other words, I'm not arguing that the administration has done something terribly wrong—I think the confused reporting is pointless and dumb, and leaking things like this is even worse—I'm just saying that there are politics to be read into these things. In other words, we can't make an assumption at this point about whether it was planned or not, or whether it was actually inspired by the video or not, just because we have an underlying faith in the altruism of the president.

 worrywort, on 20 October 2012 - 07:07 AM, said:

You can gather information about an actual plot passed around a legitimate network for months on end (and indeed we had the info about 9/11, more or less); it's harder to do this with a small, face-to-face, word-of-mouth enclave that doesn't qualify as a network in even broad terms. It's the difference between the Sikh temple shooting and 9/11, basically.

Just because a network is local and therefore invulnerable to typical intelligence-gathering techniques does not mean it is not a 'legitimate' network. And just because something is planned without being busted does not mean it was not an 'actual plot'. As for the difficulty for our side—yes, that's the point. But again, it's a point that is independent of the details we are getting about what happened. (Just trying to make it clear what I was talking about.)

[worry]

The article I posted wasn't a press release from the White House though, it was a news article from the LA Times with sources from the intelligence community, and it (including quotations from apparently in-the-know people) makes affirmative claims. It's naturally a combination of facts, evidence, testimony, and yes speculation -- some of which might not turn out to be true in the end -- but still, it's not the White House. So maybe that's why I'm a little confused by your response. It seems you are suggesting that this article's information should be grouped as adding to the confusion of information -- but I never accepted the premise that the info we were getting was confused. It was wrong at first, sure, but that's because it was essentially a guess (one that probably shouldn't have been voiced by officials). But further investigation has gathered better information. I don't feel remotely overwhelmed or duped by the accumulation so far.

All that aside, like I said, I don't disagree with your initial logic. It doesn't cancel out the scenario you present by any means. But it does suggest to me -- and I find it highly plausible -- that an assault on the embassy by a group of armed men was relatively easy to pull off, planned or not. A capital P Plan organized by a capital N Network wasn't necessary...however a lowercase p plan -- little more than the idea, firepower, willpower, and timing to do it -- was sufficient. And sure, any group of people communicating in lines and circuits could be considered a network...any city street is potentially a network...but when you have an armed compound I don't see much point in giving them the rhetorical weight of "network". If adjacent bunkhouses two and three at summer camp decided to pull off a panty raid of bunkhouse nine, I wouldn't there either. It's not a matter of accuracy, it's the weight.

I suppose what I'm arguing is that the article presents evidence for the simpler explanation -- it certainly doesn't invalidate the more complex one you suggest, but that's still the one that requires evidence to be more convincing, just by virtue of requiring more complexity and coordination than the simple, highly plausible scenario.

This post has been edited by worrywort: 20 October 2012 - 09:53 AM